Consecration II

Rejoice and Have No Anxieties

Philippians 4:4

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice! Let all men know your
forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which
passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

It does seem as if the world is getting to be a heavier place. It’s as if society is beginning to
come apart at more than the edges. Probably more and more of us are wondering whether we’ll see the
turn of the century or not. Then of course there’s the other side of you that thinks, “Oh, of
course, we’ll see two or three more centuries without any trouble.” Then, that kind of thing happens
on TV that some of us saw where the state official in Pennsylvania called a press conference and
stood behind the podium. He had been indicted for fraud and was convicted. He said, “If this offends
anybody, will you please leave.” Then he pulled a gun out of an orange paper bag, put it into his
mouth and killed himself, right there in front of the television cameras.

It makes you wonder what kind of a world we are living in. Something inside you says, “Well, it was
always pretty bad, it’s not any worse. There are just more of us.” Then another incident happens and
you hear of a friend that commits suicide. Then you hear of another family that is broken up and it
presses in upon you that this is a different kind of world that we’re living in from certainly the
one that we lived in before 1960.

I don’t know how you all are individually, but I honestly do think that more of us seem to be
bending under burdens than bent under burdens before. It seemed even in the depression days, there
wasn’t the oppression that there seems to be in these days. There are many of us here probably who
have even contemplated suicide and that’s unthinkable in a group like ourselves. We are the kind of
people that shouldn’t for a moment dream of that. Yet, probably a number of you have thought of it
at sometime or another. There are more and more of us who waken up in the morning with an
incomprehensible sense of oppression or darkness or doom and we really don’t know where it comes
from but it’s there. It does seem that there is a heaviness in society that was not there before.

So, you try to explain it in all kinds of ways. I’ve thought well, it’s Minneapolis, it’s the top of
the pops place after San Francisco and so all the homosexuals are crowding into Minneapolis and
there’s an oppression. But loved ones it isn’t that. There seems in many of our large cities now, to
be an increasing sense of heaviness. There certainly isn’t the lightness in life that there was. I
remember when we first came to the United States; it seemed a wonderfully happy place.

We couldn’t believe that everybody seemed to be happy. Everybody seemed to be smiling compared with
Britain and Europe. It does seem to have changed over this past quarter of the century and there
does seem to be more and more of us experiencing a heaviness and an anxiety. Now, in the midst of
all this, God’s word is dead straight and clear. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I will say,
Rejoice.”

Now that is a command from God. I don’t know of any other way to cut through that thick cloud of
darkness that comes upon you. I don’t know of any other way to do it that is as powerful and

effective as looking to that Word of God and seeing that that is a direct command to you. God has
told us, “Rejoice!” In the middle of whatever difficulty you are, His word to you is, “Rejoice in
the Lord always and again, I say rejoice.” It would be important for you to see, it’s not a
recommendation from God. It’s not a suggestion that he makes for improving your mental health. It’s
not an idea he has that will enable you to live a fuller or more complete or more satisfying life.
It’s not.

It’s a command to you and to me in the same way that the command is “Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt
not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness.” God commands us to rejoice, to rejoice in the Lord.
If you say to me, “Rejoice in my circumstances?” No. He doesn’t mention your circumstances. In fact,
in other parts of His word, He tells you not to look on the outward appearance of things.

So, when you go to sleep at night and there begins to crowd in upon you, all the images of what has
happened during the day and all the images of what you think will happen tomorrow, what God is
saying is, you’ll never rejoice in those things, don’t look on the outward things. Those are things
that are passing. They’ll be dead and gone in a week’s time. But rejoice in Me. Look up and see I am
your God. I am your Father.

I am going to be here when your job has long passed away, when your company has long disappeared,
when your body has been eaten by the worms. I will be here and I will be the same to you as I am
today. I love you with all my heart. You’re MY dear child. I am your Father. Look at the lilies of
the field, they toil not neither do they reap, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one
of these. Now you’re the same. I am going to give you what I have given the lilies of the field,
except I am going to give you more of it because you’re a living image of Myself.

That’s your Father. That’s the kind of person who has made you. And He says to you, “I want you to
rejoice in Me. I am in charge of your life. It’s not your boss, it’s not your mom, it’s not your
dad, and it’s not your professor. I am in charge of your life and I work all things according to the
counsel of My will. I will only good for you. I have prepared for you a beautiful life, to give you
a future and to give you success and I want you to rejoice in Me. I am not Gorbachev. I am not
Khrushchev. I am not Stalin. I am not like those men. I am like My Son. If you’ve seen My Son,
you’ve seen His Father. You’ve seen My Son Jesus. You’ve seen His love for you; you’ve seen His
kindliness and His tenderness towards you. That’s what I am. I want you to rejoice in Me.”

Now loved ones, that’s what God tells us to do in every situation because He says, “Rejoice in the
Lord always”, all the time, every time. Now here’s what happens. We’re driving along in our wagon
and we’re rejoicing because we just heard the sermon. We rejoice as we’re driving along in the
wagon. Then some miserable creature with horns at the back has a big axe, and he chops off one of
the wheels and the wagon goes down.

So we stop rejoicing because the wagon has tipped and what’s going to happen? We’re going to lose
everything. What’s happening? How will I get the wheel back up? And what God wants us to do is to
rejoice always and not be caught out by that kind of thing – like the pipes freezing. We can rejoice
all right, as long as the pipes don’t freeze. Or, you discover you’re in overdraft. You say, “I’m
going to rejoice all right as long as I don’t get an overdraft. I can’t stand money worries. I can
rejoice about everything else. Even if I am sick I can rejoice but don’t give me money worries.”

God has arranged that wheel in that way. If you look back, you’ll see that the guy with the horns
has a chain around his neck and the chain goes right back several miles and God is at the other end

of the chain. God can pull that devil back at any moment and He can let him chop the wheel off at
any moment, but the thing is under God’s control. The devil is God’s unwitting, unknowing servant
and God has allowed him to chop the wheel of your wagon to get you to rejoice always in all
situations.

So the things that occur in your life to destroy your joy are allowed by God to get you finally to
rejoice in God Himself and not in the outward appearance of things. Now if you say, “Well, it’s all
right for you to tell me to rejoice but if you only knew my situation. If you knew my situation at
work, you’d know there’s nothing to rejoice in. If you knew my family situation or my domestic
situation, if you knew my emotional life or my romance life, you would know you can’t possibly
rejoice always in my situation.”

Well, loved ones you’re right. I don’t know your situation but the Lord God does know your situation
and He is still saying to you, “Rejoice! Rejoice always. Rejoice in Me all the time. It’s always
right to rejoice”. Now I know that sounds dumb. It sounds like an Irishman telling you to always get
drunk on Irish whiskey and whatever happens, just be happy. No, God says, “Rejoice, be happy all the
time. It’s the right thing.” And if you say, “Oh no. He doesn’t know what He’s talking about.”
“Well, He does!” And if you say, “Oh, listen if He had my troubles, if He had my problems….. He
only has a world to run, and a whole universe to take care of. He only has the whole business of age
to deal with. He only has people murdering each other. If He had my troubles He’d know I am…”
Well, it’s not so.

The Lord God has more troubles than all of us put together. The only reason He tells you to rejoice
is because everything is okay. He has things settled. He has everything arranged in His Son for your
life so that you won’t be destroyed. The only reason God tells you to rejoice is He knows things are
A-OK and you don’t need to worry. Our God doesn’t tell you to rejoice when He knows you’re going to
hit a major tragedy that is going to destroy you. He loves us too much to do that. He only tells us
to rejoice when He knows that everything is organized and right.

Some of us say, “Well, yes but you know there are troubles that I have and I can rejoice okay, until
I think of some of those troubles. But there are some things that you just have to worry about.” God
is so good the way He wrote these verses because the next verse says, “Have no anxiety about
anything.” That’s the way it runs. Have no anxiety about anything. Have no anxiety at all. Don’t be
anxious about anything.

Now loved ones, as you sit there this morning, you know there goes through your mind certain things
that you have got used to being anxious about. There are certain people that you have got used to
worrying about. There are certain situations and circumstances in your life that you just regard as
a constant worry center. God says to you, “Have no anxiety about anything.”

Do you see it’s the same as “Thou shalt not murder.” It is loved ones, it is.
I know how you feel. You say, “No, no pastor, it isn’t like murder. Murder is a really bad thing.
Killing is really bad. It’s one of the Ten Commandments. Bearing false witness, that’s really bad.
Stealing, coveting, those things are bad. But no, being anxious is something I inherited from my dad
and mom. I’m built that way.”

No, loved ones it’s not so. It’s a command in God’s word, “Have no anxiety about anything.” It’s a
command from Him. Don’t be anxious about anything. Don’t worry about anything, not anything. Now if
you say to me, “Well, what’s the big deal? What’s wrong with worrying?” Do you see it’s like a dear

Father looking down upon you? He has foreseen everything that is going to take place in your life.
He has gone along the road of your life and where He has seen a briar that is too big or a nettle
that is going to sting you too badly or He has seen a hole in the ground that would kill you if you
fell into it, He has filled all those things in. He has made the hole just shallow enough, so that
you can get out of it. He has cut down the briar, so that there’s just a little briar that will poke
into you a little and will drive you a little closer to Himself.

He’s gone along the road of your life and He has prepared it all so that you can bear everything by
His grace. Then when He sees you looking down that road and worrying about this and that, He says,
“You don’t trust Me. You don’t trust Me. Do you think that I would let that happen to you? Do you
think that I would let that thing destroy you when I love you as I do?” It’s an offense against God,
loved ones. You see, it’s an offense against God.

The reason people murder is they don’t trust God to circumvent the difficulty. The only way they can
see is to get rid of this human being off the earth. It’s a lack of trust in God. The only reason we
covet is because we don’t trust the Father to provide for us all that we need. Now, it’s the same
with worry. You worry because you don’t trust the Father that He has prepared your way ahead and
made things right for you. It’s the same sin you see.

So worry is just as much sin as killing. It is. This morning if you say, “Oh, you’re driving me in a
corner. No, no I do have the right to worry and it’s not that bad.” Well, you can see yourself it IS
that bad. Worrying is an insult to our God. It’s an insult to our heavenly Father. When you were a
little boy or girl, five years of age, what would happen if your mom ever came across you sitting in
your bedroom crying away? She says, “Why are you crying?” You say, “I don’t know where my lunch is
coming from. I don’t know how I am going to get lunch today?”

Your mom would say, “I am going to provide you lunch. I have always provided your lunch. I am going
to provide it today.” And you say, “No, no, I am afraid you won’t.” It’s just ridiculous. Then if
you do that day after day, eventually your mom begins to be deeply hurt. And you know with your dear
dad, if you were trying to learn how to swim, your dad was holding your chin for you. If you were
trying to learn the bike, you had absolute confidence that he would hold you up. And if you ever
showed that you didn’t have that confidence, he would say, “Do you think I’d let you fall — the
apple of my eye? Do you think I’d let you fall? I won’t let you fall, trust me, just rest in me.”

Now, that’s why the Lord tells us not to worry about anything because He has everything planned for
us. Loved ones, there’s a great verse in scripture. I won’t even ask you to look it up. I can quote
it to you. “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

Now, to some of us, it just confuses us and we say, “Is this predestination?”
We may not walk in the good works if we don’t want to. You’re still free to reject them. But God has
prepared your life for you. It is organized. It is set for you. You can refuse to walk in it if you
want, but if you are willing to walk in it, it is all laid out before you. It is set before you. And
that’s why He says, “Don’t worry. Don’t be anxious. I am not trying to play emergency operations
here trying to think what am I going to do: John has got into this trouble; Jean has got into this
trouble. What am I going to do?”

God says, “I have foreseen it. I know where you are going. I know what’s going to happen. I have
already provided in My Son Jesus for the deliverance for you, believe Me. You can trust Me. Do not

worry about anything. Let your forbearance be known to all men.” So at times everybody around you
will be worrying like mad and they’ll wonder, why are you so forbearing? Why are you not worrying?
Why are you not getting anxious? Why are you not doing something about this situation?

Well, you’re forbearing because the Lord is at hand. You know the Lord is there and He has already
worked it out for you and there’s no need for you to worry or be anxious about it. So God’s will for
you and me is to rejoice, to rejoice in the Lord always.

I have a letter, (I haven’t kept too many letters), but I have one letter that my dad wrote. You
know the way, a letter from your dad or mom is always dear to you as the years go by. I have this
one letter in the back of my files somewhere. He wrote it when he was at the end of his life with
high blood pressure and hypertension in the hospital. He wrote it from the hospital. It’s dear to me
because he says, “Be happy. Be happy.” And that’s what God says to us, “Be happy.” God wants you to
be happy. God doesn’t want to look down on a group of miserable, worried, fretting old children. He
wants to look down and see children who love Him and trust Him and are happy in Him and rejoice in
Him.

Loved ones, it’s a terrible offence to our Creator to worry and be anxious. That’s why He says,
“Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say rejoice. Have no anxiety about anything. Let your
forbearance be known to all men because the Lord is at hand.” If you say, “Well, these things are
here. This person that I work with, they’re impossible to deal with. I just hate to go into work.
This person that I live with, they’re hard to get on with. I just can’t do it. My job situation — I
don’t know where it’s going to be next year.”

What do you do with the things that aren’t right? Well, if you look at the verse, you will see it in
Philippians 4:6. “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” That’s it. “In everything, by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” That’s what you have to
do.

You are not to worry about it. You’ve to simply with prayer and supplication and thanksgiving let
your requests be made known to God. You’ve to ask God for those things. You’ve to ask Him day after
day, with thanksgiving and you have to leave those things with Him in His hands. You’ve just to
leave them there.

“Lord, will You influence this person that I live with? Will You begin to change their hearts and
change their ways? In the meanwhile, will you give me grace to bear with them and to rejoice before
them every day? Lord, will You take care of this financial situation and begin to sort it out as you
give me guidance in what I have to do. Lord, I will rejoice before you about it.”

But loved ones, just leave the things with God and then go on your way rejoicing. Now, if you don’t
go on your way rejoicing, the Lord knows you aren’t trusting Him and the Father cannot answer lack
of trust or faith. If you say to me, “I’ve not heard this before. I kind of believe it but I haven’t
found it working.” That’s because you’re not rejoicing. You’re not rejoicing in God. You’re still
lying under these clouds and lying under these burdens.

Now, one of the effects that has is, you’re so preoccupied with yourself that you aren’t available
to God when He wants you to do something. You know that so well. Your head is just full of all the
worries and anxieties that you have and you haven’t even time to look out on somebody else’s life

and see what they need. But most of all, you can’t hear God speaking to you and telling you what He
wants you to do.

So, loved ones, worry and anxiety paralyze you. That’s why God says, “Rejoice. I want you to be
happy.” If you say to me, “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m unhappy and I wouldn’t say I’m happy. I am
somewhere in the middle. I’m usually pretty neutral. In fact you might say almost half dead. That’s
just the way I go along.”

Loved ones, rejoicing is a positive thing. Rejoicing is rejoicing. Rejoicing is thinking of the
wonderful breakers on the Hawaiian beaches and thinking “that’s my God.” The freshness in those
waves is stale compared with the freshness in His heart. He is fresh compared with those things.
Think of going down those beautiful ski slopes, the openness and exhilaration and you say to
yourself, “My God is far more exhilarating than those slopes. They are just the things He has made,
but you should see HIM!”

You rejoice in the great God and the dear Father who has made even the beautiful things that we see
around us in our world. That’s what the Father wants us to do. He does not want a lot of fretting,
old, anxious ridden people. He wants children who trust Him. You dads and moms, you know it. You
would be just devastated if your children trusted you as little as many of us trust our dear Father.
If your children fretted and worried as much as you and I fret and worry, you know you would be
devastated by it.

After it’s all said and done I’ll go by your tombstone (because I am going for 95 or 96 years).
After I go by your tombstone, look at the name, and look back on your life, suddenly it comes to me
as it comes to you, “Was it worth it?” It wasn’t worth it at all. The thing turned out right
anyway. Despite my worry or anxiety the thing turned out okay. I didn’t achieve anything by what I
did.

Loved ones, that’s it. There’s a dear verse in Ecclesiastes and some scholars would say, “Oh it’s a
little bit Greek in it’s philosophy.” But it really is just a blessing. It’s Ecclesiastes 3:12. “I
know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they
live; also that it is God’s gift to man that every one should eat and drink and take pleasure in all
his toil.” That’s it.

The Lord has put us here to rejoice in Him, to be happy and not to be sad or burdened with anxiety.
I share this with you because the society lives without God and it will become increasingly ridden
with anxiety. It will become increasingly oppressed with worry and anxiety. So it’s very important
that you and I who know our God and Father become increasingly preoccupied with rejoicing. It’s
vital that you do not live in the oppression and the heaviness of our society.

So, you read as much of Time magazine as you can bear to read without losing your joy. You read as
much of the New York Times as you can bear to read without losing your rejoicing attitude. You do
not live in the midst of the oppression of our present society. God’s will is for us to rejoice and
to rejoice always.

Now as we pray, I’d ask you to ask God to show you the areas that are stopping you from rejoicing.
Then I’d ask you to do what He says — to stop being anxious about those things. Then, by prayer and
supplication, let your request be made known to Him about those things. Let your request be made
known and then go on your way rejoicing. Remember, rejoicing is faith and faith is what enables God

to work. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we know how our dads and moms looked after us. Lord, we know that it would be foolish
for us to worry about things that they had already provided for. Father, we know it is our
responsibility to hear Your voice this morning and not to refuse to listen. We are to listen and
hear what You say to us because You are our Father and our Creator. Lord, we hear You. We hear You
telling us to rejoice always. Father, we commit ourselves now to obeying that command.

Lord, we know it doesn’t come from somebody who doesn’t know our troubles. It doesn’t come from
somebody who doesn’t know what our lives are going to be like. It comes from somebody who knows all
things. So Lord, we know that it is reality to obey that command. We know also our Father, that we
are obliged to You to obey You. If we do not obey the God of the universe, whom will we obey?

Lord we know that this is not an option for us. You are telling us this morning, “Rejoice always,
and again I say Rejoice.” Father, we commit ourselves to obeying this command. Then Lord, we don’t
want it to be just happy happiness. We don’t want it to be just the power of positive thinking.
Lord, we want to rejoice deeply in You. Father, we commit ourselves, especially when we find
ourselves with some anxiety, to turning our eyes away immediately from the cause and to turning our
eyes to You. We’ll begin to think of the great God who has made us and of what a wonderful person
You must be if You’ve made flowers and babies and little dogs. Father, we commit ourselves to
rejoicing in You. We’ll rejoice in You in our hearts, not just with our lips, but in our deepest
hearts.

Then Father, with the things that are troubles in our lives, we would detach ourselves from them
now, as we would commit a case into the hands of a lawyer. We would commit these things to You by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. We would let our requests be made known to You and we
would ask You to fix the wheels on the wagon. We would ask You to begin to deal with these
situations that aren’t right in our lives and the lives of our friends. Then Father, to show You
that we trust You, we intend to rejoice and be happy. We intend to live in joy for that is Your will
for us in Jesus. Amen.

Forsaking Doubt and Sin

1 John 3:9

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

This is Communion Sunday. For those of us who are from the Catholic background, it’s the same as the
Mass, the Lord’s Supper. You’re all welcome to take part in it this morning. But there are some
things you need to be clear about in order to take communion for your good and not for your harm.
I’d point you to one of those in 1 Corinthians 11:27.

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be
guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the
bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and
drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if
we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are
chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

So, even if you have read that for the first time, you can gather, that you need to examine yourself
before you take the bread and wine this morning. You need to be able to discern the body of Jesus.
You need to know what this sacrament is about. In our modern society we cleanse and sterilize
everything to make it nice and acceptable. And therefore it often loses its real point and power in
our lives. There is a real danger of us doing this with communion because so many of us, not only of
Catholic background, but also of Protestant background, have been taking communion for years.

Loved ones, I’d just like to make it clear again to all of us, what communion means. The first thing
it means is in connection with a piece of the Old Testament back in Leviticus. Let’s look at it.
It’s Leviticus 20:9 and it concerns your relation with your mom and dad.

“For every one who curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.” That was the law. If you
cursed your mom or your dad, you would be put to death. So I’d ask you, have you ever cursed your
mother or your father? Or have you ever had that attitude to them whether you cursed them or not?
Now you deserve death. Look at verse Leviticus 20:10.

“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress
shall be put to death.” Have you ever committed adultery? Have you ever had intercourse with
somebody who was married to someone else? Well then, you deserve to be killed, to be put to death.

Look at Leviticus 20:27. “A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death.” So,
have you ever been involved in spiritualism? Then you deserve to be killed. Loved ones, that’s what
God’s law says. You should die for any sin that you have committed. It goes for stealing and it goes
for bearing false witness and it goes for lying and for coveting. The sinful soul will die. We
should be dead now, you see, that’s it. That’s the law of God.

Now, communion this morning states God’s mercy to you and me. It states that Jesus died the death
for you and that’s why you’re not dead yet. That’s why you weren’t struck dead. That’s why you
weren’t stoned to death like the man in the reading this morning. That man was gathering sticks on
the Sabbath. He was stoned to death. Now, the reason you and I have not been killed on the spot, the

first moment we lied, the first moment we coveted, the first moment we had thoughts of fornication,
the reason is that this dear Son of God died for you. He died the death that you should have died.
It’s because of that that God shows His mercy to you and me this morning.

That’s stated in Psalm 103:10-11. “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us
according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast
love toward those who fear him.”
So, the first meaning of communion is that God does not deal with you in this life according to your
sins or reward you according to your iniquities. He deals with you graciously, and mercifully.
Therefore, loved ones, you and I have to deal that way with each other.

You remember there is a piece in the Bible that says, “God cannot forgive you, if you do not forgive
others.” So, we live now because of a gracious God who has given us that sky out there. We don’t
deserve to be able to see that sky. We deserve to be dead. But God has allowed you and me to live
out of grace and mercy and forgiveness. We must deal with each other that way. So must we forgive
each other. So must we be merciful to each other. I am with any of you here who say, “But if I am a
boss, don’t I have to demand discipline from my employees?” Yes, yes, the whole world would fall
apart if we didn’t demand justice and order. But in our heart’s attitude to each other, there is to
be absolute mercy and forgiveness. It’s to be unending because we ourselves are the recipients of
such unending mercy and forgiveness.

So, brothers and sisters, first of all communion states that you and I are all alive today because
of God’s mercy. Therefore, we can only live one way with each other. So loved ones, there is no
place for resentment against roommates. There is no place for a critical attitude towards husband or
wife. There is no place for holding grievance against your friend or your colleague. We have no
ground to stand on for that. We are in days of grace. We live because of God’s mercy and because of
His forgiveness.

The first thing you need to do to take communion this morning is to get rid of any judgment,
criticism, or resentment against somebody else. Get rid of any demands that somebody else live up to
your fine standards. Because you have failed utterly to live up to the standard of your Creator. So
the first meaning of communion is God’s mercy towards us. He does not deal with us according to our
sins nor reward us according to our iniquities.

Now, the next step we take in the twentieth century is a trap into which many of us have fallen. It
is the reason why many of us live such futile lives. Here it is. We say, “If God has given Jesus to
die for my past sins then all He requires of me now, is to do my best and Jesus’ death will make up
for the shortfall.” That, I think is the Gospel, as almost all of the twentieth century understands
it. If God has forgiven me for my past sins because of Jesus’ death, then from now on, I have just
to do my best and God will make up for the shortfall.

It results in a world full of people who do not exercise their wills, who do not live according to
God’s plan and who have long ago lost any spiritual relationship with God. Loved ones that is not
the Gospel. God’s mercy covers past sins but it does not permit continual sinning with the
understanding that the blood of Jesus will make up the shortfall. It doesn’t.

There is a notice, typically polite, in a famous London store called Harrods. Harrods has several
nice restaurants and in one of them, they have on the wall, “Please try to stop smoking.” And in
other restaurant it says, “Please try not to smoke.” My wife and I joke because we can imagine some

guy puffing away saying, “I am really trying. I am really trying.” That kind of direction gets no
results. Yet, that is often what you and I understand to be the Gospel. God has forgiven us for our
past sins because of Jesus’ blood. So all he expects is for us to do our best and wherever we fail,
the blood of Jesus will make up the shortfall.

That is not the Gospel. The mercy of God does not wipe out our responsibility to avoid sin at all
cost. The mercy of God does not permit sin. Now you’ll see that clearly in both the Old Covenant and
the New Covenant. Look back at the Old Covenant, which is the piece we read in the lesson. It’s
Numbers 15:27. It’s an important distinction about sin that we do not make in these days. It’s what
makes sense of Jesus’ death and makes sense of all our dealings with God. But we have ignored it.

Numbers 15:27. “If one person sins unwittingly, he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin
offering.” Another translation of that adverb is, “Unconsciously or unknowingly.” If a person sins
unknowingly or unconsciously, if he sins and he doesn’t realize he is doing it, then he shall offer
a female goat, a year old, for a sin offering. “And the priest shall make atonement before the Lord
for the person who commits an error… (An error is sinning without knowing, sinning unconsciously)
…when he sins unwittingly, to make atonement for him; and he shall be forgiven. You shall have one
law for him who does anything unwittingly, for him who is native among the people of Israel, and for
the stranger who sojourns among them.”

The other case is entirely different, loved ones, in Numbers 15:30-31. “But the person who does
anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person
shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the LORD, and has broken
his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.” Do you see?

“If a person sins with a high hand”, you can guess what that is. It’s contrasted against unconscious
sin. It’s conscious sin. If a person consciously sins — knows it is a sin, knows it’s something God
despises, yet he does it and continues to do it– then that person cannot be forgiven. That’s what
it says. That’s even back in Old Testament days. Even in Old Testament days, there was no sacrifice
that would cover conscious sin. There was sacrifice that would cover unknown, unconscious sins. You
would suddenly realize you’d done it, and you had sued for forgiveness. But there was no sacrifice
that would cover continued, conscious sinning.

Now loved ones it ties up with a doctrine that many of us knew from when we were children, from
probably our first communion. It’s mentioned in 1 John 5:16. “If any one sees his brother committing
what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal.
There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but
there is sin which is not mortal.”

In other words, the New Covenant comes right down the same line. It says there is mercy and
forgiveness for unconscious, venial sin. But, there is not forgiveness or mercy for conscious,
mortal sin where a person continues to do what they know is wrong and persists in it. We need to be
clear about this distinction or otherwise you will take communion this morning and drink damnation
unto your own soul.

The death of Jesus is for all the sins that you commit probably day after day that you don’t know
about. It’s those things that you do that you don’t realize you are doing. You’re sorry for them
when they are brought to light. You confess them and God forgives you and cleanses you from all
unrighteousness and you go on. Jesus’ death is to cover those sins and to put them as far as the

east is from the west. But it is not to provide for future sinning.

Loved ones, don’t you see it’s madness? Don’t you see it makes no sense? I mean, if what we’re
saying now is not the Gospel, the other stuff is foolishness. Nobody here on earth would think of
dealing with you that way. Well, just do your best. Do your best and whatever kind of mess you end
up with at the end of this life, I’ll haul you into Heaven and somehow or other, we’ll make it work.

It doesn’t make sense and you know it doesn’t work. Mortal sin is conscious, known disobedience to
God’s law. In other words, you can’t take communion today and have in your heart a determination to
continue doing what you know is wrong. You can take communion, but there’ll be no work done in your
spirit and there’ll be no real relationship with God. You’ll be a hypocrite, just talking big but
not living in the power of God’s Spirit.

Now that runs through all of the Old Covenant and all of the New Covenant. Just look loved ones at
Matthew 5:17. I do think some of us are genuinely confused about this and I think it is good to
clarify it.

Matthew 5:17-30. “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to
abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an
iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the
least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but
he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you,
unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the
kingdom of heaven.

“You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be
liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable
to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You
fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there
remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go;
first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Make friends quickly with
your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge,
and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly, I say to you, you will never get out
till you have paid the last penny.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one
who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right
eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your
members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut
it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body
go into hell.”

Loved ones, that’s serious stuff. It’s our own Savior telling us that his death cannot cover
persistent, known sin in our lives. That we have to forsake, and if you say, “Well, what’s the
difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant?” The Old Covenant gave no power to
overcome sin. The New Covenant has brought about our death in Jesus and our recreation in him with a
new personality and with the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we are able to obey from our hearts.
That’s the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant gave a command but no power to fulfill it. The New Covenant gives the command but
gives a new heart and a new personality to us and a new Holy Spirit today. The Holy Spirit is new
and will come into your heart this morning and will enable you to obey from the inside of your heart
out to the outermost part of your body. That’s God’s promise. That’s what the New Covenant is about.

The New Covenant is not a softer Gospel. The New Covenant is a power Gospel. It’s the gift of power
to live up to what we were called to obey in the Old Covenant. Of course loved ones, it’s built into
the Old Covenant. If you look back at Psalm 103, that high point in the Old Testament where the
psalmist is touching the fringe of the New Testament you’ll see it in verse 10.

Psalm 103:10-11. “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our
iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.” Is it towards anybody? No, it’s toward
those who fear Him, those who fear to hurt Him with their sin.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father
pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear him.” Does the Lord pity everybody? No, he
pities those who fear him.

So loved ones, it’s built into the Old Covenant too. God extends His mercy to all of us this morning
who believe that Jesus has died for us. He extends His mercy to all who are determined to forsake
all known sin and to live obedient to His commandments from this day forward. And to those of us
determined to forsake sin and obey God, He gives a new heart. He gives us a new personality. He
gives the Holy Spirit so we’ll have the strength and ability to live above sin during these coming
weeks and months. Loved ones, that’s the Gospel.

Will you consider your life now before coming to this holy table? Especially if you have doubtful
things in your life and things you are not sure of. Remember your own past life. Remember the
tendency of us human beings to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. If there’s
doubt, you can bet the thing is wrong. You can bet you’re not being too hard on yourself and it
won’t kill you to forsake whatever it is.

So particularly if you have some things in your life that you have been debating back and forward
on, those are the things that have been making you sick spiritually. Those are the things that have
been destroying your life with God. Have done with them. Finish with them today. Determine “I will
no more indulge in that sin.” Whatever is not of faith is sin. If you have something which you’re
doubtful about, you haven’t faith. So that’s sin.

If you have something that you have any doubt about, then you certainly haven’t faith about, so it’s
sin. Have done with it. Don’t touch it. Leave the unclean thing at the altar today and go out of
here, determined to live obedient to every command of God that you know of in this dear book and
that He has given to you through His Spirit. If you do that, God will give you His Spirit’s power to
obey. Then if you find yourself falling, or you find you have fallen, immediately you become
conscious of it, sue for forgiveness before God. Commit yourself again to walk in absolute
obedience. You see what it is? It’s not a fiddler on a roof. It’s not. It’s not a salvation that
you’re going to lose if you make an unconscious step in the wrong direction. But it is a salvation
that depends on an honest heart that fully intends to obey God, that’s it.

So, you know yourselves, no one knows you besides God. You know yourselves. Examine to see if there
is any intention in your heart to continue in any known sin, and have done with that this morning,
loved ones. Walk out of here with a clear, clean determination and intention to obey God in every
detail you know realizing that the blood of Jesus will cover unconscious, unwitting sin. God will
regard that as far as the east is from the west. He will remove that far from you. But He does
demand that you have a full-hearted intention to obey Him.

So will you seriously deal with this? This is the basis of God’s forgiveness for us this morning and
it is for you. Let us all stand as we receive the invitation.

Healing – Susan B. Memorial

Job 1:21

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

This morning is a great privilege for me and a great privilege for all of us here even if you don’t
particularly know the details because this is your first Sunday or you did not know the lady I am
talking about. But Susan Bagdasarianz died on Thursday. So, I feel that it’s God giving us an
opportunity to receive something from Him personally. I’ll try to tell you a little about her later
in the service so that even those of you who didn’t know about her, will be able to understand
something of what it means to many of us here. But perhaps the first thing is to look at Job 1:21
because that is clear, plain reality and that’s the first thing that God is saying to us this
morning.

Job 1:20-21. “And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord
gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'”

Now, you may have been at funerals and have heard those words but if you haven’t, those are the
words that somebody like me will use when you are being buried. That quotation from Job is part of
every funeral service. “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the
Lord.”

First of all, we need to bow before God and see that He is sovereign. And whatever all our theories
are about healing, God is sovereign. He does what He does and He has the right to do it. We cannot
refuse that. We cannot do anything about it finally. So, loved ones first of all that’s the right
thing to share with each other this morning. This is God saying once more, “I am your God. You are
not God. Kenneth Hagen is not God. Oral Roberts is not God. Ernest O’Neill is not God. You are not
God. I am God and I do what is right. And I require you to recognize that I am God and that I have
that sovereign right. And your life continues as long as it is my will for it to continue.”

I think that’s the first thing that’s important because that is reality. I knew that the first time
I stood in an old cemetery in London. The British rain was blasting down and a few little ones stood
around the grave. I was a Methodist minister and part of my responsibility was to bury even people I
didn’t know. There we stood with me not knowing the person who had been buried, and hardly knowing
the people who were standing around. When you say those words, it comes home to you whatever the
situation, however warm it is, however lacking in understanding or full of understanding it is,
finally God is God. The Lord is God and He has the right to give and He has the right to take away.
We wouldn’t have our own lives if it weren’t through His graciousness.

Now, you can see that that ties up a little with the death of David’s son. You remember how he
prayed and prayed that the sick son would be made well. He fasted and would not eat. He wore
sackcloth and ashes. Then when the son died, he bowed to God. Because all his theories, all his
great theories crumbled in the dust before reality. Then he dressed himself, put on his clothes,
washed and ate because he said, “The Lord has shown what His will is.” No one can gainsay that. I
share that brothers and sisters as the first place to begin in what I’d like to talk about in regard
to healing today.

First of all, be realistic, be sensible, see what has happened and see God Himself is Lord. The Lord
gives, the Lord takes away, whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, that is
reality. Finally, a sensible person will come to the point where they say, “God knows all things and
God knows best and God does what is best for His children.” Of course those of us who know Jesus
will go further and will say, “God does whatever it takes to save our souls if we are willing to
have our souls saved at all.” And so God Himself uses adverse circumstances, sicknesses, and all
kinds of things to make sure that we come into heaven if we truly want to be in heaven. And so God
makes sickness even His servant.

So, maybe that’s the first place we should begin at. God obviously at times does not heal sickness.
He did not heal David’s son when he prayed for him and he did not heal Susan in the way that many of
us understood. So God is God. The Lord, He is God. I think the second thing to see is in Matthew
8:14-17.

“And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever; he touched
her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and served him. That evening they brought to him many
who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were
sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore
our diseases.”

The second thing to see is that Jesus has, in fact, borne our sicknesses and carried our pains in
His own body. He did so not only on the physical Calvary cross in 29 A.D., but in the Cross — that
took place before the foundation of the world when the Lamb was slain. So the second thing to see is
that Jesus has actually taken those sicknesses. He has taken them and He has borne them away and
destroyed them so the world may say we die of sickness but it is God’s permitted sickness that kills
us. It is not the sickness itself. It is God using the sickness.

The second thing is that Jesus has borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases and that He heals.
He healed here all who were sick. He healed Peter’s mother-in-law. There are many instances of this
healing in this book. And we know ourselves of many instances where God has healed in response to
prayer. He healed my mom of cancer in response to prayer. So God heals. He does heal. It is right to
go to God and it is right to ask in full faith that He will heal our loved ones and our friends and
if you say to me, “Well, how do you pray?” You pray with full faith. A double minded man is unstable
in all his ways and he’ll get nothing from the Lord.

You go forward not with your head full of theories, or pious precedence. You go with a whole heart
saying, “Lord, I know you have borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases. I know it is not this
sickness or disease that need kill me. If I go at all, it is because you allowed the thing to
continue in me because you need me in the next world. But Lord, I ask you to heal me and make me
whole.” You go with a whole and complete heart to it.

If you say to me loved ones, “Well, do you not think you need something from the Lord personally?”
Well, you’ve to go by the word of God. You’ve to go by the word of God and ask God in full faith.
Sometimes He may give you a complete assurance that this person will be healed, sometimes He may
not. All you can do is go before God with a whole heart and a full faith and ask Him for healing.

Now, it is not your place or mine to be the clever ones in this. That’s not our responsibility. It
is not our place to be able to explain to everybody, “I know the Lord is going to heal this person.”
It plays to our pride. It is not our place to be able to explain what God will do and what He won’t

do. If you say to me, “Does He not sometimes give to some people a complete assurance so that He can
use that to bring glory?” Sometimes He does, but not always.

Nevertheless, just because you haven’t that assurance, that doesn’t mean you do not go before Him on
the basis of His word and ask in all the faith that you have on the basis of His word. You do, loved
ones. Whenever somebody is sick, you go before the Father and you say, “Lord Jesus, You bore this
sickness. You carried this pain. I know this has no control of my loved one. I know you healed
Peter’s mother-in-law. I know you healed all who came to you. I ask You Lord Jesus to heal my loved
one or to heal my friend completely.” Our place is full, complete faith in God.

Brothers and sisters if you say to me, “Oh no, I need a mathematical, logical, philosophical proof
that this works before I ask.” Loved ones, you are demanding to be God. What you’re demanding is not
faith. You’re demanding a logical simultaneous equation that you can prove by the knowledge of your
mind. That isn’t what God has promised us. God has said, “Come to me, ask me in full faith and then
leave this with Me. Bow to me and know that I will do what is best in this situation.”

So the second thing is to see that God has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains and it is no
big thing for Him to heal us completely. Our place is to ask for complete healing.

The third thing loved ones is found there in Second Corinthians 12:7. It’s Paul telling of his own
experience who was used to heal many people. He was bitten by a serpent and instead of being
poisoned to death was healed. He writes this in Second Corinthians 12:7-10.

“And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the
flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought
the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that
the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

It was some kind of disease of the eyes. It wasn’t some sin. He wouldn’t glory in a sin and call it
a weakness. It was some disease of the eyes that the great healer himself had prayed about and asked
God to heal him. God didn’t remove the symptoms but you see what he said, “My strength is made
perfect in your weakness. Even if as you have the weakness of the physical symptoms in your body, My
strength, the strength by which I raised Jesus from the dead, will give you strength and life to
carry on as if you had no sickness.”

God heals that way at times and the evidence is Paul’s own life. Sometimes God will not remove the
symptoms. He will not, in that sense, “heal completely” as we say. But He will give strength and
life to carry on despite the symptoms and despite all the evidences that there are nails in the
hands and a sword in the side. The person is able to carry on as if there was no sickness in their
body.

So, of course without any question, the dear girl (Susan) was to die three or four years ago. Four
years ago she had the lymph glands removed under her arm and then the breast cancer came. Four years
ago they gave her one year to live. She should have died three years ago when little Rachael was
three and Peter was one year of age. Undoubtedly she should have died three years ago.

Any of us who read Susan’s letters, harrowing letters, remember how the metastasis had spread all

throughout her body so that she’d be sitting with Peter on her lap and he would poke his elbow into
her ribs and break them. You know the story as we read it here Sunday by Sunday and put her letters
into the bulletin. The poor girl had almost no body left.

Her body was broken up in every way. When I went to see her, she was so small compared with the girl
that I had known. She had lost height. The whole body had taken such a beating and yet God had
obviously given her super human life and energy to carry on. She was able to bring the children
through those first years of school. She was also able to help Serge, (who was also a doctor), to
get the church started in Switzerland.

So at times God will heal by giving strength, supernatural strength to live despite the symptoms of
sickness in your body. I knew another man called Hessian in England. He was an Anglican minister who
actually walked about like the invisible man. You may remember the invisible man in the movie was
bandaged completely because you couldn’t see him any other way. So too this man was bandaged all
around. He had had so many operations, there was almost nothing left inside him as far as cancer was
concerned. Yet he carried on a whole ministry with J. Arthur Rank. (Rank used to produce the
religious films.) He carried on that way for years by a supernatural life that was given to him by
God.

So loved ones, secondly God is able to heal by leaving the symptoms, but by giving you strength to
carry on doing what He has given you to do. Thirdly, He is able to do what He has promised in First
Corinthians 15. Maybe you should look at it. There came a time in my dad’s life when I had no doubt
that this was what it was. There comes a time when the Lord asks you to bear it no longer. It’s a
different healing. But it is a healing.

1 Corinthians 15:35-58:

“But some one will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ You foolish
man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to
be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has
chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for
men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are celestial bodies and
there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the
terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is
imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in
power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there
is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last
Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and
then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those
who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image
of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,
nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised

imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and
this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the
mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

‘Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy victory?
O death, where is thy sting?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

God can give you a new body. There comes a time when the Father looks down upon us in compassion and
says, “Enough is enough”, and He gives a new body. God can heal the symptoms completely as He did
with Peter’s mother-in-law. He can give strength by leaving the symptoms and yet give the power of
Jesus’ life into you so that you live with the signs of sickness still in your body. Or He can give
you a new body completely which is the best and the most complete healing.

But loved ones, it is in the Father’s hands. This is a blessed day. This is a blessed day because we
can bow together before God and say, “Lord, our lives are in your hands and you have wisdom to do
what you know needs is to be done. Lord, we will ask you the best we know but Father we thank you
that you will do the very best.” Loved ones, it’s so good. Do you want to be in my hands? Do I want
to be in your hands? No, what weak hands we have!

Do I want to be at the mercy of your theories of healing? Do you want to be at the mercy of mine?
No, what weak little minds we have. We are nothings. But God Himself is wise and all knowing. He
knows the best for His children. The Lord uses sickness as a ministry to you and me. He is using all
these things. It is not that He cannot remove it at this moment. That’s why He has done that at
times to show you that He can remove it at this moment. But it is that He uses whatever is needed to
save your soul. That is why often you come into all kinds of problems and difficulties and hardships
because God knows how to keep you humble before Him. If your heart is bent towards Him, He knows how
to keep your heart safe.

Loved ones, many of us cannot afford to be well. Many of us cannot afford to be wealthy. Many of us
cannot afford to be well known or to be approved of by other people. Many of us would lose our own
souls if those came about. It is the Lord’s goodness that He uses those things.

Now, Susan — the girl is watching at the moment so I need to say these things. I first met Susan
about 18 years ago, here on the university campus when I began to preach in Bethany Presbyterian
Church. She started to come there before we started Campus Church. I was riding around campus one
day on my bike when I saw that all the traffic was stopped at Oak Street. Some guys were obviously
taking an interest in a blonde, bikini clad girl that was washing her car at Rainbow House on Oak
Street — which was the same street that Bethany Presbyterian Church was on. Susan was a dynamic
medical student on the university campus about 17 or 18 years ago.

We started Campus Church in the Mormon Tabernacle, which is now being demolished. Seventeen years
ago, in 1970 we had our first services in the Mormon Tabernacle. It was an ex-Christian Scientist
church and they had one of those massive organs – the kind built into the wall – with pipes almost
bigger than the church itself. Susan came on the second Sunday and I said, “Susan could you play

this organ because we had no music the Sunday before.” She said, “Pastor, I am not very good, but
I’ll try.” So she started to play this organ. It was the weirdest thing because many of the notes
produced no sounds at all. So the first Sundays were exciting and Susan played the organ those early
days.

She was in her third or fourth year in medicine and was beginning to come into all the excitement
that you ladies manage to get yourselves into when suitable guys start lining up at your door. She
was attractive and she had a number of guys lined up at her door. Often she and I would have those
difficult sessions that some of you know about in the office. This guy was so handsome and so
wonderful. He looked great but did not love Jesus. That was the battle. Susan would go out with him
a few times and then would come back and we’d pray about it. There were times I wasn’t sure how it
was going to go because she was growing in her faith and really wasn’t too certain about things.
Yet, the dear girl held onto what was right.

So, I’d encourage you however tentative your hold is on Jesus, if you have any hold on Him, keep
holding onto Him. Keep holding on, keep heading towards life, and keep heading away from death. It’s
amazing — you may feel you have little or no strength but God somehow ekes out the little strength
you have.

And so the dear girl began to stand up on her feet spiritually. Campus Church was growing and she
continued to be a leading part in it. All of us began to know the bright, happy, humorous person she
was with a lot of dynamism and a lot of drive. You had to have that to be a female in medicine at
that time. She continued to be vivacious, bright, optimistic and humorous. I believe she also went
off on some of the summer trips that we had to Europe.

Susan graduated from medicine and then faced the question: do you go and make the “old sheckles”
(money) or do you in fact find out what God wants to do with your medicine? It was very tempting for
a beautiful looking medical student to think of going off and making “the sheckles”, or to go off
and specialize. The dear girl kept listening to Jesus and she sensed the call from him to go into
the Sudan Interior Mission. We prayed about it and she went off to Ethiopia to serve in a hospital
there.

Susan was by that time 28 or 29 years, an old age pensioner in her mind. That was a tragedy to be
going off to Ethiopia to serve as an unmarried woman missionary. That was the beginning of the end
of life. But she had none of that spirit. She really was enthusiastic and felt God had called her.
So off she went to Ethiopia. It was a glorious time despite working 18-20 hours a day. She was
finding herself cutting out appendices and cutting out all kinds of things that she had never been
trained to do.

She continued to send back bright letters. You remember when she rode her first horse she had a
picture of her riding the horse in Ethiopia. She wasn’t at all that kind of self-sacrificing,
terrible, dreary missionary that was struggling manfully to serve the Lord. She was just enjoying
it.

She used to talk to me of a man, a jungle doctor as she called him. She said he was a Swiss man but
he was really a jungle doctor. He would operate night and day. He would operate; you’ll excuse me
saying, with the blood splashing in all directions. He just kept operating. She admired him
tremendously and he gradually taught her to do that kind of hard work surgery that was required in
the hospitals.

She came home and again there was the question. Do you go back again or do you start husband
hunting? Satan brings the same questions to us. He checks us over in the same issues. So, she had to
make the decision again. She went back to Ethiopia, this time to another hospital.

She began to write to me about Serge Bagdasarianz (the jungle doctor). He had two children and his
wife had died of cancer. She began to write to me about him and to pray very wisely and in a very
balanced way about some of the feelings that she had for him and he had for her. That was nine years
ago. They came home and I married them in the Garden Court. Some of you were there at it in the
third floor lounge. The two boys were there and were attendants.

So they began their married life together nine years ago. But I would say it must be four years ago
when the lumps came in the breast and the lymph cancer spread. It spread throughout the whole body.
But you know her letters and she was glorious. She was not a fair weather sailor. She was a glory —
really. If that’s what God is able to produce through anything that any of us do, then that’s
glorious.

She turned out to be a brave, courageous and valiant girl. You know her letters. She would write and
say, “I have a thing that picks up cans now from the floor.” She would joke about it because she
could no longer bend to pick up anything that fell on the floor. In one of the last letters we got,
maybe as recently as a week or two ago, she could no longer be carried upstairs to bed.

She said, “I reign as queen here at a desk on the ground floor.” She just stayed behind the desk all
day and I presume just lay back on a chair at night. That was the kind of spirit that she had. And
you remember, she was right with us. She was right there saying, “I am believing God for my healing.
I am believing Him to make me whole and well.” The Swiss ladies began to pilgrimage to her home in
these recent months because she was carrying on Bible studies and prayer groups.

Serge was a doctor (as was Susan) who had gone back to Switzerland to begin a church. Right up until
the end Susan was continuing to do everything that a minister’s wife would do. She carried on right
up to the beginning of the last week. She carried on her responsibilities even though she was shot
through with pain and had virtually no body left. If you keep on when approaching death, then you
have to say, “Wait a minute, they are either insane or this is real.” It’s the kind of witness that
counts.

Then, I need to tell you this because it’s really the challenge that God is giving to all of us
today. On Monday she went into hospital in tremendous pain. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, the pain
became very intense.

I need to say this to you because too often we smooth it all over and we say, “Oh yes, if you
believe in Jesus, you’ll go right through and you’ll have no pain.” Then you know what we do because
we’re so terrible on these deaths. We say, “Oh well, they felt no pain”, as if pain really is to be
all and end all.

She had intense pain. It was a desperately painful death. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the pain became
so great that the whole skin seemed to be hypersensitive to any touching so that they couldn’t even
inject her with pain-killing drugs. So then, she went into a coma and died on Thursday morning.

We are privileged to know the story as we have read it week by week. Was she a greater witness

through being healed completely or was she a greater witness through what happened? I have no doubt.
She was 41 years old, by the way, when she died.

Little Rachael is six. She’d be the one I’d be concerned about. She is a little waif and she’s
Susan’s little daughter. Little Peter is four. At four you don’t know much about what’s happening.
But Rachael will be pretty lonely so it would be good to pray for her. Serge, he is a strong,
miserable European like me and by God’s grace he will win through and will get going (though
there’ll need to be wisdom and provision for the family). But little Rachael, it will be good to
pray for her.

Now, what about us? What are you going to do with your life? When are you going to begin? What I
have told you is virtually a life story isn’t it? I certainly have been privileged to see it from
beginning to end. But it’s a life story. It’s a life that has passed before us all this morning and
over the past months and years. Now, surely if God is saying anything to us all this morning it is
this: “When are you going to begin?” There is only one thing worth doing and that is, being of value
to Jesus. Nothing else is worth anything.

When it comes to this moment, children, husbands, it doesn’t mean anything. They are so far away on
the other side of that labyrinth that you can’t tell a thing. The only thing that matters is, have
you lived your life for the Maker that you are about to see in a few moments?

So loved ones, I’d ask you now, what are you doing? I’d ask this especially to those of you who have
resolved tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Tomorrow I will give up this sin. Tomorrow I will give
my life to Jesus and declare myself for Him. Tomorrow I will make a change in what I am living my
life for. Tomorrow I will give up my present job and give my life to God and go wherever He wants me
to. Tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow never comes, it doesn’t. Tomorrow is always in the future.

So this is probably the last testimony that she’ll give here on this campus and it is this: “You
see my life. It’s not a great life and could have been a lot better. But I have done what I could.
Now, will you do what you can, today?”

There’s a beautiful hymn that I suggest we sing slowly if the instrumentalist can manage that. Then
you should come up to the altar, say whatever prayer you have to say and go back to your seat. We
stand this morning at one of those pause points in life — one of those stopping places where God
says, “Stop. What are you doing with your life? This is what my girl did with her life. What are you
doing with your life?”

I do think that some of you need to make a decision today. I would encourage you to do it. The hymn
is “For All the Saints Who From Their Labors Rest”. I think if we sing it slowly, it will be
possible for you to come up quietly to the altar during the singing. Say your prayer or make your
commitment and then return to your seats. I’ll pronounce the benediction at the end. “For all the
saints who from their labor’s rest, who Thee by faith before the world confessed.” Let us stand and
sing.

Are You In Christ?

Romans 8:1

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Loved ones, would you look at Romans 8:1. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus.” I’m concerned that each one of you would know what that means. That’s really the
heart of everything that we do here on Sunday mornings. I am concerned that you’d know what that
means because it seems to me our present society has all kinds of versions of Christianity. You’re
facing it and I’m facing it. We have all kinds of strange ideas of what it is to be in Christ Jesus
and it’s very important that we know what it really means.

Loved ones, that whole chapter (Romans 8) actually explains it. If you read it in Greek, you would
see that there is very little break between that verse 1 and verse 5. In fact, the Greek actually
runs right on. It runs like this, you read verse 1 first then you’d hop right to verse 5. “There is
therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for those who live according to the
flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set
their minds on the things of the Spirit.”

In other words, a person in Christ Jesus sets their minds on the things of the Spirit and those who
aren’t in Christ Jesus set their minds on the things of the flesh. Actually that determines whether
you are in Christ Jesus or not. It’s not whether you were confirmed in the Lutheran church or became
a member of the Methodist church or were baptized in a Catholic Church. It doesn’t even matter if
you believe that Jesus is the Son of God or that He died for your sins, what does matter is if you
walk after the Spirit and set your mind on the things of the Spirit rather than on the things of the
flesh. That’s what determines where you are.

Brothers and sisters to tell you the truth, that’s the whole point of it all. What does it matter,
if it doesn’t have anything to do with your everyday life? Wesley said, “Faith is not a speculative
rational thing, a cold lightless assent, a train of ideas in the head but it is a disposition of the
heart.” Who of us wants some speculative rational thing or some train of ideas in the head or
something that we hope we’ll be able to spit out at a priest or a minister just before we die? That
isn’t Christianity. That isn’t being in Christ Jesus.

Being in Christ Jesus is something to do with everyday life. I’d love you to know that and to know
what that is. Here’s where my heart and my head feels for you. When you go on to read Romans 8:6
it’s pretty strong.

Romans 8:6, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and
peace.” My heart goes out to you because I think a number of you have little idea of what that
means. You want to know, and you say to set the mind on the flesh is death but to set the mind on
the Spirit is life and peace. But still we’re all mixed up about it.

I don’t know who the latest beauty is in the movies but we men think, “Oh yes, I shouldn’t set my
mind on flesh, sex or anything like that. That’s death. And to set my mind on the Spirit, that’s
thinking of God and thinking of church.” We have all kinds of strange ideas of what setting the mind
on the Spirit means and what setting the mind on the flesh means. So that’s what I’d like to try to

share with you today and in the next few Sundays, if God guides us.

What is it to live in the Spirit? What does this business of living in the Spirit mean? We need to
start right back in a very basic truth. That is the truth of why God made you and me. You find it
there in 1 John 1:3.

This is why God made us — why He made you. 1 John 1:3: “that which we have seen and heard we
proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father
and with his Son Jesus Christ.” That’s why God made you. God made you to have fellowship with Him. I
hope you don’t go to sleep with that and think “Oh yes that means I’ll be walking around his throne
with candles and all kinds of things in my hands.” No. Fellowship is friendship. Friendship, that’s
the dearest thing in this world, you know it is.

Friendship is beautiful. The friendships that you have, that’s about all you’ve got because all the
money goes, all the businesses go, all the professions die but you’ve got friendship. Friendship is
the dearest thing that we have in this world and it’s the dearest thing in the universe. God made
you and me to be His friends. Loved ones, you have to cast out of your mind all silly ideas of God.
You have all kinds of wild ideas of Him as a kind of holy, holy person who doesn’t know you at all.
He is the dearest guy in the whole universe. He knows you better than your mom knows you. He knows
you better than your best friend in the bar knows you.

He knows your worst parts. He bore them in Himself on Calvary. He knows you, and yet He still loves
you. That’s the amazing thing. All the rest of us can love you because we don’t know you so well,
but He loves you even though He knows you with His whole heart. He knows every bit of you and He
still loves you.

See, our dear Father made you to have fellowship with Himself, to be His friend. That’s what will go
on and on forever. I don’t know if you have ever thought of eternity, but I have said, “Oh, I am
looking forward to eternity. It will be great when we’re there.” Thank God we can’t too often
conceive of infinity. If you ever do conceive of infinity, haven’t you been frightened and terrified
by it? It’s terrible to think of this going on and on forever and ever.

It’s terrible except if it’s a friend that we can trust. Friendship is the only thing that could go
on forever and ever and never bore you into hell. So, it’s friendship and fellowship that is the
purpose that we’re made for.

Now that’s why God made us with the same capacities as He has Himself. You can see the reason for
that. I once had a little dog that was very dear to me, a little Yorkshire Terrier. He is okay when
it’s throwing a ball, catching and bringing it back or letting me tickle his tummy. He’s great on
that. He’s hopeless on appreciating Chopin or Beethoven. He is terrible in discussing
pre-destination or the political situation.

In other words, you can’t have much friendship with something that hasn’t the capacity that you
have. So, that’s why God made us with the same capacities as He has. That’s why He said to Jesus
what He did say. You see it back in Genesis 1:26. It’s interesting to see that God was talking to
somebody when He said that and of course, it was Jesus because Jesus was with Him before the earth
was made.

Gen 1:26: Then God said, “Let us (God and Jesus) make man in our image, after our likeness.” You and

I were made in the image of God. We were made like God. We have capacities like God. We have the
same capacities as He has. Now you can find the detail to that if you go over to Genesis 2:7. I’ll
try to make some of this as clear as I can as we go along. Some of you will know some of the words
without me even helping but maybe it’ll help those who don’t.

Gen 2:7: “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground.” It’s been a long time from when I
have written out the Hebrew, but dust is ‘aphar’. And ‘adamah’ is like that. It really turns out to
be the word for Adam. This word ‘adamah’ means ‘the ground’. God took dust from the ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. The Hebrew word for breath is actually ‘ruwach’.
It’s the word that means breath or spirit. So it’s a word that means either breath or spirit.

You remember when Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wills and so the spirit is.” It’s because of
the similarity between wind and spirit or spirit and breath that he used that analogy. So God
breathed into the ground that He took, His own spirit. And man became a living being. The word in
the King James Version is the word ‘nephesh’ and that is soul. And so, you have man with a soul, a
spirit and of course the ground was the body. Those are the three capacities that God Himself has.
The Father made us with those capacities.

Now, He didn’t make us like Himself. He made us with the same capacities as He has but He didn’t
make us filled with His own life. He gave us free will to receive or reject him. Do you see that? So
you can have a body and a spirit and a soul but they’re filled with a hateful, angry kind of life.
And of course you can have no friendship with them. But if you have a soul, a spirit and a body
filled with the same kind of spirit as another person then you can have fellowship.

Now, THAT God gave us a choice about. You’ll see it there in Genesis 2:16.
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you
shall die.'” So God gave us free will and He said, “Now, I have given you these capacities, you’ve
got those whether you like it or not. But you have a choice of eating of the trees of the garden
that I have put there for you or you can refuse to eat of them if you want.” And particularly He
said, “There are two trees in the middle of the garden”, and you see that in Genesis 2:9.

“And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good
for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil.” So you see God put two trees in the middle of the garden: one, a tree of life, and one,
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, loved ones, the tree of life was later expressed as
Jesus. The tree of life is God’s own Spirit. It’s the thing that makes Him work. It’s the thing that
makes Him live. It’s the thing that makes Him, Him. It’s His whole Spirit.

You know the way we say, “Oh that person is a great spirit.” You mean that their whole attitude to
life is good — it’s the whole attitude. Or we say, “Oh I wish I had my dad’s spirit, I wish I had
my mom’s spirit.” What we mean is that we wish we had their whole attitude to life – the way they
respond to things. That’s what God made available to us in the tree of life.

At times now, we call it the Holy Spirit but really it’s just God’s own Spirit — the life that runs
through Him. And God said, “Now you can eat of that tree, and that’s what I’d like you to do, but
you’ve got free will. I don’t want a bundle of prisoners in Heaven with me. You’ve got free will,
you’ve got the capacity to have fellowship with me. You can eat of this tree and you can become like
me and we can live together forever. Or there is another way to go. I want you to know I am making

it available because I don’t want robots. There is a tree of knowledge of good and evil and you can
eat of that if you want but that will eventually bring you to death.”

Now, loved ones that’s the way the Father made things at the beginning. There’s another way to put
all that if it helps you. It’s in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. You’ll see it all expressed more clearly.

1 Thessalonians 5:23. “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and
soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Your spirit, your
soul and your body can be drawn like this. You can think of your spirit as being the innermost part
of you. It’s the part of you that can actually communicate with God. Then, your soul is like an
overcoat around your spirit.

Your soul, in Greek is ‘psuche’ and you can see the connection that ‘psuche’ has with psychology.
The soul is actually the psychological part of you. And around that (your soul) is your body. So God
has made us with virtually three layers, like Himself. His will was that we would work in fellowship
with Him. We would live off His love and we would receive from Him His spirit. That would fill us
with His life and we would fill the world with that life. That’s what He meant when He asked us to
eat of the tree of life.

I can put it in more down to earth terms. When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, God’s will was this:
“Adam, there is an orange tree over there. You need some orange juice this morning, go and get some
orange juice.” That was the Father’s plan. Through His friendship with Adam, Adam would know what
God was thinking. God would meet all Adam’s needs through His directing Adam how to develop the
world.

In that way, the seagulls from the Santa Barbara coast would never have died from the oil and tar
that we produce through our oil spills. It was the Father’s will that He would direct us where to
get the oil and how to develop the world’s resources. It was the Father’s will that we would work in
love with Him and receive directions from Him. He would provide us our security as we lived in
friendship with Him. In that way, we’d do our jobs because God was guiding us to do them, not
because they give us security. We would get our security through Him and from Him and He would add
all other things unto us.

It was the same with His love for us. It was His will that each one of you would know Him intimately
and you would know that He knew your name. You’d be like friends who just walked with God — like
Enoch. In fact, it was the Lord’s will that we would be like Enoch (“He was not for God took him”)
— that we would never die, that we would be close in relationship with the Father and would just
lift off this earth whenever He decided it was time for us to join Him in the other place.

So it was the Father’s will that we would know that he loved us. If the one significant other in the
whole universe loved us, what does it matter about anybody else? That would be the end of problems
with self-esteem, problems with self-worth, problems with loneliness, and problems with feeling
nobody appreciated us. It was God’s will that we would live off His love and in that, we would find
our security and our sense of significance coming from Him.

It was also His will that we would walk through this world with the owner of the world beside us —
that we would water ski in Hawaii with the owner of the waves right beside us — that we would ski
on the snow slopes in Colorado with the Father of those slopes right beside us. It was His will that
we would get our happiness from walking in communion with Him as friend with friend. Therefore there

would never be this desperate desire, “We have to get happiness, we have to get happiness”, because
we have happiness with Him.

So that was His will, loved ones. In friendship with Him, we would get all the sense of security
that we needed because that’s what love gives you. We would get all the sense of significance or
importance that we needed because that’s what somebody who loves you does for you. And we would have
all the sense of happiness we needed because if you’ve had a dear friendship or a dear loved one
whom you cared about, you didn’t need anything else. You had all the happiness you needed with them.
That was the Father’s will.

Now loved ones what happened? We men and women decided we would get what we need from the world
ourselves. We will get this by our own knowledge of good and evil. Adam said, “Why listen to Him
telling you about getting juice from the tree? You know that you got juice from that tree last year,
why not note that down in a book and we’ll establish a knowledge of good and evil. It is good to get
juice from this tree. It is evil to get it from that tree. Let us set up a whole series of laws and
precedents that will enable us to use this world to get what we need from it. We will live by our
own knowledge of good and evil.

So we determined to do this by our own power and our own strength. You see it there loved ones if
you look at the account of The Fall in Genesis 3. You see how it came about. The very words that
Satan used are some of the words that we have used.

Genesis 3:6: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,” — that is she thinks “I can
get my security from this knowledge of good and evil. I can know how to play the securities. I can
know how to play the stock market. I can know how to do my job better than everybody else so that I
scramble to the top of the heap and get a better salary. I can get food from this if I use my head
and avoid what is evil and get what human beings say is good.”

Genesis 3:6 continued: “… and that it was a delight to the eyes.” She thinks, “I can get happiness
for myself. I can buy a boat with this money. I can buy a motorbike with this money. I can buy a
nice house. I can get happiness with these things.”

Genesis 3:6 continued: “and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.” She thinks, “I can
get power using my mind to control other people. Through my knowledge, I can gain significance and
importance and influence for myself.”

Loved ones, what we did was, we turned away from God Himself and we turned to the world. We began to
use the world and the love that the world would give us to try to live in this world the way God
wanted us to. In other words we were still aiming at being in His image. We still wanted to be God
but we wanted to take His place. We didn’t want to be His children and love with Him. We wanted to
be God. We wanted to control things.

In actual fact you know what has happened. We had to go to the world for our security so we came
under the domination of things. You know how we’re trying to get the security from the number of
things that we can amass. We turn to people for our sense of importance and significance and with
four billion others trying to do the same thing, there isn’t much significance to go around. So,
there are many of us that have trouble with self-esteem. We go to people for that. Then of course
you know the domination we come under with circumstances because we’re always trying to make our
circumstances right so that we can get some kind of happiness for ourselves.

Loved ones, that’s how we came into our present state. Now, if you say, “What has this to do with
spirit and flesh?” This is living by the spirit — living down that way. And this is living by the
flesh. (Pastor is referring to a diagram). It doesn’t need to be sexy at all. Living by the flesh is
dependence on the world for the love, the security, the significance and the happiness that God
intends us to get from Him.

Those who live according to the flesh will die. You will. A terrible thing has happened to this part
of us when we decided to depend on the world. So as you go through this coming week, ask the Holy
Spirit to show you how you yourself are living because loved ones, being in Jesus is a very
practical everyday choice that you make moment by moment. You are making it even this afternoon. The
interesting thing is, it’s not WHAT you do. It’s WHY you do it and the attitude with which you do
it. You can see that.

We can all go to Hawaii. We can all have wonderful holidays everywhere if we have the attitude to
God that is right and receive it as from Him. But if there is in us “iron in our soul” — trying to
grab what we want with that spirit, then that brings death to us. So do ask the Holy Spirit to give
you light this coming week so that you will actually live in Christ during this coming week. Let us
pray.

Dear Father, we thank you that being in Christ is something practical and real. Father, walking in
the Spirit is something that is understandable and walking in the flesh is something that we can
know and reject. Dear Father we know that we can do nothing unless through your Holy Spirit and our
friendship with You, You begin to give us light about these things. So we ask Lord that you’ll help
us and help the others in this room to know and understand in the spirit what these things mean for
each of us. Father we thank you for your plan.

We thank you that you do want to be our friend. We thank You Lord that that’s why you cherish us and
you will miss us badly if we fail to come into Heaven and to live with you forever. Father, we bow
before you now and are amazed that you would be interested in us as friends. Father we thank you for
it and we give ourselves to be a friend to you this coming week. We will begin to regard you as our
friend and as our dear Father.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

Our Loving Father

1 Thessalonians 5:23

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

How are we meant to live this life? That’s what we started to talk about last Sunday. How are we
actually meant to live? That connects up with the other questions: What is the meaning of life? And
why are we all here at all? Those of you who were here last Sunday remember that what we said was,
our God who made us, is really closer to a good father than to anything else we know here on earth.
And the relationship that he wants with us is the kind of relationship we would have with a good
father.

Now, I understand that some of you had good moms and some of you had good dads. I understand that
some of us did not have good dads and therefore we maybe have a little problem…. except that
probably all of us know what a good father is like. I was glad and grateful that I had a dear dad. A
good father is one who is older than you, who loves you more than he loves himself and who cares for
you more than he cares for himself. He knows more than you and he is able to provide you with all
that you need. He is the one that provides the food on the table that your mom serves. And he is the
one that advises you when you begin to get into things that you don’t know anything about.

Now, the only difference between that and God, is our dads reached that time when we were teenagers
when they suddenly realized that they knew nothing and we knew everything. Then there came a time
when we realized we didn’t know everything. But there still came a time when we eventually went on
and left our dads behind. We went on to other things and we had to start providing for ourselves.

Now, God is older than that. God is a dear Father that is permanently older than all of us here. He
knows continuously until the end of time more than you know. He knows what you’re going to get into
and he knows what you should do in that thing. He has absolute infinite ability to provide you with
all that you need. So, His desire in putting us here in this world was that we should trust Him like
a Father. That is, we should love Him. We should depend on His love. We should trust Him to provide
for us what we needed and to guide us in what we were to do in our lives. His will was that there
should be an intuitive trust between Him and us — a loving thing, a warm, friendly thing. He is
like our dads.

You know the joke as the millionaire’s wife turns around to the millionaire and says, “Things,
things, things, you don’t love me, myself. You just give me things.” Well, we all know that a dad
likes to give us things but most of all what we like about him is that he loves us. And what he
likes most about us is that we were able to sit on his knee at one time and talk with him. Or later
on we were able to sit beside him and talk with him. And even when it was his last days in bed, we
were able to sit by his bedside and talk to him. That’s the dearest thing to a real dad.

You are the dearest thing to a real dad. Not the things he gives you, not the things you do, but you
yourself. A real father loves you to be with him. That’s why he loves you. He loves you because he
enjoys being with you, that’s God. God made you to be with Him forever. He loves you. He really
loves you. He likes you. He wants to be with you forever. That’s why he made you like Himself. Let’s
look at Genesis 1:26 at the beginning of the Bible. We’ve formalized these verses so that the truth
has almost been filtered out of them.

Genesis 1:26, “Then God said let us make man”, and of course that tells you that he wasn’t on his
own. Jesus was with him and he turned around to Jesus and said, “Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air.”
That’s why God made you and me like him because He wanted us to be with him forever and to live with
him forever. In order to live with somebody forever and be their friend forever, you have to be like
them. I have joked about my little Yorkshire Terrier and how he was great at playing ball but wasn’t
great at discussing Beethoven’s Fifth or discussing predestination. You can’t discuss with some
lesser form of life something that is dear to you. You need to have someone who is like you and
that’s why God made us in his image. He made us like himself.

So you are like God. You’re different. You’re not just a better form of animal. You’re different.
Might I just remind you too that you are the only one like you? I know that’s startling but you are
the only one like you in the world today. You’re the only one like you that has ever been in the
world and you’re the only one like you that will ever be in the world so you have a unique
relationship to your maker. He made you in his image in a way that he has made none of the rest of
us in his image. And if you are lost, there will be something permanently lost to Him. But he made
us in his image. He made us like himself. And he made us to live dependent on his love.

Now one of the things that came out in the piece that Gentry read was that one of the capacities he
gave us was spirit capacity. He gave us a spirit capacity and that’s actually how he relates to us.
You see that if you look at it in
1 Corinthians 2:9.

1 Corinthians 2:9-10. “But as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of
man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him. God has revealed to us through…
Einstein.’ No. ‘God has revealed us through… degrees.’ No. ‘God has revealed to us through…our
university education.’ No. ‘God has revealed us through…simultaneous equations.’ No. ‘God has
revealed to us through the Spirit.'”

So, God made us like himself with a spirit like His so that He could communicate His love to us
through our spirits. So that’s what we said last Sunday. God’s love is the way we’re meant to live.
We’re meant to live dependent on His love. We’re meant to receive that love through his Spirit who
communicates that love through our spirits. That’s the way God intended us to operate.

Your spirit is the inside part of you. It’s the real YOU. We say, “I like that guy’s spirit.” We
mean that we like the real person that that guy is. “I like him, himself.” Your spirit is you,
yourself. It’s the innermost part of you. It’s who you really are. What a man is when he is alone
that he is and nothing else. That’s it. What you are when you’re alone, that’s your spirit. God made
you with a spirit.

Now, if you look back to the record of the creation, God gave us other capacities besides a spirit.
You find it there in Genesis 2 where it expressed in Hebrew. Those of you who know Hebrew know it’s
very literal, mathematical in a way. It’s an exact language compared with a language like Greek or
even like English. So, the terminology tends to be then very metaphorical and physical but the
meaning is still there in it.

Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground.” The Hebrew word for dust is
‘aphar’ and the Hebrew word for ground is ‘adamah’ which is Adam. It’s actually where Adam got his

name. So God made us first from the dust of the ground. If someone like me buries you, certainly in
the old country, I would take earth and throw it onto your casket. I’d say, “Dust to dust, earth to
earth, ashes to ashes.” Because our bodies here are just made of earth and when they go, they’re
nothing.

I remember being a little set back and sensitive when it was my own dad. In Ireland, we don’t have
an open casket in a funeral parlor. We have the casket at home. We have it open just for a short
time and then close it. I remember before closing it, my wife who was a dentist, saw that I was
still thinking that was Dad. She pushed his head and I said “Oh, don’t push his head.” But really
it’s just a head. If you’ve seen a dead person, the first thing you say to yourself after the life
has gone out is, “That’s not my dad. My dad is not there, my mom is not there.” You just know it.
Once the spirit has gone from the body, it’s just earth. It’s just dust, it’s nothing. It isn’t the
person.

Now God made us with a body and that’s the outside part of us. It’s from the dust, from the earth.
You see then in verse 7, the second step in creation. “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” I shared last Sunday that the word for
breath in Hebrew is ‘ruwach’ or ‘pneuma’ in Greek. Ruwach means breath or wind or spirit which ties
up with Jesus saying, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and you know not know where it comes or
where it goes.” So is the spirit.

The spirit is like wind. The same word is used for both. God breathed into us His spirit. He
breathed into us His spirit life. He put spirit into our bodies and then a third thing resulted.
It’s like putting instant coffee into water. You take the water, you take the powder, you put it
into the water and a third substance results. That’s what the Bible says, “and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.” The King James Version is a more
accurate translation of the Hebrew word, which is ‘nephesh’.

Man became a living ‘nephesh’. ‘Nephesh’ is soul. Our soul was created. Our soul is the result of
the combination of God’s spirit with our bodies. That’s the way the Father made us. We actually
exist on three levels. We have a spirit and then around the spirit is our soul and around our soul
is our body. It may help some of you to foresee some of the things that we’ll begin to say if I
mention to you that soul is from the Greek word ‘psuche’. In Anglo-Saxon the ‘U’ becomes a ‘Y’ in
the consonantal changes and becomes ‘psyche’. The word for soul is psyche. Psychological is ‘logos
psyche’, the system of thinking about the soul. So it might help you to realize that when you talk
of the soul, you’re talking about the psychological part of you.

You can immediately see of course that there’s a complete difference between the psychological part
of you and the spirit part of you. That’s where we confuse ourselves continually in Christian faith.
We keep talking about the psychological part as if it’s the spirit. The spirit is the spirit. The
psychological part of us is just the soul and maybe we’ll share a little towards the end of today
what the soul involves. But God’s will was that we should live off his love. We should live from the
inside out. We should live from our spirits through our souls, through our bodies. We should know
him as our dearest friend, as our dearest dad, and we should trust in him completely. We should
listen to him.

Do you know what Einstein actually said? He said, “All ideas come from God.” He was one of the
greatest geniuses of our era and he said, “All ideas come from God.” The greatest minds (including
Plato’s) however little they understood about Jesus, sensed that things come from outside us. They

come from above. They come from the Creator himself. God meant us to live that way. That’s the way
he meant us to operate.

In other words, he meant us to receive everything through his love. Now, of course love provides
everything you need. When somebody loves you, you just feel important. You do. You feel you are
something. You feel you mean something to somebody. You feel you’re worth something. You have no
trouble with self-esteem. You have no trouble with self-worth. You’ve no trouble with significance.
You have no trouble with other people walking over the top of you, if you have somebody that really
loves you with all his heart. That just settles your whole problem of self-worth and significance.

It’s the same with security. You know with your dad, you did not worry about whether you’d get your
lunch next day when you were five-year-old. You didn’t trouble about it. You knew your dad was
going to take care of it or your mom was going to take care of it. When somebody loves you, it
settles the whole issue of where you’re going to get your next meal, where you’re going to get your
clothes, and where you’re going to get your shelter. All your food, shelter and clothing are taken
care of. The whole issue of security is taken care of when you know in your heart that somebody
loves you who is well able to provide those things.

It’s the same with happiness. When are we really happy? Well I might say when I first rode the BSA
motorcycle at 90 miles an hour down an Irish road. You’d tell about when you first water skied. We’d
all joke about that, but finally after all is said and done, we’re happiest when we’re with somebody
that loves us and that we love. That’s it. We get all our happiness really from relationships and
that’s the way God meant us to live. He meant us to live like this.

He meant us to get all our happiness and all our security and all our significance from just our
relationship to him. That’s the way he intended us to live. One of the results of that would be that
we’d be giving OUT; we’d be living OUT all the time. There are different advantages of this. God,
for instance, knew where the gold was in California. He intended us through the intuition of our
spirits to know that.

In fact, it could be argued that all real improvements that we’ve made including things like DNA
come from out of the sky. Except that God did not mean us to live only in extraordinary moments like
that. He meant us to live like that all the time. The Father knows how you should live. The Lord
knows what job he made you to do. The Father knows whom you should marry. The Lord knows where you
should live and you don’t need to go through all kinds of tricks to get the information.

You didn’t go through all kinds of tricks with your own dad. If you were wondering where you should
apply for a job you didn’t say, “Okay dad, I don’t want to ask you this question but instead I want
to put a fleece out. Are you looking for this fleece? If you step on the cracks in the pavement,
then I’ll take this job. If you don’t step on the cracks in the sidewalk, I’ll take this other
step.” You didn’t do that, you just asked. You got close to him, talked it over with him, and spent
time with him so that you knew the kind of wisdom that he had. That’s what you do with God.

God wants you to operate that way. If we operated that way, there wouldn’t be the oil spills on the
Santa Barbara coast, there wouldn’t be the little seagulls dying with all that tar on them. There
wouldn’t be the slums in Tokyo. There wouldn’t be all the messes that we’ve made of our world by
trial and error. God intends us to live in closeness to Himself. I don’t know how many wrong turns
you have taken in your life. I don’t know how many times you have wandered back and forward. Would
you stop? Your dear Father knows and he will reveal to you and he will show you.

You don’t need to do all kinds of tricks. You don’t need to go, “Aaaah, yes, I’ll just open the
Bible, pick a verse and say that’s God’s pick.” That’s an insult to the dear Lord. You don’t do that
with your dad. You didn’t take His letters, point to something and say, “Oh that’s the job.” That’s
not right. That’s making fun of God.

This is His dear Word and by reading this Word, studying it and asking His Spirit to reveal it to
you, you get to know God. You don’t get a little promise book here. You get to know God. That’s what
Jesus said, “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is
they that bear witness to me. But you will not come to me that you might have life.” God wants us to
live in love with him, depending on him for these things. That was his will, loved ones, and that is
his will for you today.

Now, we are foolish, miserable and rebellious human beings and we resolve not to do that. That’s
what God wanted us to do. You see it back in Genesis 2:9.

Genesis 2:9 – “And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the
sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden.” That’s another word for
the spirit, another word for God’s love. It’s the tree of life. It was presented in Hebrew language
physically like a tree because that’s the way men understood in those days. But it’s the spirit.
It’s God’s love and his life.

He wanted us to live by his life, moment by moment by his life. We are not to live trying to foresee
what is going to happen next week. That was the whole message of the manna in the Old Testament —
if you gathered more manna than you would eat for one day it went bad. We have lots of rotten manna
in our banks, in our homes and everywhere. We have all kinds of manna that we’ve gathered to try to
ensure that we’ll be okay down the road. God wanted us to live dependent on his life and so He put
the tree of life also there. But he also put beside it, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Why? He put it there because the Father wants us to be free.

The Father wants us to be free. Heaven is not going to be a room where the Lord God and his machine
guns sits back and says, “You’ve got to stay here, you’ve got to love me.” That’s not God. God wants
real love and so he made us with capacities like himself. But he said, “My attributes and
characteristics, my own nature you have to choose to receive through choosing my friendship and
choosing to depend upon me. If you do that, then my spirit will flow through you and will begin to
fill you with security and happiness and significance. But most of all, I will fill you with my own
nature and my own character so that you’re going to enjoy yourselves in heaven forever. But you must
choose to do that.”

He gave us free will. We decided no. Well, you can see what Eve said in Genesis 3 or what Satan
persuaded her to see in Genesis 3:6.

Genesis 3:6. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to
the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and
she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.” Because this is the very beginning of mankind’s
childhood, it was presented to man in that way.

The woman looked at the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and said, “Look, if I just observe how
Adam was told by God to prune that tree and I write it down and list all the precedents for how to

live life here on earth, then I will be like God. That’s what He wanted me to be. I’ll be like God
but without depending on Him. I’ll be like God by using my own knowledge of what is good and what is
evil. I’ll decide it’s good to prune this tree at this time of the year. It’s bad to dam up that
river at this time of the year. It’s good to do this; it’s bad to do that. I’ll fill my life up with
what is good and I’ll avoid the evil. I’ll do the good and I’ll be like God but by my own power
because I can see that this is good for food. I’ll get all the food I need from this world. I’ll
wrestle it out of this world by my own strength and power. I’ll get all the delight for my eyes that
I want. I’ll get all the happiness I want and I’ll use my head so that I become wise and am able to
manipulate other people and get myself into a position of importance in other people’s eyes.” And
that was what we did.

We actually substituted the world for God. We determined that instead of depending on God and having
to trust him, we will just depend on the love of the world and we’ll wring out of it what God
offered us through his love. You know it so well — the security we get from things. Everybody here
who has tried to build up the stocks and shares, every one of you who have tried to argue a higher
salary, every one of you who wonder why you bought a fourth coat when you already have three, every
one of you who has changed the car earlier than you needed to, you know the story.

We try to surround ourselves with enough things to make us feel that we are untouchable even if the
economy goes down the drain. We surround ourselves with things. We try to get from things security.
It’s agony — we can’t do it. It’s impossible. Because of course what we need is not security. What
we need is love. We need love in our spirits but we don’t have it.

We feel lost in our souls. We feel nobody cares about us. We feel we’re not important to anybody. We
feel we’ll go out like a light at the end and nobody will know we’ve even been here. And so we feel
unloved. Like all of us who have trouble with lack of love we try to make up for that lack by such
things as eating. We all do the same. We try to get the things that love would give us. We try to
get security by getting more and more things. That’s why it’s “a tale told by an idiot”. It’s a life
of futility. It doesn’t matter how many things you get, you can’t create a feeling of love or being
loved in yourself. That’s why we say “things, things, things” but what we want is not things, it’s
love.

It’s the same with this whole business of significance. We all have our ways to do it. We try to
will our husbands or to will our wives into thinking “We’re important. We’re the king on the
throne.” Or we try to will our secretaries or our fellow workers into that. Or we try to turn
conversations around so that we appear to be very clever and very wise. The other person will look
up to us and realize how important we are and will somehow give us a sense of value because we know
we’re not valuable at all. The only thing that makes us valuable is that we’re our Father’s child.
And we’re only valuable because He knows we’re valuable. But when we lose that, we can never find
value so we keep on grinding people into the ground.

You know how often in conversation you have played what you thought was a very diplomatic game. You
know how you turn it around to what you’re brilliant at.
You are brilliant at talking about white tailed Cockatoos, so you bring the conversation around to
white tailed Cockatoos. The other person isn’t interested in it at all, but you think you can make a
little mark with it. So we’re dominated all the time by this desire to make ourselves important in
other people’s eyes.

Of course, it leads to slavery because the other side of that coin is fear of other people. You have

fear of what others think of you, fear of their opinion, and fear of their lack of approval of you.
So you end up turned into a little robot because things dominate you. You become dominated by what
people think of you and you become dominated by their source of happiness because we have no
happiness.

We’re bored with life and we want to make it exciting. So we buy boats, we buy cars, we buy bikes,
we buy furniture, we buy houses, and we try to go on vacations. We’ll do anything. We try to get a
fun job. We do anything to try to get happiness. We even use people to try to get happiness. We use
sex and drugs to get happiness. We use relationships to try to get happiness. We suck in from even
our husbands and wives whatever we feel we need to get happiness. We actually become dominated by
the world. Then what happens to us is we find that there’s nothing in there at all. There’s nothing.

This dear spirit inside us seems dead and cold. It’s not anything. It doesn’t exist. We come to
church and try to sense something. We try to feel something. We feel something in the soul but we
can’t sense anything in our spirits. We think if we had more rousing hymns or better songs – but all
we do is “feel” more. We’re still trying to feel things. We’re still trying to find happiness at
this level and the dear spirit is dead. That’s what it means to be dead in our sins. You’ve heard of
the comment “he’s dead from the neck up”. Well, most of us are dead from the neck up.

Most of us are just little souls in bodies. That’s what the Bible says in Ephesians 2. It’s an
interesting verse and summarizes very precisely the way most of us in the world live. It’s Ephesians
2:3.

“Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.” That’s what the flesh is — living
dependent on the world. Flesh is not my squashy fat parts. It’s not sex. Flesh is living dependent
on the world. “Among these, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.” Passions — because
we’re driven. We’re driven people and passions are what drive most people. They aren’t free people
they are driven robots.

“Following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest
of mankind.” Not children of God, but by nature we became children of wrath, following the desires
of body and mind. You’ll see next day that the mind is part of the soul. Most of us are just little
animals. Actually if you’re honest, most of us are dead from there up.

You get up in the morning and think, “Do I feel good? No, I taste bad. Am I going to have a good
day? Well, it’s kind of dull. Do I feel any pains that I didn’t feel before? Oh, but there’s
something good for breakfast!” We’re like little puppies aren’t we? Then as it gets cold we say, “Oh
it’s cold I don’t feel so good. Or, the car is good and feels like it’s going well today.” Or, we
get to the office and notice if they smile at us or don’t smile. If they smile we wag our tails like
little puppies and we say, “Oh that’s good.”

We tend to live physical body lives utterly dominated from our bodies. We’re dominated from the
things we can get. If we can have a little treat at lunchtime then it lifts our day. So we’re
dominated by our bodies. A few like Einstein maybe lifts into this level, lifts into the level of
the soul, a few very cerebral people might live by the thought or the mind and some of us live very
strongly by our emotions but on the whole, we live body and soul lives.

Of course you see the other problem. The whole thing is perverted. The whole nature becomes
perverted. It was meant to operate like that. [Pastor is pointing to a diagram of body, soul and

spirit.] The spirit was meant to give to the soul, the soul was meant to give to the body and the
body to fill the world with God’s love. It’s corrupted and perverted completely. They’re now all
working in reverse. The body dominates the soul and the soul can’t dominate the spirit so the spirit
just dies.

So that’s what it means to be a fallen man or a fallen woman. That’s what it means when we say we
have the nature of fallen men or fallen women. That’s what it means when we say we have a sinful
nature. It’s not that you’re a great gambler – though you may be a great gambler. It’s not great
that you’re a terrible fornicator – though you might be a terrible fornicator. Sinful means that
your whole nature, your whole personality is working the wrong way around. It’s working in reverse.
This is why you have troubles when you start trying to live the way God wants you to.

That’s why a Savior is needed. That’s why you have such frustration when you try to change this
around by ‘do-it-yourself’ books or self-improvement books or following better principles. It
doesn’t matter. All the principles are here but the nature is now perverted. There actually comes a
point of conflict where this direction meets that direction and becomes a conflict in your life
where you cry, “The good that I would I cannot do and the evil I hate is the very thing I do.” Next
Sunday, I just look forward to sharing with you what God did for us in regard to that. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank you for being our Father. We apologize to you for the way we have ignored you
and regarded you just as God somewhere up there and not treated you as dearer to us than our own
fathers. We apologize Lord for the way we have run our lives by the seat of our pants, running our
lives by what we thought was good and what we thought was evil. Father, we know it isn’t enough to
apologize to you, we have to repent of the pain that we have caused you by doing this and the
insults that we have offered to your own face. Father we repent. We tell you we are sorry, heartily
sorry for these sins and for these attitudes. Father we intend to turn from them.

Lord we ask you to reveal to us what you’ve done about these sinful natures of ours. Father we ask
you to be with us this coming week and enable us to begin to live the way you intended, meeting you
each morning as our dear Father and beginning to be dominated by you and walk in the spirit and
after the spirit not after the flesh, instead of being dominated by the world of men and things and
circumstances. We ask this in Jesus’ name and for his sake.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

We Were Made for Love

1 John 1:3

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

We’re trying to talk these mornings in a very down to earth way about why we are alive and how that
works out in our everyday life. We’re trying to avoid a whole lot of the religious phrases or the
religious games we get into and just trying to say it to each other like it is. I hope that as we
get into it we’ll be able to have questions after the sermons and that might help you as much as
even the presentation does.

Why are you alive? If you’re like me and like the rest of us, there have come moments in your life
when you’ve wondered, “What on earth is all this in aid of? Why all this agony? Why all these years
spent? Why are we here at all?” and often some of us, when we get into that kind of thinking, get
scared and decide we’d better not think that way otherwise we’ll go bonkers and so we don’t think
too much more and we try to get wrapped up in everyday life again.

But it has a way of continually recurring to us especially when disasters and difficulties come into
our lives. We wonder what’s the point of all this? I have been working and I have tried to build
things and now it’s all fallen apart. What is the point of it? I know some here that have suffered
in their own families. You work with your sons and daughters — you try to make it work and then
things happen. The thing flies apart and you wondered deeply why? Why am I here at all? Things don’t
seem to be working out the way I hoped.

We’re all in those situations where it just doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t want to bring tears
to your eyes and I want to avoid them in my own eyes but Susan is the dear girl who was here for
years and died of cancer last week. I got a letter from Serge last week.

He and Susan had Rachael, their youngest child. She is a dear little girl who is five years old.
Serge said to me, “Rachael says different things everyday. She gets up late a few mornings for
school and says, ‘I don’t believe I can live without my mommy.'” Most of us have hit those spots
with our own dads or moms at some time, and you just don’t know how you will go on.

So it’s in that context that I am asking you, why are we alive? There are a lot of things that sure
don’t seem to go right in this world and there are a lot of things that don’t seem to turn out the
way we thought they were meant to turn out. So that’s the question, loved ones. You remember we
answered it, if you’d like to look at it and just center our thoughts. It’s in 1 John 1:3. Even
though it’s put formally it is the real reason. John is speaking and he is telling this is why we’re
telling you about things.

1 John 1:3, “That which we have seen and heard (that’s of Jesus and of his life and his
Resurrection) we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship
is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” That’s the purpose of it all — so that you may
have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. God
made you because he wants you to be his friend forever.

You can think of all kinds of things about yourself — how unimportant you are or how little you are
or how unlikable you are. But God your Creator made you because he wants to have your friendship. He

wants you to live with him forever. That’s why he made you. He wants to live with you forever, he
wants to love you and he wants you to love him. The reason an awful lot of these things are
happening in this world is that you can’t have people loving each other who don’t have free wills.

In other words, if God had made us all unable to do anything but love him, he would have had a pack
of robots and there would be no love or no freshness or no life in what we call Heaven — what is
really going to be the expanse of the universe. There’s a vast universe out there. You can see the
incompleteness of this pitiful little world we have.

When you look out at the vastness of the universe, (it’s there for some reason) and of course the
reason is that God has a whole heaven out there that he is getting us ready for. Yet he wants a
group of people who are free to love or free not to love. That way, there’s a possibility of love.
Brothers and sisters, I need to bring that before you again. Do you see that plainly?

If I get the machine gunners up here and the Irish gunmen at the backdoors and I say, “Okay, you’re
all going to love me, okay? If anyone decides otherwise, that’s the end.” You can see there’ll be no
love in this room. There won’t be because you will say, “Well, we have to love you. We can’t do
anything else. We don’t have a choice.” That’s why God gave us free will. He said, “I made you to
love me and I am putting you on this earth so that you can decide whether you’re going to love me or
not. That’s why I have put you here. That’s why I even gave strength to the same Roman soldiers that
put nails in my Son’s hands. I am a fanatic on free will. I’ll go to any lengths for free will
because it’s only with free will that people can love.”

And so that’s why God made us. He watches you all down through the years of your life — you turn
this way and that way — you know how it goes. And he watches, watches, watches, trying gently to
draw you into love of him. He’s hoping by the end of this life that you will begin to see that he is
the only one really worth loving. He is the only true friend that you have and he is the only dear
father you have.

You remember I said a few Sundays ago — I don’t know how your dads were, or how your moms were.
Some were good dads, and some bad moms – or we think they’re bad. Some were good moms and then some
not so good dads. But we all know what a father is like, what a perfect father is like. We all have
a clear idea of what a perfect father is like.

Now God made you because he is your Father and he wants you to choose to be his son, to choose to be
his daughter. You are free loved ones. You’re free. You’re free not to do that if you want and
that’s why God has made us. He made us to enjoy his love and that’s why he made us like himself. You
remember that strange and interesting verse that gives you a glimpse into Heaven before human beings
were made. It’s back in Genesis 1:26 and it gives you an insight which God obviously revealed in a
miraculous way to Moses when he wrote Genesis. It gives you an insight into what was happening
before mankind was created.

Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man.'” It’s nice to think, “Let us”. God turned around
to Jesus who was with him from before the creation of the world and he says, “My Son, let us make
man in our image.” That’s why God made you in His image. That’s why you are the kind of person you
are. You were made like God so that you could understand God and so that He could understand you.
So, you are different.

That’s why the whole tendency of the modern world to say “you’re a nothing” is wrong. That’s the

real objection to the evolution theory. There’s evolution within the species that’s obvious but the
whole insult to God is saying you’re just a glorified ape. You are made in God’s image. You are like
God. You’re made like Him. You’re a break from the animal kingdom. You are different from the animal
kingdom. You’re actually not only different from the animal kingdom, you are different from all the
rest of us in this room.

You have squirrely little thoughts that none of the rest of us have. You have funny little ways to
twitch your nose. You smile a funny way, you say things a funny way. They’re funny to us because
they’re not like the way we do it. They are different and you’re different from everybody else in
this room. Then think for a minute that you’re different from everybody else in Minneapolis. You’re
different from everybody else in Minnesota and that’s only four million. But you’re different from
the other 250 million in America. It’s amazing but you’re also different from the other five billion
on this planet. You’re different. You’re different from everybody who has ever lived and you’re
different from everybody who will ever live. That’s why you are unique. You’re a version of God’s
character that nobody else is. God made you like Himself. Now, that’s why you’ve read that verse
about the way God made us, in Genesis 2:7.

Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord formed man of dust from the ground.” So he took dust and made our bodies
and breathed into his nostrils. That’s the way God puts it because mankind was in its childhood and
that’s the way he understands it. “God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” It wasn’t
just air. It was ‘ruwach’. It was spirit. God breathed into us his own Spirit and then the Spirit
mixed with the body — like you put instant coffee into water and the result is a third substance.

So he breathed into us a spirit and man became a living being. But the Hebrew word is ‘nephesh’ and
the King James Version is a better translation — “Man became a living soul.” And so God took dust
from the ground and made our bodies and then breathed into our bodies, His Spirit — His spirit life
that makes Him alive at this moment and that actually makes us alive. Then the spirit and the body
mixed together and produced our soul.

So you remember the way we’ve said it, we’ve said that we were made really just for God’s own love.
That’s why He made us — just to enjoy His love. He made us like himself with a spirit like him. You
remember last day, I tried to remind you what spirit was because we all get spooky about it and
wonder about ghost stories and all kinds of things. Your spirit is you, yourself. What a man is when
he is alone or what a woman is when she is alone, that he is and no more.

The spirit is what you are apart from your wife, apart from your children, and apart from your mom
and dad. Your spirit is what you are yourself. It’s your very own self. It’s you. It’s you yourself.
That’s your spirit. God gave you a spirit because he is spirit himself. Then he put around your
spirit (like two overcoats) your body and your soul. So really we are almost three little overcoats.
The outside overcoat is the body and the inside is your soul — which is actually the psychological
part of you — it’s your mind and your emotions. Finally, your inside part is your spirit.

God made us that way because He wanted us to have the attributes that he himself has. So those are
called in theology the indestructible attributes of God. Everybody has a spirit, soul and body. Some
people have very alive bodies and maybe they are the guys that play football. Some have very live
souls and maybe they are the “Einsteins” or the artists. And some have very live spirits — they can
be good spirits or they can be bad spirits.

There are some spiritualists and people who engage in Middle Eastern religions that have very live

spirits. They are alive to the evil spiritual world not the good spiritual world. You can at times
be very spiritual and at times very physical and at times very mental. God made us like that —
every one of us. Everybody in this room has a body, a soul and a spirit. Your soul may be more or
less dead, your body may be more or less dead, and even your spirit. But every one of us has those
indestructible attributes.

But God didn’t give us the inner qualities that make life with Him not only bearable but also
enjoyable. He did not give us His own blessedness or happiness. He didn’t give us His own love. He
didn’t give us His own liberty of action and free will to do freely what we wanted to do independent
of actually what we chose. He didn’t make us in that way perfect like Himself. He gave us these
attributes and then He said, “Now I want you to choose the inner spirit that makes me, me. I want
you to choose that. If you don’t want to choose that, that’s okay but I give you the attributes, the
capacities that I have and then you can decide to receive my character into you or you can decide to
reject it.”

And he said, “Really the way I want you to do it is — I want you to trust me. I know why I’ve put
you here. I’ve put some of you here to be artists. I put some of you here to be carpenters. I have
put some of you here to be secretaries. I have put some of you here to be thinkers and
mathematicians. I put some of you here to be housewives. I have put some of you here to be mothers.
I have a plan for all of you. Now, actually I want you to get to know me and follow my directions
for your life and as you walk hand in hand with me, you’ll begin to know what you should do in this
life and I will begin to give you my own character. You will become more and more like me.”

You know the way a husband and wife, who travel a long time together, start looking like each other,
start thinking like each other and smiling like each other. It’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?
It’s embarrassing when you see your children doing things, but it’s embarrassing when you see each
other doing things that you never did before. Because when you travel together you become like each
other. That was the Father’s plan.

That was His plan – that we would live off his love. That’s the way we put it. With His love, we
would sense all the things that love brings. Love brings some obvious things with it. If you know
that the Father loves you with all his heart, then you have a great sense of security in him because
he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. If he loves you, he’s certainly going to look after you
whatever the economics of the country are like. So, love brings a great sense of security.

You know it you husbands and wives. It’s so good when you have somebody who loves you, isn’t it?
It’s so good. It’s interesting — when you lie in their arms you just feel safe. It’s just so good
to feel safe. Or you remember with your dads or moms — when they put you to bed, you just felt
safe. You felt they would protect you from all the evils outside. You felt that they would supply
your food and they would supply your clothes.

Things come from love that we need. It gives you a great sense of your own importance. You remember
how your dad used to make you feel important, and your mom? It’s amazing. I mean we make our
children feel really important because they are dear to us. It’s a pity that sometimes they’re so
dear to us at the beginning and then we get used to them and they don’t continue to be dear to us.
But love tends to give a person a sense of value and a sense of worth. And that was God’s plan for
us.

Even the little beggar that is dying today of starvation on the streets of Bombay, with no parents,

no children and no relatives — even that little beggar, that old wizened man — would know that his
Father noticed him, had numbered the hairs of his head, cared about him and that he was one of the
most important people in the world. That’s God’s plan for us. And then in that love we would have a
great sense of completeness, happiness and satisfaction.

That was God’s plan and here’s the way we put it. It might help you to see it more clearly. (Pastor
O’Neill shows a visual). It would work like that — God’s love would give us this sense of security.
We’d know that he cared for us, and that he was looking out for us. That love would come into our
own spirits, go out through our minds and emotions, out through our bodies and out to the world.
We’d fill the world with a sense of safety and security. We would be givers. We wouldn’t be takers
but we would be givers.

We’d have a sense of significance, importance, and a sense of value in God’s eyes. We wouldn’t be
trying to get everybody else to make us important. We would be actually free to love other people
freely because we wouldn’t need anything from them. We would be getting it from God. It transforms a
marriage because you’re not always looking to the other person for something. You are filled with
satisfaction yourself so you’re giving to them.

That’s the same with happiness. We wouldn’t be looking out and saying, “Can I get a better vacation,
or can I get a job that will be a fun job?” You’d be happy in God just being with him, just walking
through the world with him beside you. And you’d begin to give to the world. That was the Father’s
plan for us. Here’s the way God put it loved ones. In Genesis 2:9, he put it in simple terms because
in the early years of mankind, that’s the way we understood things. We hadn’t got all sophisticated
like we have today.

Genesis 2:9, “And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the
sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden.” And that’s what it was.
It was the tree of life — it’s another name for God’s love or for his Spirit. We were meant to live
off the life of God. But God also put in the garden the tree you see and the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. And so, that was the Father’s plan for us.

Now, what happened was, we men and women decided this world seems to have all we need. It has trees
that we can cut down and make into furniture. We can create houses for ourselves. It has crops that
we can grow and get food from. It seems to have some rapids in the rivers that we can ride and get
some thrills from. It looks to me as if we can get everything from this world that we need without
trusting our God — without depending upon Him. That’s really what we did.

We determined that we could be like God without God’s love and life and spirit coming through us. We
could be like God in that we could rule over the world and do what we wanted with it. So instead of
living off the love of God, we began to try to live off the love of the world. We began to operate
in exactly the opposite way to what God had intended. We needed security and we decided if we had
land, then we’d have security — so let’s get as much land as we can. Later on, it was stocks and
shares. After that it was gold.

If we can get these things, we’ll have security. These things were not at all wrong in themselves.
It’s not wrong to have stocks and shares. It’s not wrong to have land. It’s not wrong to have cars.
But we didn’t use them the way they were meant to be used. We used them to substitute for God. We
stopped linking ourselves with the Father at all. We began to live the life we wanted to live and do
what we wanted to do. We had to substitute something for the security that we used to get from His

love.

We were okay when we were kids because we got security from our dads and moms. But when we parted
from them, we lacked any sense of security. Then you remember that we tried to get a good education.
Why? It wasn’t so that we’d understand things better. It wasn’t so that we’d have more satisfaction
and understanding of God’s will. It was so that we’d get a good job. That’s why. So many of us did
degrees for one purpose — so that we’d get the best result in money. That wasn’t the purpose of the
education at all. But that’s what we used it for.

Then, with our jobs — so many of us stopped doing the jobs that we were made to do. We stopped
doing the jobs that we enjoyed doing and we traded in for a job that gets us the security, food,
shelter and clothing that we need. We began to depend utterly on things.

It was worse with our sense of self-worth. We all began to feel very much abandoned. Why? Because we
did not know the one significant other in the whole universe. We didn’t know him and we weren’t sure
that he knew us. We had a fair idea that what we were was one little cipher in the midst of five
billion other little ciphers. Yet we felt we were important. Do you see the parity of it –the irony
of it?

You are unique! There is nobody like you in the whole world. There isn’t. But nobody else seems to
know it. That’s the killer — nobody else seems to treat you as unique, do they? Why? Because
they’re sitting next to you and they think, “Well, I’m unique too!” We all think we’re unique. We’re
all so busy trying to prove to everybody else that we’re unique that we haven’t time to show anybody
else that they’re unique.

Actually we are unique — but the only one who will give us a real sense of our uniqueness is our
Father. He is the only one that really knows how unique we are. But once we lost contact with him,
we began to sense a need for importance and significance and so we began to look to people. You know
the way it goes. We just make monkeys of ourselves. We’ll do anything to get somebody else to laugh
at our jokes, we will.

We’ll do anything to get them to praise our housekeeping. We’ll do anything to get other people to
make us think we’re the “fellow in the big picture” — we’re THE person, the leading actor, the
important one. And so we’re all the time trying to suck from each other a sense of importance and
significance.

It works tragedy in the home. It just is torture. The husband is trying to get it from the wife, the
wife is trying to get it from the husband, the children are trying to get it from both of them and
we’re all trying to get it from each other. We’re sucking, sucking, sucking from each other and
nobody is giving, giving, giving because the depths of our needs for significance are infinite.

No human being can give you the sense of significance that you want. Because finally, who talks
about John Wayne? Maybe when you see one of the old movies, but after that – nobody. Who even
mentions Bing Crosby? It suddenly comes home to your heart, “If these guys are forgotten, what about
me who haven’t a fraction of their fame?” You see, inside every one of us, there’s an appetite for
significance and self-worth that the world cannot fill. But that’s the position we get ourselves
into.

It’s the same with the happiness thing. We feel that there should be more to life than this. It

can’t be work, work, work all the time. There must be something more to it. Of course, we would be
utterly satisfied with work if we had this kind of remarkable relationship with our Father in
Heaven. We would be utterly satisfied to work like a slave night and day if we had that happiness
with Him. But we lack that.

So, of course we say to ourselves, “Well, what? All right, maybe if I retire at fifty. Maybe if I
retire, okay.” Then you find Florida filled with all of us who have retired and thought heaven was
waiting for us. But it’s agony, because it’s just more of the same — only worse. So we get into
terrible frustration.
Loved ones that’s what the fall is.

When you talk about the fall of man, that’s what the fall is. It’s eating of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. It’s not just eating of the fruit of a tree. It’s eating of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. It’s mankind saying, “Let’s not trust our God.”

We know what is good and we know what is evil ourselves. Let’s set up the things that are good. It’s
good to get oranges off that tree because you can make juice with it. It’s good to dam up that river
because this is flood time. So we began to list a whole lot of laws. This is good to do and this is
evil to do. If you think positively, it will work this way. If you think negatively, it will work
that way.

We began to depend on our own knowledge of right and wrong in order to make the world supply us with
what we thought was all that God supplied us with — security and significance and happiness. Of
course that wasn’t it at all. What we need is not those things. What we need is love. Those are only
results of love. What we need desperately is love. That’s why Howard Hughes dies in the luxury
penthouse of a hotel with kleenex stuck on his fingers, emaciated and dying of malnutrition. He was
one of the richest men on earth. Finally it wasn’t riches he needed and it’s not riches or security
we need — it’s love. It’s not even our wife’s love or our mother’s love. It’s the love of our
Maker. You know you were made for that.

There’s something inside you that let’s you know you were made for that. What we have done is to
begin to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and to live by that knowledge. In other
words, we chose to live by knowledge instead of by friendship with God. So, what has happened is,
the whole system has backed up. That’s what the fall is. We’re living off the world instead of off
God. This is what the sinful nature is. (Pastor O’Neill shows a visual).

Life should have come this way, but in fact, it’s going back up that way. We’re trying to suck from
the world the love, the security, the significance and the happiness that we were meant to get from
God. And so our whole nature is working the wrong way. Haven’t you tried to trust God at times?
Especially when things have gone wrong in your life — a financial disaster, something bad on your
vacation, the death of your mom or dad — and you’ve thrown your hands up and said, “Everything is
finished!” Then you trusted God for about a day or two days and you know what happens, the nature
takes over again.

The old sinful nature — your body works, your soul works and your spirit doesn’t work. That has
taken over again and you’ve slipped back into that. And so you cry out again and again, “The good
that I would, I cannot do.” How often have you tried to stop worrying about your bank account? How
often have you tried to stop worrying about the finances? You know you do, you try. We talk about
trusting God for our finances and you try to trust Him. But you find yourself slipping back into,

“Well, two from four leaves two and three from six leaves three. Yes I have that amount left and I
have this amount to pay next week.” You slip into it because it’s the nature. Your sinful nature
won’t let you trust God.

Loved ones, that’s why the event occurred that is described in Genesis 3:24. It’s the one that
provides that title for Steinbeck’s novel you remember.
Genesis 3:24, “He (God) drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the
cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

What does it mean? God saw that he had made us eternal. He had made us in a position where we could
take of the tree of life if we wanted to and we could take of the Holy Spirit. We could continue to
live forever and if He allowed us to do that with this nature (that we have developed), we would
turn the whole universe into a hell.

We would fly from planet to planet or from Milky Way to Milky Way, from solar system to solar system
and we would suck the whole world into pleasing us and doing what we wanted. If five billion of us
got into the universe doing that soon the universe would be absolute anarchy and chaos filled with
selfish people who were trying to get from the universe what they could only get from their Maker.
So God, to protect the universe and indeed to protect us, cut us off from the Holy Spirit. He
withdrew the Holy Spirit from us so that our own spirit actually died. That’s what happened.

Our own spirits actually died. That’s why many of us have no spirit. From time to time Jeanie Dixons
and spiritualists seem to have a live spirit but it’s a live spirit to the evil spirits in the
universe. It isn’t alive to God’s spirit. For most of us, our spirit is dead completely. For most of
us if we try to find ourselves, we can’t. Some of us say that. “I can’t find myself.” We can’t find
ourselves because we’ve lost ourselves becoming clowns — pleasing people or trying to satisfy our
own needs. We are now slaves to the world so that we hardly can remember who we are.

Sometimes late at night in bed you think, “What have I become?” Some of us can’t even ask that. Some
of us just say, “Who am I? Who am I? What would I really be like if I could be what I wanted to be?”
That’s why we say our spirits are dead. We’ve lost the sense of our own identity — of who we are
because we no longer have contact with our Father and we operate from our bodies up through our
souls. That’s the way we live.

When do our emotions go up? When we’ve had a nice meal. Our tummy feels comfortable, so our emotions
go up and we say, “I feel happy.” Or the sun shines and the spring comes early to Minnesota. So,
“Whoopee, I feel great!” But if it is rainy and cold and snowy I feel down. So we’re at the mercy of
circumstances. We’re like little puppets that are played with. It’s the same with our bosses. They
smile at us so we are pleased and we have a wonderful day. It’s so dumb. The boss will die in a
couple of years and I don’t know where our happiness will be then.

We’re like little animals that are utterly dominated by the outside physical world. That’s why so
many of us come into times of darkness and despair. When there’s an atmosphere in Europe of the
Russians with so many missiles poised our way and the Americans with so many missiles poised that
way, you gradually begin to realize that even with the healthy three thousand miles between them and
us some of them could come over this way. And so some of our society begins to fear. There’s a fear
that begins to move soulishly through us all. At times we waken up in the mornings with an
inexplicable sense of fear and eminent disaster. We don’t know why. It’s because we’re living in the
body or we’re living in the soul. So we’re utterly dominated because we’re living from the outside

in and not from the inside out.

And what do we do? We try the power of positive thinking. We try to make ourselves act right, but we
can’t. Our nature is determined because we’ve inherited it from millions of forefathers. We’ve been
operating this way for thousands of years. So the whole nature of the race is built into us now.
From time to time we can act against it. But usually it acts upon us. Throughout the Old Testament
days, God did not show what He has done. Throughout the Old Testament days, He simply did what we
asked for. We asked for knowledge – the knowledge of good and evil — so He gave us the law.

He said, “If you were living right, you would have no other gods before me. If you were living
right, you would not covet. If you’re living right, and trusting me, you would not kill. You would
not murder. You would not envy. You would not commit adultery.” He gave us more knowledge of good
and evil so that we would know more and more that there was something wrong. There was something
wrong with the way we were living. But God Himself did something to remedy this. He is the only who
has done it and is able to do it.

He crucified that nature. That’s what the Bible says. It calls it our old self — the old self that
works that way. Our old self was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin, or the body that was
used by sin, would be destroyed and we would no longer be enslaved to sin. (Sin is just independence
of God.) That’s what God did. He crucified us in Christ.

Now loved ones, it’s silly for you to make a whole deal about God being able to crucify us all. God
in fact, crucified us all before we were made. That’s what the Bible says. The Bible says that we
were crucified in Christ even before we were made. I’ll show you where it says that and then explain
it to you. It’s easy to explain in the light of our old Cray computer and his mainframes. It’s
Revelation 13:8.

Revelation 13:8-9, “And all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not been
written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.” I’ve
explained several times before, the Greek order is not that order. It’s the order that the King
James Version uses and the order of the Greek is, “Everyone whose name has not been written in the
book of life of the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.” That adverbial phrase
of time modifies the verb slain. “That was slain before the foundation of the world.”

In other words, Jesus the lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. Now you find that again
in 1 Peter 1:20. “He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the
end of the times for your sake.”
A Cray mainframe — even one of our silly computers that we little human beings can manufacture, is
able to take into consideration all your characteristics, all the nature of your mom and dad, your
birth, your schooling, your abilities, your education, and all the economic conditions that will
happen 20 years hence in your life. Even a Cray mainframe is able to work out the permutations and
the possibilities of the things that you may do. Probably it is able pretty clearly to forecast what
you will do, in the light of your free will and the contingent events in your life.

In other words loved ones, it is not difficult at all to see that the infinite God who made this
whole universe is well able to look ahead and to see the things that you and I will do and to
provide an answer for that even before He created us. And that’s when we were crucified with Christ.
If you say to me, “Why are we living the life that we’re living?” We’re living it because God gave
us the freedom to do it. He provided the deliverance for us in Jesus’ death, the complete

transformation of our natures and then He let us live out the kind of life our sinful nature would
live when we exercised our free will.

In other words, we are a lucky, lucky people. Our God has loved us so much but He has allowed us to
live the way we’ve chosen to live for these years and for these generations. Yet in his great
graciousness, he has provided a deliverance for us, a completely different character, a new life and
a new personality that we can receive by faith when we are at last good and ready. Except loved
ones, it can only be during this lifetime.

You have to choose it during this lifetime. Sooner or later, you have to decide whether you will
continue to live with this sinful nature that governs your life or whether you will enter into the
deliverance that God has given you in His Son Jesus. Loved ones, there is no reason, why you for one
more moment should live under the burden and the compunction and compulsion of that sinful nature.
There isn’t. There is no reason why you should toss in bed one more night with a nervous stomach
because you’re worried and anxious.

There isn’t any reason why you should once more lose your temper with your loved one because your
sinful nature is depending on her or him treating you a certain way. There isn’t. That has been
crucified in Christ and the moment you believe that and start acting in the light of that, that
moment God’s life and love will begin to pour through your personality and will begin to express
itself through you. You will begin to live again the way you are meant to live. Like that. (Pastor
shows a visual).

Now, that’s what the Father has done for us. I’d like next Sunday to share with you the Gospel that
has too often been shared with us. We’ll look at why so many of us are not living it, yet calling
ourselves Christian. But you don’t need to wait for that. You can act today. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we don’t understand every detail but we do see enough similarity between your Word’s
diagnosis of our situation and our own actual experience to realize that these things are true and
that this is the way it is. Lord we don’t understand all the details about our death with Jesus but
we certainly see that it’s reasonable to believe that you are able to do that. Most of all Father,
we see that your Word is right in the other details and so we have great cause to believe that it’s
right in this detail also. We have in fact been crucified with Christ and our sinful nature has been
changed. It is therefore reasonable for us to do what your Word says, “reckon also yourself to be
dead indeed unto sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We are to be dead to what the world can give
us from this day on and only depend on what you will give us.

Father, we know that each of us can determine this day whether we will live off the love of the
world or whether we will live off your love. Lord we see that we are free to do it because of what
you’ve done to us in Jesus. So dear Holy Spirit, will you reveal to us whatever of our sinful nature
we have not been willing to let go of, so that we may let it go and reckon it to be dead in Christ
to the love that the world can give us. From this day on we depend only on your love dear Father.
Your love will be the only thing in existence after this world is over.

Lord we thank you for this day and for your good news. And now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the
love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

How to Live

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

How should we live this life? I don’t know what your favorite songs are. It’s very difficult for a
European to like American country music but I like one song which I suppose as a pastor, I am not
supposed to like. That song is called ‘Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine’. I don’t know
about the watermelon wine because I haven’t tasted it but old dogs and children are two of the
lovely things that we have in our world, that God has given us to show a little of his own heart.

I am better on old dogs but when you see a little baby with tiny little fingers, you are just amazed
at those little fingers. You cannot believe that anything so tiny and so dear and tender could
exist. Our dear God who has made us, has given us little babies like that to say to us, “I made
that. I made the tiny little fingers. If you like that, you will surely like me.” That’s why he gave
us little things like that.

I am better on the little dogs because I had a little Yorkshire terrier and I didn’t have a baby.
When you see a little Yorkshire terrier lying on his back, just dying to be tickled, you suddenly
realize God made that little thing and the only reason He made it was to say to us, “Look, I am
dearer than that. If you have enjoyed yourself with that little dog, that little dog has only a tiny
bit of me in it. If you saw all of that in me, you’d love me.”

That’s why loved ones, God has given us all these things. These are lovely flowers but they are
nothing compared with him. The fragrance that you get from flowers when you smell them in the
springtime, they are nothing compared with the fragrance of Him, Himself. That’s what we’ve been
saying. All this world around us is here to express what God Himself is like, because he is hoping
with all his heart that you will see that all these things are just things. They’re all going to go
and they’re all going to disappear and they’re all a very poor expression of what He Himself is like
and that you would love him if you got to know him and that we are meant to get to know him.

We are meant to have a personal oneness with him and we’re meant to enjoy him. In fact, here is the
truth, what we need is not just food. You know that in your own experience. You have had food and
then you have had food. Psychologists tell us that food we bolt down (eat fast) when someone throws
it in front of us, keeps the blood flowing but it doesn’t do half the good of something your mom
lovingly made you and sets before you tenderly and with care. That food does something else for you.

It’s true for most of the experiences we’ve had in this life. You have ridden a bike, a motorbike,
and then you have ridden THE motorbike. You have driven a car and then you’ve driven THE car. You’ve
gone out with a person and then you’ve gone out with A PERSON. In other words, all those experiences
give you a lot more invisibly if they’re right, than just the particular thrill you get from them on
the surface. It really does seem, that in this life, there are things that you get from people,
things and the world itself and then there’s a deeper something you get from them.

Of course what we’ve been saying is that’s actually what we need. We need that deeper something. The
world here of things and people around us is only the surface thing that we need. Really, it’s all
here to reveal to us our dear Father, our Creator and that what we need most of all is him and his
friendship.

I know it’s popular in our day to say, “Oh, we need people, we need people, we need people”. You
can be so easily accused of being unloving if you say, “No, I don’t need anybody.” Then you get
into the other end with Frank Sinatra “doing it his way”. You want to steer clear from that and yet,
you feel there’s something a little unbalanced in the way we go over to this people thing. What our
dear Father says is, “Every dear heart that you know, every dear friend that you have, every dear
husband that you have, every dear colleague that you have, they just show a little of what I am.
They are only dear to you because of what of ME is in them. What you need most of all is Me, Myself.
That’s why I have given you all these things.”

We are like the little boy in a story I made up years ago. His dad loves his son with all his heart
and wants him to have a great Christmas – the best he has ever had. He knows his son wants a bike
and so he goes out and buys him just the right one. On Christmas he gives him the bike and his son’s
eyes light up. He is just delighted. Without a word to the dad he jumps on the bike and rides out.
He doesn’t come back the whole of Christmas day.

The dad sits at home wondering, “Now what did I achieve here? I gave this bike to show him how much
I loved him and how much I wanted us to have a good Christmas together. He is preoccupied with the
gift and has forgotten me completely. The whole purpose of my gift has been frustrated.”

Now, loved ones that’s really what we’re saying. That’s what has happened with us human beings.
We’ve got all preoccupied with these gifts. In fact, it’s even worse than that because most of us
for years now have pretty well learned to get along without the Giver. You know we do. I don’t want
to be offensive to you but you know how often you think of The Giver everyday. You know how
preoccupied we are all the time with money or whether the car will start or with what somebody
thinks of us or with where we’re going to get our next dollar from. We are.

We’re preoccupied with things and we’re preoccupied with each other. We’re preoccupied with people
or we’re preoccupied with whether it’s a nice day or whether we’re going to enjoy ourselves this
afternoon. But when you honestly think of it, you don’t think very much of your Creator. You think
of problems like how can he know everything and yet not make us do things? How can a kind God let
this kind of thing happen?

We think all kinds of high intellectual thoughts where we’re trying to dissect and analyze him. But
we don’t often think of God in a loving, kind, trusting way except when all the other systems break
down and we have nowhere to go. When a person dies, when the circumstances end up in disaster, or we
lose the job, then of course we do turn to him.

It’s sweet at that time because something real comes into your life. Many of us have had the most
realistic times at the time of the death of a mom or a dad or a dear one. For that moment, the whole
artificial life-support system falls away and we see it’s useless. We turn to the real source of
life and we go smoothly for a while. But it lasts a day or two days or a week and then you’re back
on to the artificial life-support system of this world.

What we have been saying over the past few weeks is that this has actually had an effect on our own
personalities. It has perverted them. It’s actually perverted our personalities. We have been going
this way, (Rev. O’Neill points to a diagram) not only during your lifetime. Your dad was going this
way, your mom was going this way, your great grandfather was going this way, your great great
grandparents were going this way, your great great….right back to Adam. We have centuries of

inbreeding so that we human beings don’t any longer have the personality that God gave us. It
doesn’t even operate the way he meant it to operate.

We have developed within us a deviate kind of strain of humanity whose personality is utterly
enslaved to the things we depend upon. It’s all so self-evident. You know it fine well. You
determine that you will no longer suffer the resentment and the pain and the anxiety that you
suffered last week. You were preoccupied with what people were saying about you in the office. They
talked about you, and they criticized you. You had some sleepless nights and then you determined
over the weekend, “I am not going to live under the fear of man. I am not going to live dominated by
what other people think of me. I am not going to be spoiled by their criticism.”

You then try it and you know the struggle. It’s as if you are opposing reality. You’re actually not
opposing reality. You’re opposing unreality. But unreality has become so real in our fallen world
that it seems like a rock that you cannot move. You go to bed at night and you think I am not going
to think of what they’re saying. I am not. Then you go to the office next day and you think,
“Whether he smiles at me or not, I don’t care. Whether she criticizes me or not, I don’t care. I
will be balanced and I will act from a heart of peace.” You know the battle you have.

You just have to cry out, “The good that I would, I cannot do.” And if that’s real to some of us
here, you know the business of the money and the finances and the security. You know how real that
is. We determine, no, God is my Father. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. I know that He is
able to keep me and keep me secure even if I lose my job. He is able to keep me.

Even if the social security system fails completely, I know God is God and I know He is able to keep
me. It doesn’t matter how low the bank balance goes, I will sleep well. I will rest in peace. Then
the bank statement comes and you see the balance and it’s like something grips you that you cannot
control. It’s like something outside you. It’s as if your whole personality keeps operating the
wrong way.

It’s as if you inside, say, “I depend on you Lord.” But your whole being is saying, “I depend on you
world. I depend on you things. I depend on you job. I depend on you circumstances.” That’s the
situation most of us find ourselves in. It’s not that any of us don’t want to do good. It seems we
all want to live right. We all want to live the right way and there’s something inside that
witnesses that is the right way to live. But when we try to live that way, it seems impossible. Some
of us say, “The fates are against me, the whole universe is operating against me.” We feel our whole
nature is operating against us. And actually that is dead right.

That is true and you’re exactly right. We’ll always cry that cry if that’s the only nature that we
have. “The good that I would I cannot do and the evil I hate is the very thing I do.” That’s the
only cry we can cry. We’ve put it in diagrammatic terms. Diagrams are nothing but symbols. They’re
nothing. But we put it this way. (Rev. O’Neill draws a small circle) Think of it as us being made by
God in His image. We’ve been made like him with a spirit. That’s the inside part of us. That’s the
real person. That’s the real you. That’s the place of quietness inside you that is really you. I
don’t want to bore you with it but it is that phrase, “What a man is when he is alone that he is,
nothing more.”

It’s hard to get quiet nowadays, but when you’re sitting quiet for some reason, what you really are
is what you are there, un-driven. Un-driven by your ambition, un-driven by what you have to do
tomorrow or what you have to do today, un-driven by the tyranny of the urgent, when you are just

yourself, that’s your spirit in there. That’s what that is.

Then, God put around us a soul. (Rev O’Neill draws a second circle around the first one). We’ll talk
about in the future but the soul is the “pseuche” in Greek or the psyche, which becomes
psychological in English. It’s the psychological part of us. It contains our mind, emotions and the
will. Around that is our body. (Rev O’Neill draws a third circle around the second one). God’s plan
was that we would live dependent on his love. I have tried to explain what depending on His love is.
So many of us have the idea “Oh yes, it’s a concept I have of God’s love.” Well it’s not.

Depending on God’s love means living everyday trusting him and resting in him. That’s what it means.
It means resting in him everyday. It means when the car won’t start, the mind doesn’t immediately
react, “I am late for work, how will I get this fixed? What will I be able to do? This and this will
follow and then this will follow.” Instead there rises from the heart, “Father, thank you that you
knew this was going to happen. Lord, I know that you have an answer to this. I ask you just to show
me.”

It’s a place of rest, not something that you have to impose on yourself. You hear me say that and
you say, “Oh I must remember that. That’s a good thing to do. The next time I am caught on the
freeway in driving rain, that’s what I’ll do.” Then you try to do that, and you can’t do it because
the personality is trained the other way. It’s trained to be worried about the snow, be worried
about what people are thinking of you, be worried about what you’re going to do.

Now, the Father’s plan was that we would live by his love. Really, his love is what gives us all we
need. We’ve said that often when somebody really loves you, it helps you a lot. When somebody really
thinks the world of you, it doesn’t matter too much what everybody else says about you. You think
(of that one person who is important to you), “They do think the world of me.” That gives you a
great sense of worth and self-esteem and all those things that they say we need.

Then if you have somebody that really loves you, that will stand by you through thick and thin, that
will never leave you and will do whatever is needed to protect you, there’s a great sense of
security. I can only liken it to our dads and moms. We felt that they loved us. They seemed to run
the universe. They seemed to know everything about everything and so there was a great sense of
security that we felt. We weren’t worrying about our food or about our clothing.

Then of course there’s just happiness in a real love relationship that transcends everything else,
including all the gifts that you give to each other. That’s what the Father wanted us to experience.
We said that his love gives us security, a sense of significance or worth and gives us great
happiness because there’s nothing like walking through the world with the Owner of the world beside
you to make you happy. The Father’s plan was that we would operate that way, from the inside out.
(Rev O’Neill draws an arrow from the inside circle of the diagram to the outside circle).

We go into a room full of people and we would have such consciousness that our Father had numbered
the hairs of our heads (which nobody else has taken the trouble to do) and that he loves us so
personally and knows our name that we would have a whole sense of stability, a whole sense of
security. We wouldn’t be all conscious of what everybody else was thinking of us.

I don’t know if you know the secret to be a good manikin, or a good model. In Paris, when Christian
Dior or some other designer is putting on one of their exhibitions the models have to walk down one
of those long ramps. You wonder how they can walk in those high heels, with everybody looking at

them. How do they do it without feeling self-conscious? One girl said, “I just set my eyes on
something in the room, or someone in the room. I just look at that person. I am preoccupied with
that person or that object and I don’t see anybody else. And so, I am not looking at myself. I am
not looking at the other people looking at me. I am looking at this thing.”

That’s it. When you have a preoccupation with your Father and a consciousness of his love and his
care and his sense of importance that he gives you, then you walk into a room and you’re stable
inside. You exude an atmosphere of composure, self-acceptance, modesty and yet settlement in your
being. That imparts itself to other people and gives to them a sense of that from within.

Then, when you get a room full of people who have that sense of value and worth from within,
independent of what everybody else is thinking of them, then suddenly you have order and
organization in that room. Where if you go into the room and you have none of that inside, you
wonder, “What does she think of me? She smiled at me, good; I’ll talk to her. Or he seems like my
kind of person, I’ll talk to him.” Everybody is doing that.

What you have got is a bunch of neurotics which is what the world is filled with — five billion
neurotics. All of them are looking with their little eyes to see what everybody else is thinking of
them and to see if everybody approves of them. They’re all like little puppies wagging their tails
and wanting more cookies. And so, we’re all running out of cookies because we want cookies and they
want cookies from us. We are just cookie monsters.

The whole universe is filled with five billion cookie monsters who are more and more neurotic every
time they get together. That’s true isn’t it? The more we get together in cities, the more of us
there are together, the more neurotic we are. That’s why in the rural areas sometimes there’s a
little less neuroticism because there are less of us. But God’s will is that we would love from
within and not live from without. That’s really the way he intended us to live, living from within,
from our spirits. Getting a sense of security from his love, a sense of significance from his love,
a sense of happiness and then that would express itself out through our souls and then out through
our bodies to other people. It (love) would actually fill the world.

You should look at that commission which is the basis of a true theology of work — which we should
talk about some day. It’s in Genesis 1:28. “And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'” Fill it. The Lord meant us to fill the earth with
a sense of value that we had from him, to fill the earth with the sense of security that we had from
him. That was his will — that we would fill the earth, not that we would empty it. His will wasn’t
that we would suck it dry of all the affection we could get from it, but that we would fill it.

Actually you know that yourself. You know that those dear men and women that have made difference to
our world are people that bewilder us because it seems they have little and yet they’re always
giving. It seems they filled the earth with so much beauty and yet they themselves seem to have so
little. Actually what you need is this fullness in your spirit. That’s what produces fullness. That
is an amazing power to transform even the material resources of the world. If you think for a moment
of ones like Howard Hughes, even though they had a mass of material resources they have not filled
the earth half as much as a Mother Teresa. It’s amazing.

So here’s one with nothing and one with everything but one fills the earth because it’s God’s spirit
and life that acts upon the material resources of the universe and makes it work. Your cash flow can
work about twelve or fifteen different ways if you have a good computer. Even an ordinary

intelligent person can give you about twelve or fifteen different ways in which your cash flow would
work. But, the amazing thing is that even after they are bewildered, God has a power of spirit
running through all the people that owe you money and all the people you owe money and all the
things that are happening to you that can make the whole thing work even when we can’t understand
why it did work.

So, God intends us to lead from within. We haven’t done that. We decided not to eat of the tree of
life. That’s what the tree of life is. It’s the Holy Spirit. Really it’s Jesus. It’s our dependence
on Jesus. We didn’t do that. We ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It has nothing to
do with an apple or arguments over fruit trees. It’s God’s way of setting before mankind in his
childhood; “You depend on me and trust me and I will show you where the oil is. I’ll show you where
the coal is. I’ll show you what you’ve to do in your life and what job I’ve put you here to do. Or
you can live by your own knowledge of good and evil. You can decide this is good and this is evil on
your own.” That’s what we decided to do. We decided we’ll do without God. We’ll take this world,
which seems so attractive to us.

The interesting thing is the only reason the world was attractive was because of what of God there
was in it. We were deceived by the spirit of Satan that God allowed to exist. We decided it (the
world) has everything we need. And so we began to turn to this world and depend on it. It’s the
world of people and the world of things and the world of circumstances. We determined that we would
begin to get from things, the security that we now lack because we had turned away from that
intuitive sense of our Father.

Now, loved ones it’s really important for you to see that. It’s not that you refuse to believe in
God. I know you believe in God. Probably most of us in this room believe in God. It’s not a question
that we turned away from believing in God. Romans says that. Maybe you should look at it. Sometimes
we think, “Oh you mean we’re atheist?” No, we’re not atheist in the normal sense. It’s in Romans
1:19.

Romans 1:19-20 – “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to
them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and
deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
But here’s what we did, and you see it in verse 21.

“For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became
futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became
fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or
animals or reptiles.”
It isn’t that we don’t believe in God, it’s that we don’t depend on God day-by-day, moment-by-moment
for these things. We depend on making sure we have the right furniture in our house, in making sure
we have the right stocks and shares in our portfolio.

One sister came up to me after last Sunday service and said, “Well, what should Christians do with
their investments?” We should invest, that’s not the issue. The issue is are you depending on your
investments for your security? That’s what most of us are doing. We think we’re subtle about it. Do
you believe God? “Oh yes, I trust the Lord. He has really blessed me and given me all this and this
and this.” But we know fine well that we trust our securities and our stocks and our shares plus
God. We trust the things that we have, plus God. That’s the wrong way around.

Do we trust God implicitly that He is able to support us when the job is gone, when the stock market
has crashed, when our house has gone, when everything is gone? Do we believe that finally the Lord
is actually able to support us as He supports the world with no visible means of support at all?
That’s it, and of course what we have done is, we’ve started to trust the things for our
significance and our sense of importance.

You know how many books are written on self-esteem and self-worth. You know how many people are
making pots of money out of those books. We’re all reading them voraciously because we have one
problem: self-worth. Of course the rest of the world smiles when America says that. The rest of the
world sees us as a nation of millionaires compared with them. It is ironic that the nation that has
more millionaires then everybody else in the world is the nation that is most troubled with
self-worth. That’s because we try to establish our worth through the opinions of other people and we
can never get enough.

So loved ones, that’s why we have begun to find it impossible to live the way we should. You see
what has happened. (Rev. O’Neill shows a diagram) Our natures were meant to work that way from God
down or inside out to the world. In fact we have turned to the love of the world and have begun to
live the other way. You know what we said has happened. Our spirits have really died. The spirit has
died. You have real trouble finding yourself now, don’t you?

That’s why so many of us have trouble. What will we do? What will we do with our lives? What job
will we do? What should I do? That’s why we have trouble with guidance. We’ve actually lost a sense
of who we are. We really have very little clue because we’re living preoccupied with the world of
things and people and circumstances. We’re just little souls in bodies. Somebody smiles at us here,
our body perceives that with our eyes or hears it with our ears, that goes into our emotions, makes
our emotions temporarily joyful and then we pop right back out and we smile at them.

It’s a purely mind-body thing. You smile at me and I smile at you. We really know fine well that
we’re just pleasing each other. We don’t really think a lot of each other, we are just glad that the
other person has given us approval so we give them approval. We live just a little soul-body
experience. That’s why we’re so dissatisfied with our lives. That’s why when that artificial
self-support system fails; we’re in real trouble because we then try to go deeper. We try to go back
to the root of our being to God and we’re unable to, because we’ve got used to going this way and
there is deadness when we come to our spirits. Of course that was the situation all through the Old
Testament.

There was no change in that and that’s why God did what He did in the Old Testament. He knew you men
and women need to see this. You need to see what you’ve done. You need to see what has happened to
you. He said, “You want the knowledge of good and evil? All right. I can only give you what you
want. I’ll give you a knowledge of good and evil”, and He brought forth the law.

But there was actually one purpose for the law and it might be good to look at it, it’s in Romans
5:20. “Law came in, to increase the trespass.” Of course the Jews did not think that. They thought,
“Good, we’ll abide by that knowledge of good and evil. We’ll obey the law.” That wasn’t why God gave
the law. He knew you couldn’t obey it because He knew our natures had become fallen. We had sinful
natures and carnal natures that could not live the way we’re meant to. So He gave us the law to
increase the trespass and that’s the struggle you see in the Old Testament.

People are trying to obey the law with a nature that cannot obey the law. Yet they in their pride

are trying even to abide by that divine knowledge of good and evil. Of course the only thing that
could be done was to replace this sinful nature and that is of course what Calvary is about. In fact
the Bible says, “We know that our old self”, this is the old self you see. (Pointing to a diagram).
The old self is that one there, the self that lives off the world, off circumstances and people and
things. That’s the old self. The only reason for keeping that one there is to highlight that there’s
a conflict that develops in our lives. There’s still a conscience inside that says we ought to
operate the other way but the old self is operating that way (showing the diagram) and so the Lord
crucified that old self in Jesus.

You remember we shared that that happened even before the creation of the world. The lamb was slain
from before the foundation of the world and it happened because God was able to foresee what you and
I would do. He was able to perceive what we would become and he provided for that even before He put
us on this earth. So that old nature has been crucified in Christ. But all through the Old
Testament, God was bent not on revealing that to man but simply in showing them the impossibility of
obeying Him with that old nature. All through Old Testament days that was so. But because the lamb
had been slain from before the foundation of the world and because God therefore had provided an
antidote, He lovingly forgave men their trespasses and their sins even in Old Testament times.

He did it because of his great work that he had done on the Cross in Christ. Yet he was not able to
reveal that until the time was right. So, all through Old Testament days, he simply forgave men
because they didn’t know anything more. They just knew some great work has been done in eternity
that enables God to forgive us our sins. They didn’t know what it was but they knew that God had
forgiven them.

Actually the Bible talks about covering sins. In the Old Testament, it talks about covering sins. It
doesn’t talk actually about doing away with sins. Except for a few outstanding people like David and
some of the prophets, whom God gave to the world to show the way we were originally meant to live,
it talks about covering sins. God covered their sins.

In fact, you remember there’s one interesting point in the Acts of the Apostles where one of the
apostles says, “In the times of ignorance, God winked at sin.” He winked at sin. He turned a blind
eye to it because the real work that He had done in Christ on Calvary had not been revealed. The
days of the Old Testament are days of the forgiveness of sins. It’s remarkable that you see it in
Psalm 103. We read this some Sundays ago and for many of us it seems to be a New Testament Gospel.
But that’s just because we don’t understand what the New Testament Gospel is.

“Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who
heals all your diseases.” Because of what He had done on Calvary, God lovingly forgave men their
sins so that if you turn over the page you see it in verse 10.

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, (You see He should wipe us out for our sins) nor
requite us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his
steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove
our transgressions from us.”

So God treated men and women in the Old Testament as if they hadn’t sinned even though He had not
yet revealed to them what they needed. They needed most of all that old nature wiped out and
destroyed, so that they could live again the way He had intended them to love – not just the

forgiveness of their sins.

That was all right for Old Testament days. But you know the tragedy of our present Gospel. Because
you know what our present Gospel is. It’s an Old Testament Gospel. It’s forgiveness of sins, and
that’s it. I mean our earth is filled with that Gospel. Our sins are forgiven. Our sins are
forgiven. Any good Jew can tell you that the Jews have had that Gospel for thousands of years.

We know our sins are forgiven. It’s interesting all of us say the same. We say, “Yes, but how do I
overcome sin in this life? That’s my problem. I am grateful that God has forgiven me my sins but
what is spoiling my home and my family and what is spoiling my witness to other people is, I can’t
overcome sin in this life. This sinful nature of mine prevents me from obeying God.”

So, in a way that bumper sticker has become an offense against Christ’s church. It’s the one that
says, “Christians aren’t perfect they’re only forgiven.” That’s okay if you’re a Christian but it’s
hard if you’re living with a Christian who isn’t perfect. And most of the world’s response to that
message is, “I wish you happy souls were perfect. It would make you a lot easier to live with.” We
are telling people our sins are forgiven, we’re not perfect, so you have to forgive us. But loved
ones, let me share the truth with you. Often an out and out sinner lives better than so-called
Christians. They aren’t Christians. They are actually Old Testament Jews.

But often, the old sinful world lives better than we do. I’ll tell you why. They’re afraid that
there might be a God. They’re afraid there might be a judgment day and maybe they’d better watch it.
Whereas so many so-called Christians today, live absolutely confident whatever they do in this life,
they’ll be forgiven — so who cares. It doesn’t matter too much if I pay my debts. After all God has
forgiven us everything.

Do you see where it comes from? It comes from the fact that the Gospel that we preach is not the
Gospel. The Gospel is this: our dear Savior took into Himself your miserable preoccupation with
people. He took my dependence on money and security. He took your dependence on good circumstances
for your happiness and He bore that whole nature of yours to death and destruction in His own body
on the tree from before the foundation of the world. That is done and that nature of yours that
seems so impossible has already been destroyed in Jesus and the moment you’re willing to let go of
it and to exercise faith that that has happened, that moment you are born free. You’re born free!

Yes, it’s like being born again. The old has passed away and the new has come. Suddenly you’re able
to live depending on the Father day-by-day and moment-by-moment trusting Him for all that you need,
trusting Him for your own security, trusting Him for what you need in the sense of self-worth and
self-value. It’s like a new world. That’s why a real conversion experience seems so high. It seems
the birds are singing more sweetly, it seems the sun is shining more brightly. You glimpse some of
that, don’t you? It echoes in your heart. Some of you had it at the beginning.

If you say to me, “Well, wait a minute. Do you mean none of us are born of God? When we hear that
truncated Gospel — that because of Jesus’ death God has forgiven us our sins — the Lord graciously
sends His Spirit to regenerate our spirits and to give us a feel so that at the beginning we feel
what it’s like. But you know how it goes. Soon after, maybe a week, two weeks, maybe three weeks,
you begin to find that the sinful nature is overcoming you and you’re unable to live the way you
were at the beginning. The Baptist Church says that the life of an effective Christian is three
years at the most.

The fact is it’s because you’ve believed the Old Testament Gospel instead of the New Testament
Gospel. Our world is filled with dear people like ourselves who believe like the Jews believed for
thousands of years that our sins are forgiven. Then we’re given the instruction – “now you have to
live like God”. And poor little souls that we are, we try to start living like God. Except that we
come up against the sinful nature. Then somebody reads this in Romans 7, “The good that I would, I
cannot do”, and says that’s the normal Christian life. And so we say, “Okay, we’ll keep on.”

It’s not the normal Christian life. It’s the life of an old Jew living under the law trying to obey
the law without believing in that miraculous work that was done on Calvary that is outlined so
clearly in Romans 6. Loved ones, that’s the Gospel. Your sinful nature, your carnal nature has been
crucified with Christ and you are able to enter into that. That’s all the information I had, and you
don’t need more if you really want to be free – if you really want to be a Christian rather than an
Old Testament Jewish convert.

If you really want to know the deliverance that God sent Jesus to bring us from the power of our
sinful natures, then loved ones, do read and begin to meditate on Romans 6. See that it is
gloriously possible to live the way God meant us to live — from the inside out. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank you for this dear word that is so clear and so plain. We thank You Father most
of all for our Savior Jesus. And we thank You Lord Jesus for taking every bit of us — these hands
that so readily go to the wrong thing, these lips that so readily do the wrong thing, these tongues
that so readily speak the wrong thing, these natures of ours that operate from the outside in, these
little eyes that are so eager to find a favorable smile in somebody’s face, these ears that are so
eager to hear of some financially satisfying news. Lord Jesus, you took all these into yourself. You
took the very worst of us and allowed Your Father to burn them out into eternity by His wrath
forever so that we might be freed from all that we have been up to this present moment.

O Lord, we thank you that that is up to date right to this very second. You died in eternity in the
midst of timelessness for the express purpose of being able to apply that to any of us at any
second. So Lord Jesus we thank you that you have crucified us up to this second — and up to this
second. We can be freed from ourselves and live above what we have been over these years. We can
live in you and be like you to our Father. We thank You Lord. Thank You Father.

We commit ourselves to beginning to live the way we were meant to, this very moment through the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

Let God be Your Guide

Acts 5:1-4

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

But we are such miserable creatures, we human beings, that we have a way of being more ‘Christian’
than God, it seems, or more ‘religious’ than God. And you know we have ways of playing games with
God. And loved ones, that’s what we’re trying to break through these Sunday mornings. We’re trying
to break through all the games we play with the Lord, with the Father, and see what way he means us
to live in our own everyday lives.

And you remember that’s what Ananias and Sapphira were doing; they were really playing games. I
mean: big deal! They sold the land. And so they had this land to give to God, and the proceeds of
it. And obviously the Holy Spirit had said, “Give the lot!” And old Ananias did a little
calculating, and decided he would have enough for retirement, if he held on to a certain amount, and
gave the ‘bulk’ to God. But, the Holy Spirit had told him to give ‘all’ of it to God. And
obviously what happened was, the Holy Spirit brought about death in both him and his wife.

And that’s what you and I are all involved in. We feel we’re pretty shrewd, and sophisticated, and
subtle, and so we all kind of ‘play games’ with God, and aren’t real with him. And that’s why many
of us do not experience the healings and the answers to prayer, that are the normal experience of
God’s children, here on Earth. And so what we’re trying to do in these mornings is to find out how
you, or how I am playing games with God, because you don’t need ‘me’ to tell you there’s going to
come a moment when you can’t play games anymore! And you can’t pretend – you are face-to-face with
him like that [Pastor puts his hands together]. And there’s no longer any way in which you can
escape his glance; and everything is laid open before you and him and the whole world. So it’s
essential that we do it now.

That’s what we’re trying to do. I’ll share with you a little illustration that I think I have
mentioned in past years, that seems to set forth what you and I have done with God, over the years,
and what you, in fact, may be doing with him in your own life, at present.

The dad who can drive — done his test years ago — and the 13 year old little ‘Bright Eyes’ who is
anxious to learn and get his license. And so the dad says, “Okay John, let’s get into the car, and
I’ll begin to give you some driving lessons.” And so he starts to show him where the clutch is, and
how to put it in and let it out gently; get her into gear; turn the ignition key; get the whole
thing going. And John begins to drive a little, after the first two or three days watching his dad.
Then his dad says, “Now there, you see, you have to change a little earlier; you see, we’re on a
hill.” And John says, “Yeah, yeah, I got it; I got it.” Then they go down the next piece of the
road, and his dad says, “Now, a little more gently around the turn around there, and use the break a
little to power break it back.” And he says, “Got it. Got it.”

And the next day all you can hear is John saying, “Got it! Got it! Don’t bother me. Yeah, I got
it. Okay, okay, just sit there I’ll be able to manage; I’ll do it okay.” And he feels he can do it
himself, and the dad tries to get his word in edgeways from time-to-time, but John is beginning to
get in control of this thing, and he feels he knows the way. Now, he doesn’t realize that there’s a
mass of stuff that he doesn’t know about. There are all kinds of difficulties he’ll get into on the
freeway. There are all kinds of techniques that he has to learn when he gets on the freeway. But

he doesn’t know that whole area of knowledge that is out there. He just thinks, “Good, I got it! I
got what you taught me! I can do it myself, okay.” And he begins to drive that car more and more
independent of his dad beside him. That’s what we’ve done. That’s what we’ve done.

“Good, I see the way you work it; I see the way my dad worked it; earned a little money; got a
little investment; built up a little background; okay. Then he started a little – yeah, I see how
to do that. Good! I see this; I see the way Mom has managed her health; I see the kind of food you
eat. Good, I’ll eat that kind of food. Then, I see the way you make friends, and influence people.
Okay…” And we’ve got all kinds of ideas as we’ve passed through life, on how to run life
ourselves. And that’s the way most of us operate. We operate with a whole series of ideas that we
have now got hold of for ourselves, and we feel we can do it, without too much reference to the dear
Dad that sits beside us. And we’ve begun to drive the car on our own by our own — as the Bible
says, our own knowledge of good and evil. We now know the good things to do and the evil things to
avoid; the right things to do and the bad things not to do. We now have a fair idea how to run this
life without constantly listening to ‘him’ telling us which way to turn.

Now the fact is we’re like the little guy; there’s a mass of knowledge out there that you and I
‘don’t’ understand and ‘don’t’ know about. And we have no notion what happens after the breath
stops; not a clue. And yet we know fine well that the moment the breath stops, the ‘greater part’
of life begins. That’s as far as we can all tell. The ‘greater part of life’ is after this life.
There are all kinds of things that you don’t know about; all kinds of things that occur and happen
to your money, to your jobs, to your own life and your own heart that bewilder you. You know that.
There’s a whole wealth of knowledge of good and evil out there that we have no idea of, but we’ve
got our own little track, we’ve got our own little bit in Minnesota, or New York, or wherever we
live, we’ve got our own little track. And it’s like that, isn’t it? You’ve got your own little
track from your home to your office, and kind of back. Then you make little detours to play games,
and then you make little detours for vacation. But you keep on the same track. And we kind of get
this little part of the world under our control, and we live it, pretty independent of much
direction from our dear Father above. There’s a whole wealth of knowledge that we don’t understand.
But we forget about that. We just play the little bit that we know by the knowledge that we have.

Now of course, as our life goes on we do a bit like John. As he begins to get more and more
confident that he can drive this car, he begins to determine that he will drive it wherever he wants
and he says, “I’d like to go over there and see that,” even though it’s down a very, very steep
hill, and it’s winter. And the dad says, “No, don’t go down there.” But he’s so confident he says,
“Sure I can do it. I can drive down here. I can take it wherever I want to take it.” And the dad
says, “No, no! Don’t, don’t.” But he does and he makes it, and manages through, because the dad
kind of puts his hand on the wheel to save him; puts his hand on the brake at certain times to save
him a disaster. And so the boy begins to get the feeling, “Well, I don’t need to listen to him. I
can really do whatever I want to with this car.”

And so he begins to drive it wherever he wants, and listens less, and less to his father. And as he
listens less and less to him, he doesn’t notice, but his dad had moved from the passenger seat, and
then has moved into the back seat. And the son notices that he can’t hear his father the way he
used to. He did used to hear him telling him what he should do, but less, and less is he able to do
this. But he hasn’t time to look around, and he certainly hasn’t time to look back there; he’s so
preoccupied with now managing the whole thing himself.

And then one day he looks around, and there’s nobody there. There is nobody there. The father was

no longer able to keep contact with him. And the father who could not abide being in that car with
it going all the places that the son was now taking it; it wasn’t the plan that he had in mind at
all. And so he actually stepped out of the car, and the boy is now in control of the car himself.

And loved ones, that’s the situation that many of us have got ourselves into. And that’s why at
times, you find it so difficult to hear God, because you’re pretty much in control yourself of your
own life. And you have certain things that you just are determined you ‘will not do’. I mean, it’s
alright hearing other people going to Africa, and going to India, and being missionaries, and all
that stuff, but you have organized God pretty well; you know the limits within which you’re prepared
to serve him.

And of course the Father in heaven knows that you are really in control, that you do things ‘with a
little bit of help from your friends’; you do things ‘with a little bit of help from God’, but you
really don’t depend upon him. You depend upon yourself.

And of course, what many of us do is, we discover that that is the case, and we become worried, and
we become concerned, and we desperately ask God to come back into our lives. And many of us have
done that; many of us have taken the step, “Lord Jesus, I ask you to come into my life and to begin
to guide my life again.” And God graciously has done that. And he’s sat beside us again and he’s
begun to direct us.

But of course, it’s not long after we are born of God, or are converted that we begin to do the same
thing all over again. The Lord directs us to drive the car down through a very muddy road, and we
decide, “Not my car. It is clean; I want to keep it clean; I don’t want any danger of denting it in
any way. I’m not driving it down there; I’m just not.” Then we begin to get that ‘hand on the
wheel’ stuff, you know. The Father kind of, “Come on.” “No! No!” Even where we can’t see, even
where we can’t see as well as him, yet we just want to turn the wheel. We want it, because we want
it.

And we begin to discover there is within us, not only a kind of independence of him, but now an
inbred ‘will of our own’ that we’re surprised at ourselves. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in
that situation; but you feel, “I know where I’m going.” In fact, it’s a bit ridiculous, but if
you’re trying to adjust the seat belt, and you’re not really looking, it’s amazing isn’t it?
Somebody beside you can actually – who is looking, can say, “Look, pull over this…” And you’re,
“No!” Even though you can’t see completely; even though you’re not absolutely sure; yet you feel,
“My hands, when my hands are on the wheel, I’m safe.”

And so many of us begin to discover within us a willfulness, a determination to do what we want in
our life, even though we don’t necessarily know it’s the ‘better’ thing to do. And of course what
happens again is, the Father begins to become less, and less vocal, and speaks to us less, and less.
And then further along the road, we turn around; he isn’t there; he’s in the back seat; and then
he’s out again. And that, loved ones, is what has happened to us men and women down through the
centuries, and probably is a picture of exactly what has happened in your own personal life.

And what we’ve been sharing these Sundays is, there is only one thing to do, and that is stop that
‘automobile’ that you’re driving; stop your life and no longer invite God to get in and sit beside
you, but in fact, open the door and get out, and walk right around to the other side, and ‘you’ get
into the passenger seat. And you say to your dear Father, “Father, you know this part of the road;
you know the next part of the road; you know the part of the road that I can’t even see; you know

what you made this thing for. Lord, you get in behind the wheel, and I will go where you want me to
go, and I will do what you want me to do, the way you want me to do it. Father, you get in; this is
your life; you do what you want, and I’ll obey you and listen to you.” That’s what we’re saying
sooner or later, loved ones, has to happen.

God is the God of the whole universe. He’s the God of the whole universe. See, you know it
yourself. You’re that, you’re less than that. [Pastor holds his fingers 3 mm apart.] I’m less than
that. We’re so small; we can’t even be ‘seen’ beside him. He’s the God of the whole universe.
But, you are the only version of him that he has ever made. You are the only version of him that he
has ever made. So he has a vested interest in you. So you’re not just a nothing; you’re the unique
version of him that he has produced on this universe. And he is anxious, above all else, that you
will fulfill the plan that he has in mind for your life. And he is very concerned with having the
freedom to be God of your life.

But see, you have to decide that. You have to decide who is god in your life. Is God god, or are
you god? And it’s important that you don’t play games. It’s important that you don’t do an
‘Ananias and Sapphira’s’ game, “Well Lord, yes; yes I know you’re really God; and you certainly can
control my Sunday life, and you can control some of my money, and you can control some of my
behavior, but really let’s face it. This is my life. I’m glad you’re helping me; I’m glad you can
deliver me in trouble, but I will live it myself. And I have a fair notion of how to do it.”

See, it’s an atheistic attitude. And what the Father wants us to do, is to take him seriously. And
loved ones, that’s all there is to it. It’s letting God be the god of your whole life. And maybe I
should share with you, it is very easy, it is very easy, Sunday after Sunday, to listen to this, and
I know you agree with it. You’re dear hearts, and I know you agree with it. But it’s easy to agree
with it, and never do anything about it. It’s easy to agree with it, and yet live a controlled
surrender to God, year, after year, after year.

And I’m sure you’ve been in the spot where I’ve been. I think, “What would I do if I were in
Solzhenitsyn’s position [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918 – 2008, Russian political prisoner, Nobel
Prize winner and author of books like “The Gulag Archipelago”], or if I were in the position of some
of the loved ones who must, you admit, be still in Siberian prisons, or if I were in the positions
of some of the loved ones who are persecuted in other parts of the world? What would I do then?
And I’ve comforted myself, as you probably have, by saying, “Well, I’m not in that position, and I
have been blessed by being born in this wonderful land. And thank goodness that I don’t have to
feel the pain of torture, or I don’t have to decide whether I’m ready to give up my whole life, and
my whole possessions, and my home for God…”

See it’s not real. I mean, you ‘are’ being asked that. You ‘are’ being asked it. I mean, it’s not
a case of, “Are you going to get into heaven on a lower level than everybody else?” It’s simply
that God ‘is’ asking you that. He’s asking you to come to a place in your heart where you’ve
settled that whatever he would ask you to do, you’d do it. See, that’s why it’s possible. I don’t
know if some of you read “Gulag [Archipelago]”, but I mean, the tortures are hideous. They’re
almost impossible to conceive. But do you see they have won, before they’ve won, those guys, and
those ladies? They’ve won, before they’ve won. I mean, they’ve settled before they went into the
torture chamber; they’ve already settled. All that is over and done with, “Lord you can have my
body; you can have my possessions; you can have my whole life.” They’ve won before they fight the
battle. That’s what we’re saying, that even if you are not being tried by the KGB, even if you’re
job is not on the line, it ‘is’ on the line, because the Lord is saying, “Would you start all over

again with me? Would you start your life all over again?”

Now, if you’re like me I’m sure that some of you who are beginning to get life together say, “Whew!
Thank goodness, he won’t mean ‘me’. He’ll mean these young kids who are just starting off, but he
won’t mean me.” He ‘does’ mean me. He means you and me; everyone who can hear this, still in their
heart, everybody who is not so dead that they can’t hear it; everybody who can still hear in their
heart what I am saying, he does mean you.

If you say to me, “Well, do you think he’s going to ask me to go to Africa or India? Do you think
he’s going to get me to give up my job, and give up my social security, and all that stuff?” I
don’t know what he’s going to say to you. But do you see what he’s saying today is, “Would you come
to the place, in your ‘heart’, with him, where you are playing so straight with him, that that would
be no problem to you, that of course you will?” “Of course Lord, if you want me to give up my plans
for my future, if you want me to give up my home, if you want me to give up my comfort, Lord
whatever. I’ll do whatever you want.”

That’s it; that’s what he wants from us. And especially loved ones, I’d say lovingly to those of us
who are more than 50, more than 60, more than 70, he’s saying the same thing to us, you see, because
all he’s saying is, “Am I God? Am I God of your life? Have I the right to do what I want with your
life?” And brothers and sisters, I’d point out to you that if you say, “No,” there’s nothing we can
say on the Day of Judgment, you see. I mean let’s just talk as people in the same boat here, there’s
nothing we can say a moment after death, if we take that attitude. No, there’s not. I mean, you
and I, we’ll just go up before his throne… He won’t need to say a thing. Our hypocrisy, our
‘Ananias Sapphira, hold on to what we need’ attitude, it’ll fill our hearts and our minds so much
that we will just sneak away. We’ll know what he’s thinking; we’ll know what the whole world is
thinking.

See, there’s only one way to live in God’s world, and that’s with God being the god of your whole
life. And loved ones, if you say to me, “Well, what would he ask me to do?” That really doesn’t
matter, does it? It really doesn’t matter. Only he knows that. But you can know in your heart if
you have given it all over to him.

And you know if you’re sitting there saying, “Well, I can’t,” well, you can. If there’s a little
tremor anywhere: “What about your money? Okay, your stocks and shares? What about those? What
about your future? What about your marriage? What about your job? What about your home? Would
you be ready to give ‘that’ up to him, if you were to go and live in some little rented apartment in
some city in Africa? Would you be willing to do that?” See, it’s not hard; you just deal with
those things and determine, “Are you willing?” And that’s what God is saying to us today.

And here’s the thing, unless you come to that place where you put him in the driver’s seat behind
the wheel, you’ll never hear his voice, you’ll never know what he wanted you to do. That’s it.

A dear person here in this room said, “It’s amazing isn’t it, the way God hides himself from the
people who wouldn’t obey him anyway? It’s interesting how God hides himself. Actually, lovingly,
because they couldn’t bear the pain of his presence; he hides himself from those who wouldn’t obey
him anyway.” And so you can’t know what God wants you to do until you’ve said to him plainly, “I’m
willing to do it. I’m willing to do anything. I’m willing to surrender all. And Lord, it is your
life, and I give it to you with all my heart to do what you want with.” Now that’s a heart
decision. It needs only to be between you and God, but it’s a heart decision that enables him to

start changing your life.

And this is an ordinary Sunday and you can make the decision very plainly and commonsensically
today. And you don’t need to – in fact, one thing to know, what will happen is, ‘you still trying
to be God’. Giving everything up to God, is letting him at last be God. So I’d ask that if there
is one of you, that has been a bit of an Ananias or a Sapphire, hedging the bets, holding back some
of the stuff so that – so that – [Pastor chuckles] We’re so dumb. Why? Oh, why? What are you
going to do with the extra money? How are you going to buy a new body? I mean, we’re so dumb,
we’re pitiful; we’re pathetic.

So it doesn’t make any sense. But that Satan, he so deceives us that he gets us to do stuff that is
absolutely stupid. What are you going to do with the stuff you hold back? What are you going to be
able to trade it in for? If you lose your job and you lose your home, and you lose your career, and
you lose your marriage, and you’re trusting him, you’ve still got everything. But if you give him a
kind of a pittance, and hold on to something for yourself for a rainy day, you’ve got nothing,
because anything can sweep across you and wipe out 30 ‘rainy days’ worth of savings.

Anyway, you know it for yourselves; you build up the money; you build up the reputation; you build
up the career. At the end it goes like that [Pastor snaps his fingers]. And it just goes like
that! And actually you know it yourselves; you’ve met people who have not made sufficient
provision, and you’ve met other people who have made plenty of provision, and one can still be alive
living in a remarkable degree of happiness with the little that they have, and the other can be
dead, and all the stuff has been passed on to somebody else.

So Satan mesmerizes us with the things. So step out of it. And you can; you can step out of it
today; just quietly in your own place there, you can make your peace with God, and you can say,
“Lord God, I have treated you as a consultant up to this moment in my life. I have treated you as
an advisor. Lord, this is wrong! You are God and I am the creature, and you know what I am here
for. I ask you to blow away out of my mind all the presuppositions I have, all the things I feel I
couldn’t do. And Lord, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do from now on. I ask you to come in, and
to sit behind the ‘steering wheel’ in this life of mine, and you drive. I’ll sit here in the
passenger seat, and I’ll go where you want. You just take over.” That’s it. That’s what it is.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we repent of running our own lives. We repent of trying to have a bit of
you, and a bit of everything else. We repent of wanting to share the guidance of our lives with
you. We repent of wanting to be able to negotiate a good deal. We repent of discussing
alternatives and modifications instead of obeying you blindly and blankly. We repent Lord, of
adopting the normal wisdom of ‘this world’ in regard to our right to our own lives. And Lord God,
we acknowledge that we are not our own, that we have been bought with a price and that the only
thing that will continue to exist after this world is over, is that which has been destroyed in
Jesus and recreated in him.

And Lord God, we toss our hat into the ring. We throw our life onto the altar of the cross, and we
say, “Lord God, you take it now, and you run it and bring it back into line with your plan, and we
will obey you and trust you.” And Lord, where we have possessions like Ananias and Sapphire, either
in our own reputation or our possessions or property, we tell you Lord, we want to sell it all in
our hearts, and we want to give it all and not keep anything back in our hearts. And then Lord, we
know that you’ll be free to tell us what you really want us to do.

So Father, we come now in the name of Jesus who bore all the pain to wipe us out and start us all
anew, all over again. And we ask you, because of Jesus, now to take us, take us again under your
dear arms, and under your wing and Lord, live this life the way you wanted it lived in the first
place, whatever that means for us.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with each one of us now and ever more. Amen.

Who is Your King?

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

This is a feel of what it was like on the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. It’s strange, loved ones,
because every time I come to this day, (Palm Sunday) I don’t quite know how to deal with it. I
don’t know if you feel the same. It’s all the big palm branches that we spread before Jesus and we
cheer; yet you feel that that’s not just exactly what it’s about. It’s not just about a triumphant
entry and yet it is partly that.

There are some interesting verses if you look at them that point out the difficulties. If you look
back to John 12, you’ve got the great feeling that this was a triumphant thing and everybody is
trying to make Jesus king. They’re all anxious to exult Him, to praise Him and it seems to vote Him
in. Yet you have these strange verses.

John 12:18: “The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.”
That kind of makes you wonder. “Is that why they went to meet Him? It wasn’t really because they
were utterly convinced that He was the Son of God, the Lord of all and the king of glory but that
“He had done this sign.” It was the old proud excitement thing. You get this a bit further on in
verse 37.

John 12:37: “Though he had done so many signs before them, yet they did not believe in him.” So in
the midst of all the excitement about him you get this suggestion that they really came because they
had seen somebody raised from the dead. Yet even though they’d seen somebody raised from the dead,
they didn’t really, really believe in Him. Then you get towards the end verse 42,43.

John 12:42: “Nevertheless many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the
Pharisees they did not confess it, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.” It just seems
strange. It doesn’t seem real. Many even of the authorities believed on Him and yet they didn’t
confess it because they might be put out of the synagogue. And then it says, “For they loved the
praise of men more than the praise of God.”

So you’ve got a kind of mixture. You’ve got all this exultation over Jesus coming in, and you’ve got
a lot of people apparently approving of Him and applauding Him. Seemingly some of them believed in
Him yet you’re not sure which reason made them believe. Then you’ve got the emphasis at the end that
even those who did believe didn’t say anything because they were afraid of what people would think.

I don’t think it’s important to decide what we think of Jim Baker or what we think of Jimmy
Swaggart. I think the bad thing about the whole business is, it makes you and I feel so
self-righteous. We start pontificating and judging, and that’s the last thing we should do. It seems
to me we should love and be merciful and be kindly affectionate. We’re in the same boat except for
Jesus’ grace.

It does seem easy, doesn’t it, to get caught up in PTL or in 700 Club or in Jimmy Swaggart or in
smaller things like this Campus Church and to get all excited about the outward show. But after all
is said and done, the outward show has an awful lot of bluff and hypocrisy in it, hasn’t it? I mean
there are enough of us who are all excited about the outward show of this ministry or that ministry
or of Jesus coming in on the donkey and everybody cheering Him and yet there’s a lot of bluff
underneath.

There are a great many of us who are giving all the praise, applause and support because of some
outward sign that is plainly sensational. It’s exciting and we want to be part of it, but it doesn’t
necessarily say much about what our own personal attitude is to the central figure in the whole
show.

In other words, it’s easy for us to give money either to this place or to some other place or
ministry. It’s easy to have a lot of outward excitement about it and yet that doesn’t say much about
your own attitude to the King Himself. Loved ones, these days are important for us because they are
an opportunity for me to say very plainly to you: it’s no big deal whether you throw down palm
branches or whether you throw down your clothes and garments for the guy to ride His donkey over.
It’s no big deal whether you give money to this ministry or that ministry. It’s no big deal whether
you’re there when the crowds are there.

The important thing is, is He king in your own life? That’s it, you see. That’s what Jesus was
reacting against here. He knows us human beings. We are dear people but we are dumb. We are such
silly little kids. We love the excitement and all the fun and yet we’re just miserable old
hypocrites when we’re away on our own. We’re okay when the crowds are there and they’re bringing Him
in on a donkey. But when the machine guns are out there, or the guy with the number 666 that we are
watching for comes, then we’re not so strong. The Lord knows that. He tries repeatedly to say to us
quietly, “But listen, am I the king of your own life? Do you let Me ride into your life on My little
donkey? Do you let Me guide your life, run your life and rule your life? Do you treat Me as king
personally, privately?”

I think that’s what Palm Sunday is about. It’s God saying to us, “Look it’s not the big show that
counts. I really don’t want to be an earthly king. I really don’t want everybody to treat Me as the
king of America. I don’t want that. My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this
world, My disciples would fight. That’s not what I am after. There’s only one kingship that I
treasure and that’s the kingship of your own life, your own personal life. Your own life is dear to
Me. You are precious to Me. Your will is dear to Me. I want you to be Mine and I want to be king of
your life. That’s why I put you here. I put you here so that you and I could live this life
together, so that you could do what I’ve put you here to do.”

Loved ones, that’s what we’ve been talking about over these Sundays. But you and I have got lost in
all that. We really don’t live our lives that way at all. I don’t blame you. We’re all in the same
boat. We’re born into this world where everybody has a certain attitude and a certain way of acting
and we’ve just entered into it.

We’ve just come into the same world as everybody else. Even our moms and dads have encouraged us.
We’ve kind of looked around and said, “Boy this is a big place and I am a very little speck here and
nobody cares too much for me. I can see the way they brush me aside. If I’m going to make anything
of myself, I am going to have to strive here.” Most of us just come into that naturally and we start
striving.

After we waken up — sometimes we waken up in sixth grade, some of us don’t waken up until we’re at
college, some of us don’t waken up until 10 years later — but eventually when we waken up and see
that there’s no free lunch, we decide we’d better get going otherwise they’ll walk over the top of
us. And so we get going. We just get going depending on our will and our upbringing. Most of us get
going and start working out how to make a living. Then it’s not just enough to make a living but you

have to have a little extra for the fun of it. So you try to get a little extra and then you try to
begin to get on top of life as far as your survival is concerned.

You begin to think, “I am different from everybody else”, and yet they’re not treating you as
different. “If I could get a different kind of car, they would treat me as different.” And so we get
a different kind of car — not because it drives better — just because they’ll look at us. It has
nice a color or it’s a Cadillac or whatever and it makes them look up to us. Before you know it,
we’re all on the same miserable track. We’re working like mad to try to survive and to establish our
importance in everybody else’s eyes. It’s not long before we are little puppets that are driven by
those needs.

Somebody said to Rockefeller, “What do you want?” He said, “Just another million, just another
million.” Even a Rockefeller never thinks that he has enough. And of course we think, “Yes, yes look
at him. Now we really are justified. We just need another thousand.” We never have enough to make
ourselves absolutely secure. Cancer could hit you and then so can the medical bills.

It’s endless. We get onto our rat race and we keep on going and going and going. Most of us can
actually see no end to it because we are being led by the nose. If you step back loved ones, it’s
like being led by the nose. It’s like some fellow has you by the nose and says, “Come on, just a
little further and you’ll have absolute security. Just a little further and people will really think
you’re great.” We’re on a treadmill that just keeps turning and turning and turning. That’s what
we’ve said is the situation with most of us.

Does God guide our lives and our jobs and our relationships? Forget it! He’s not in the picture at
all except when we’re in real trouble. Then we call Him in an emergency for some consultation. But
on the whole, we tip our foreheads to Him and we get going, trying to make ourselves secure and of
some importance in this world. Most of us live our life like that. Do you see how far it is from Him
being king?

You see how far it is from Him being the king of your life. We don’t need to pretend with each
other. You know how you live your daily life. Most of it is lived by your common sense. But that’s
just an excuse we have. We really mean it’s lived by our own wills. We do what we want to do and
what we think we should do. If I ask you, “Does God want you to do that?” you’ll look at me blankly
and say, “I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything to me about it.” And I say to you, “Have you asked
Him?” You say, “Well, now and again I ask Him.” On the whole, we live an unguided life that is
driven by our needs and desires.

So the King is not king in our life. In fact, if I ask you what’s king in your life, you’ll probably
say, “Necessity is king in my life. I haven’t got the luxury of sitting around, letting somebody
else be my king. Necessity — my needs, and the things I have to do — that’s what dominates me.
That’s the king in my life.”

That wasn’t the way it was meant to be. It wasn’t meant to be like that. That wasn’t God’s plan at
all. His plan was that you and He would live it together. That you and He would do it together. You
are different. You’re different, it doesn’t matter how close you feel to your loved one beside you.
You’re different. It doesn’t matter how alike you might look to somebody else. You are very
different. There’s a life that the Creator wants you to live that is different from all the rest of
us. He wants you to live it with Him and He wants you to talk it over with Him and He wants you to
receive His guidance.

Don’t get all funny about it and ask, “Oh, how do you get guidance from God, is it in a vision?”
It’s through your thoughts. God feeds His thoughts through your mind and through your spirit when
you have an attitude to Him that treats Him as king. Now how do you do that? Well, you know if you
really did love and respect your dad or your mom, we all differ. Some of us have had great respect
for our dads, some of us for our moms, some of us for an uncle or an aunt or maybe even some for a
schoolteacher, or minister.

Now, think of that. Think of it just with your mom or your dad. If you really think a lot of them,
you know what happens every time you come to not only an important decision in your life but even to
many of the ordinary things that you do. You immediately think, “Now what would my mom do here? I
wonder what my dad would want me to do here? What would he do?” You just naturally think that. You
don’t go into all kinds of mystical experience and try to contact your dad or your mom. You just
think, “What would they do?”

That’s part of what it’s like. That’s part of the way God meant us to live. You and I would size
things up, and we’d say, “I didn’t come here by chance. There’s more to this world than meets the
eye. There is a God. He put me here. He put me here for a purpose. I’d better start being interested
in what He’s thinking.” You start treating Him with respect. Then every time you are involved in
something, you wonder, “What does He want me to do here? What does He want me to do in this job
situation? I think I should change jobs but I wonder what He thinks? What does He think?”

That’s the way God intends us to live. It’s the same with marriage. Not, “I love this girl. She’s
really great. I am just going to marry her.” No, you say, “Lord God, You know what the story is
going to be 10 years down the way. You know what it’s going to be like. What do You think? What do
You think I should do?” It’s the same with the things you say in the office through the week. The
dirty joke goes out and the dirty joke is a big deal to you. You have a God that put you here, He
loves you, and He is the one you’re going to see at the end. So you say, “Lord, this joke doesn’t
feel too good to me, how do You want me to respond to this?” That’s it. If you really love and
respect somebody, you don’t need special little prayers up to them or mystical experiences. You just
have a desire to please them and you automatically think, “Now what would you do here?”

Now here’s the problem. Many of us, especially as we get on in life a little, begin to see that this
is right. “If anything is right, what you’re saying is right because this world is a very transient
thing. You’ve only got to look at Minneapolis now and compare it with what it was 20 to 25 years ago
to see this thing is going very fast. There’s nothing very permanent in this world, you’re dead
right. As I am beginning to move through life, I see that it’s vital for me to get to know the maker
of this universe. I’d better because it’s not going to be long before I am going to be with Him.
He’s going to be the only really important one that I have to deal with. It’s time I started to
operate the way I was meant to operate.”

Some of us have come to that point and then you discover a hideous fact. You try to start operating
that way and you can’t. You start trying to think “Now what would God want me to do here?” and it’s
the old thing that was said in this chapter. “They loved the praise of man rather than the praise of
God.” You sense God wouldn’t smirk at that joke. He doesn’t want me to smile at it. He doesn’t want
me to say what all the rest are saying in the office at this minute. He doesn’t. But your whole
being has gone that way for 10,15,20,30 years and it’s like turning against an express train to go
the other way.

It seems almost impossible. You feel, “Yes, I should stand my ground here. In fact I should probably
not just let the joke go, I should probably say that is sick. But still I like the praise of men and
I like approval. Even if I am not going to get approval; I don’t like the fear of men. I am afraid
that they’ll think wrong of me if I do it.” So we end up wanting to live our life in a way that will
please God and that will get us ready for meeting Him, but we find that our whole personality has
been moving the other way for so long that we “can’t change our spots”.

We’re born a leopard and a leopard can’t change its spots. Loved ones, we’re all in the same boat.
That’s the same situation we’re all in. All of us have called out at different times in our life,
“The good that I would, I cannot do and the evil I hate is the very thing I do.” That, you remember,
is what we’ve been saying has happened to us.

You remember we put it in a diagram. (Rev. O’Neill shows a diagram) We said that it’s as if we’re
made of three parts. There are three parts of our being or our human nature. There’s an inside part
called the spirit. That’s the bit of us that is the real us. That’s the part of us that is meant to
get to know God. Then around that is our soul. Our soul is the psychological part of us. Around the
soul is our body. The plan that God had was that we would get all we needed from Him. With His love,
we would get all the things that we needed — just from His love.

We’d get our security from Him. We would say, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” I don’t know how
many of you are in that situation. Some of you were good at a certain job, a certain piece of work.
You knew you were good at it and God had actually given that to you as a gift. What you should have
done was go ahead with that and trust Him to provide the security you needed. But the vocational
guidance counselors and all the rest of the people said, “Well, you’re not going to make much money
at that so you’d better do something that you’ll make money at.” So you started to decide what you’d
make money out of, when actually God’s plan was that if you listened to Him and did what He wanted
you to do, He would provide for you.

Now, I sympathize with every one of you, who say, “That’s impractical!” But the fact is you’ve never
tried it. We’ve all tried the other way and that’s why so often we don’t know who we are. We’re
doing what will make us a dollar but we really aren’t convinced that the Creator of the world put us
here to do that, yet we get caught up in that. We were meant to get our security from God.

If you say to me, “You mean He has so fixed the world economy that if I did what I was gifted to do,
I would survive?” Yes, that’s right. That’s what He has done. When you look at the dollars you’re
making, you can see you could make them a thousand other ways. Sometimes you dedicate your whole
self to making the dollars and they don’t come in anyway. So it’s all a game finally. At the very
end of life, you’ll probably have far more than you needed. You’ll see some person who has nothing
of what you have and they’ll be just as happy. So, the old security thing is all a game. But God’s
plan was that we would be led that way (pointing to the diagram).

It was the same with significance and importance. He didn’t want us to buy nice cars to make
ourselves important in the eyes of our neighbors. He didn’t want us even to succeed at our job in
order to receive the applause of men. He actually wanted us to do what He wanted us to do. Then we’d
have such a sense of approval that we wouldn’t need approval from anybody else.

You know it with your dad. If you did something and your dad praised you, it didn’t matter what
anybody else did. You thought you were just the king. That’s actually all you need. You only need
the love of the one important other person of the universe. You don’t need the love and applause of

all the others at all. That is God’s plan. It’s the same with happiness. It wasn’t a matter of
charging after a faster boat or a faster bike, but really getting your happiness from the Maker of
the world.

In fact what we did was to decide we wouldn’t do that. We decided no, we would get it from the world
itself and not from God’s love. (Rev. O’Neill is pointing to a diagram) We’ll get our security, from
trying to gather our things around us. We’ll get our sense of importance from what people think of
us. We’ll get our happiness from arranging the circumstances right. We have become little puppets
governed by sunny days. If it’s a sunny day, we’re bright and happy. If it’s a bad day, we’re
miserable. If we have something to look forward to this week, we’re delighted. If we have something
bad coming up in the middle of the week, we are unhappy.

If somebody frowns at us, we feel we’re nothing. If somebody like the boss praises and smiles at us,
we think we’re wonderful. This is in spite of the fact that he’ll die probably before we will and
then where will our significance be? If the things, and the dollars seem to be coming in, we’re
happy. It’s such a game, isn’t it? Half the time we don’t know the things that are waiting to fall
on us financially. It’s true that often we are living in a fool’s paradise. This month the stocks
have happened to go the right way, but the next month you don’t know what’s waiting for you.

So it’s all a game. The whole assurance that we get from these things is a tale told by an idiot.
Yet we’re all ground into that kind of slavery. That’s why loved ones, when we start trying to
operate the other way, there comes a tremendous collision point that occurs right here. That’s what
it means when the Bible says, “The desires of the spirit are against those of the flesh.” The flesh
isn’t just all the sexy business. I have said that before to you. The flesh is actually living from
the outside in. That’s the flesh. It’s living from the outside in. Nor is it what we call the
terrible sins. It’s not. Wesley said, “The noble sinners are the worst.”

So we can be noble sinners. We can be moral in every way. We can be pictures of respectability but
we still live by the flesh. That is, we live governed by our things, our circumstances and by other
people. The battle comes there. Now, what did God do?

That’s what He did. (pointing to a diagram) Our old self was crucified with Christ. That’s the
meaning of Jesus’ death. That whole nature of yours, it’s called the sinful nature at times in the
Bible. Or it’s the nature of the flesh. That whole sinful nature that operates from the outside in
was destroyed in Jesus. That’s a fact.

If you say, “Why is it still operating in me?” Because God cannot act against your free will, He
can’t. God has the whole thing set up. He has actually destroyed all the old way that your nature
worked. He has destroyed it. It actually does not exist in eternity at all. But He has allowed the
shadow of it to remain in this life so that you can choose what you want to do.

It’s a bit like after the Hiroshima explosion. In the streets you would see what apparently looked
like a person standing there. You’d go up to him, poke and the cinders would collapse. It wasn’t the
person; the person had been burned to death but you know the way an ash keeps its form. A newspaper
you throw into a fire keeps its form but when you poke it, it disappears. That’s what we have.

We actually have ashes here. We have the form of the old self here in this world but actually it has
been destroyed in Jesus. God is saying to us, “Do you want to live with that ‘shell life’? Or, will
you accept what I have done to that life when I changed your nature completely in My Son?” That’s

what the death of Jesus is about.

Your old self has been absolutely changed. It no longer has reality in eternity. In eternity time is
meaningless. Time is unreal. It doesn’t really exist. We put our clocks back or forward; we just
play around with it. It doesn’t mean anything. You and I can remember things that happened 5 or 10
years ago as if they happened yesterday whereas some of the things that happened yesterday we’re not
as clear about. Isn’t it true?

Memory has nothing to do with time. Time does not really exist. That’s why God says, “Our old self
has been crucified.” There is no past and future. There is just an eternal present. And today, you
are able to believe that. Or you’re able to go off today and continue that unreal existence, living
from the outside in. I say this to you — there will come a day when some fellow like myself will
stand over a hole in the ground and will throw ashes on your casket and will say, “Dust to dust;
ashes to ashes”, and at that moment, you won’t have all of us around you. You won’t have all the
people who praised you or criticized you around you. You won’t have all your money or your coats or
your cars around you.

At that moment, you’ll be standing as you were when you came into the world. You’ll be like a little
baby with nothing on. You’ll be standing before your Creator and you’ll be looking at Him. Then
loved ones, you’ll see reality plainly: that there is only one person that really matters in this
whole universe. There is only one whose opinion counts. There is only one who can look after you.
There is only one whose friendship is essential to your happiness and that’s our dear Maker, your
Father and mine. He wants you to live this life with Him.

You know the way they talk about the big world as terrible and sinful. Well, that’s silly. That’s
just Satan’s pretense. That’s not the worst thing about the world. The worst thing about the world
is the ‘seen’ things out here. (Rev. O’Neill is pointing to a diagram) We allow ourselves to be
dominated by this seen world instead of being ruled by the unseen King who still insists on riding a
donkey so that you will really crown Him king because you love Him, not because of any big show. Let
us pray.

Dear Father, we thank You for this day, this sacred day when we remember the attempts that our
forefathers made to make Jesus an earthly king. We thank You for showing us the hypocrisy that was
involved in that and all the unreality. We thank You Lord for presenting to us clearly our choice
this morning. Because of Jesus’ death, the changing of our natures and Your destruction of this old
self, we are able this morning to walk into reality and to bind ourselves to You Lord God. We would
begin to treat and respect You as our Father, as the King of our lives. We would begin to run our
lives by what You tell us and by what we think would please You.

Lord, will You give grace to any dear heart that is willing to make that change this morning —
simply and quietly as we bow our heads before You? Now, the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of
God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

Life or Death Christianity

Romans 8:1

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I know I feel a special burden in these weeks to make things as clear as possible to you and to
myself because these are historic weeks for us. They are opportunities to say things to each other
maybe for the last time — so they are important. I am trying to make it as plain as I can and why I
am doing that is, I would like to see you in heaven. These years pass so fast and are so unimportant
that the really important years are the years that lie ahead after this life is over. So it’s vital
that you and I see each other at that time. Of course somebody like myself feels a great
responsibility to be able to stand at the gate and see you coming in and you see me coming in too,
that’s why we are together.

So that’s what I am trying to make clear loved ones these Sundays. What is it to live the way God
wanted us to live? What is it to be in Jesus? What is it to be a Christian? What is it to be right
with our maker? That’s what we are talking about and that’s why I asked Gentry to read that chapter
again because I think it does make the important points that we need to see. Maybe you’d look at
Romans 8:1. I had mentioned to you how it runs in the Greek and you’d see how plainly God’s word
describes those who are to live with Him forever, those who are right with God, and those who are
living the way they were meant to live.

Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” I think
there’s a great danger in our day of leaving it there and generalizing in all kinds of ways about
what it is to be in Christ Jesus. Some of us say, “It’s if you believe in Jesus.” Some of us say,
“It’s if you believe He rose from the dead.” Some of us say, “It’s if you believe He died for your
sins.” Some of us say, “It’s if you believe He has come into your heart.”

Well, actually the Greek runs differently from the way it does in English translation. In the Greek
Testament, the next clause is the one down in verse 4. It’s the adjectival clause at the end of
verse 4. The Greek translation runs, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus”, and then it runs immediately to what we have put at the end of verse 4, “Who walk not
according to the flesh but according to the spirit.”

In other words, being right with God is something to do with the way you and I live everyday, the
way we’re living day by day. It’s put there as living not according to the flesh but according to
the Spirit. You know several times I have shared that we have a tendency to misinterpret that
because we think flesh is sexy. Or, living according to the Spirit is being moral and going to
church.

Loved ones, that may be part of what it is but that’s not the heart of the difference between living
according to the flesh and living according to the Spirit. In other words, there are many loved ones
who take an initial step with Jesus or make a decision to follow Him or say they believe that He
died for them but they don’t live according to the Spirit. They live according to the flesh. So they
aren’t really in Christ and they aren’t really right with God and they aren’t really being fitted
for heaven. Indeed if they got to heaven, in that situation, the heaven would be hell for them
because they’ve lived their whole life according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit.

So, what I’d like to share once more today is what it means to live according to the Spirit. In
Ireland certainly and probably in England, during the Second World War, we had no petrol at all —
we had no gas. All the gas went to the military needs. Those who had cars, including my father, had
the car sitting out there in the yard but of course had no gas to drive it. So all we did was keep
it clean and sit in it from time to time at the weekend. But we weren’t able to move it at all
because we had no petrol or no gasoline.

You will smile but at that time in Ireland, even though I hate to say it, we still had some horses
drawing carts. Some of our milkmen, some of our bakers still delivered with a horse and cart. Our
coal was delivered by horse and cart. So there were still many of the big drays we would call them
— the kind of horses Budweiser uses as an advertisement.

We had still a lot of those horses and you would not believe it as I thought of it this morning. I
thought, “No, it couldn’t have happened”, but it did. We had farmers and other men who lived in the
city, tradesmen who would use these horses with the carts. I know it sounds typically Irish, but
they would tie up the horse to the car and have the horse drawing the car along. Now, what on earth
they got out of it except a covered vehicle of some kind, I don’t know.

But they would do that. They would steer the car and they would drive with the reins through the
passenger window and the horse would draw the car along. Still as I thought of it this morning, I
thought, “No, it couldn’t have happened”, but it did. And of course, if you had looked at the car
moving along with maybe the horse shielded by a tree, it would look to you as if the car was moving
along.

Indeed if you looked at the wheels of the car, it would still look as if it was moving as it was
supposed to. And if you had actually been able to get underneath and let it pass over, you would
have seen the axle turning the way it’s supposed to turn. Indeed if you had followed the
transmission, you’d have seen all the little gears moving. If you had followed to the crankshaft,
you’d have seen the crankshaft moving. Then if you’d come in up into where the pistons are, you’d
have seen the pistons moving.

So to all intents and purposes, if you had been a visitor from outer space, you might have said,
“This car is working the way it’s meant to work”. That is until you got to the cylinder. I don’t
know if all you ladies and gentlemen know it but the piston goes up and down normally because the
spark plugs spark, the gas comes in and it explodes and it forces the piston down. The piston then
drives the crankshaft and so on back to the wheels.

So if you’d looked at that car being drawn by the horse, you’d have said “Well, the pistons are
going up and down the way they’re supposed to. This is the way this car should work.” It would have
appeared that way to you right up until you examined the top of the cylinder – until you got to the
spark plug at the top of the cylinder. Then you’d have noticed there’s no spark. There’s no
electricity coming through. The carburetor is there, but there’s no gasoline coming through it and
there’s no gas being injected into the cylinder.

So the vital heart of the car — what makes an internal combustion engine work — the explosion that
occurs when the gas vapor meets the spark and the spark plug — that wasn’t present. In other words,
the very heart and life of the internal combustion engine actually was dead. But it’s interesting,
all the other parts of the car appeared to be moving. Actually what was happening was, it was being

driven backwards. The wheels were turning, they were turning the axle, they were turning the
crankshaft, and they were turning the transmission. They were making the pistons go up and down. It
was working back to front.

All the parts of the engine were moving because the wheels were being drawn along the road by the
horse. It wasn’t working the way it should. The way it should work is, the spark plug should spark,
the gas should come in, it should explode, it should push the piston down, the piston should turn
the crankshaft, the crankshaft should turn the wheels and the thing should go from what’s happening
inside.

In other words, when the guy tied the horse to the car, he was driving according to the flesh. The
car was moving according to the flesh, not according to the Spirit. The car was being moved by the
effort of the horse drawing the wheels along the road. It was not being driven the way it was meant
to by the combination of a spark from the spark plug and the gasoline coming in and exploding. It
was not going according to the Spirit.

Now, that’s a picture of what has happened to us men and women. Our lives are meant to be lived
according to the Spirit. That is, we’re meant to operate by God’s love and by our trust in God’s
love. We have switched the whole thing around and we have begun to operate by the world’s love. So,
to all intents and purposes we’re living the way we were meant to live. I mean our hands move, our
minds operate, our emotions feel, our wills are exercised in some sense and we seem to achieve
things in this life. We have children, we marry, we have wives, we have families, we seem to be
operating the way we were meant to operate except it’s all backwards. It’s all in reverse.

We were meant to depend on our Father’s love for our sense of safety, just for our sheer sense of
security. You know what I mean. Where’s your next meal coming from? Where are you going to get your
winter coat? Where are you going to get food for next week? Those basic needs. We were meant to lean
utterly and completely on our Father. Now loved ones, let’s get rid of the old objections, “You mean
we were meant to sit around all day, do no work and wait for God to give us manna from heaven?”

No, no. We were meant to do the jobs that God has given us, and the things that He has placed us
here to achieve. But in our inner heart of hearts, we were meant not to depend on IBM graciously
continuing our employment. In our heart of hearts, we were meant not to depend on the social
security system continuing to be somewhat effective. In our heart of hearts, we were meant to depend
not even on our own physical body and it’s continuing strength and ability to go to work and provide
for our wives and our children.

We were meant to depend in our heart of hearts not on those things but on our Father’s faithfulness.
Whether we had a job or whether we hadn’t a job. Whether we lost the job or whether we had tenure
that was guaranteed for the next 40 years. Whether the money continued to come in at the same level
or not, whether we got sick of an incurable disease or not, whether things in the national economy
continued to be at the present level or whether they ran into inflation. We in our heart of hearts,
would rest easy in our beds at night because we trusted our Father to supply all we needed of food,
shelter and clothing. That’s the way we were meant to operate.

We were meant to deeply trust Him. Now, if you pressed me and said, “Brother, do you mean that if I
lost my job, or if I had an injury at work and I wasn’t able to continue”, or you ladies, “If my
husband died or if he lost his job or if the whole economy just blew apart and the stock market fell
to pieces, do you mean that I am intended to go on without even a tremor, without even the slightest

fear in my heart?” Yes. That’s the way God intended us to live.

Now, do you see that that’s consistent with working. Let’s get rid of that silly, scholastic kind of
cavilling where we say, “Oh you mean we don’t need to work.” Yes, that isn’t a question at all.
There are other reasons for working. We were meant to work. We were meant to live much of the lives
that we’re living. But in the deepest part of our heart, in the deepest part where worry and anxiety
occurs, where fretting, where hesitation, where self-doubt and self-questioning occur, deep down in
the heart of our hearts, we were intended to have such solid trust in our Father that He would
provide all that we needed. There wouldn’t be even a tremor, not even a hesitation, not even a
little hesitation in getting to sleep at night, let alone losing sleep. That’s living by the Spirit.

That’s living according to the Spirit and that’s the way our loving Father means you to live. Now
you know fine well we’ve used the examples of when we were children. It would be fun if we could
turn the clock back and all of us could be five or six years of age. The interesting thing is we can
do it because you can turn your mind back at this moment and I can certainly turn mine back. You can
think of some of your pictures, photographs that your mom and dad took of you, but more than that,
you can remember some of the feelings you had when you were a little child and so can I. You and I
know fine well that those were glorious days.

Even if there were things that weren’t perfect about them, when we look back with our selective
memories they were glorious days from the point of view
of freedom from anxiety, and freedom from worry — at least about the basic things. Even if
traumatic things happened with our moms and dads later on, there were days in our early life when we
remembered all we did was play all day and then mom called us in for lunch. It was rare that we
said, “We’re starving, we’re starving, can we have lunch, can we have lunch?” She always seemed to
have it ready. We were called in, we ate lunch and then we had to eat our creams or whatever it was,
but it was nice.

We didn’t go to sleep at night thinking, “Oh, what am I going to wear in the morning? I haven’t a
thing to wear.” Or “Where am I going to get a coat to keep the snow out?” She provided all of that
and we didn’t think, “Oh will I get my pay packet three weeks from now?” No, she gave us the dime or
the quarter –whatever it was. Everything was provided and there was a deep peace inside.

Now, our poor moms and dads had the world to worry about. They had all kinds of things they had to
sort out. But we knew nothing about plumbing problems. We knew nothing about the electricity bills.
We knew nothing about whether the job was lost or not. Indeed, probably some of you remember some
dreadful things happening when there was great trauma in the home — dad lost a job or something.
But somehow mom and dad managed to maintain an even tenor in our lives.

That’s only a shadow of what the Father does for you and wants you to enjoy. If you’ll pause for a
moment, look back on your life, and see some of the hideous things through which you’ve passed and
some of the unexpected events in your financial life, you know fine well that somebody was looking
after you. You know in your heart of hearts that there are things you cannot explain about your life
and about the way it has run.

There are situations that were disastrous for you. And if they were dependent upon you and your
ability to deliver yourself, you would be in prison or you would be poverty-stricken today. There
are things through which you have passed and you cannot explain how you ever came through them or
how you’ve ended up where you are today. I’m not terribly fond of the expression “the man up there”

but you know fine well that there was somebody up there that was looking after you.

Now, living according to the Spirit is living in that trust. You probably don’t live that way
despite the fact that you have to admit many things have happened in your life that can only be
explained by some dear providential care that has continued to develop your life in some kind of
order. Yet despite that, you do not live in quiet relaxed trust of your loving Father. You know that
you still get worried.

If the bank account is overdrawn you get worried. If there seems to be a tremor in the company
policy, you get worried. If you’re not able to pay a certain bill or if you see inflation’s ugly
head appearing again or if something unexpected happens, you get worried. And your dear Father who
made you, looks down upon you with tears in His eyes, because His arms are still the arms that are
underneath you. His hands are still the hands that are keeping your breath breathing. His loving
energy is still what keeps your heart beating. His kindly sustaining power is what still keeps your
blood circulating. And whether you are trusting Him or not, He is the one who is doing all the work.
He’s the one that will yet again deliver you when you get into an impossible situation.

So, loved ones, living according to the Spirit, being in Christ Jesus is living in that kindly inner
trust. You see what we’re saying, that’s what faith is. I agree with you that faith certainly has
the meaning of believing certain things about God. But the heart of faith is trust. The heart of
faith is trust.

If you ever visit a house that you’re thinking of buying and you come to this point in the floor and
the realtor says to you, “Now walk carefully there because those boards have dry rot in them.”
Well, you walk carefully and if you could see any other way around, you’d walk around it. But you
walk over that with extreme uneasiness. You wonder if this floor will give out under you.

It’s the same with a frozen lake. You come to a place where it’s thin and suddenly you’re walking on
eggs, as we would say in Ireland. You’re as if you’re walking on eggshells because you feel you’ll
go through it at any moment. You know you’re tense, and you’re strained.

You know the different feeling when he says this floor is solid concrete. Well, you just walk across
it. You’re confident. There’s no worry that floor is going to give. There’s just a different
feeling. There’s no tension in you, your muscles aren’t tense, you’re not worried up here, and
you’re not emotionally afraid. It’s a total difference. That’s the difference between trusting the
Father and trusting yourself or trusting things in this world.

Loved ones, you remember we’ve said, it’s not a matter of not having stocks and shares. Have stocks
and shares, have bank accounts but where is your trust? If your trust is in things for your
security, if your trust is in the car that you have, or the house that you’ve at last got paid for,
or in your ability to provide food for yourself, in your social security, in your job, in your bank
account, in all the backup systems that you have devised — then finally you are in the depths of
despair because no one at the moment has a reliable cure for Aids. No one has a reliable cure for
cancer, no one has…and you can just go on — Lou Gehrig’s disease, sclerosis, you just go on
through them.

Finally, you have no security because you know there are half a dozen things out there that can get
you at any time. So there’s no peace, no real peace. There’s a bluff peace as long as, “I don’t get
hit with this disease, that disease, the other disease, as long as inflation doesn’t come, as long

as I don’t lose my job and as long as, as long as…” You make all the conditions and then say “I am
safe.” There is no safety. That’s living according to the flesh.

We were made by God our loving Father to live according to the Spirit — to trust Him completely for
our security and not to trust in things. Now getting back to the automobile drawn by the horse.
After you have lived for years and years according to the flesh, when you hear a presentation like
this morning you say to yourself, “That’s right. I can sense that’s the way we’re meant to live.
I’ve at times glimpsed that even from when I was a little child. Even since childhood I’ve had
moments like that. When everything has fallen apart, I find myself throwing everything into God’s
hands and for a few hours and sometimes a day, I’ve sensed that peace. That is the way I am meant to
live.” You sense that and you say to yourself, “I am going to live that way.”

You will find it’s impossible. You’ll find it’s impossible. In other words, if that car says, “I am
going to work the way I was meant to work,” it finds it’s impossible. For one reason, the whole
system needs to be reconditioned completely because it’s all rusted out inside and there’s no oil in
the box. But for another reason, there’s no power in the battery. There’s no power. There’s no power
to create the explosion and that’s what you find.

You find there are two problems. One, you haven’t got it inside you to trust the Father and the
other is, your whole personality has been operating the wrong way for a long time. The moment you
get an envelope in the mail with notification of your overdraft, your little eyes have been trained
for many years to see that and to send signals of alarm to your brain. Then it sends signals to your
mouth and the secretions dry up. The muscles tense up and the circulation of the blood is
constructed by the blood vessels. Your whole system is used to operating like that, the moment it
senses any fear. It doesn’t matter what you do, you cannot begin to live in deep trust in the Father
because your whole personality system is reversed.

Now, that’s the purpose of Jesus’ death on Calvary. Jesus’ death is not simply a matter of the
forgiveness of our sins. When Jesus died on Calvary, God took you and your whole fleshly personality
that has lived according to the flesh for years and years and years. The Bible has another word for
it. It calls it carnal. Your whole carnal personality, the whole carnal way you’ve had of living and
reacting all through the years, was put by God into Jesus His Son and destroyed on Calvary.

If you say to me, “That’s impossible, I mean I wasn’t alive then. I am alive now but that was 29
A.D.” Loved ones, 29 A.D. was when it was manifested in history, but this dear Book says, “The Lamb
was slain from before the foundation of the world.” Jesus was crucified in eternity in timelessness
where even Einstein has shown us there is no time. In a certain point in space, there is no such
thing as time. It’s one great eternal moment.

You were put by your Creator into Jesus. You were utterly destroyed and you were remade again the
way you were meant to be. The moment you are willing to believe that and willing to live the way He
intended you to live, that combination enables God to give you His Spirit and create that spark
inside you that creates explosion. You begin to operate the right way again, and that’s the Father’s
plan for us.

You know how I have shared it before. The Spirit works from God out through the soul and out through
the body. What has happened to us is, instead of operating like that we work from the body into the
soul trying to get some life in the Spirit and of course there’s no way you’ll get a spark out of
the spark plug that way, it’s dead.

What has to happen is the whole personality has to be changed, and transformed. Then God is able to
give you the Spirit of His own heart and His own love inside you and you’re able to know you can
trust Him from the inside. That’s why the Bible says in Romans 6:6, “Our old self was crucified with
Christ.”

The old way you used to operate was destroyed in Jesus and the moment you are willing to believe
that, that moment the miracle is made real in you and God gives you His Spirit, creates the spark of
life and explosion inside you that begins to enable you to operate the way you were meant to. What
is necessary for this to happen? There has to be a deep willingness on your part to die with Jesus
to things, that’s it.

It’s not surprising. Your own common sense rises to it. You know fine well when you look at Howard
Hughes dying in misery in that penthouse apartment that there is no security in things. So your
reason rises to it, but do you see there’s something inside you that is independent? There’s
something inside you that doesn’t want to have to depend on somebody else, least of all an invisible
God. There’s something inside you that still wants to have control of your own security even though
you know you can’t have control of your own security. That’s what you need to be willing to die to.

That’s the heart of the carnal self. That’s the heart of the selfish will. That’s the heart of your
godlessness. I sympathize with you because I know we all think, “No, no. Godlessness is those people
who are murdering others or those people who are swearing or are drinking or are on cocaine.”
Godlessness, loved ones is godlessness. It’s living a godless life. It’s living without God being
your God. It’s living your life with you as God.

God in Jesus destroyed that in you but until you are willing for that to be made real in you, you
cannot enter into the deliverance. So it is a deep thing. As I look at you men, we might not think
of ourselves as self-made men but we’ve been taught that we have to stand up for ourselves, we have
to make it. If we don’t bring it in, the women won’t bring it in, we have to do it. But you ladies,
you have your own version of that. We feel, “Look, if we give up our own control of things, we’ll be
lost.”

Well, if you do give it up to anybody else, you’ll be lost. But if you give it up to the God and
Creator who made you, in whose hands you finally are at the end of this life, then all you are doing
is what is right and wise and true. So, this morning it’s a deep choice you have. It’s not just, do
you believe what I am saying — because it’s so self-evident isn’t it? It makes such sense that it’s
hard not to believe it. But that’s not the issue. The issue is are you willing to die to your right
to get the security that you need when you need it from the things in this world? Are you willing to
do what Jesus did? He said, “Father into thy hands, I commit my Spirit.”

“Father, I am going to trust You. If You want me poor, that’s okay. Yes, if You want me to die of
starvation, that’s okay. Lord I give You the right to ensure whatever security in food and clothing
and shelter that You see I need and I’ll trust You for it in-season and out-of-season and You alone.
And if You deem to let me die as Jesus did, then that’s okay. I’ll accept that.” That’s the choice,
loved ones. That’s really what you and I have to determine this very day. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we are so used to depending on the things that we possess for our security. We’ve been
so encouraged to believe that nobody will look after us if we don’t look after ourselves, that even
though all of this seems so sensible and so real and true, yet there is something inside us, (we can

hardly tell what it is) but there’s something inside us that rises up against it. Lord, You know
what that is. You know it’s that old selfish will of ours that wants to run our lives ourselves.

Father, we know that’s what You destroyed on Calvary in Jesus and that’s the awkward, intractable
part of us that we cannot control with all our discipline. Father, if You destroyed that in Jesus on
Calvary, we’re willing to do anything so that you can manifest that in us in our present life. Lord,
will You ask us whatever question You need to through the Holy Spirit to expose to us if there’s any
way in which we’re not willing to die with Jesus to things and the security that they bring us. And
above all, to die to that selfish will inside us that wants to operate alongside Your will. Lord if
this means dying to ourselves and the extinction of ourselves, then that’s what we want, Father.

We know You are not asking us to die to our personalities. We know that if we lose our lives for
Your sake, we save them and if we die to our personality we find a new personality that is better
than the one we had. It’s one that is being transformed day by day rather than being conformed to
the image of this world. So Lord, we bow before You this morning. Lord Jesus, we see the choice is,
are we willing to trust You in the dark on the Cross rather than things in the light of this world
standing up on our own two feet.

Lord, we bow before You now and we say that we want what You want. We want to live the way You meant
us to live Father. If this is what Jesus did for us on the Cross of Calvary, then that’s what we
want in our own lives. Lord Jesus, we would make our own covenant with You in these next few
moments.

Now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with
each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

Communion: Financial Security

2 Corinthians 4:10

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Before we have communion loved ones, I’d like to try to share something that is quite deep for all
of us, and it will just need the light of the Holy Spirit for us to see it. And yet, it really
explains most the things that happen in our present life.

So maybe you’d start by looking at 2 Corinthians, and it’s part of what Gentry read in the lesson.
2 Corinthians 4:10 is just a difficult half verse really. “Always carrying in the body the death of
Jesus.” “Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus.”

And I know I read Thomas à Kempis [Thomas à Kempis, 1380 – 1471, German priest, monk and writer;
author of “The Imitation of Christ”, which is one of the best known Christian books on devotion]
when I was 17, primarily because John Wesley read Thomas à Kempis, and of course, I was very
respectful of John Wesley. And Thomas à Kempis used to talk about bearing in your body the marks of
Jesus. And of course, I would think at times of the stigmata you remember, that some of the saints
used to have reproduced in their hands, where it seemed the holes made by the nails in Jesus’ hands
would be reproduced in their own hands. And it was in that connection that I used to think of this
verse. But it has a very ‘down to earth meaning’ besides that one, that is a very practical meaning
for you and me.

If I told you now, just this moment — it’s not true — but if I told you that your bank where all
your money was had just failed yesterday; just collapsed absolutely and utterly, and the government
were not going to insure your funds of course, what would you think? Apart, I mean, from blaming
your wife or your friend who told you to put your money in that bank, what would you think? And
it’s just interesting; think what you would think. “It’s okay, I have stock and shares in my New
York Stock Exchange; I’m okay. Well, my cash is there, but my home, my home is paid for. Okay,
I’ve got the house.” Or, “Yeah, but I have savings, I have savings in that credit union, so okay,
I’m alright.”

How many of us would think like that? I think it is the way most of us would think. You
immediately think, “Alright what am I going to lose? If that bank has gone down the drain, what
have I got of assets somewhere else?” And we immediately begin to run over in our minds where the
other sources of our ‘kind of financial stability’ are. And of course, it’s because our stability
and our security depends on those things. I mean, besides that you’ve got social security, and we
don’t know how much that will produce; so when we think about our financial stability, and somebody
tells us our local bank has gone down the drain, we immediately think, “Where else have we the
things that we’re depending on for our security?”

And of course you don’t dare to think what would go through your mind if I said, “Do you know that
all of those have gone down, too.” You know the kind of tremor that would go through your heart.
You’d begin to think, “Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Because, most of us here feel that
our security and our stability, from a financial angle, depends on the money we have in the bank,
probably the house we own, the bit of social security that we have; but most of all whatever other
little investments we have; whatever stocks we own; or whatever property we own; or whatever
business we have. And as we look forward to those retirement years, we think, that’s where we’ll go

to for our security, and that’s where we’ll have our financial stability.

Now if I press you and I say to you, “But are those things really stable?” You just look at the
chaos that has taken place over the past decade in the States, and of course you’ll admit, “Well, I
don’t like to think about it, but as I watch the gyrations of the stock market in these days, no,
no; I mean, I know they’re not stable. I know even the experts like Galbraith [John Kenneth
Galbraith, 1908 – 2006) Canadian and American economist] are utterly misinterpreting the way the
market would go. Finally, you’re right; they’re not really stable. Even if I talk about what
depends on insurance from the government, we’ve seen most of that collapse over the past 50 years.
So no, it’s not stable, but it’s as stable as I can get. I don’t see how I can go beyond the bank,
or beyond the stock exchange, or beyond this house. I agree with you, the house loses all its value
if the bottom drops out of the real estate market, but it’s as stable as I can get myself.”

And if I say to you, “Well, upon what does the stability of those things depend?” You’ll say, “Well
it depends on world economy continuing as it is. It depends on America continuing to be prosperous.
It depends, I suppose, on whatever government we get in — what they will do. It depends on all of
us Americans having confidence in our own economy and in ourselves. It depends on all kinds of
things.”

And if I ask you, “Well, what does that depend on?” You know you’d answer, “Well finally, on an
invisible thing called ‘confidence’. When that ‘confidence’ goes all Wall Street can blow apart.
Indeed it seems if somebody ‘breathes the wrong way’, Wall Street can turn upside down; so it all
depends on some invisible ‘confidence’.”

And if I ask you what that depends on, finally I’ll drive you back to the point where you’ll see,
“Well really it finally depends, I suppose on the Maker — on the Creator sustaining the whole thing
and determining to keep the thing going in its present state, and continuing to enable us all to
have confidence that the economy is going to work, the way it is working at the moment. Finally I
suppose if you press me, I’m dependent really on the Creator. And indeed, as far as security is
concerned, I’m utterly dependent on him. It doesn’t matter how many stocks and shares I have if
this old thing here [Pastor puts his hand on his heart] doesn’t keep beating, I’m lost anyway. If I
catch some of these incurable diseases I’m gone anyway; so finally, yeah you’re right; I’m dependent
on my Maker.”

But we’re a little bit like the New York kid who has never seen anything but the ‘concrete jungle’.
He’s never seen anything but these huge buildings and these concrete sidewalks, and his teacher asks
the class, “Where does milk come from?” And he raises his hand and says, “A bottle.” Because,
that’s where he’s seen milk coming from, and he doesn’t realize it comes way back from a cow. And
we’re a little bit like that. If I ask you what you depend on for your security and your stability,
you know fine well that most of us here this morning depend on all those intermediate causes that
finally are unreliable, and that finally themselves depend on the Creator of the universe who
sustains the whole thing.

But loved ones, do you see that we’re really living in unreality? Because, day-by-day we actually
depend on the bank account; we depend on the stock and shares. We kind of build up our confidence,
when we see one of our friends go bankrupt; you know how we build it up; you know, loved ones. So
often we ‘don’t’ say, “Well, the Lord is my fortress and my strength, the Creator of the universe;
he won’t let me down.” We don’t say that. If we hear of a friend who goes bankrupt, our little old
minds — we may not say it outwardly — but our little old minds check over the investments we have,

to see if we made any the same as he has. And we work out, “Yeah, well that can go, and that can
go; but my Swiss bank account, that will never go,” as if Switzerland is somehow safe from all this
mess.

But we go over in our minds the things, the ‘real’ estate, as we call it, the ‘real’ estate; except
those of us that have been in real estate, know that’s sometimes the most ‘unreal’ estate. But we
go over in our minds the things that we depend on for our financial security, and yet we know
finally that those ‘aren’t’ the basis of our financial security. But if I press you, you have to
admit that that’s where you and I live. That’s where we live. I mean, we’ll admit the theory that,
back of it all lies the Creator, but we’ll have to admit that day-by-day, the beat of our heart, the
beat of our pulse, the perspiration on the old forehead, when we find some financial disaster taking
place, that is all dealt with by us in relationship to these ‘unreal’ bases of our financial
security; our bank account, our stock and shares, our house, our property.

If you died today, who would miss you most? If you died today, who would miss you most? And we’re
all the same; you know the way we think, “Well, I think, Irene [Pastor’s wife], she’d miss me.” And
you think now, Gene would miss you. And we all think of the loved ones that love us, and we think
they would miss us most. And if I asked you, “Who do you depend on most for your own self worth? I
mean, whose disapproval would hurt you most? Or, whose approval pleases you most? Or, whose
admiration gives you most a sense of value and importance?” Then you know, there are little names
of dear hearts that occur to us. But what when they die? What when they die? Who then will miss
you?

It’s kind of funny, isn’t it, because you think well, have you a line-up there? “Well, okay my wife
dies, okay number two, number three, number four.” And it seems funny; it seems unreal, because you
feel, “Finally, I’m playing a game here, because, okay number one, I can believe they’re really
important to my sense of self worth, but when you get down to number seven, I wonder how much self
worth I have left?” And so it’s a funny kind of situation we get ourselves into. And yet it is
true, isn’t it? Probably the ‘real world’ that you and I live in, is connected up with the people
that think well of us. And if anybody asks us, “Who would miss you most?” we reply, “Some human
being or other, our husband, or our wife, or our sons, or daughters, or our dear friends.”

And yet finally they’ll all die, won’t they? I mean, finally they’ll all die. Even if it’s like
the ostrich, who sticks his head in the sand and says, “There are no dangers because I can’t see
any,” even if it’s ‘you’ die. Well when ‘you’ die they’re all dead, as far as you’re concerned.
The moment you die they’re all dead; they’re no longer able to affect you in any way; they’re no
longer able to give you a sense of self worth. And actually, if I press you on it, you’ll admit to
me, “Alright, Pastor, I agree, finally my value and my self worth is not determined by them. I
agree with you. Otherwise, it’s just a temporary thing. Finally my self worth and my value is
determined by whoever put me here, and by what he thinks of me. And finally, that’s the One that
gives me a sense of self worth or self value. And really, I know my answer to your question should
be, when you ask, ‘Who would miss you most?’ I should say, ‘God would miss me most.’” Except, that
that’s not where we’re living, see.

So do you see loved ones, in a strange way we’re all living in a kind of unreality? And that’s why
we get worried and anxious over the finances. That’s why we get concerned, and resentful, and
jealous when we lose our sense of self worth, because we’re actually all living in an unreal world,
where we’re depending on the things that we have for our security, or on the people that think well
of us for our sense of value.

Why does God let your dad die? Why did God let your dad die? Well besides all kinds of other
reasons that aren’t relevant today, one reason he let your dad die was so that you could begin to
sense that the things in this present world are passing. And that even the loved one, or your mum:
the loved one you thought was the dearest, and was the strongest, and the most permanent being in
your life, even they can disappear. And God did that to begin to wean you off this ‘unreal world’,
off this ‘artificial life support’ system. The Father does that with every one of us who are
children, to begin to get through to us that this world itself is not sufficient to give us the
things we need; the stability we need; or the sense of worth that we need. And he began at that
moment to wean you off that.

That’s what Jesus did on Calvary. He turned from even his mum, even his friends, his disciples; he
turned from what everybody thought of him, and he said, “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.
I depend on you for my sense of worth and you only.” When he died, he turned from all the security
that others could give him with their money, or with their clothes; he even just had a loin cloth
on; his garment was taken from him; he owned nothing. And he turned from all of that, and he said,
“Father, you’re the one I depend on. Into your hands I commit my spirit.” And he had you inside
himself when he did that; and he did that for you too. He did that for you too. He turned you too,
from those things, and those people, and he turned you too, to his Father, and he changed you,
inside himself.

“Carrying about in your body the dying of the Lord Jesus,” is allowing that to become real in your
life, day-by-day. That’s why our trials are dear to us. That’s why God allows a dear brother or a
dear sister to die. That’s why God allows us to have trouble with the old heart, or with the lungs,
or with the body. That’s why God allows disasters to occur to our money at times, or our jobs,
because he’s gradually trying to get us to begin to “carry about in our body the dying of the Lord
Jesus;” the dying that we experienced with Jesus to these things.

Loved ones, that’s what communion is about. And you see how upside down our world is; we encourage
each other to think it’s a disaster when we lose a loved one. We do. We encourage each other to
think it’s a disaster when we lose all our money. It’s not. It’s God trying to get us to come into
reality, and see that it’s him upon whom we depend; it’s him only, and all the others are dear
shadows. If you loved your dad, I loved my dad. So I’m not encouraging us to do anything but have
great respect and great gratitude for our dads and our mums.

But do you see what they are? They’re reflections of God; that’s why they’re dear. They’re
reflections of God’s love. The stability that they give to you and me really came from God; God
just used them as instruments. Now it’s the same with your money and my money; God just uses it as
a temporary instrument to express his faithfulness to you. That’s why at times he takes it away,
and still you find yourself having a good meal. He’s trying to get it through your thick head that
he can supply it to you without money, if need be. Because gradually, he’s getting us to carry
about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, to begin to trust him and him only so that I can come
to you some morning and can honestly say to you, “Your bank has failed,” and not a tremor goes
through your breast. That’s it: not a tremor, not a worry, not an anxiety.

I can come to you some day and say, “You know all those people you work with, they all think you’re
an absolute zero.” And not a worry can go through your heart; you’re just completely at peace,
because your value and your self esteem doesn’t depend on them. You know your Father loves you, and
has counted every hair on his head, and he thinks the world of you. That’s what God is after.

So it’s a kind of paradox: God has given us all this world to take it away from us gradually. And
you know, if you need any proof of that, it all goes eventually. That’s why death is there. Sooner
or later it all goes. Sooner or later you have to do without this world.

So I’d say especially to those of you who have had any hard things happen in your life, or are
having hard things happen, where you’re beginning to lose friends; or somebody has died who is
dearest to you; or money is going; or businesses are failing. Don’t look at it the way the world
looks at it; look at it the way God looks at it. All he’s doing, is trying to wean you away from a
fantasy world that you’re living in, because milk doesn’t come from a bottle; milk comes from a cow.
And your stability doesn’t come from your bank account or your house; it comes from your dear
Father who loves you. And your self esteem and your self worth comes from, not all of us and what
we think of you, but from your dear Father, who has counted even the hairs of your head.

So loved ones, do you see how every trial and every disaster is lovingly used by God to bring us
into reality? So when you come up to the Lord’s table today, listen to the Holy Spirit, and listen
to him if he’s saying anything to you about some of the things that are beginning to be taken from
you, and some of the things God is beginning to show you you can do without. And then join Jesus in
his words, “Into thy hands, oh Lord, I commit my spirit. And God’s Spirit will bring you into real
life. And it’s a life of peace, and a life of joy. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we have grown so used to this way of life that this gospel comes as a shock to us. And
yet we know Lord, that it’s right, that we are dependent, not on these stocks and shares, or on this
money, or on these houses, we’re dependent on you who alone can keep the stock market from going
wild, who alone can sustain the world economy.

Father, we know that finally as our dads and mums have died, so all our dearest ones will die. And
finally we’ll be left alone. And our self worth and our self esteem depends only on what you think
of us, and on your love for us. So Father, we know these things, but we realize Lord, that we’re
not living there day-by-day. So we thank you for what you’ve done for us in Jesus, where you have
changed us. And we thank you Father, that that change that was wrought in Jesus can be wrought in
us through your Holy Spirit, as we, step-by-step, take a new position in regard to our self worth
and our self esteem. As we begin to identify ourselves with Jesus in regard to our security, we
know that you, through the Holy Spirit, can give us the intimate trust in you that Jesus had.

Lord, we ask you that as we gather around your table today, you will do that in our own hearts.

We do not presume to come to this thy table most merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness,
but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under
thy table, but thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore
gracious Lord, so by faith, to receive thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, that the bread which we
break may be unto us the communion of his body, and the cup of blessing which we bless, may be the
communion of his blood, and that we may ever more dwell in him and he in us.

“The Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed took bread and broke it and said, ‘This is my
body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me.’ In like manner he took the cup after
supper saying, ‘This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it
for as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.’”
Amen.

Sin, Confession and Grace

James 4:17

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I’d like to talk a little this morning about the grace of God. I know I need it today and I think
some others here this morning may need it. It might be a blessing to you and I pray it would be a
blessing to me. Would you look at James 4:17.

“Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” I know this last week, I
did that and I’d like to apologize to the dear one that I offended by doing that. Now you may say,
“Well, big deal. Why is it such a big deal to fail to do what you know is right?”

Well, loved ones, failing to do what you know is right is sin. God’s plan for us men and women is to
live above sin. You get that in 1 John 3:8-9. However hard it is for us, it’s right. 1 John 3:8 –
“No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is
born of God.” So that’s the normal plan for you and me, that we would live lives free from known,
conscious sin.

That is, if you or I do something to someone or with someone or just against God that we know is not
right, then it’s sin. And then what do we do? Well, you have to treat it as an emergency. It’s our
only hope that we treat that as an emergency so that we never get used to it. Now, how do you deal
with it as an emergency? Well, it’s there in 1 John 1:9.

1 John 1:8-10 – “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” So
that’s it.

If we say we haven’t sinned, then we walk towards that fantasyland of amorality where we just go to
hell — that’s putting it plainly. We’ll just go to hell. And so when you or I sin, if we hurt God
or hurt somebody else then God Himself has said, “If you’ll confess your sin to Me and confess it if
possible to the person that you offended and you hurt — the person whom you ignored and whom you
didn’t really love as the person was meant to be loved”, if you do that then, “He is faithful to
forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But it’s based on you and me being
honest about our sin.

You just have to admit that you have sinned and that it was wrong and that you did what you knew you
shouldn’t do. I would encourage you and encourage myself to see that that’s what sin is. It’s
failing to do what you know is right and if you ever do that, that’s sin and it’s a big deal. It’s
an emergency because our dear Father planned for us to live free from sin — without known,
conscious sin. There are a million things you and I do that we don’t know are wrong, I agree with
you. The dear Lord does not hold us responsible for all those things. But He does hold us
responsible for the things we know about and He expects us to live above those.

Now, why is it possible that He is able to forgive us? Because He is kind beyond anything you could
describe. I don’t know how many of you have ever cursed. Some of us were brought up to think that

cursing was very bad and so we haven’t cursed much. I would think I haven’t cursed much but it
doesn’t really matter how we were brought up. How many of us have used Jesus’ name in vain or God’s
name in vain? Then ask, who gives you the strength to speak that?

It’s amazing isn’t it? Who gave you the strength to say, (it’s hard for me to say it) “for Christ’s
sake…” Who gave you the strength to say that? Or, “my God…”, who gave you the strength? Who was
keeping the blood circulating while you were cursing Him? That’s how kind He is. That’s the grace of
God. That’s how gracious He is to us, beyond anything that you or I can imagine.

When you have cursed Him, He’s the one that kept your legs straight so that you could stand up to
curse Him. You can’t believe that kind of love, can you? There’s a verse in the Bible that says,
“God caused His rain to rain on the just and on the unjust.” That means that the Roman soldier that
lifted his sword or his spear and thrust it into Jesus’ side, did that with arteries that had blood
circulating in them by the continued energy and activity of God.

God gave the strength to the Roman soldier to thrust the sword or the spear into Jesus’ side. As
you’re actually sinning, as your tongue is cutting your friend apart or criticizing the other member
of the family, or you’re doing something to someone else that is not in God’s will, God Himself is
giving you the strength to do that. He’s even keeping you alive, (so dear to Him is free will) for
your eventual free will love for Him. So dear is that to Him that He is gracious and gives you the
strength that you use even against Him. That’s how gracious He is.

He is gracious beyond anything that you or I can ever imagine. You’re still alive. You know the
things you have done in your life. You know some of the things you’re still doing and yet God is the
one who keeps you alive. I have tried to think of it in some graphic terms that I would understand.
It seems like the Savior is walking down Calvary road and there you and I are with our whips beating
Him over the head. He has His hand up to ward off some of the blows. But at the same time He has His
other hand around our backs drawing us to Him.

It seems like that’s God’s grace. There’s every reason for us to be grateful to Him and be
overwhelmed by His kindness. How come He can really be so kind? Because when you are in the depths
of guilt over what you’ve done, when you can no longer see God or look at anybody else, when you
feel that God is not close to you or hearing you, the heavens are closed and all of life seems dark,
there’s only one thing that God is saying to you at that moment. There’s just one thing and I’ll
show you. It’s in Isaiah 1:18. I know you think, “Oh, He will never have anything more to do with
me. I am such a rotten sinner that He cannot even hear me.” There’s only one thing God is saying.

Isaiah 1:18 — “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If
you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you
shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

To each one of you, I would say the same thing as God has said to me, “Though your sins are as
scarlet, to Him, they shall be as white as snow.” Now, if you say, “Why, why, why? Is He a dumb God?
Can’t He see that it’s a sin? Can’t He see that it’s black? Why does He say it’ll be as white as
snow?” Just for one reason loved ones. It’s in Ephesians if you look at it.

Ephesians 2:3-8 “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even

when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been
saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in
Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith.”

Can you see what it says? Before you were even born, God foresaw the things that you would do. He
foresaw the things that you would say and the things you would think. Even then when you were dead
in your trespasses — before you had made any attempt at believing in him or any move towards him —
even when you were dead in your trespasses, he made you alive together with Christ.

He destroyed your old nature in Jesus, made you alive together with Christ and he raised you up to
his right hand. That’s why he is able to forgive you the moment you commit sin here in this world.
He has already destroyed you in Jesus. He has destroyed Jesus for your sin and God isn’t in the
business of wanting two deaths for one sin. God doesn’t want your death or my death.

He has already destroyed us in His Son Jesus and has changed us completely. He knows we’re changed
and has nothing against us. I don’t know if you see it. I feel for all of us who fall into guilt –
who keep thinking God must hate me. Do you see He doesn’t hate you? Do you see that His only desire
was to destroy the nature that produced the sin? He has done that in Jesus, so He has nothing but
love for you and me. He has nothing against us.

If you say, “Even if I am sinning?” I agree with you, it should be. You’d think He’d hate us. But He
doesn’t. Even when we’re actually sinning He knows that He has already destroyed that nature in His
Son. He loves us at that moment and is bent on only one thing — trying to show us the change that
He has wrought in Jesus for us and trying to get us to receive that change into our own life.

If you get to heaven and ask God, “Didn’t you hate me when I was sinning?” He’ll say, “No, no, no
why would I hate you? You’re my child. You’re the one that I destroyed my own Son for, so that I
could change you. Why would I hate you? No, I don’t hate you. I loved you all the time and you had
only to turn around one inch to see that my face was smiling at you. I was saying to you right then,
“though your sins be as scarlet, to me they’re as white as snow. And though they be like crimson
they’ll be as wool.” That’s it, loved ones. He does not hate us.

He only wants to destroy what has produced the sin and He has done that in Jesus. He doesn’t want to
destroy you or me all over again. Then you say, “He has nothing against me?” No, He hasn’t. He has
nothing against us. If you say, “Well, then why do I feel guilt? If He has condemned me in Jesus,
why do I feel guilt?” You feel guilt because the Holy Spirit is trying to get you to receive that
change into your own life. He’s trying to get you to receive the change of your nature that took
place in Jesus. The nature of children of wrath was destroyed in Jesus and the Holy Spirit is trying
to get you to receive that by faith into your own life. You’re resisting Him doing that and that’s
why you feel guilty.

You don’t feel guilt because God hates you. He doesn’t hate you. Guilt is not the human registration
of God’s wrath. Guilt is the human registration of our continuing to grieve the Holy Spirit who is
trying throughout this life to get us to receive the change that God wrought in us in Jesus. We’re
in a time of respite. These 70 years or 80 years are a time of respite.

God has held the sword of death from us and He has said, “Here is a window of opportunity that I
have given you. Here on this earth you have an opportunity to receive into your life, the mighty

change that I wrought in you in My Son Jesus. Now this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity you
have and My Holy Spirit is going to make that real in you, so listen to Him.” When we don’t listen
to Him, when we resist Him, we feel guilt. That’s why we feel guilt.

We don’t feel guilt because God hates us or has condemned us or is angry with us. All those things
were settled when He destroyed us in Jesus. We feel guilt because we’re resisting the Holy Spirit.
That’s the other part of grace. Grace means the unmerited love of God. It also means the ability of
God to enable us to do what He tells us. It’s the power and ability of God to do what He tells us to
do. And that’s the work of the Holy Spirit.

When you and I feel guilt, it’s because we’re resisting the Holy Spirit. If you say, “How are we
resisting Him?” Loved ones, I put down a few things that meant something to me. We resist Him
sometimes because we won’t admit we’ve sinned.
We rationalize the whole thing. “Oh it was a shortcoming. I was just showing affection. I just
thought it would help the other person. I was irritated or angry that day and I am justified.” We
rationalize sin and we grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit isn’t out to beat us for our sins.
He’s just trying to say to us, “You’re hurting Jesus. You’re hurting Jesus.” That’s what sin is.

We grieve the Holy Spirit when we rationalize our sin. You and I might think, “We shouldn’t admit
we’ve sinned otherwise we’ll go to hell.” The killer is that if you don’t admit your sin, you’ll go
to hell. The sin is wrong, the sin is bad and it hurts God but it’s the attitude behind the sin that
says, “I didn’t do it, it wasn’t wrong, it wasn’t sin, it was okay and I can justify it” — that’s
what will prevent us being at home with God in heaven.

You know the way you have a conversation with somebody, and you know they are miles away from you.
Their whole attitude to life is utterly different from yours and you realize we’ll never be friends.
We’ll never be close to each other. That’s what sin is. It’s an attitude in us that won’t agree with
God. That’s what confession means. Homologio in Greek is “homo” (like homogenous) and it means “the
same”. Logo, is “speak”. So it is “speak the same”. Confessing is speaking the same or agreeing with
another person. It’s speaking the same thing as another person is speaking. So confessing is
agreeing with God. Rationalizing sin is the very opposite. That’s one thing we do.

Another thing we do is we want to make up for our sin instead of throwing ourselves into the arms of
Jesus. We grieve the Holy Spirit by wanting to make up for our sin instead of throwing ourselves
into the arms of Jesus. It’s works of righteousness I suppose. We want to do something. We want to
be better people. We want to reach a position of victory. Strive, strive, strive, instead of
throwing ourselves into the arms of Jesus and saying, “Lord Jesus, You did the only thing that could
be done with us. You destroyed us, thank You. We owe everything to you.”

Instead of doing that, we want to improve ourselves. So we keep trying and trying. We’re just
grieving the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is saying, “Look, the only thing to be done with you is destroy
you. That’s what God did in Jesus and that’s what I am trying to bring home to you”. And we’re
replying, “No, we’re trying to show you that we can be better on our own. We can overcome this sin
by trying harder. We can strive and be better people.” We grieve the Holy Spirit and therefore guilt
comes on our conscience because we’re resisting Him.

Another way I saw that many of us “good Christians” grieve the Holy Spirit is living by laws that we
think describe the life of a good Christian. That is, we get a whole series of laws or principles
and we judge ourselves as good Christians by how we live up to those laws and principles. Of course

the change is still not wrought in us by the Holy Spirit and so our carnal nature fashions those
laws into the kinds of things that we want to do and the kinds of things that we don’t want to do.
So we end up making the laws in our own image.

We pick out the principles that describe our life and we play down the ones that don’t describe our
lives. We get used to a Christian way of life instead of listening to the Holy Spirit moment by
moment. “Holy Spirit, I have allowed myself to be destroyed in Jesus. You’re the only one that can
run my life. What do you want me to do?” Then we go moment by moment in loving heart submission to
the Holy Spirit. Instead of doing that, we set up our Christian pattern of life that we follow.

So — many of us have Christian lives that are dead. They’re dead. We do Christian things. We go to
church. We follow Christian principles. We have all kinds of little things, (even prayers and Bible
study) which we do. But we’re dead inside because the Holy Spirit has not been listened to by us for
years. We no longer have a dynamic relationship to the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you say, “Well, can we live in continual peace with God and in continual victory over sin?”
Yes. If you say to me, “How?” My answer is the Holy Spirit — the Holy Spirit. You and I ease closer
and closer to the cliff over which we fall into outward sin by just turning away from the Holy
Spirit repeatedly until there comes a time when we can’t hear His voice anymore. That’s it, loved
ones. That’s how we do it.

I know that’s how it works with me. It starts with the thought life. You just allow a little more
laxity to your thoughts, a little more broadmindedness, we say. At the beginning when the Holy
Spirit spoke, we acted. Right then, we were afraid to hurt our God. We were afraid to grieve the
Holy Spirit. We were afraid to hesitate even. For us, obedience was instant obedience.

What we do is, we get easy going. We get a little more lax each time. We allow a little more
critical attitude to come into our minds, a little more unclean imagination, a little more
ruthlessness, a little more irritability. We allow these things to creep in instead of listening to
the Holy Spirit and doing it immediately. Loved ones, the Holy Spirit is sent here to make real in
you the change God wrought in you in Jesus. He will do it if you and I will listen to Him. He will
keep us from falling if we will listen to Him and give Him instant obedience. Is there a beautiful
place to live above sin and self? Yes, yes there is.

Is there a beautiful place where we can love each other freely and with open hearts with beauty and
purity? Yes, there is. And will it give us each more satisfaction than anything else would give us?
Yes, it will. The Holy Spirit is able to keep you and me in a life that is free from sin where we
live continuously in the presence of the Father. It’s not a life of striving, to keep up above the
standard. It’s not.

It’s a life of loving companionship with the Holy Spirit. It’s a life of honor and respect for this
dear gentleman that God has sent to us because that’s what He is. In Revelation, the Holy Spirit
said to the churches, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. (He is a gentleman.) If any man will
open the door, I will come in. (If he opens the door, I’ll come in but I won’t push in, I won’t
force my way in.) But if any man opens the door, I will come into him and will sit with him and he
with me.” The Holy Spirit is God’s gentleman. He will lead you and me in paths that are paths of
pleasantness and ways that are ways of peace.

I don’t know if there’s anybody here this morning that has found themselves to have sinned and has

not been able to get clear. Then this morning you should just take the step. You should just confess
it as sin to God and thank Him, (you don’t need to ask Him), thank him for His forgiveness and for
what He has done for us in Jesus. Then turn to the Holy Spirit and say, “Holy Spirit, not an inch
will I move without listening to you. Will you bring in to me this external life of God that opens
my heart up and that delivers me from myself and the domination of my own mind? Will you bring into
me the freshness of God?” He will do it.

That’s what I am going to do and then you could do it if you want to. Then we’ll just close after
we’ve done it. So come up if God prompts you to.

The Freedom of Calvary

John 15:13

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

This day we’ve been asked by President Reagan to remember the men that died in the incident in the
Middle East. This being Memorial Day weekend we normally also think of them in connection with a
verse that we often quote. In a way we are satisfied to quote it and in some ways we’re
uncomfortable quoting it. It’s for that reason that I think it’s good to look at it in connection
with the men who died during the past week or so.

It’s John 15:13: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ”
In one sense it’s right to quote it in regard to the men that died but really it’s taken out of
context. It’s just a statement to the effect that you can’t show greater love for anybody than
laying your life down for them. In fairness to those men, they certainly laid down their life.

Now it is a little difficult in that one of the chaplains had said, “they had their lives stolen
from them.” And so, in many ways they did not choose to lay down their life the way Jesus said, “I
lay down my life of my own accord. No one takes it from me”. In a sense, their life was taken from
them and perhaps if they had had their choice, they would have preferred not to give it.

So, there is a sense in which it differs there. Nevertheless loved ones, they have given their lives
and they are now dead. They did die in service of their country. Undoubtedly all of us here realize
that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. All that is required for the progress of evil is
that good men do nothing. If we did not have our ships there and our men there, undoubtedly it would
be a tinderbox that would blow us all sky high.

So there is a real sense in which those men died for us and have given their lives so that we could
do what we want these days. Many of us who are from Europe realize in America, we have great luxury.
We are separated from everybody by two oceans. It is hard for them to get at us. It’s a little
easier now with the large missiles, but it’s still difficult for them to get at us. Often we owe our
safety, our protection and the relative paradise in which we live here in this country, to men like
those who are guarding us at the very edges and fringes of our borders.

So it is important to think of those men and to thank God for them and to respect them for what they
did. In some real sense, they have shown love to us even though they don’t know us. It’s interesting
too to think of how things are with them now. None of us know exactly where they all are because we
don’t know where they are spiritually in their own lives. But you can certainly see that their lives
are just cut — like that. And suddenly you go from being in the position where you’re writing to
your wife about the house and about painting it this spring or about putting in a new furnace in the
winter — suddenly that doesn’t exist for you anymore. There’s no more house, there’s no more
furnace, there’s no more need to paint the siding this spring.

Of course, all the thoughts that they had the week before about sending money home to make sure it
goes into this insurance program and that insurance program, suddenly you’re gone. Your life is
gone. There’s no point in putting more money in the insurance program. Or if you were going to send
something home to put in the mutual fund – the mutual fund doesn’t exist for you anymore; you’re not
concerned about it. Two weeks ago you can imagine them thinking about the car and writing home to

tell the wife or the son what they should do about the automobile — whether they should trade it in
or whether they should repair and paint it. Suddenly, all that is gone.

If they were thinking two weeks ago about what they were going to do when they got out of the Navy
and what they were going to do after they’re retired – suddenly it’s all blown away. All the things
that concerned them about the stuff they owned or the stuff they were going to try to own, all the
plans for whether they were going to sell real estate after they retired from the Navy or what they
were going to do in order to make a little more money, suddenly it’s just all cut off.

Wherever they are, their mind is certainly freed from all of that. It’s as if the world of things
just doesn’t exist. No worries about the house, no concern about getting another car, no concern
about what they’re going to do after they retire. If they were young men, they were probably like
the rest of us men and women.

Two weeks ago, they were all concerned about things like promotion and where they were on the
ladder. Or they were concerned about what the other guys in the bunk opposite thought of them. They
were concerned about how they appeared to the others and what kind of reputation they had and
whether they were friends or whether they were popular or whether they were unpopular. You can
imagine some of them even before the missile actually hit the ship having some thoughts of, “What
does so and so think of me? Oh I wish I were like them”. And suddenly it’s all gone — like that.

No relationships to bother about, no concern about whether this person thinks well of you or doesn’t
think well of you, no concern about where you stand on the little ladder. There’s no concern about
whether somebody is better thought of than you. There’s no trouble about what somebody is saying
about you behind your back. Suddenly it’s all gone. It’s strange. Whatever they were hoping to do
that weekend; whether to get drunk and blot it all out or to play tennis or whether they were hoping
to go swimming or do something for a little bit of a lift and happiness — all that’s gone too.

Whatever things they were hoping to experience the next week to make a little happiness for
themselves, that’s all gone. In a strange way, they’re free, aren’t they? I know you’re thinking,
“Yes, but where are they?” If they didn’t know God then I agree with you that’s not a happy thought.
But in some ways, they’re strangely free, aren’t they? They are free from a lot of the things that
bother a lot of us because those are the things that we so often fill our lives with. Think of what
you’re thinking of today. So often it is, “Well, what am I going to do about the house?” or “What am
I going to do about the money I need next week?” or “What am I going to do about the car?”

So often it is “What does so and so think of me?” Or “Where do I fit in the scale of important
people?” So often it is, whatever we think we can do tomorrow to make a little happiness for
ourselves. Suddenly, death just takes care of all that. If you can put yourself in their shoes and
imagine what it’s like, it’s an interesting kind of vacuum they must be in, isn’t it?

In some ways, it’s free. In some ways, it’s freer. You can step back and start taking initiatives
that you want to take. Suddenly you are not reacting to this and reacting to that. You are not
responding to this need and responding to that need. You are not squeezed by this necessity and by
that necessity. Suddenly you’re free. You can step back from life. You can look at it and you can
start doing FREE — in a vacuum — what you really think you ought to do.

I don’t know how many of you are in a situation that many of us are in. After you pass through a few
years in life, it seems that you get so many entanglements so that in a strange way, you’re not

free. Some of us have said, “Everything you own, owns you.” Everything you own seems to occupy more
of your time to look after. It’s interesting isn’t it that life seems to go like that.

You brought nothing into the world and as a little child you were strangely free. You didn’t have an
insurance policy to bother you. You didn’t have a car to look after. Then you get up to that point
when you have cars and yards and lawn mowers and plumbing to go wrong and all the other things. Then
as you get old you have to sell the big house. You get back down and gradually you take nothing out
of this world.

It’s interesting that at those two extremes you are in a sense freer. In this little bit, we’re like
so many caretakers. I used to joke with my wife when we lived in a certain house. I would drive out
in the morning and see the happy old dogs all sitting at their doors. I would say to her, “You know
the dogs are the only ones that enjoy this real estate. All the rest of us just pay for it. But they
seem to sit there and enjoy it.” For so many of us, we’re driven and pressed by the things that
surround us and by their attachments.

You may smile and say, “Well, I’d rather have those attachments and be breathing than none of the
attachments and not be breathing.” It would be great to be free of the attachments and be breathing,
wouldn’t it? That would be great. If you could be free of the attachments and still be breathing.
That’s why that verse has so much meaning.

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” That’s what Jesus
achieved for you. It may be unbelievable to you but He separated the strong possessive tendencies of
your personality that attach you to your possessions. He separated that from the possessions. He
separated those strong urges that at times tie knots in your stomach and make you concerned with
what people are thinking of you and with your reputation — whether they approve of you or criticize
you. He took those tendencies inside you — those strong urges to want people to think well of you
and He separated them from the people that you know.

Then He took from you that entire attitude inside you that tries to make itself happy by having
things turn out right. He took all those things and those attitudes into Himself and He destroyed
them in Himself for you. So that He actually died for you. He actually did for you what the Navy men
had to do themselves last week. He actually died for you. He did that dying for you so that you are
miraculously free from all the things that normally concern you in this life. He died so that
actually you could live free from worrying about your possessions.

You could, if you wanted to — you could. He has died for you to them (your possessions). He has
taken all those urgings and possessiveness that you have and destroyed them in Himself. You could
actually live free from those if you decided today to do it. There’s something inside you that says,
“No, no. If I don’t look after that house, if I don’t look after those mutual funds (multiply them,
take care of them, look after them and think about them all day and everyday), I’ll be lost when it
comes to retirement.” He took all that. He destroyed it in Himself and if you chose not to do that,
He would provide for you.

In other words, Jesus died for you. He took you into Himself and He destroyed all those things in
you that you’re normally preoccupied with. It’s possible for you to live free as those Navy men now
live. It’s possible for you to live free, by faith from this day forward. Jesus has died for you in
regard to those things. He has taken all the things inside you that make your life slavery and He
has destroyed them in Himself. You are able to live free from them now.

So in an amazing way, each one of us is able to live as free from our possessions, from our
reputations, from even the circumstances that we depend on for our happiness. Each one of us is able
to live as free from those things as those dear guys are now and you can do it today. Normally most
of us respond, “Yes, they’re free but I wouldn’t like that kind of freedom. Yet I would like to be
free from all the preoccupation I have with these things.”

“I recognize what you say — probably 85 percent of my time is taken up in looking after my
possessions and getting more possessions. Then 10 percent of it is taken up with what everybody
thinks of me and how I can get them to think better of me. Another 5 percent is taken up with how I
arrange my life this next week so that I’ll be happy. I must admit it would be nice to be free. I
am almost so enslaved that I don’t know what I’d do with my time if I hadn’t all those things to
look after. But I think it would be nice to be as free as those men are now.” Loved ones, that’s the
meaning of Calvary.

Jesus has taken you with all your attitudes that are dependent on this world into Himself and has
crucified them in Himself on Calvary. It’s possible for you to live as if you’re dead. If you say,
“Yes, but looking after those things, that’s the only way I am able to stay alive.” N0 — God will
take care of those things. God will provide for you. Your security does not depend on the things
that you have, on the money and the job and the house and the stocks and shares.

Your security depends on your dear Father who is now looking after those Navy men. Who do you think
is watching over them now? Wherever they are, who do you think is watching over them without the aid
of yards and lawn mowers and houses? There’s a conscious life beyond houses, beyond stocks and
shares, beyond money and bank accounts. It’s a life that is governed by a Father that loves His
people.

There is a security in your reputation and in your sense of worth and value that is beyond what the
rest of us think of you. Those dear men still have value. Even though their friends, and wives and
children are nowhere near them to make them think they’re great fathers, they still have value.
That’s because there’s a Creator in this universe who is the one that finally settles the value of
each man and woman. That dear Creator has set your value. Your sense of worth and value comes from
His opinion of you.

So it’s possible to live in the strange world of freedom that comes from death. It’s possible to
live in it in this present life. Because Jesus has died for you — He has died the death for you. If
you believe that you have died with Him then you begin to enter into a life that is free from those
concerns. So as we remember the men that died, would you remember that this dear book says, “You
have died and your life is hid with Christ in God.” You enter into real life when you live like
that. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank You for the dear men that died and Lord we thank You solemnly for all men and
women that have died so that our liberty would be preserved and so that we’re able to be here today.
Then Lord God we thank you that death is not the end. There is a life beyond death. We thank You
that that is a life that is free from all the burdensome preoccupations that we have with our
possessions, with our reputations and even with our own happiness.

We thank You Lord that there is a life there that is freed from those things and that lives above
them. Father we bow before you and thank You that the only way into that liberty is death. In Jesus

we experienced that death. We thank You Father that in Jesus, You have separated us from these
things. You, our dear Father, are able to sustain our lives independent of our possessions,
independent of our circumstances and independent of our reputations.

Father, we would step into death this day. We thank you that Jesus has died to this world on our
behalf and that we have died with Him to this world. Father, we now affirm what you did for us and
to us in Jesus. We step into death today into the same freedom that our dear friends have entered
except that we have this tremendous privilege of continuing alive here on this earth to live in
liberty and in freedom from it. We will live in trust and dependence on you only.

We commit ourselves Father to living in the full liberty that Your Son Jesus has died to make
available to us. We do this in His name and for His glory. Amen.

Freedom to Obey

Galatians 5:16-24

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

One of the things you have said to each other is, “If your life is not a sermon then you can’t
preach a sermon, and if your life is not a song you can’t sing a song, and if your life is not a
poem then you can’t write a poem, because finally what the world looks at, is not the nice words
that you say from the pulpit, or the nice words we sing, but what they see Monday through Friday.”
And probably there isn’t one of you here in America, at this moment that is not acutely aware for
the need for that kind of living.

As we all, I think feel, I think sympathy; you have to feel sympathy for some wee souls that are
under all kinds of criticism. As you feel sympathy for them, yet you know yourself that what does
most harm to the honor of Jesus is not the poor sermons; it’s not even the poor singing, it’s the
poor ‘living’ that is doing harm to the name of Jesus. And what our friends and colleagues at work
see is not what we do on Sundays, but what we do through the week, Monday through Friday.

And part of the difficulty we’re finding ourselves in, in evangelical Christianity here in America
during particularly these weeks and months, part of the difficulty is due to the heretical gospel
that we have preached, and shared, and elevated, and studied, and taught, for years and decades here
in the States and in the western world. I’d like to just point that heretical gospel out to you
again, and then just share again the real gospel, briefly as we look at a piece of the bible loved
ones in the New Testament in Galatians 5:16. And Paul was saying to the church of Galatia, “But I
say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh
are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed
to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are
not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy,
drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

And even though one feels a little more and more like a ‘voice in the wilderness’ these days, yet I
raise this voice again to point out loved ones, that the way that we are defending Tammy and Jimmy
[Jim and Tammy Bakker, television evangelists who were disgraced by immorality and fraud] at the
moment, is first of all through our love and our prayers, and then it’s through a heretical gospel.
And the heretical gospel is this: that we all sin. And we can’t expect anything else but to sin,
throughout our lives, and God forgives us all. Therefore, God will forgive Jimmy. And that’s not
right.

God does forgive Jimmy Bakker and Tammy Bakker. And most of you have done just as bad as he has,
because fornication, or adultery, or homosexuality is no worse than tearing a person down by
criticism. It’s no worse than jealousy, or pride, or envy, or anger. And who of us here can ‘cast
the first stone’? So first of all we need to see that the wee souls are no worse than all of us.
It’s just that they have been caught in something society says is a ‘terrible, immoral act’. But
loved ones, the way to defend them is not to say that we all live sinful lives day, after day, after

day, and God forgives us, so he will forgive them. That isn’t the gospel that is outlined here in
these versus.

I’d just ask you to look at them. In Verse 19 of Galatians 5, “Now the works of the flesh are
plain: fornication,”– that would be adultery as well, and it would be homosexuality; it would be
included in that sexual designation in the Greek. “Fornication, impurity:” that would be unclean
thoughts and thoughts of hatred towards other people; criticism towards other people.
“Licentiousness:” that would include, I suppose, all our eating where we do not obey what God has
told us. “Idolatry:” where we worship an automobile, or a house, or our own career. “Sorcery,
enmity, strife, jealous:” that would be displeased with somebody who seems to be thought of as
better than yourself. “Anger:” that would be temper, bad temper, losing your temper. “Selfishness,
dissension, party spirit, envy:” wanting to have what somebody else has; wanting to be like somebody
else, and annoyed that they appear to be better than you. “Drunkenness, carousing, and the like.”

And there’s a temptation today with our heretical gospel to say, “Don’t worry; do your best to avoid
those things, but where you can’t avoid them God will forgive you anyway. So just do your best, and
God will make up the deficit. Now brothers and sisters, that’s different from this next sentence,
“I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of
God.” Now that’s the false gospel.

The false gospel is that we’ve to do our best like all the rest of the humanists in this world;
we’ve to do our best to avoid sin, and where we fail to avoid it, God will make up for the
shortcoming. So we’ve just to do our best and he’ll make up for where we fail.

That’s not the gospel. These words obviously contradict that, because these words say, “I warn you,
as I warned you before,” so Paul obviously had to say this before. “I warn you, as I warned you
before, that people who do such things, people who fornicate, people who are envious, are jealous,
people who lose their temper and are angry, people who are licentious, they will not inherit the
kingdom of God — with or without Jesus, they cannot inherit the kingdom of God, because they’re
“building their house on sand,” and they’re not obeying God; and they’re believing, against
scripture, that people who do these things will get into the kingdom, because they say they believe
in Jesus.

Loved ones, that is a heretical gospel. That’s antinomianism. “Anti” in Greek, is ‘against’ and
“nomos” is law; it’s ‘against law’; it’s ‘lawless’ Christianity. It’s the kind of Christianity that
we were warned against in Peter, where we were told about the coming of the ‘lawless one’ where
people will sear their own consciences. That’s not the gospel. The gospel is not that Jesus died
to bear the punishment for your sins, so that you could sin with impunity. That’s not the gospel.

The dear Savior died to destroy your sinful nature so that you would be free to obey God. That’s
the gospel. If you say to me, “But brother what if we fail once?” You know it’s not failing once
that is the problem. You know what God wants in heaven is characters that are like his own. He’s
not concerned with your once failure, or your odd time mistake, but he is concerned with our
characters. Have we received the deliverance that God has brought to us in his Son, Jesus? And if
you say to me, “What is that?” It’s deliverance from depending on the world. That’s it.

Why do you get envious? You get envious because you’re concerned with what other people think of
somebody else. Other people are thinking somebody else is better than you. Why are you concerned
about that? Because you’re concerned with what other people think of you. If you say to me, “Well,

I’m concerned with that, because I’m made that way. I’m made that way! I need other people to
praise me! When other people criticize me or run me down, my whole being reacts against it. I’m
made that way!” And the miracle of Calvary is that God destroyed you in Jesus; destroyed that way
you’re made. That’s your sinful nature; he destroyed that, and he remade you so that you could be
free from what people think of you; free from whether they praise you or criticize you; concerned
only with what God thinks of you. And therefore, can you see, free from envy and pride?

That’s what God did for us in Jesus. Jesus did not die to ‘cover’ our sins. That’s what he did for
the Old Testament people; he just covered them. But they were all under there wriggling, and
wriggling like mad, inside their sinful natures. But Jesus’ death covered their sins in Old
Testament times. Now, in New Testament times, he destroyed the sinful nature, that produces those
sins.

So loved ones, what Jimmy Bakker needs; what Ernest O’Neill needs; what Christine Kierkagor needs;
what Carmen Shepherd needs; what you need; what we all need is not somebody to come and say, “You’re
forgiven because all the rest of us are just as bad.” That’s not it. What we need is somebody to
come and say, “God has done a work in Jesus that has delivered you from your sinful nature, so that
you can live free from sin.” Now, as the old Catholic saints would have said, seek the wounds of
Christ; seek the wounds of Christ. Go back to Calvary yourself in your own prayers, and ask God to
show you what he did to you in Jesus, so that he can do it, and make it real in you today. That’s
the gospel, and that’s really what the brothers and sisters are saying. They’re saying there’s only
one way to proclaim Jesus, and that is by your own life being delivered from the sin that causes
death.

And let me tell you a secret; all the wee souls out there, all of them out there, that’s what they
want. They want to see a people who live differently from themselves, and who live above sin and
self. And when they see that, they’ll begin to think it’s possible perhaps for them, too. And
they’ll seek our Savior, our Savior who died to save us ‘from’ sin, not ‘in’ sin.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we know that these are serious, grave days in which we’re living. We
know our Father that our own society is being swamped not only by all kinds of things that we would
never have dreamed of years ago, but also by a confusion about what is right and what is wrong. Our
Father, we want to put our lives on your side. So Lord, we ask you by your Holy Spirit to enable us
to receive the gospel of truth into our own lives, so that we may be freed from self and sin, and
may live the way you intended us to.

We ask our Father, that even in the closing moments of this sacred concert, you will move in our
hearts, and you will use the words that are sung to enable us to come into freedom from all that is
wrong in our lives, so that we may praise you with our daily behavior as well as with our tongues,
in Jesus’ name.

Real Happiness

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

We are privileged in our own lives to have moments of pause when God gives us a chance to review our
lives and to look again at where we’re going. A death is such an occasion — when your dad or your
mom died or a dear son or daughter died. Partings are such situations and new jobs are such
situations. And this is such a situation because this is the last communion service of Campus
Church. I was calculating, it’s about my 200th communion service.

So, for all of us here who have been together for many years, it is a pause time. In that way, it’s
an important time and we need to see it as important. We are a little like Jesus when He said, “I
will not drink with you the wine until I see you in the kingdom.” In a sense there are many of us
here who will not drink wine together in memory of Jesus’ death until we’re in the kingdom.

So, turning away, we shouldn’t have any sadness about that because if this is God’s way, it’s a
glorious way forward. But we need to look seriously at communion this morning and to see again what
God has done for us in Jesus. One of the reasons I beat myself over the head with things like
cleanness and purity in my own heart and freedom from anger, jealousy and envy is not because I
think I should be better than everybody else.

One of the reasons I beat you over the head with the need to have clean hearts and pure hearts is
not because I think you should be better than everybody else but because I know that that is what
Jesus’ death has wrought for us. If we miss that absolute purity and cleanness in our own lives,
we’re missing what Jesus’ death has wrought for us. It’s important for all of us to see that today.
It’s not that I delight in being a masochist and saying, “You rotten, miserable Ernest O’Neill, you
should be pure in your heart and clean in your thoughts and you should never lose your temper
because you ought to be better than everybody else”, it’s not that.

I say to you, to Myrtle, to Crystal, to Irene, to Gentry, to David, to all of us here. I say we are
to be free from any impurity or any uncleanness in our hearts. We are to be free from any anger,
jealousy, pride, or from anything that is filled with irritability or lack of love because that’s
what Jesus has made possible for us.

So let me just mention it once more. There are two ways to live in this life. One is to depend on
the world and the other is to depend on God’s Spirit. Depending on the world is the way all of us
have been brought up, even those of us who have had good moms and dads. We have been taught by our
moms and dads to believe that our security would come from us getting good jobs, earning our money
by the sweat of our brow and making our own way as far as the food, shelter and clothing that we
needed are concerned.

That has led in its turn to a commitment of our wills to getting enough food, shelter and clothing
so that we will have sufficient. That in its turn has led as you know to worry and anxiety when we
lost our job or when we didn’t make enough money, or when we felt the economy was going down. That
in turn leads to worry and to anxiety. And that in its turn leads to wishing we had more, to being
envious of somebody who has more, to being jealous of somebody who seems to have succeeded more than
we have. It leads to avarice and greed. It leads to irritability when somebody seems to take our job
from us or take something from us that is ours.

If you live depending on the world for your security, it’s very difficult to avoid things like
covetousness and greed. It’s very difficult to avoid things like worry because the world is just not
dependable and you are even less dependable. You can live depending on the world for those things or
you can live depending on the world for your own sense of importance.

All of us are the same. I am no different from you; you’re no different from me. We’re one in the
midst of four billion. We’re unique. I agree you’re unique. Your hair curls differently from mine.
Your nose is different from the guy beside you and the girl besides you. But even if you were
exactly the same you are very different inside. You are unique and you know you are unique but
nobody else seems to notice it. They are all so busy with their uniqueness. They have no time for
your uniqueness.

So, you try to get them to realize how unique you are. If you depend on the world for your sense of
value, self-esteem and self-worth, you end up being frustrated by the fact that the others don’t
notice how brilliant you are. You get irritated with them. You get envious of those who are looked
upon as better than you. So, it’s very hard if you depend on the world for your sense of self-worth.
It’s very hard to avoid the feelings that rise inside you of envy and jealousy and pride in your own
actions and your own self.

It’s the same with happiness. If you depend on the world for your happiness, then you’re always
trying to arrange happy circumstances. You’re trying to arrange things to suit you. It’s very
difficult because everybody else is doing the same and so you’re constantly butting your head up
against your wife or your friends or your colleagues. That’s because they’re all trying to arrange
their set of circumstances to suit them and you’re trying to arrange yours, and from time to time
the circles bump into one another and clash. You find frustration and futility, and that repeatedly
the circumstances aren’t satisfying you.

I would just put it to you very plainly. Do you not think there’s some truth in this, that from when
your dad died or your mom died or your dearest wife or husband died, from that moment you can never
be fully happy in this world, can you? Now, we all like to say, “Oh, that’s not adult and mature, of
course we can.” But really I don’t think you can. After you lose one very dear person in your life,
in a sense you can never arrange the circumstances in this world to make you happy.

So, loved ones if you live depending on the world for your security, significance, and happiness,
you can’t avoid the attitudes and feelings like anger, resentment, futility, jealousy, envy, and all
those things. So you can choose to live that way or you can choose to live depending on God’s
Spirit; trusting him and him only to make sure you have not all the food you want but all the food
that he thinks you need, not all the clothing you want but all the clothing that he feels you need,
not all the homes and the shelter and the beautiful house and the wonderful car and the great boats
that you think you need, but what he feels you need.

You can choose to depend on His Spirit. Now, at times that may end you up on a wretched cross on a
hill outside Jerusalem where you only have a loin cloth and the other guys are sticking spears in
your side. So it means a readiness to let God provide for you the clothing or the lack of clothing,
the pain or the freedom from pain, that he thinks is right for you. In other words, you can depend
on God and his Spirit to give you the security that you need. You can depend on God to give you the
significance that you need which may mean a lot of people walking by you wagging their heads and
saying, “He can’t save Himself even though He says He is the Son of God. He can’t save Himself. He
saved other people, why doesn’t He save Himself?”

In other words, you may end up with a lot of people walking by you pretty well ignoring you or
walking over the top of you. Being willing to depend on God for your sense of value means being
willing to take your place with Jesus on the Cross, wherever he wants you to take that place.
Depending on God’s Spirit for your happiness means leaving his view of your happiness in his hands
and being content with that. If he deems to put you in circumstances that are continuously sad and
depressing and frustrating — then you accept that with joy and delight. It means trusting God for
his estimate of your happiness.

In other words, it means probably in some sense not being a good American, not demanding happiness
— not demanding that happiness that is happy with your happenings, with the things that happened to
you. It’s being content with God’s joy that he gives you whether outside circumstances are happy or
not. Now, you have to live one or the other way. One way brings all kinds of strong feelings of
anger, irritability, envy, jealousy and pride that you cannot hold down. You know that and I know
that.

The other way brings a spirit of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit that is supernatural. You have to
choose which way you live. Now, you will reply to me if you have had the same experiences I have
had, “Pastor, I have tried to live the right way and I cannot.” I don’t blame you. There’s no doubt
that you cannot on your own. When you choose to depend on the world (which most of us have done from
we were born), there are elemental spirits in the world that get hold of your heart.

Like Gulliver (in “Gulliver’s Travels”), he was tied down in that place where all the little people
were, tied down and he couldn’t move. It’s like that when the elemental spirits of the world get
hold of your heart. They pull at your heart. They get your body used not just to drugs; they get
your body used to thrills. They get your whole mind used to praise. They get your whole feelings
used to happy thoughts. There are elemental spirits that get hold of you and make you satisfied with
only what you can get from the world. Then, whenever you try to get clear of that, you’re like
Gulliver. You try to lift up from this earth but you’re tied to it, you’re staked to it and you
cannot get free of it.

So, you try to live the right way but you cannot and the only way you can ever be free is if God
destroys the hold that those elemental spirits have on your own heart. If he destroys your whole
personality that has been used and enslaved to the world and he remakes you completely. That’s what
this is about. That’s what Jesus did for you and me.

He died for you and he allowed you to die inside him to the world. He destroyed your whole
personality that is enslaved to the world. What he is asking you this morning to do is to say, “Lord
I accept that. I die today to the world and to what it can give me of security. Do you want me to be
poor? Do you want me to be rich? Either way, Lord I die to depending on the world for my security.

“Lord, I die to depending on the world for my self-esteem and self-worth. If everybody thinks I am
useless and hopeless, I accept that. Lord, I depend on you alone and what you think of me from this
day forward. Thirdly Lord, I depend on you for my happiness or for whatever happiness you judge I
should have in this life. I die to the world and to demanding that circumstances go right for me to
be happy. Then Lord, I ask you now to send the Holy Spirit into me. Holy Spirit, I will obey you
instantly instead of being constrained by my need for security and for what I can get from the
world. I will be constrained by you, Holy Spirit.

“Instead of being constrained by the world and its praise or its criticism, I will be constrained by
you, Holy Spirit. Instead of being constrained by circumstances and the way they make me feel
better, I will be constrained by you, Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, I commit myself to you as my
counselor and my master on this earth and I will obey your slightest command.”

As you do that, your life will begin to be filled with peace. Your life will begin to be filled with
order from God and with feelings of love and joy and cleanness and purity and peace that passes all
understanding. That’s it, loved ones. That’s what communion is about and you can enter into that
this day. If you say to me, “Will you ever experience any anger or jealousy or lust or uncleanness?”
You will if you don’t obey the Holy Spirit — only if you haul yourself off that dear Cross. But if
you keep obeying the dear Holy Spirit, the love will be greater than it has ever been in your life
before. That’s what the Gospel is and that’s for all of us this day. Let’s stand as we receive the
invitation.

You that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbors
and intend to lead a new life following the commandments of God and walking from henceforth in his
holy ways — draw near with faith and take this Holy Sacrament to your comfort and make your humble
confession unto Almighty God. Let us be seated as we pray.

The Communion prayer:

We do not presume to come to this thy table, most merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness
but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under
thy table, but thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore
gracious Lord, so by faith to receive thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, that the bread we break may
be unto us the communion of his body, and the cup of blessing, which we bless, may be the communion
of his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.

The Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and broke it and said, “This is
my body which was given for you, this do, in remembrance of me.” In like manner, he took the cup
after supper saying, “This is the cup of the New Covenant in my blood; this do, as often as you
drink it”, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death till
he come.

Counting the Cost

John 6:66

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Could you take a Bible please and turn to John 6:66. It’s not the kind of verse we all delight in,
but it’s real. John 6:66, “After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with
him.” I know particularly those of us who are getting started in life — but even those of us who
are getting towards the middle of it know that in America we really like to be successful. Our
society glories in success and we are all taught from when we’re children that the purpose of our
lives is to be successful and so we don’t go too much for anything that looks vaguely like failure.

That puts a tremendous burden of course on all of us because we all have to try to pretend that
we’re successful every time and every year and actually we aren’t. The very idea of success is
something that everybody differs on, so it’s virtually impossible either to satisfy your own ideas
of success but particularly it’s impossible to satisfy everybody else’s idea of success.

As I look around you, I really don’t think that any of you is an exception to this. The strange
thing is that we have set up a framework for our lives that is almost bound to be a disappointment.
It’s almost bound to be a feeling of anti-climax. I say that respectfully to each of you because I
am sure all of you have successes in different ways but we are so preoccupied with success. You know
what I mean. Okay, you’re successful career-wise but what about your marriage? It’s a mess. All
right, you’re successful in your marriage but what have you done with your career? You know it just
goes on.

It’s impossible to prove to yourself satisfactorily that you have been successful on every front.
Yet our society glories in that and hates even talking about something that isn’t successful. So
apart from the fact that ideas of success are ridiculous, yet the whole commitment to success is
ridiculous and of course it isn’t reality. It just is not reality. It isn’t.

So, here is the dearest man in the whole universe. The highest and the best ethical teacher that the
world has ever seen, the Son of the maker of the universe and you read this verse, “After this, many
of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with Him.” We just hate that kind of talk. You
know you do. There’s something inside you that says, “Don’t talk about that, don’t talk about that!”
We’ll sing ” Zippidee-doo-daah, zippidee-ay, my oh my oh what a wonderful day.” Let us talk about
happy things. Let’s talk about the days when the crowds were around Him and when He was successful.
Let’s not talk about this day. But this day is real. There came a day in Jesus’ life when many of
His disciples drew back and no longer went with Him.

In other words, everybody did not follow Him to the end. The interesting thing is that this occurred
quite early on in his ministry. We always think, “Oh well, you mean when He was coming towards the
end, when Peter and others forsook Him. That’s what you mean.” No, this occurred quite early on in
the ministry. Now, why did it happen? Well, it is dead easy to see. It happened because He started
to talk gloomily and they just knew that their right under the constitution was to happiness. They
couldn’t take gloominess when He began to talk gloomily in John 6:53.

John 6:53: “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son
of man and drink his blood,'” — Drink his blood? Do you know what they charged the Christians with

in the first century? If you read some of the ancient documents of the Roman Empire during the first
century, you’ll find that they brought the Christians in not simply on charges of disloyalty to
Caesar, but on charges of being cannibals. “These people have special meetings in the catacombs, in
secret, where they drink human blood and they eat human flesh.” That’s what they said.

These people eat people, that’s why the Christians are savage criminals that ought to be
exterminated and it was on the basis of this that they said that. Verse 54, “He who eats my flesh
and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” After that, many of His disciples ceased to follow Him.
Because He started to say to them, “You’re actually going to have to eat my flesh and drink my
blood.”

Now why did He say they had to do that? Well, it’s in verse 56. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my
blood abides in me, and I in him.” That’s it. Jesus began to say to them, “I know you love me. I
know you respect me. I know you believe my teachings but do you understand that you’re actually
going to have to come inside me and I am going to have to come inside you? That’s what’s going to
have to happen.”

“You’ll have to come inside me and I’ll have to come inside you. You will have to endure what I
endure. My blood and my flesh are going to be spilt and are going to be torn apart for you. You’re
going to have to come in and you’re going to have to experience that inside me.” And the disciples
said, “Forget it. We like the teaching, we like the miracles, we like the crowds, we like the
popularity, we like this idea of Heaven and happiness but we’re not going to have anything to do
with blood and flesh — blood being shed and flesh being torn apart? Death? No, we don’t want
anything to do with that!”

Now loved ones that’s where we are, do you understand that? That’s where we are not just in America,
but that’s where we are in Western Christianity. Do you know that? We’re exactly there.

Heaven? Yes, the pleasure part? Yes, go-go singing and music? Yes. Happiness? Yes. Death? No. No,
we’re not going to have anything to do with death. And we’re not going to have anything to do with
hardship. We’re not going to have anything to do with that. So just don’t present that. We don’t
like it. We’re not interested in it. We want heaven. We want our sins forgiven. We want to be happy.
This life has enough misery in it without you bringing more. We don’t want to talk of death. That’s
where we are.

It’s the same today and you’re great witnesses of it. We don’t want anything to do with hardship or
death, but that is the Gospel. That’s the Gospel. Because the truth is the Bible is really true. It
really means what it says and you see what it says in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The wages of sin is death.
That’s the Gospel.

The only way you can destroy sin is through death. That’s the only way you can destroy sin. Jesus
died for us in that He took us into Himself and destroyed us on Calvary. That’s why He said, “You’re
going to have to drink my blood and eat my flesh because that’s the only answer My Father has for
you and your sin. You’re going to have to die with me. I am going to die and I am going to have you
inside me when I die and that is how you’re going to be freed from sin.” He explained that, you
remember if you just look back one chapter in Romans 6:7.
“For he who has died is freed from sin.”

Jesus said, “The only way you’re going to be freed from sin is through death. The wages of sin is
death. I died for you so that you could be freed from sin. And you have to drink my blood and eat my
flesh because you have to experience that death. That’s the only way you’re going to be free.” Why?
It’s because of Romans 7:18.

“For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but
I cannot do it.” “I know that nothing good dwells within me.” That’s why. There’s nothing good in
you or me — nothing purely good. We do some nice things because your dad was nice in one way, your
mom was nice in another way, and you do some nice things. But in you yourself — in the heart of you
— there’s nothing truly good and so the only thing God can do with you and me is destroy us and
kill us and put us out of existence and make something absolutely new — a completely new creation.
That’s what Jesus began to explain to the disciples and they said, “No, we don’t want to hear.”

You can’t help feel sorry for him. (At the time of this sermon, a well-known evangelist was exposed
for gross sin and immorality). I think he’s a mad man. I think he is mad, whatever he got himself
into, whether it’s homosexuality or prostitution. It’s madness, but your heart goes out to the souls
and that’s why we have our present situations, do you see that?

We make the “Jimmys and the Tammys”. (Referring to Jim and Tammy Baker) We make them. What they are
we want. The psychiatrists say you always get the children you want and we don’t like that. We get
the heroes we want. We make them. I’m with you, it’s wrong, it’s terribly wrong. It’s terrible, and
it’s hypocritical. If you say the worst things, I’ll agree with him. It’s terrible, unthinkable and
ridiculous. It makes a fool of Christianity. It spoils young people’s view of what evangelists are.
It’s ridiculous but not as bad as all of us self-righteous people, with our sins forgiven as we say.

Jesus can’t even get us to hear His words “whoever is without sin.” He can’t even get us to hear His
words. We are so busy picking up the boulders and stones. Stones aren’t big enough. We need
boulders. We need to dash this fellow into the ground. We need to grind him into the dust. We need
to destroy him completely because we are all very holy people. It’s terrible isn’t it? You
understand what I am doing? I am not speaking on their behalf at all. I have no interest in that. I
am speaking on behalf of the Gospel. But the only answer going over the television waves at the
moment is, well we ought to forgive them because that’s what the Gospel is. We all feel uneasy about
it. We feel we should forgive them, but yet we feel, “Well wait a minute now, if we forgive him when
he does this, what about the next time? Where does it end?”

Where do you ever find rock under your feet? I mean do we have to forgive every great leader that
falls? Then if that happens do we not all become just an amoral bunch that are saying, “Oh do your
best and if you can’t do your best it doesn’t matter because we’ll forgive you anyways?” So, there
is an uneasiness in all our hearts. We feel it’s right. But loved ones I submit to you that what we
feel is right, is that we shouldn’t be judging. We shouldn’t be judging. It’s our little conscience
still urging, “You have no right to judge.” That’s what we feel is right.

We have no right to judge. But we feel in our own hearts, is there not a better Gospel than the one
that leaves Jimmy Baker in the position that he is in? Loved ones, there is, but it’s this Gospel
that we’re talking about this morning. Jesus died not just so that our sins would be forgiven, but
so that you and I could be carried to death with Him, could be destroyed and could be remade utterly
and completely. That’s the Gospel. And that’s the Gospel that many of the disciples were repelled

by. It’s the Gospel that still, we in our Western Christianity are repelled by — but that is the
Gospel.

The only way for you and me to be saved from the kinds of things that we are so self-righteously
judging in this one and that one and the other one — the only way we can be saved from that is to
experience a real death with Jesus on Calvary. The only way is for you to be utterly replaced by
Jesus, that’s it. That’s what the Gospel is. You and I are so bad that God had to destroy us utterly
in Jesus and had to remake Jesus in us. That’s the Gospel.

So the Gospel is not just “come and confess your sins and believe they’re forgiven.” The Gospel is,
“Lord God, I am rotten to the core. I do the very same things that I charge and accuse and criticize
in others. I am so rotten that all you can do is destroy me utterly and completely in Jesus and
remake Him so that He lives this life instead of me.” That’s it. Now, that’s what the disciples
didn’t like. But that is the Gospel.

You remember one of them misspoke. I’ll show you where it is. It’s in Galatians 2:20. He misspoke
and then corrected himself. Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I
who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Where he misspoke is in Galatians 2:19.
“For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God.” And then he said, “No, it’s not
me that’s living to God. It’s not me that lives but it’s Christ that lives in me.” That’s the
Gospel.

Your only hope and my only hope is if Jesus takes over our lives and lives in our place. That’s the
only way we’ll be saved from sin. I am not talking about some mystical thing. You have to cease to
exist and Jesus has to live in your place so that the only thoughts you have are those of Jesus.
That’s it.

The only thoughts you have are what Jesus wants or what He wishes to do. That’s the real Gospel and
that’s why the disciples ceased to go with Him. All of us are willing to follow if we have the right
still to run our own lives and to refuse and reject what our leader says. We’re all willing to
follow with that qualification. But we’re not willing to give over our lives completely and cease to
exist and let Jesus alone live. That’s what it is, loved ones, and that’s what the Gospel is. That’s
the only thing that will save from sin. That’s the only thing worth preaching. It’s the only thing
worth living and dying for.

I remember at school, we were all taught, you stand up and you say what is right, whatever the cost.
My parents taught me that too. I’m sure that many of you were taught to do the same thing. But you
see the only way you can do that is if it’s no longer your life that you’re defending. Then you can
do it because it’s Jesus standing up inside you and doing it. It’s the only life worth living.

Now, if you don’t live that life, you’re going to be dwindling away your life in a realm of
relativity and uncertainty until you die. You know fine well you can’t be a child of God and
actively be homosexual. You can’t be a child of God and actively fornicate. You can’t be a child of
God and sin. You can’t. It just makes foolishness of the Bible and foolishness of everything. But do
you see those words are for you and me here; they’re not just for Jimmy and Tammy Baker and all the
rest. Those words are for you and me.

You and I can’t sin and be a child of God. We can’t sin and dwell in Heaven forever. The only way

you can be saved from sin is through death. The wages of sin is death and the only way that you can
die is by accepting what God has done to you in Jesus and allowing Jesus to take over your life
completely and utterly and absolutely. That’s it. To those of you who are young and those of us who
are older, it’s the same old Gospel. It’s everything. It costs you everything. It costs you
absolutely everything.

If you say to me, “And doesn’t it makes you miserable?” Oh yes terrible, just unbelievably
miserable. It’s just an unbearable life. It prevents you being able to bear anything at all. It’s
just terrible. I would not recommend it to anybody. (Pastor O’Neill is saying this without being
serious). I mean it’s glorious, glorious, glorious. It’s the only life to live. It’s the only life
that is proof against the hideous unreality and injustices and ridiculous things that happen in this
life. It’s the only way to live. Besides, I’ll tell you a secret. Sooner or later you’re going to
die anyway. You’re going to die anyway.

You can choose to do it now or eventually God will have to wipe you out simply in order to make
Heaven possible. But you can choose to hand it all over to Him today. I’d encourage you to do it as
God gives you grace this morning. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank You for Jesus and we thank You Lord Jesus for taking every part of us that is
rotten to the core and allowing Your Father to destroy it forever. Lord, we thank you for bearing
the pain. Now we come to you to hand over our lives completely and absolutely and utterly to you. We
have no right to live. We have earned the wages of sin and they are death, and we stand up now and
we take that death and we accept it and we end our lives this day. We bury in your tomb all our
hopes for the future and all our preferences and all our rights and we give this life now over to
you. We give you the right to do what you want with this life and to live it the way you please and
to speak when you wish and to think what you want. We will continuously and repeatedly bow to your
will every moment of each day and each night and allow Your Spirit to fill our lives and to achieve
what you want in this present world.

Now Lord Jesus, we thank you for the Gospel of life out of death and we thank you that we too can
commit ourselves to knowing nothing but Christ and him crucified – the hope of glory. Amen.

No Compromise! Stay Safe in the World

John 5:39-40

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

In the first Sunday — 1967 it was. It was November ’67 we began in Bethany Presbyterian Church,
and I started at Romans. She [Dr. Irene O’Neill, Pastor’s wife] said I would never get it finished,
and she’s right; I’m still at Romans 15, 20 years later. But this is the first sermon, and I
started by a newspaper cutting, [Pastor reads] “Synod suggests theology panel to resolve crisis.”
The Vatican City — this was in ’67. “The World Synod of Bishops, by an overwhelming vote asked
Pope Paul, Friday, to issue a positive pastoral declaration on the doctrinal crisis in the Roman
Catholic Church.” This was ‘barricade time’ on the campuses [all over the USA]. You know the whole
story, that’s what was happening. It was that kind of atmosphere on the campus [University of
Minnesota]. “They urged him to form an international commission of theologians to solve it. The
document however struck a note of compromise acknowledging the existence of a serious crisis of
faith within the church. The document deplored the unfortunate state of affairs, adding that
unwarranted innovations, false opinions, and even errors in the faith have been committed. It
listed as causes the decrease of personal prayer, insufficient teaching by the hierarchy, imprudent
discussions by theologians, and a certain decrease in the super natural faith among men conscious of
their own natural powers. The document said the Pope should give a secure direction to the faith of
Catholics through a statement.”

And actually I started by saying that that was the difficulty in our world today. I said that 20
years ago. The difficulty was that the old principles and the old bases were falling away and being
undermined. The old authority figures that we never questioned before were now being questioned.
Indeed, the old authorities that we depended on were even questioning themselves, and were becoming
unsure of themselves. And of course, the campus at that time was filled with all kinds of young men
and women who didn’t know whether we should be at war or whether we shouldn’t be at war. And they
didn’t know ‘where’ the world was going.

The rest of us, of course, were looking at them, feeling that they were part of the problem, and
they were creating the chaos. And the ensuing years of the ‘hippy movement’ increasingly impressed
upon all of us that our world was falling apart. So we’ve improved a lot in 20 years [speaking
tongue-in-cheek]. Well you know it’s worse, because at least the institutions were still kind of
standing. Now that generation have become the people who run the institutions, and of course the
very institutions are falling apart. And there’s even more uncertainty! Indeed, uncertainty is
part of life today: uncertainty about where we’re going, and uncertainty about right and wrong.

And you know the hideous situation we’re in with AIDS [acquired immune deficiency syndrome]. Any of
us who have any love in our hearts, just are broken hearted, for the dear ones that are dying
dreadful deaths. Any of us that have any love of Jesus in us feel nothing but love and sympathy and
pity for those who are caught in that disease, and those who are involved in homosexuality. But we
are bewildered at the attempts we are all making at saying that you can be homosexual, practicing
homosexual, and you can do those things, and that those things are not wrong. And yet you know how
difficult it is now to actually say what is right and what is wrong, because everybody is mixing up
sympathy and human empathy with each other, with ‘what they do’, and ‘what they think is right and
wrong’. In the midst of that situation I said, “There is only one place we can go.” And so that’s
the first thing I’d like to share with you on this last Sunday.

They give this [holds up a Bible] to the Queen of England on her coronation, and they say, “Receive
this, the most valuable thing that this world affords.” So that’s it. Now you will need to know
what is right and what is wrong in these coming years. And you are going to hit death without me
anywhere near you. Now you need to know what is right and what is wrong.

This [indicates the Bible] is where you find that. I don’t say that because my grandmother told me
it, though she did, or because my dad told me it, or because some other old person told me it. I
want you to know — and I know you think that I can think, you don’t think I’m dumb — I believe it,
because I’ve looked at the manuscripts that lie behind this. This is real history. This is real
history. This man Jesus actually lived. You can be surer of that than that Julius Caesar or any of
the greats ever lived. This is history; this is true; this book is true.

The Old Testament depends on Jesus’ attitude to it. You establish first his authenticity, his
historicity, and then because he believes the Old Testament, you believe the Old Testament. This is
God’s book. This is truth. If all the popes fall away, and all the preachers fall away, this is
still where you can find right and wrong. Some of us know I’ve ‘beaten us over the head’ on this
thing, because I need the help that it gives me, too. When it says, “Homosexuality is wrong,” it’s
wrong. It doesn’t matter how dear the person is we love. When it says, “Fornication is wrong,”
it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter what we say. This dear book we need, because we’re all in the same
boat; we’re weak poor little creatures who love each other so much that we do wrong things, even to
please each other.

This dear book keeps us up; it holds us up. You have to stay with this book. Don’t ‘bluff’ on it.
I came through a seminary that taught me to rationalize it. I know how to take the bits out and
say, “They’re due to higher critical theories; they’re not God’s word.” I was brought up that way.
That’s not true; this is God’s word! Every part of it is God’s word, especially when it speaks to
your conscience. So especially when you disagree with it, take note. John Wesley said, “Every one
of us is prone to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.” Be humble. Be humble
about yourself.

If I’m a twerp — that’s an English word I suppose — you’re a twerp. If I’m a rat you’re a rat.
Be humble about it: you are a rat; we’re all rats. We’re pitiful little creatures that want our own
way, and if we could get it, and get into heaven, we’d do it.

And this dear book is an anvil upon which God will break us and remake us in his own image. So you
have to stay with this book. If you go to another church where the guy [the pastor] — and think of
him, think of the wee soul; he’s fearful. He’s fearful, “That’s what we’ve got.” He’s fearful.

I was helped a little because this dear girl [Dr. Irene O’Neill, Pastor’s wife] was a dentist, so if
you stopped paying me, I could still eat. The other guys weren’t like that. They weren’t. They
have difficulty; so we have lots and lots of us here standing up at pulpits, “And if you want to
fornicate, and you won’t come to church unless you get fornicating…” Well you see the pressure to
keep the church going, because maybe it will do somebody some good.

Now loved ones, if you have a dear guy that is under that kind of fear, and he bluffs on this thing,
and he makes it suitable for your hearing, stop, and see that you’re putting yourself into hell.
Now stop blaming the dear guys that are up here. He’s wrong, and he’ll go to hell, too, if he keeps
at it. And you have to pray for him. But you and I are responsible for how we respond. And if you

become one of those that encourage preachers with ears that are itching to hear what you want them
to preach, it’s your fault. You’ll go to hell, yourself, by your own choice, because you don’t
finally need a preacher.

This book, everybody has. This book is your book; it’s your Creator’s gift to you. Abide by it.
If you’re struggling with some sin that it condemns, continue to struggle. Yes, even if you end up
repenting day-after-day, for the rest of your life, keep repenting. Never, never rationalize it.

Look, I’ll read a little bit; don’t bother looking at it; I’d like you to hear it. Just concentrate
on it. But, it’s serious. It’s near the end, and it says this, “I warn every one who hears the
words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plaques
described in this book, and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God
will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this
book.” That’s true. Don’t do it; don’t do it.

This book is God’s words. If you’re caught in a sin that is condemned in this book, keep opposing
the sin even until you enter into death. Keep opposing the sin. ‘But’, God has a deliverance for
you. But even if you never get that deliverance, never, never get into a position where you set
your life against this book. Why? Now you can look at the book. It’s Acts 17, and I’ll show you
why. It’s Acts 17:31, “Because he,” – I’m sorry you should really look at Verse 30. “The times of
ignorance,” Old Testament times, “God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent,
because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has
appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead.”

After you die, you’ll immediately be in eternity. And in eternity there’s timelessness. So you can
see, we all could be here today, but you will be into timelessness immediately. You’ll be in the
day that God has fixed, as will John Wesley [John Wesley, 1703 – 1791, Anglican evangelist and
founder of Methodism and the Wesleyan Tradition], and Lucretius [Titus Lucretius Carus, 99 BC – 55
BC, was a Roman poet and philosopher] and all the other men that lived. You’ll be judged; God will
judge you. Now, God will judge you. He will judge your words; you’ll give account for every
careless word you utter. And he’ll judge your works; you’ll be justified by your words, and you’ll
be justified by your works, because your works show your faith. So God will look at the kind of
person you are.

Now loved ones, that’s why you have to let this book be your guide, because he will judge you out of
this book. So your life has to line itself up with this book. Now loved ones, don’t you see – I
want you to see it — it does not depend on a guy like me. See that. See, I appreciate your love
of me, and your respect for me, but finally I can’t do anything. Nobody can do anything for you on
that day; you have to be before God on your own with a life that lines itself up with this dear
book. So loved ones, whether you go to church or not, this book is the meaning of life, and it’s
this book that will get you ready for death.

Hugh Peacock was an Englishman that we got to know, in the days that the British Consulate was still
in Minneapolis. We met him at a party, one of those mad British parties where we all played blind
man’s bluff. And we met him and his wife Rosemarie and Hugh ended up the planner for the University
Campus. He was a very able architect. Then of course he got cancer, and he died over in the
University hospital there. And Rosemarie sat beside him, and she read him out of this book. I
think 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd.” Now at that time in your life, see this book is the
only book that can do anything for you. So this book is the key to everything.

Now I just want to warn you once more, before we go on to the next important thing, it’s no use,
after the light that you’ve had, it’s no use getting into some church where they slide over this
stuff. And then you think you’ll toddle along into God’s presence, and explain that you went to
this church or that church, and they thought it was ‘okay’ to do this. That’s not possible. The
Creator will say to you, “You had my book. You had the standards in my book. You knew I would
judge you by this book.”

So loved ones, that’s it. We use this book – see, do you see it’s not because I feel I’m like this
book? It’s because I know my heart is like yours; unless I have something that I can keep holding
on to, to drag me out of myself, there’s no hope. So this book is our only way out of our own
standards which are false.

Now God will judge us by, “A man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all
men by raising him from the dead.” In other words, this book is not an end in itself. Now there are
people who take this book and use it simply as a standard or as a source of principles, by which
they then try to live like God by their own power. And they end up in legalism. It’s just a
modified, nice form of legalism, but it is basically dependent on their own efforts, and their own
will power. Now, if you end up like that, you will go into heaven proud of your own ability to live
by the standards of this book, and that is what sin is. Sin, fancy enough, is not lack of
‘knowledge’ of this book; sin is knowledge of this book, and trying to live by your own ‘power’
according to this book. Because actually the whole purpose of this book, is not an instruction
manual, but it is a diagnostic tool, by which God’s Holy Spirit shows you beyond all measure of
doubt, that you are living in dependence on yourself and not on him.

So the purpose of this book — if you cry out and say, “Pastor I study this book but I cannot live
like it,” that’s the purpose of this book. The purpose of this book is not to enable you to live
like God, but to show you clearly that you ‘have not that within you’ which would enable you to live
like God, that you are not capable of living like God; you’re not the kind of person that is like
God. You have to be changed. Now, that’s spoken clearly loved ones in another verse, if you’d look
at it. It’s John 5:39. “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal
life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

And that’s what a lot of us do. In our pride we search the scriptures, because we think that in the
scriptures themselves we have eternal life. You haven’t loved ones. You cannot live like this
book. The only way you can ever become like God is to come, not to this Word [holds up a Bible],
but to the living Word that is within this Word. Jesus says, “You search this book, because you
think that in it you have eternal life, and it is this that bears witness to me; but it’s only a
‘sign post’ that points you to me. You have to come to me myself.” You have to get to know Jesus.
You have to get to know Jesus.

You don’t have to please your wife, though it’s nice to do that, if you can. You don’t have to
please your husband; you don’t have to please your father, your mother, or your minister, or your
priest; you have to come to Jesus. Finally, your wife might be with you at the last moment of
death, but it won’t do you any good, because it will feel as if there’s a great gulf between you and
her. Or, your husband may be right by your side and may be holding your hand, but there’ll come a
moment in death when you can’t feel her dear hand; and it’s as if she’s not there at all, or he’s
not there at all.

In other words, there comes a moment at death when you feel, “I’m on my own there’s nobody here.”
Except one: and Jesus will be there. But unless you have come to know him, at that moment it will
be virtually impossible for you to experience a death bed conversion, because real things don’t come
that way; you see that. You can’t live one way for 40 years, and in a second change like that.
[Pastor snaps his fingers] Theoretically you can, but most of us don’t. The only way to meet that
moment with Jesus is to come to know him in this present life.

You don’t need to do it the way anybody else does it; you’re unique; you’re different; you’re
different from all the rest of us. Jesus will know you in a way that none of the rest of us do.
You don’t need to do it the way everybody else says you should do it; do it your own way. But you
have to know him; you have to know Jesus, see.

Now don’t get all mixed up in mystical presences and what way you pray; that’s unimportant, that
stuff. It’s Jesus. If you say to me, “Well brother I can’t make it real.” Cry out to him! Hunger
for him! Desire him with all your heart! You know the terrible moments in your life when you
haven’t known what to do, and you’ve just cried out and you’ve yearned; that’s what you do. You
yearn him into you! You hunger him into you! Grab him whatever way you can! Don’t check up with
other people, “How do you experience Jesus?” Don’t do that. Jesus is alive! He’s real! He’s
God’s Son! You need to get to know him yourself.

You don’t even need to talk about it, if you don’t want to; maybe you won’t be able to. Maybe you
won’t say the same things about him that somebody else will say. When somebody else tells you about
great things they’ve experienced, don’t bother with it. Let them go. You get to know him your way.
Maybe he won’t say such wonderful things to you; that’s up to him. But you concentrate on Jesus.
Don’t get into these clubs that talk about Jesus, and that compare notes about Jesus. Don’t! You
do it your own way; you be honest with him yourself.

As you get to know him, you’ll find out that he’s saying one very clear thing to you; he’s saying,
“There’s only one person that will get into heaven and that’s me, and if you’re going to come in,
you’re going to have to come in inside me.” And as he begins to reveal that to you, you open
yourself to him. He’ll want to control your whole life, but you take that step-by-step, but never
step back. If you say to me, “Will he keep pushing me on and on to the very end?” Yes, yes he
will. If you say to me, “Will he be trying to expand his influence over me right up to the very
end?” Yes he will. And you keep saying, “Yes!”

Sometimes he’ll do it through your conscience; sometimes he’ll do it through your feelings;
sometimes he’ll do it through your mind, but you keep moving with him. Other people say, “You have
to stop smoking.” What do they know? They don’t know. “You have to stop drinking.” What do they
know? Don’t bother. If you do it, you’ll do it only for them anyway; so it won’t do any good.

Talk with Jesus; listen to him; let him guide you, but be honest with him. See, be honest with him.
[Pastor says it with emotion in his voice] Don’t be dishonest with him. Be dishonest with the
clergy, or the priest, or the pastor; be dishonest if you want with them. I’d rather you weren’t,
but do it. Be dishonest with your wife, though it’s better if you’re not. But don’t be dishonest
with Jesus! See, when you’re dishonest with him, you pass over from sanity into insanity. See, you
lose touch with reality when you’re dishonest with Jesus. Don’t do that.

[Again Pastor speaks with a choked up voice] I cry, because I think of you, and I hate to think of

any of you doing that, because you lose everything. Of that little quotation at the end of this —
this wasn’t where this sermon was going. Of course, you know that. But this was “A Man for All
Seasons” [1966 film based on the play where the British statesman, Thomas Moore refuses to pressure
the Pope into annulling King Henry VIII’s marriage]. Thomas More, “At certain moments a man holds
his life in his hands, and if he opens his fingers, then he will never find it again.” See? And I
think he actually used the simile, like water, “At certain moments a man holds his life in his hands
like water and if he opens his fingers then he will never find it again.” Don’t be dishonest with
Jesus, see. Don’t!

Do you know what I mean by that? He says, “I want to do this in you. I want you to let me do this
in you.” And you side-step it, and you keep side-stepping it. If you keep side-stepping it, soon
you won’t be able to hear him anymore; and you’ll have opened your hands and you’ll never find your
life again. Don’t do that! Be honest with Jesus! Be honest with him; honor him and respect him
within you, because that is his Holy Spirit that is prompting you and guiding you.

And loved ones, if you will live like that, then we will be together forever in heaven. And that’s
the whole of it.

But you have to do it, see? Those of you who are dads and mums, you know that you feel a bit lost
at a moment like this, because here I am saying to you, “My dear sheep and my dear friends, now
you’re on your own.” So loved ones, it has to be Jesus, and honesty with Jesus. That’s everything.
That’s everything. And if you are like that then you will go into heaven.

There’s no way, I think, after this sermon in which we can express to each other all that we mean to
each other. [This was the last Campus Church sermon.] And I used to say often in London, or
Amsterdam when we had the hotel and others, and I said, “Okay, no big goodbyes, because you can’t
say them properly. There’s no way in which you can express all that you mean to each other.” And
so I really think after this service that you should go easy on the goodbyes. Besides, believe it
or not, we have a baby dedication immediately after the benediction.

But I would appreciate it if you’d write to me, and let me know how your life is with Jesus. And
then if you have difficulties in your life with Jesus, that you’d write to me too. I’d rather you’d
do that. Or, if you want to send me a tape, send it there to that box number. But in a way, that
would be more real. I know you love me, and I know you want to say goodbye. But in a way it’s going
to be just hard on all of us, if we all try to do it. And it’s always, finally, unsatisfactory. So
it might be good to let me get on with my baby dedication, and you pray for me. But, we can do that
as we want.

But the most important thing loved ones, is that you would know Jesus, and that you’d be real and
honest with him. And that if you were having difficulties in that, you’d let me know, so that I
could pray for you. Now, I don’t know how Paul and Peter and the other guys did it you know…
Let’s pray.

Dear Father, we do thank you that we are in your hands and that men and women that we come to know
are only parts of you, and that they pass, but you remain. And so Father, we commit each other into
your hands today. And Lord Jesus, we intend to be honest and straight with you and to be men and
woman of integrity in our relationship with you, and we refuse to take advantage of the fact that
you are not here in a physical body. And we reject now any compromise or rationalizing about our
attitude to you.

Lord, you speak, and we will listen, respect, and obey. And we ask you Lord Jesus, to bring us,
each one, into heaven with you at the end. And if you find us playing ‘fast and loose’ with your
directions, will you convict us so deeply that we will break in despair before you, and we will
‘come to heel’ and live our lives in obedience to your will and to the life described in this dear
book of your Father’s.

And now Lord Jesus, we thank you for all the years that you have blessed us together. And we thank
you Holy Spirit for feeding us and giving us inspiration for each other. And we thank you for
providing a tongue and dear listening ears and obedient wills, and loving hearts. We thank you
Lord, for the miracle of providing the preacher and the hearers, and making them friends in you.
And Lord, we thank you for all your generosity to us.

And now Father, you know that we all fall into incompetence at this moment, and so we lay ourselves
before you.

Now Lord Jesus, we commit ourselves to you anew and give you ourselves in our own lives to live
again in us and through us for your Father’s glory and for our salvation. Amen.

Are You Playing Games With God?

Acts 5:1-11

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

We’re trying to talk in a realistic way, about the way God intended us to live. It’s a struggle to
do it — you know it. You usually think in a Christian country it’s easy to do it. But we human
beings are such miserable creatures, that we have a way of being more Christian than God, or more
religious than God. We have ways of playing games with God. Loved ones, that’s what we are trying to
break through these Sunday mornings.

We’re trying to break through all the games we play with the Lord, with the Father, and see what way
He means us to live in our own everyday lives. You remember that that’s what Ananias and Sapphira
were doing. They were really playing games. They sold their land and so they had this land to give
to God and the proceeds of it. Obviously the Holy Spirit had said give the whole lot. Old Ananias
did a little calculating and decided that he would have enough for retirement if he held on to a
certain amount. And so he gave the bulk to God. But the Holy Spirit had told him to give all of it
to God and obviously what happened was the Holy Spirit brought about death in both him and his wife.
That’s what you and I are all involved in.

We feel we’re pretty shrewd and sophisticated and subtle and so we all play games with God and
aren’t real with Him. That’s why many of us do not experience the healings and the answers to prayer
that are the normal experience of God’s children here on earth. So what we’re trying to do in these
mornings is to find out how you or how I am playing games with God. You don’t need me to tell you
that there is going to come a moment when you can’t play games anymore and you are face-to-face with
Him, just like that — and there’s no longer any way in which you can escape His glance and
everything is laid open before you and Him and the whole world.

So, it’s essential that we do it now, that’s what we are trying to do. I’ll share with you a little
illustration that I think I have mentioned in past years that seems to set forth what you and I have
done with God over the years and what you in fact may be doing within your own life at present.
There is a dad who can drive (he’s done his test years ago) and a 13-year-old “little bright eyes”
that is anxious to learn and get his license. So the dad says, “Okay, John let’s get into the car
and I’ll begin to give you some driving lessons.”

So, he starts to show him where the clutch is and how to put it in and let it out gently, get it
into gear, turn the ignition key, and get the whole thing going. John begins to drive a little after
the first two or three days watching his dad. Then his dad says, “You see you have to change a
little earlier, you see we’re on a hill.” John says, “Yes, yes I got it, I got it.” Then they go
down the next piece of the road and his dad says, “Now a little more gently on the turn around there
and use the brake a little to power-brake at the back.” And John says, “Got it, got it”.

The next day, all you can hear is John saying, “Got it, got it. Don’t bother me, I got it, yes I’ve
got it. Okay, just sit there. I’ll be able to manage. I’ll do it okay.” And he feels he can do it
himself. The dad tries to get his word in edgeways from time to time but John is beginning to get in
control of this thing and he feels he knows the way.

Now, he doesn’t realize that there’s a mass of stuff that he doesn’t know about. There are all kinds
of difficulties he will get into on the freeway. There are all kinds of techniques that he has to
learn when he gets onto the freeway but he doesn’t know that whole area of knowledge that is out
there. He just thinks, “Good, I got it, I got it. I got what you told me. I can do it myself.” And
he begins to drive that car more and more independent of his dad beside him. That’s what we’ve done.

“Good, I see the way you work it. I see the way my dad worked it, earned a little money, got a few
investments, built up a little background, okay, then he started a little — yes I see how to do
that. Good, I see this. I see the way my mom has managed her health. I see the kind of food you eat,
good, I’ll eat that kind of food. Then, I see the way you make friends and influence people.” And
we’ve got all kinds of ideas as we pass through life on how to run life ourselves and that’s the way
most of us operate.

We operate with a whole series of ideas that we have now got hold of for ourselves and we feel we
can do it without too much reference to the dear dad that sits beside us. And we have begun to drive
the car on our own by our own as the Bible says, “Our own knowledge of good and evil”, we now know
the good things to do and evil things to avoid, the right things to do and the bad things to do. We
now have a fair idea how to run this life without constantly listening to Him telling us, which way
to turn.

Now, the fact is we’re like the little guy. There’s a mass of knowledge out there that you and I
don’t understand and don’t know about. We have no notion what happens after the breath stops — not
a clue and yet we know fine well that the moment the breath stops, the greater part of life begins.
That’s as far as we can all tell. The greater part of life is after this life. There are all kinds
of things that you don’t know about. All kinds of things that occur and happen to your money, to
your jobs, to your own life and your own heart that bewilder you, you know that.

There’s a whole wealth of knowledge of good and evil out there that we have no idea of but we’ve got
our own little track. We’ve got our own little bit in Minnesota or New York or wherever we live, we
have got our own little track. It’s like that isn’t it? You’ve got your own little track from your
home to your office and back. Then you make little detours to play games, and then you make a little
detour for vacation. But you keep on the same track and we get this little part of the world under
our control. We live it pretty independent of much direction from our dear Father above.

There is a whole wealth of knowledge that we don’t understand but we forget about that. We just play
the little bit that we know by the knowledge that we have. Now of course as our life goes on we act
like John. As he begins to get more and more confident that he can drive this car, he begins to
determine that he will drive it wherever he wants. He says, “I’d like to go over there and see that
even though it’s down a very-very steep hill.” It’s winter and the dad says, “No, don’t go down
there.” But he is so confident, he says, “Sure, I can do it. I can drive down here. I can take it
wherever I want to take it.” And the dad says, “No, no, don’t.” But he does. He makes it and manages
through because the dad puts his hand on that wheel to save him, puts his hand on the brake at
certain times to save him from disaster. And so the boy begins to get the feeling, “Well, I don’t
need to listen to him. I can really do whatever I want to with this car.” He begins to drive it
wherever he wants and listens less and less to his father.

As he listens less and less to him, he doesn’t notice that his dad has moved from the passenger seat
into the back seat. The son notices that he can’t hear his father the way he used to. He used to
hear him telling him what he should do but less and less is he able to hear him. He hasn’t time to

look around and he certainly hasn’t time to look back there. He is so preoccupied with now managing
the whole thing himself.

Then one day he looks around and there’s nobody there. There is nobody there. The father was no
longer able to keep contact with him and he couldn’t abide being in the car with it going all the
places that the son was taking it. It wasn’t the plan that he had in mind at all, and so he actually
stepped out of the car. The boy is now in control of the car himself.

Loved ones, that’s the situation that many of us have got ourselves into and that’s why at times you
find it so difficult to hear God. It’s because you’re pretty much in control of yourself — of your
own life. And you have certain things that you just try to determine you will not do. I mean it’s
all right hearing other people going to Africa and going to India and being missionaries and all
that stuff, but you have organized God pretty well. You know the limits within which you’re prepared
to serve him.

Of course the Father in Heaven knows that you are really in control. You do things with a little bit
of help from your friends. You do things with a little bit of help from God but you really don’t
depend upon Him. You depend upon yourself. And of course, what many of us do is, we discover that
that’s the case and we become worried. We become concerned and we desperately ask God to come back
into our lives. Many of us have done that. Many of us have taken the step, “Lord Jesus, I ask you to
come into my life and to begin to guide my life again.” And God graciously has done that. He sat
beside us again and He has begun to direct us. But of course it’s not long after we are born of God
or converted that we begin to do the same thing all over again.

The Lord directs us to drive the car down through a very muddy road and we decide, “Not my car. It
is clean. I want to keep it clean. I don’t want any danger of denting it in any way. I am not
driving it down there. I am just not.” Then we begin to get our hands on the wheel and the Father
comes up and we say, “No, no.” We do this even when we can’t see, even where we can’t see as well as
Him. We just want to turn the wheel. We want it because we want it and we begin to discover there is
within us not only a kind of independence of Him but now an inbred will of our own that we’re
surprised at ourselves. I don’t know if you have ever been in that situation but you feel, I know
where I am going.

It’s a bit ridiculous but if you’re trying to adjust the driver’s seatbelt and you’re not really
looking, it’s amazing that somebody beside you who is looking can say, “Look, pull it over this
way.” And you say, “No”, even though you can’t see completely. Even though you’re not absolutely
sure, you feel, “When my hands are on the wheel I am safe.” So many of us begin to discover within
us willfulness, a determination to do what we want in our life even though we don’t necessarily know
it’s the better thing to do.

Of course what happens again is the Father begins to become less and less vocal and speaks to us
less and less. Then further along the road, we turn around and he isn’t there. He’s in the back seat
and then He is out again. That is what has happened to us men and women down through the centuries.
And probably is a picture of exactly what has happened in your own personal life. What we’ve been
sharing these Sundays is, there is only one thing to do. Stop that automobile that you’re driving.

Stop your life and do not any longer invite God to get in and sit beside you. But, open the door,
get out and walk around to the other side of the car and you get into the passenger seat. Then you
say to your dear Father, “Father, You know this part of the road. You know the next part of the road

that I can’t even see. You know what you made this thing for. Lord, you get in behind the wheel and
I will go where you want me to go. I will do what you want me to do the way you want me to do it.
Father, you get in. This is your life. You do what you want and I’ll obey you and listen to you.”
That’s what we’re saying sooner or later has to happen.

God is the God of the whole universe. He is the God of the whole universe. You know it yourself.
You’re miniscule. I am less than that. We are so small. We can’t even be seen beside Him. He is the
God of the whole universe but you are the only version of Him that He has ever made. So He has a
vested interest in you. You are not just a nothing. You’re the unique version of Him that He has
produced on this universe. He is anxious above all else, that you will fulfill the plan that He has
in mind for your life. And He is very concerned with having the freedom to be God of your life.

But see, you have to decide that. You have to decide who is God in your life. Is God, God or are you
God? It’s important that you don’t play games. It’s important that you don’t do an Ananias and
Sapphira game. “Well, Lord I know you’re really God and You can control my Sunday life. You can
control some of my money and you can control some of my behavior. But let’s face it, this is my
life. I am glad you’re helping me. I am glad you can deliver me in trouble. But I will live my life
myself and I have a fair notion of how to do it.”

It’s an atheistic attitude and what the Father wants us to do is to take Him seriously. Loved ones
that’s all there is to it. It’s letting God be the God of your whole life. Maybe I should share with
you that it’s very easy Sunday after Sunday to listen to this. I know you agree with it, but it’s
easy to agree with it and never do anything about it.

It’s easy to agree with it and yet live a controlled surrender to God year after year after year.
I’m sure you’ve been in the spot where I have been. I think, “What would I do if I were in
Solzhenitsyn’s position? Or what if I were in the position of some of the loved ones who must still
be in Siberian prisons? What if I were in the position of some who are persecuted in other parts of
the world? What would I do then?”

I have comforted myself as you probably have by saying, “Well, I am not in that position. I have
been blessed by being born in this wonderful land. Thank goodness that I don’t have to feel the pain
of torture. I don’t have to decide whether I am ready to give up my whole life and all of my
possessions and home for God.”

It’s not real. You are being asked that. It’s not a case of, are you going to get into heaven on a
lower level than everybody else? It’s simply that God is asking you that. He is asking you to come
to a place in your heart where you have settled that whatever He would ask you to do, you will do
it. See, that’s why it’s possible. I don’t know if some of you read “The Gulag Archipelago”, but the
tortures are hideous. They’re almost impossible to conceive, but do you see that they have won
before they won — those guys and those ladies.

They have won before they’ve won. I mean they have settled before they went into the torture
chamber. They have already settled. All that is over and done with, “Lord, You can have my body, you
can have my possessions, and you can have my whole life.” They’ve won before they fight the battle.
That’s what we are saying. Even if you are not being tried by the KGB, even if your job is not on
the line, it is on the line because the Lord is saying, “Would you start all over again with me?
Would you start your life all over again?”

If you are like me, I am sure that some of you who are beginning to get life together say, “Thank
goodness He won’t mean me. He’ll mean these young kids who are just starting off, that He won’t mean
me.” He does mean me. He means you and me. Everyone who can hear this still in their heart,
everybody who is not so dead that they can’t hear it, everybody who can still hear in their heart
what I am saying — He does mean you.

If you say to me, “Well, do you think He is going to ask me to go to Africa or India? Do you think
He is going to get me to give up my job and give up my social security and all that stuff?” I don’t
know what He is going to say to you. But you see what He is saying today is, “Would you come to the
place in your heart where you’re playing so straight with Him that that would be no problem to you.
“Of course Lord, if You want me to give up my plans for my future, if You want me to give up my
home, if You want me to give up my comfort, I’ll do whatever You want.” That’s it. That’s what He
wants from us. I’d say lovingly to those of us who are more than 50, more than 60, more than 70, He
is saying the same thing to us. All He is saying is, “Am I God? Am I God of your life? Have I the
right to do what I want with your life?”

Brothers and sisters, I’d point out to you that if you say no, there’s nothing we can say on the Day
of Judgment. Let’s just talk as people in the same boat here. There’s nothing we can say a moment
after death if we take that attitude — there’s not. You and I will just go up before His throne. He
won’t need to say a thing. Our hypocrisy, our Ananias and Sapphira “hold onto what we need attitude”
will fill our hearts and minds so much that we will just sneak away. We’ll know what he is thinking.
We’ll know what the whole world is thinking.

There’s only one way to live in God’s world and that’s with God being the God of your whole life. If
you say to me, “Well, what would He ask me to do?” That really doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t
matter. Only He knows that but you can know in your heart if you have given it all over to Him. If
you’re sitting there and saying, “Well, I can’t” — well, you can. What about your money, your
stocks and shares, what about those? What about your future? What about your marriage? What about
your job? What about your home? Would you be ready to give that up to him? If you were to go and
live in some little rented apartment in some city in Africa, would you be willing to do that?

See, it’s not hard. You just deal with those things and determine, are you willing? That’s what God
is saying to us today. Here’s the thing: unless you come to that place where you put Him in the
driver’s seat behind the wheel, you’ll never hear His voice. You’ll never know what He wanted you to
do, that’s it.

A dear person here in this room said, “It’s amazing isn’t it, the way God hides Himself from the
people who wouldn’t obey Him anyway.” It’s interesting how God lovingly hides Himself, because they
couldn’t bear the pain of His presence. He hides Himself from those who wouldn’t obey Him anyway.
And so you can’t know what God wants you to do until you have said to Him plainly, “I am willing to
do it. I am willing to do anything. I am willing to surrender all and Lord it is your life. I give
it to you with all my heart to do what you want with.” Now that’s a heart decision. It needs only to
be between you and God but it’s a heart decision that enables Him to start changing your life. This
is an ordinary Sunday and you can make the decision very plainly and with common sense today. If
you’re wanting to know what will happen, that’s you still trying to be God. Giving everything up to
God is letting Him at last be God.

So I would ask if there is one of you that has been a bit of an Ananias or a Sapphira — hedging the
bets, and holding back some of the stuff. Why? What are you going to do with the extra money? What

are you going to do? How are you going to buy a new body? We’re so dumb, we’re pitiful, and we’re
pathetic. It doesn’t make any sense. But Satan so deceives us that he gets us to do stuff that is
absolutely stupid. What are you going to do with the stuff you hold back? What are you going to be
able to trade it in for?

If you lose your job and you lose your home and you lose your career and you lose your marriage and
you’re trusting Him then you’ve still got everything. But if you give Him a pittance and hold on to
something for yourself for a rainy day, you’ve got nothing. That’s because anything can sweep across
you and wipe out 30 rainy days’ worth of savings.

Anyway you know it yourselves. You build up the money, you build up the reputation, you build up the
career, and at the end it goes like that. It just goes like that. And actually you know it
yourselves. You’ve met people who have not made sufficient provision. And you’ve met other people
that have made plenty of provision. One can be still alive living in a remarkable degree of
happiness with the little that they have and the other can be dead and all the stuff is passed on to
somebody else.

So Satan mesmerizes us with the thing you see. So step out of it. You can. You can step out of it
today. Just quietly in your own place there, make your peace with God and say, “Lord God, I have
treated you as a consultant up to this moment in my life. I have treated you as an advisor. Lord
this is wrong. You are God and I am the creature. You know what I am here for. I ask you to blow
away out of my mind all the pre-suppositions I have, all the things that I feel I couldn’t do. Lord,
I’ll do whatever you tell me to do from now on. I ask you to come in and to sit behind the steering
wheel in this life of mine and you drive. I’ll sit here in the passenger seat and I’ll go where you
want. You just take over.” That’s it, loved ones, that’s what it means. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we repent of running our own lives. We repent of trying to have a bit of you and a bit
of everything else. We repent of wanting to share the guidance of our lives with you. We repent of
wanting to be able to negotiate a good deal. We repent of discussing alternatives and modifications
instead of obeying you blindly and blankly. We repent Lord of adopting the normal wisdom of this
world in regard to our right to our own lives. And Lord God, we acknowledge that we are not our own.
We have been bought with a price and that the only thing that will continue to exist after this
world is over is that which has been destroyed in Jesus and recreated in Him.

Lord God, we toss our hat into the ring. We throw our life onto the altar of the Cross. We say “Lord
God, You take it now, run it and bring it back into line with your plan. We will obey you and trust
you. Lord where we have possessions like Ananias and Sapphire — either in our own reputation or our
possessions or property — we tell You Lord, we want to sell it all in our hearts. We want to give
it all and not keep anything back in our hearts. Then Lord, we know that you’ll be free to tell us
what you really want us to do.

So Father we come now in the name of Jesus, (who bore all the pain to wipe us out and start us all
new over again) and we ask you because of Jesus now to take us. Take us again under your dear arms
and under your wing. Lord, live this life the way You wanted to live in the first place — whatever
that means for us. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit are with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

Give Up Your Rights!

2 Corinthians 5:17

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Today is communion and it’s easy for many of us to feel, “If I didn’t have this every month, I don’t
know how I would stay honest with God.” Whether we are from Catholic background or Protestant
background, we’re used to making our peace with God at least once a month at communion or at Mass.
It is easy, loved ones, to think of communion as just that: coming each month and confessing to God
in the name of Jesus, the things that we’ve done wrong. That is a good step to take but it’s just
vital that you see that that isn’t why Jesus died.

He is not just a sacrifice. I think often from the little we all know about Old Testament days, we
tend to think of Him in that way. You know how the Pagans would offer a cow or an ox and burn it up
on an altar and try to placate the god. So many of us from our days at Sunday school have got the
idea that Old Testament sacrifice was the same. It was offering up a cow or a bull to God. We would
often say in the light of Jesus’ sacrifice, it was to remind God of the blood that was shed by His
Son and to plead with God that for the sake of that sacrifice, He would forgive us.

But loved ones, that is not the purpose of Jesus’ death. The purpose of His death is not that you
would come here today and say, “Lord, will you forgive me for the anger that I burst out with last
week? Will you forgive me Lord for the selfishness that I showed towards my roommate this past
week?” It is not so that we’ll ask Him to forgive us for those things. The truth is that Jesus was
made those things for you. He was made those things for you.

Now, I’d like you to look at that and then I’ll try to explain it plainly. It’s in Second
Corinthians 5:21. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God.” Now, you may say, what on earth does that mean? God made Jesus to
be sin.

You have a little personality that works in a certain way that you have been unable to control. It
works like this. Something begins to get out of control in your home or in the office. Somebody does
something that utterly irritates and offends you and it begins to make things go the way you don’t
want them to go. You feel you have to stop that happening. Immediately that you feel that, there
rises up in you an anger that bursts out at them to stop them doing it so that things will come back
into your control.

God took that whole process that takes place in you and put it into Jesus and destroyed it in Him.
That’s what it means. God made Him to be sin who knew no sin. That whole reaction of yours is sin.
It’s you becoming God. It’s you judging, “This ought not to be and I won’t let it be.” That is sin.
It’s you setting yourself up to control the things that happen to you in your life instead of
letting God control them. And the moment you do that, sin and its process works in your personality
so that you can’t stop the thing until it’s completed — until you’ve burst out in anger, you’ve
lost your temper and the whole thing is a mess. That’s sin, loved ones.

God made Jesus to be that (sin) so that He could destroy it in Him. If you say to me, “Do you mean
then that there is no need for me to lose my temper – that I can be free from this?” Yes, but not
apart from what Jesus has done for you. Apart from what Jesus has done for you, you’re absolutely

right. You can’t keep your temper. But don’t you see that the whole purpose of Jesus’ death is to
destroy that whole process that is set on fire, by you determining, “I must control this situation.”
It’s the same with lust and unclean thoughts. You know it yourself.

You put one step on the slippery path, and before you know it you’re the whole way down. It’s just
like a chain reaction. It’s the same with resentment. You just put one step on the slippery path,
you just allow yourself to think for one moment, “Why didn’t he do that or why did she do that to
me?” Before you know it, you’re right down the slippery path and the resentment has begotten all
kinds of attitudes into you that you can’t control.

Now, God made Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin. He took that whole process in you, that whole chain
reaction that operates in your personality, and He put it into His son and destroyed it. If you say
to me, “Do you mean I could live free from those things?” Yes. And if you say, “What have I to do to
do that?” You’ve simply got to stop taking the first step and you’ve got to see that you are
actually in Christ. Christ does not have any anger and He does not have any resentment and He does
not have a sinful nature that prevents Him obeying God. You are in Him.

You see you have a tendency to say, “If I only knew I was in Him, I would believe that. That’s why I
come on Sundays. I am trying to get into Him.” Loved ones, you are in Him. You don’t have to opt
into Him. You actually have to opt out of Him, which is what you do. I’ll show you that if you like
to see it, it’s in Second Corinthians 5:17.

“Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new
has come.” The whole thing has already happened. But you say, “Yes, but it says, ‘If anyone is in
Christ’. ‘If’, now that’s my problem. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I believe in coming to
church. I believe in the Bible but I don’t know what it means to be in Christ. It says, ‘If anyone
is in Christ’, and I feel from what you’re saying that I have to do something to get into Christ.”

Loved ones, you haven’t. Look at Second Corinthians 5:14. “For the love of Christ controls us,
because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.” That’s it. Christ
died for all of us in this room. Therefore, all of us have died. God put all of us into Jesus and
destroyed us there. God destroyed all our impatience and all our anger and all our lustful process
of thought. God destroyed it all in Jesus. There’s no reason why any of us here can’t live free from
that. There isn’t.

You know you and I cling on to it (sin) because the whole world seems to live under sin. The whole
world seems to come to communion Sunday after Sunday or month after month pleading forgiveness for
the sins that they say they can’t help committing. The Lord Jesus, whose death we are celebrating,
is pleading. “I died so that that could be destroyed in me. It was destroyed in me and the only way
you’re carrying it on is because you want to carry it on. If you really want to stop losing your
temper, if you really want to stop being angry, if you really want to stop being resentful, I have
made that possible. I want you to come to My table and not plead that My Father will forgive you
because of my death for the things that you’ve done wrong, but that you’ll turn from those things,
that you’ll see that there is no reason in heaven or in earth why you can’t live free from those
things.”

Loved ones, that’s what communion is about. It’s not for a constantly disobedient people to come and
be Jews. That’s all we’re being when we’re asking God for forgiveness. We’re just being Jews, it’s
not for that. It’s for a people to come before the Savior and say, “Lord Jesus, I lost my temper

this last week. Lord, will You show me in what way I am not willing to hang on that Cross with You
and let things go the way Your Father wants them to go even if it is to my pain or my harm. Will you
show me what way or why I am not willing for that? Lord, I want to be willing for that because I
know you died to destroy this in me. I am willing Lord, to be completely in you. I don’t want any
bit hanging out.”

Now what does it mean to have no bit hanging out? We come, we ask forgiveness for our bad temper but
we reserve the right to lose our temper again, that’s it. We come and we repent of unclean thoughts
but we maintain the right to have unclean thoughts again if it’s necessary. That’s what having a bit
hanging off the cross is. It’s regarding yourself as having the right still to worry, still to be
anxious, still to lose your temper.

What taking your place on the cross in Jesus is, is giving up the right any longer to be angry.
Giving up the right any longer to lie. Giving up the right any longer to resent or to worry or to be
anxious or to indulge in alcohol or nicotine or food or whatever the thing is that is wearing us
out. It’s giving up the right. That’s what it is, loved ones. It’s taking your place with Jesus on
the Cross and saying, “Lord, You give up all your rights for me. I give up every right to do what I
want to do. From now on, I take my position in you. I say to Our Father ‘be it unto me according to
thy will'”. That’s it.

The moment you do that, there comes into your life a spirit of Jesus that lifts you into the
Father’s will and enables you to live in peace and in rest for the remainder of your days. Now,
that’s what communion is about. I ask you to see all that you do this morning in reality and as you
come up to the table to deal with Jesus in that way. If you deal with Him like that, He will deal
with you fully and completely and you will live above the miserable independent life that we live
outside Him. I pray that you’ll do that. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we come before you because you see all that we are. You see into the bottom of our
hearts. You see what we really want. Father, we come because we know Jesus’ death is the meaning of
all of life. We know that in that death is the key to everything. Father we know that you have
called us to respect, obey, and to trust you. Father as we look at Jesus hanging on the cross, we
see one who obeyed you and respected you and trusted you completely.

Now, we see through your word that we were in Him as He did that. That because He died for all of
us, all of us died in Him and all of us have already trusted You and respected You and obeyed You in
Him. So Father, we know this morning that what You’re asking us to do is to remain in Christ this
day — to be willing not to struggle off the Cross, to be willing not to wriggle off the nails, to
be willing not to call down angels to avenge us, to be willing for circumstances to go the way You
allow them to go and not the way we want them.

We know our Father that You’re asking us to abide in Jesus and to receive from Your hand what You
have for us. We give up our rights to sin, to be angry, to resent, to lie, to distrust, to worry,
and to be anxious. Dear Holy Spirit, You who are the spirit of truth, will you search our hearts now
as we come to the Lord’s table.

We do not presume to come to this thy table, most merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness
but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under
thy table, but thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore
gracious Lord, so by faith to receive thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, that the bread we break may

be unto us the communion of his body, and the cup of blessing, which we bless, may be the communion
of his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.

The Lord Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and broke it and said, “This is
My body which was given for you, this do, in remembrance of Me.” In like manner, He took the cup
after supper saying, “This is the cup of the new covenant in My blood, this do, as often as you
drink it”, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death till
He come.

Real Faith in Christ

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I used to think, if I were God and I had Jesus, I would not bus him in every generation but fly him
in every generation. And so he would live there the first century and then I’d wait till most
people had died and then fly him in again. And that way he would be seen every, I suppose 30 years,
or maybe every 20 years; it depends on what you call a generation. And I really thought that would
be the best way to do it. And I couldn’t think of a better way.

And it’s taken me just a long time to realize that God has a better way, because in fact, Jesus did
die at 33 or 35. And it is a very short life because it was only a matter of three to three and a
half years public ministry. And it’s a very short life to make an impact on a world that — well we
don’t know how long it’s been here, but certainly there are about four thousand years of human
history that we know clearly about, from the time of Abraham. And it seems it’s very short just
three and a half to four years. And you wonder now, how, how could God be satisfied with that? And
we feel it’s a shame that Jesus died at 33 or 35.

And then of course you gradually realize that that was the whole plan. That it was a vital part of
God’s plan that Jesus would only be here three and a half to four years of public ministry, and that
he would die. And I’d just point you to the verse where he expresses that in John 16:7.
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away,
the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” And I don’t need to
explain to you what the simple words state, that Jesus is saying, “I have to go, because if I don’t
go, the Counselor will not come to you.” And then he goes on in his prayer to God in the next
chapter. John 17:11, “And now,” he’s speaking to God, “I am no more in the world, but they are in
the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me,
that they may be one, even as we are one.”

Then in Verse 23 you see how he continues, “I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly
one, so that the world may known that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved
me.” And there you get God’s plan which is better than my idea of bring Jesus to earth in a
spaceship or something every 20 years, where it would be so obviously a miraculous thing, that
people would be just overwhelmed by the sheer power of the miracle. Instead God’s plan is the first
three words there of Verse 23, “I in them.”

And this next piece needs so much what Myron prayed for, enlightenment for our hearts. That’s why
you’re alive. And that’s why I am alive. So that Jesus — and I hesitate to even say the words
because we go to sleep with them we’ve heard them so often — but that Jesus would live in you, that
Jesus would continue his life in you. That’s why you’re alive. And I mean our mums and dads have
brought us up so much with the idea that, “No we’re alive to fulfill ourselves.” Or even we listen
to these words and we’ll say, “Oh yes, you mean we’re alive to imitate Jesus. That’s what you mean.
I mean, I know Christ is kind of in us. And I know that’s the way you put it. It’s kind of a nice
metaphorical expression. But what you really mean is we’ve got to be like Jesus. And the more
we’re like Jesus the more he, as it were, lives on the earth.”

No, no. I mean that’s what has got the whole of Christendom into this salvation by works. And
that’s what has got all of us into the situation which Amy was in, where she said you, “I thought I
had to be like Jesus myself. I’ve been trying to be like Jesus.” And so how many of us have tried

to think like Jesus? And we say, “Today I must think like Jesus.” “Today I must behave like
Jesus.” And that’s not God’s plan. God’s plan is that Christ –Jesus himself, would actually live
the rest of his life — that he failed to live in Galilee — he would live the rest of his life
through you.

Now I know you really do believe me when I say you’re unique, and there’s nobody like you. You
believe me, because you trust me, but mainly, I think, because you say, “Yeah, that’s right. There
is nobody like me.” And you’re past the stage where you’re just saying, “I’m just wonderful,
wonderful, wonderful.” But you certainly know that there’s nobody like you. There is nobody like
you on the earth. There’s never been anyone like you, and there never will be anybody like you. So
that bit you grasp.

But I really do ask you to go the next step and see that there’s nobody like you, and there will be
nobody like you, and there has been nobody like you because God planned his Son to live a part of
his life through you, that he will not live through anybody else.

In other words, there’s a very unique relationship that you have to Jesus and Jesus has to you, that
exists nowhere else in the whole universe. And the whole purpose of you being alive here is, that
Jesus would live that remarkable rest of his life in you. And I think where Satan gets in is, you
hear that, and think I’m saying, “Oh yeah, yeah I know you kind of put me picturesquely. And what
you mean is, I’m going to be a bit like Jesus in a way that nobody else in this room is a bit like
Jesus.” No, see, no! But that Jesus would live in you, that Jesus himself would live part of his
life in you, that he has never lived before. That’s why he made you. That’s why he calls you his
‘body’. He calls you his body, because you’re like a part of his Galilean body that has not been
seen yet.

So it’s Jesus, actually ‘in’ you. That was his plan: that the “Word would” not only “become flesh”
1,900 years ago, not that the “Word would become flesh” because you’re all trying to be like Jesus,
but the “Word,” Jesus, the ‘Logos of God’, would be made flesh in you: that he would actually live
in you. That’s it. And it’s amazing! But that’s it: that Jesus would actually live in you.

In other words — I mean, it’s amazing how many things we’ve stumbled on in our human endeavors. We
call each other by our Christian name. It’s so funny that you have a Christian name. And of course
we know from China and India I suppose they give them Christian names. But here in the West our
Christian name is our first name. But actually the way God would put it is, your ‘Christ name’ is
Trish, or your Christ name is Marty. It really means Christ is going to live again here in this
earth and he’ll be known as Marty, or Christ is going to live again on this earth and he’ll be known
as Martha.

But see, it’s nothing less than that. It’s Christ living in you, see. So it’s Christ alive in you.
And I think what you have to fight continually is the dilution of that, and the discounting of that
that Satan tries to bring about, you see, because we keep on saying, “Yes, I know what you mean. I
know what you mean. It’s as if Joanne was kind of Jesus.” No, no it isn’t, see. Jesus is very
definite about it, “I in them and they in me. I will actually be in you.”

Indeed of course, you know, Paul put it very strongly. He says, “I am crucified with Christ; and
the life I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God. And it’s not I that live but it’s Christ
that lives within me.” And so God’s whole plan is that we would ‘abandon ship’ here; that we would
abandon our lives; we would abandon this dwelling; and we would receive a “dwelling not made with

hands, eternal in the heavenlies.” And in that Jesus would live.

And so the great tragedy is, that Jesus is in you, and you are treating yourself as the main dweller
and inhabitant, trying to be like Jesus. I told you before of the little incident at the back of
our Methodist Church in Belfast, where of course we spent our time, as you know, reacting against
the Catholics. And the Catholics spent their time reacting against us. So of course we didn’t
think of it as the ‘host’. I mean, “There’s nothing miraculous about that bread; it’s just ordinary
bread!” And they of course elevated it, and when the bell rang it became the ‘body of Christ’.
Well we were glad we didn’t do that. But when our custodian, one day, decided to throw the bread —
the remainder of the communion bread — out the back door for the birds as several families were
coming around from Sunday school, he was almost fired, because we thought, “No, you can’t do that
with it!”

So we knew, “It isn’t the host. It isn’t Christ.” But we thought it was dreadful and dreadful
disrespect to throw the bread, the rest of the bread we hadn’t eaten at communion, out. And if you
had asked them, “Why do you think that? Do you think that’s the body of Jesus?” They would say,
“No, no, we’re not Catholic.” But we had a sense there was something holy about the bread.

Now, what we didn’t like was him treating that as an ‘it’! And we felt it was something of God.
Now that’s what we do in our lives. We treat our bodies, and our minds, and our lives here as if
we’re just us trying to be like Jesus. And we are Jesus! It is Jesus that is within us.

That’s why people talk about self respect and dressing properly. We’re dressing Jesus; we’re
dressing Christ. That’s why Luther used the incredible term, that there would be many ‘little
Christs’. And the tragedy is that we’ve taken that as a metaphor, too. And we’ve said, “Oh yes,
it’s a nice way he has of putting it, or a vivid way of putting it, that there’ll be many people who
will be like Jesus.” No! The clear indication of scripture is that Christ is in us, that “it is not
us that live, but Christ that lives within us.”

Now, that changes, of course, the whole way you live. You come to the depression and anxiety time.
So the depression comes down upon you, and the anxiety comes down upon you. You don’t need me to
invent them. You could tell me better stories than I could. But I could invent some quickly.
“I’ll never get married!” “I’m this age, and I haven’t done that.” “My future doesn’t look very
bright.” “Oh, I have no money!” “Oh, I couldn’t get the Page Maker done yesterday.” I mean, a
thousand things! Satan just ‘rings the changes’ on whatever it is. And we get depressed, and
anxious, and worried. And what do you do?

At that moment you can try to be like Jesus. And normally the way we all do it is, we turn to the
right scripture. And you can turn to it. You know it, Philippians 4. In that situation the
depression and the anxiety comes down like a black coat upon you. And you don’t, “Zippity do da,
zippity yay.” You don’t sing a little song, and whistle in the dark. But you do the equivalent of
it. It’s just, it’s more scriptural the way we do it. Philippians 4:4-6: That’s what we do
presumably. You turn to this verse or a verse like it. And as the depression settles on you, you
realize, “I can’t lay in bed all day in depression.” And we remember, “Rejoice in the Lord always;
again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety
about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and
your minds in Christ Jesus.” And then we look and we say, “That’s right. Now at this moment the
peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep my heart and mind in Christ Jesus. All I

have to do is rejoice. I have to rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Now, I
rejoice. Lord, I will rejoice in you. That’s what I should do. I should rejoice.” And we preach
a sermon to ourselves.

God’s way is, let Jesus have his way in you. Let Jesus do what he wants to do at that moment.
“Lord Jesus, what do you want to do as this black depression settles on me? This is your life it’s
not mine. I was crucified with you; I’ve been put in heaven. This is your life, what do you want
to do Lord? Lord Jesus, what do you want to do? Lord, I want you to think your thoughts. You do,
Lord Jesus.” And let Jesus rise up; let the living word rise up. And as you let him rise up he will
rejoice in you.

But there’s a difference. One is you try to rejoice because the Bible tells you so; or you try to
rejoice because you know it’s good psychology; or you try to rejoice because it would be being like
Jesus. And the other way is, you look to Jesus; and you have ‘faith’ in him to do what he wants to
do in you.

Now it’s the same in conversation where the conversation is going back and forward pretty innocently
in a room, but you’re not being listened to very much. Or you’re not very much the center of the
conversation. And so there’s something inside you wants to answer a little sharply to somebody, or
wants to push yourself forward in a conversation. And yet you know the Bible says, “Let your
forbearance be known to all men, the Lord is at hand.” And you think, “Yes, that’s right. The Lord
is right at my hand here I can forbear here. They’re not listening to me; they’re not noticing me,
they’re treating me as if I don’t exist; but I can forbear here.” You can do that, or you can
exercise faith in Jesus; and you can say, “Lord Jesus, this is your life. This is your life Lord.
Be yourself in me. Whatever you want to do, be yourself now. If you want to be like a ‘lamb before
the shearers is dumb, so you open not your mouth.’ If you want to be quiet, Savior, this is your
life; you do it.”

In other words you can try to be like Jesus or you can exercise faith in him. Now the amazing thing
is there’s a great difference between trying to be like Jesus and exercising faith in him. Not only
is one just a matter of sheer will power and the other isn’t a matter of sheer will power, but one
is a mental operation and the other is an action. That’s probably the biggest difference between
trying to be like Jesus by your own effort and by your own will power and being like Jesus by
exercising faith in him. One is a mental effort, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Rejoice.” The other
is an action, “I rejoice. I let Jesus rejoice that moment.” I must be quiet and I must be prepared
to be unimportant in this conversation.” The other is, “I just shine with gladness of what Jesus
wants to do at this moment.”

In other words, the way to allow Jesus to live in you is to act! Act! There’s an amazing old
phrase that is used by some of the men like Law [William Law 1686 – 1761 English clergyman and
theologian] and some of the old mystics. And they talk about acting the thing out. Act it out!
Act out what you know is true! And ‘acting out’ is letting Jesus actually live in you.

Another situation we get into is the temptation — one where either you’re walking down a London
street and all the young ladies are dressed in a provocative way, or you’re walking down a London
street and some guy goes past you on a beautiful motorbike. And you think, “Boy it would be nice to
have that,” or a thousand other things. But thoughts and temptations assail you in all kinds of
ways. And you’re bombarded with all kinds of temptations to think this or that. And of course
obviously we all know the verse to go to. It’s Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatever is

true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is
gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these
things.” And we go to that. We say, “That’s right ‘whatsoever things are true and lovely and of
good report, think of these things.’ Now, alright now, whatever is around me I’m going to think of
true and lovely things. Now let me think of true and lovely things now La Pieta [Sculpture of Mary
cradling the body of Jesus by Michelangelo], taking Jesus down from the cross, that beautiful
sculpture in the Vatican. I’ll think of that; or I’ll think of the praying hands; or I’ll think of
a picture of Jesus on the cross; or I’ll think of something beautiful. I’ll think of a beautiful
sunny day. I’ll think of lovely things, or I’ll think of pure things.” And that is all trying to
be like Jesus. It’s all trying to do it by your own effort.

Or, you can say, “Lord Jesus, this is you walking down Ashford Street. This is your body; I’ve
gone; I’ve been crucified with you; I’ve been buried with you; I’m with God at the right hand. This
is your body, Lord Jesus, what do you want to do?” And there will come up from within you a ‘spirit
dynamic’ of Jesus.

See, Jesus actually lives in you! That’s the amazing thing! This isn’t just a joke. It isn’t just
a nice metaphorical way of putting it. It’s the opposite of that verse in scripture you may know,
“Make no provision for the flesh.” Well, you can make provision for the flesh. I certainly can if
I stacked away – well I don’t do it because I’d die – well, I wouldn’t die but at least I’d shorten
my life — but I could stack away the Prestat chocolates in the refrigerator. And you’re really
making provision.

And all of you, I know a little more about you ladies now on diet, because I know you either want to
die or you don’t want to die. You actually play at it or you do it. So you can make provision for
the chocolates. You can make provision for the flesh. You can make provision for living unlike
Jesus. But you can make provision for Jesus. See, that’s the amazing thing, you can make provision
for Jesus.

It’s quite a touching – at least it touches me when I think of it but who knows. Marcellus was the
guy in the story of “The Robe” — this is the story as it is in the book, the novel. The movie cut
it short. But in the novel — I’ll tell it quickly because I’m sure I’ve used it before. Marcellus
was the fellow that took the robe, you remember, from the cross — won it in the dice game or
something. And so the story goes on. And he goes around, you remember, traveling to try to find
out what these Christians were about. And he visits the homes and visits the places where Jesus
visited; and talks to the people that Jesus knew about; talks to his disciples; the woman that knew
him; all that kind of thing. And at the end of course it comes round, and round, and round. And
eventually he either I think – he certainly eventually becomes a Christian.

But near the end of the book he is talking to one of the – I thought it was Cleopas, I thought it
was one of the men that weren’t disciples, but were on the road to Emmaus.
But he was talking to somebody like that. And he says, “Here’s a thing that baffles me, when I
visit these homes where Jesus has been, there are times when we’re in the middle of conversation,
and just some simple thing like a window latch clicks, or a door clicks and everybody turns around.
Now why do they do that?” And he said, “The man answered him, ‘Because we’re expecting Jesus any
minute.’” Which I don’t know why it touches me but, “We’re expecting Jesus any minute. So he
appeared — he has appeared and he has disappeared so often to us. He appeared in the upper room,
then appeared at the seaside. So we’ve seen him repeatedly. So we’re always waiting for him. Any
minute we know he’ll appear.” That’s the way to live.

That transforms a home. That transforms a home, brings a tenderness into relationships, brings a
thoughtfulness into life, brings a reality into life together. Of course, it prepares the way for
revival. You can see it does, because revival is just an absolute certainty that Christ is here.

Healing? When does healing take place? Healing takes place because of the fullness of Jesus’
presence. I was going to say there’s nothing miraculous in healing. Actually there’s nothing
miraculous in healing when Jesus is there. So healing is not something that you ‘lift up into’,
“I’m going to grab healing.” Healing is a natural byproduct of a group of people in whom Jesus is
allowed to live every moment.

Now, the tragedy of harsh words to another person, is not the sin. I don’t know that God is so
caught up with sin as we are. I don’t think that he’s caught up with the action. But it’s the
indifference to him. You remember, Studdert Kennedy [Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, MC, 1883 –
1929, was an Anglican priest and poet.] has in the collection of poems called “Unutterable Beauty”,
has one you remember, where he says and it’s called:

“When Jesus Came to Birmingham”

“When Jesus Came to Birmingham,
They simply passed him by,
They did not hurt a hair of him,
But only let him die.”

And then I can’t remember the rest of it but the last verse runs something like,

“It rained the winter rain
That drenched him through and through,
And Jesus crouched against the wall
And called for Calvary, and cried for Calvary.”

So when we do that we’re ignoring Christ. I remember the way guys do with the cigarette. [Pastor
steps and twists his foot back and forth as if putting out a cigarette.] That’s it. You’re
scrunching Jesus into the earth again; you’re scrunching him into the hole in the ground that is his
tomb, when you do not let him live and express himself in you every moment. And of course, that’s
what transforms our business: you can see it. That’s when people come into the fruit shop [Fish
Enterprises operated a fruit store in London], there’s something in the air; there’s a magic of
Christ’s presence in the air that they touch. And that’s what the ministry of Jesus’ life is about.
And the secret is Christ in me, the hope of glory. Christ.

And of course it makes your own life very exciting. There’s nothing exciting about opening the door
unless the hand is Christ’s. Then it’s exciting! And there’s nothing exciting walking along by
some flowers unless it’s the Lord of life walking uniquely by those flowers in you. And then it’s
exciting! It’s Christ! And that’s the key to the whole thing: it’s Jesus in you. That’s what
sanctification is: But that’s why you’re alive! You’re alive here to carry Christ and to let Jesus
be himself in you.

I’ll tell you what I like most about it. It means that your life is not just a following out of all
that is in these books. [Pastor is speaking in a library.] Or it’s not just a following advice that

maybe I have given you; or it’s not just trying to be like all kinds of other people. It’s a unique
original creation of a work of art! And that’s wonderful: that you actually are going to experience
Jesus living in you a ‘work of art’ that has never been lived before and will never be lived again.
That’s wonderful. That makes life so exciting. That means you have an afternoon to live! Jesus
has an afternoon to live in you that he has never lived before and he will never live again. That’s
wonderful, and that’s what faith in Christ is. And that’s what “Christ in you, the hope of glory”
is. Let us pray.

Is Your Faith Strong or Weak?

Ephesian 2:4-10

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Another prediction of general relativity is that time should appear to run slower near a massive
body like the earth. This is because there’s a relation between the energy of light and its
frequency, that is the number of waves of light per second, the greater the energy the higher the
frequency. As light travels upward in the earth’s gravitational field it loses energy and so its
frequency goes down. This means that the length of time between one wave crest and the next goes
up. To someone high up it would appear that everything down below was taking longer to happen.

This prediction was tested in 1962 using a pair of very accurate clocks mounted at the top and
bottom of a water tower. The clock at the bottom which was nearer the earth was found to run slower
in exact agreement with general relativity. The different speed of clocks at different heights
above the earth is now of considerable practical importance with the advent of accurate navigation
systems based on signals from satellites. If one ignores the prediction of general relativity, then
the position that one calculated would be wrong by several miles.

Newton’s law of motion put an end to the idea of absolute position in space. The theory of
relativity gets rid of absolute time. Then the amazing example, the twins example, consider a pair
of twins suppose one twin goes to live on the top of a mountain while the other stays at sea level.
The first twin would age faster than the second thus, if they met again, one would be older than the
other. In this case the difference in ages would be very small but it would be much larger if one
of the twins went for a long trip in a space ship at nearly the speed of light. When he returned he
would be much younger than the one who stayed on earth. This is known as the twins’ paradox but it
is a paradox only if one has the idea of absolute time at the back of one’s mind.

In the theory of relativity, there is no unique absolute time but instead each individual has its
own personal measure of time that depends on where he is and how he is moving. So, in a way, it
doesn’t surprise us because in the 20th Century we have so deified science. I suppose it does
surprise us when we find that science is saying the same thing as this dear book says, that there is
no such thing as absolute time. That, in fact, if you sent one twin out in a space ship and he came
back to earth, he would be younger because the time goes more slowly way out where he would be. Of
course, that’s only out where we could get a spaceship.

But, if we consider that the universe itself seems to have infinite space, you can well imagine that
there is some place where physically time really stands still compared with what it’s doing here on
earth and certainly we begin to see how mathematics and physics are coming together with what we
used to think was just a different sphere completely. So it begins to show us how the physical
universe melts into the spiritual. It’s a great privilege that we have, that we have lived to see
this day.

I feel it, of course, particularly and I don’t know who else is old enough here in Europe to realize
that the scientist, especially men of the caliber of Hawking who sits on the seat that Newton sat in
Cambridge. Men of this caliber have done nothing but tear down the faith. Men of this caliber
have never dreamed of mentioning God in their books and, of course, he has it all through his books.
Not because he’s some kind of orthodox Christian, I don’t believe he is at all, but because he’s

driven by the discovery of science itself to see there has to be an infinite intelligent mind behind
the creation.

Now, for us, it’s very – I don’t know, it’s confirming, it’s affirming, we don’t need confirmation
from science but it is an affirmation from science of what is found in this dear book written so
many years ago. It’s in Psalms 90:4, “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when
it is past, or as a watch in the night.” But it’s like saying out there where even our own
physicists now realize that time goes more slowly. Out there is amazing, he puts it so much more
vividly than Hawking, “Out there a thousand years is but as yesterday when it has past.”

So, it’s just a day out there. So, a thousand years passes here on earth but out there, somewhere
where God is, just a day has passed and so that time is just relative. It goes so fast here but so
slowly where he is. That helps us to understand the startling statement in Revelation 13:8. We
looked at it yesterday briefly. Revelation 13:8, “And all who dwell on earth will worship it, every
one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the
Lamb that was slain.” And I’ve already explained to you about the adverbial phrase of time “before
the foundation of the world” that in the original Greek, it actually follows the verb “slain” so
that in Greek the verse reads, “Every one whose name has not been written in the book of the life of
the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.” So, the Lamb was slain before the
foundation of the world.

And it’s easy for us now in the light of this view of time to see that God is able to foresee Iris,
was able to foresee Marty, and was able to have foreseen me, to foresee Mary and to foresee our
lives. And from his great position where all time is one great eternal moment, he’s able to see
what would be our grandfather, what would be our great grandfather, what would be our great great
grandfather and he’s able to see what we would do, and what we would be. He was able to see how we
would pervert our whole personality so that we were little puppy dogs who looked for the favor of
the next person and perverted our personalities into little men pleasing things that we couldn’t
then control. He foresaw all that and then he had Jesus slain before the foundation of the world.

The amazing thing is, of course, that we were slain with him. 2 Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of
Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.”
So when Jesus died, we all died with him. God put us all into Jesus and slayed us before the
foundation of the world. Then you may say, “Well, why let us live this?” So that we would have a
real choice.

He was so gracious, he let us be born of our fallen parents and live our faulty, lame, worthy lives
with twisted perverted personalities and all the time he had already destroyed all that and
recreated us in Jesus but he let us play that out to see what it would be like. He’s so good; he
wants us to have free wills that he let that play out.

But of course, Satan has tried to deceive us into thinking, “That’s normal. That’s normal. That’s
the way you’re going to be forever.” It isn’t, that’s just God’s little view. It’s like sometimes
the television set where we’re able to put a small picture inside the big screen. So it’s really
the big screen is our recreated personalities in Jesus. That’s what really exists. The little
screen just shows you what used to exist before you were slain in Jesus. What we are looking at
here in our fallen lives is the little screen and then Satan is trying to expand that to make us
believe that that’s the only screen. It’s not. It’s only the little one and so God is saying of
course, “I’ve destroyed you in my son Jesus. It’s all done.”

That is confirmed again in Colossians 3:3, it’s just good to see that it’s several times throughout
scripture so that you’re able to settle it in your own hearts clearly. Colossians 3:3, “For you
have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Of course, Paul is obviously speaking to the
church at Colossae, so they’re all alive; they had to be alive to read this. So, he obviously
didn’t mean that they physically died; he meant you have died and your life is hid with Christ in
God, you have been slain. You have been completely destroyed and completely recreated.

The fuller expression of it is in Ephesians 2:4-10 which are verses that it’s just good to memorize
because we have to fight for reality and fight to keep reality clear in our minds in this world.
Ephesians 2:4, at the beginning you think, “Oh, he’s mixed up the tenses,” but of course it’s not a
problem with grammar. “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead through our trespasses.” That’s the way the Greek reads, “Even when we were
dead.” “Made us alive together with Christ.” And then he emphasizes, “By grace you have been
saved.” I mean, this is when you were dead.

It wasn’t when you started to make some move towards God, it wasn’t when you began to repent of your
sins, it was actually when you were dead, God out of just grace and love made you alive together
with Christ. “It’s by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and made us sit with
him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Now, Paul was still alive at that time, so he’s not
talking about coming to heaven. He’s saying that at that very moment he was on earth and there on
earth and he’s saying, “God has already raised us up with him and made us sit with him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” That’s where we’re really are, “That in the coming ages he might
show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you
have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.”

This has all been done for you already, “Not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” And then the emphasis comes again,
“Which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” And so however amazing it is, the
fact is that God has already played through our whole lives from before the foundation of the world
and then he’s given us a choice here which life do we want to actually have.

But the choice is simply ours and so when we get echoes of heaven in our hearts, as Ecclesiastes
says, “God has planted eternity in man’s heart yet so he is not able to find it.” That’s because we
really are there. Even old Plato, however non-Christian he was, and he certainly was, Plato knew
nothing about Jesus at the time that he wrote, even Plato said, “There’s a perfect chair in heaven.”
That’s the way he said it, “There’s a perfect form of a chair in heaven and all other chairs are
just pure copies of that.”

How the dear guy got it, I don’t know but he talked about the one true good. He never talked about
God but he talked about the one true good and he emphasized in heaven there’s a perfect form of
everything. It’s obviously God’s spirit somehow getting through to him. That’s why I think we
should always be slow to say, “Oh, there’s no truth in this religion, or there’s no truth in that
religion, or there’s no truth even in this spiritualism.” The interesting and dangerous thing about
them all is that there is some truth in them all but they’re all poor shadows of this absolute truth
in Jesus.

Now, how is that divine deliverance actualized in us here on earth? That’s just what God laid in my
heart today. How is this actualized in us? I mean, if we have all been crucified, how is that made

real in us, that wonderful person that is able to live above sin? Romans 6:11 makes it clear.
Romans 6:11, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
That’s the Greek word, “Logizesthai” for “reckon.” You must treat yourselves as really dead to sin
and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

But it’s always dangerous for us as we try to make that into, “Oh yes, I must treat myself as dead.
It’s a kind of psychological thing. It’s a power of positive thinking. I must keep thinking of
myself, ‘I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead,’ and that’s how this is made real in me.” Well no, it’s
deeper than that because you get the meaning of that word, “Logizesthai” in Acts 26:18. The word
“reckon” has a deeper meaning than just a mental affirmation. Acts 26:18, “To open their eyes, that
they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

You are recreated in Jesus. Your destruction in him and your resurrection in him, your
sanctification in him, your cleansing in him is by faith and the reckoning is faith. How is this
made real in us today? By faith. Yet it’s important to go another step because we can make faith a
work too. So it’s important to see that the Bible always clarifies any ambiguity by some other
unambiguous passage and so we’ve just seen sanctified by faith and there’s a tendency for some of us
to say, “That’s it we’re made real and raised up in Jesus by faith. It’s by faith, that’s how we do
it. It’s not the power of positive thinking — it’s not thinking about the thing — it’s by faith.
So, it’s just my faith that does it.”

Well, it’s important to see no, the Bible doesn’t say that faith is the effectual cause. Go back to
Ephesians 2:8 and you’ll see that. It clarifies that in some sense faith has something to do with
it but it’s not faith that causes it. Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through
faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God — not because of works, lest any man
should boast.” So, it’s by grace, it’s by God’s work that we have been made real and resurrected in
Jesus and we receive that through our faith. Faith is a condition; faith is not the cause of it.

Now that’s glorious because it means it doesn’t depend on strong faith or weak faith. So if you’re
having trouble with anger, and impatience, and jealousy, and you say, “Oh well, I have been
crucified with Christ, I have been raised up but this somehow isn’t real in me today so I must
exercise more faith.” And you get into that work experience of, “My faith isn’t strong enough. I
must exercise stronger faith.” No, it’s not by your faith; God is the one who makes it real in you.
You receive that through your faith and as long as it’s faith you’ll receive it. As long as it’s
faith God will actualize through the Holy Spirit that resurrection in Jesus.

So, the condition is faith but the effectual cause is the Holy Spirit and grace and the grace of
God. So it’s very important for us not to sit here and say, “Well yes, Pastor, I believe that. I
believe that I have been crucified in Christ; I believe that has all been done. I believe that I
have before me two ways and I want to choose the right way and I do it with stronger faith?” No,
you just do it with faith. Just faith.

Now what is faith? I think that’s where we make our error. Matthew 9:22 and I think this will help
to save some of us from the old introspection and the mysticism that we get caught in. Matthew
9:22, “Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.’
And instantly the woman was made well.” What was her faith? He said, “Your faith has made you
well.” Was it because she said, “Lord, I really believe in you. Lord, I really, really believe in
you. Lord, I have faith in you. Lord, I do believe. Lord, I can see myself well, I can see myself

whole.” No, no, no, not as complex as that at all.

Verse 20, “And behold, a woman who had suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind
him and touched the fringe of his garment.” Jesus is so good. He makes things so simple — not a
whole lot of mysticism, not a whole lot of, “Yes, I feel that I’m getting better. Yes, I feel it at
last, Lord.” Just, “Reached out and touched the fringe of his garment.” Faith is action. Faith is
action. It’s not a whole lot of introspection. Faith is just action.

Luke 7:50, the same thing. How does this mighty pre-creation eternal work? How does it become
actualized in us? Simple faith. Luke 7:50, “And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you;
go in peace.’” What was her faith? Nothing very complicated. Verses 37-38, “And behold, a woman
of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was at table in the Pharisee’s house,
brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to
wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and
anointed them with the ointment.” Faith is action. By that act she expressed her faith. Faith is
action. Faith is doing outwardly in your behavior what you believe in your heart is true.

Why does God require it? Well, you’ll see it in Matthew 12:13 and you notice Jesus always did
require it. Matthew 12:13, “Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And the man
stretched it out, and it was restored, whole like the other.” So, that was it. The hand was still
withered and still weak until he actually stretched it forth. As he stretched it forth, he was
exercising faith. Jesus regarded him as exercising faith as he stretched out the hand. The action
proves the faith and so it was the action that actually did it.

I don’t know about you all, I was all – well, I mean fascinated by intellectual pursuits and by the
ability of thought and the power of thought and I constantly thought, “Lord, there’s no need to be
so primitive as to actually do the thing, surely I can think it in my head and you can look down and
you can see me thinking it and you know I’m thinking it and therefore I don’t need to do the outward
thing. That’s for simple people who aren’t educated or aren’t sophisticated.” But of course, it’s
all Satan’s deception. It doesn’t matter what we’re like, intellectual cerebral exercise is
intellectual cerebral exercise. Emotional exercise is emotional exercise, faith is action that’s
why God has given us bodies in this time/space world and it’s action that is the exercise of faith.

Let’s look in James 2:19-26. “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons
believe—and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from works is
barren? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the
altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works.” See
faith is completed by works. “And the scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God,
and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God. You see that a
man is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the harlot
justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body
apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.”

So it’s the work — it’s the outward act that is the exercise of faith. It was the same in the Old
Testament military victories. It wasn’t enough for Gideon or Joshua to say, “Lord, you’ve said
you’ve given the city into our hand. I believe it, Lord. Now, okay I want to sit in my tent here
and will you actualize that? Now, I believe it Father, but will you just actualize it?” It never
worked that way. God never regarded that as faith.

He never regarded faith as a speculative rational thing, a mere progression of ideas in the head.
He always regarded faith as outward expression and action. You must admit there has to be some
reason God has given us physical bodies here on earth. There must be some relationship between our
relationship with him and these physical bodies otherwise they’re just nuisances. If we could just
sit at home and think the thing and he would see it was faith, then why would he bother with these
bodies? Well, it’s because the body, the action of the body is the exercise of faith and it’s in
that very exercise of faith that he begins to do the work.

We’ll just look at one military victory and then I’d like to just highlight what I believe the
Father wants us to see clearly today. It’s Joshua 6, and it’s the well-known one of Jericho.
Joshua 6, it’s just so plainly put. Joshua 6:16 and 20, “And at the seventh time, when the priests
had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, ‘Shout; for the Lord has given you the city.”
Now he said, “When that happens you shout because the Lord has already given you the city. He’s
already crucified you with Christ. You’ve already been destroyed. You’ve already been resurrected
and made clean and whole. But you have to shout because he has given you the city. But of course,
the city still stands before your eyes until you shout. Then you go to Verse 20, “So the people
shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the
people raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city,
every man straight before him, and they took the city.” But it didn’t happen until they acted.

Now, back to Romans 6:11, “Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Faith
is not inward sight. It’s not inward sight. It’s not yes, I see it. It’s not twisting your mouth
in all kinds of shapes to try to see it right. I remember one dear brother said to me years ago,
some of you know him, in Minneapolis he said, “Now Pastor, you’re saying you can see Jesus now. How
do you see him?” And he was at that business of how do I see it? It’s not that. Faith is not
inward sight.

I’ve tried to write it here and maybe I should just read it because I thought it was so important
from God. “Faith is not meditation on the death of Jesus, nor mental straining to make it real, nor
successful exercise of a vivid imagination.” I thought we get caught in that and it helped me in
regard to the “Stations of the Cross” because I always thought, “Boy, the “Stations of the Cross”,
it’s good, it’s good.” But obviously you can go through the “Stations of the Cross” and you can be
involved in just a mental thing. “But faith is not meditation on the death of Jesus nor mental
straining to make it real, nor successful exercise of a vivid imagination. Faith is behavior
consistent with the fact that you no longer exist and that Christ lives in your place.” That’s it.

Faith is behavior that is consistent with the fact that you no longer exist and that Christ lives in
your place. That’s what faith is. It’s the actual behavior of it that your ankle bones are
strengthened. I can almost hear my mother saying, “Ernest if you get up out of bed and get about
your business then you’d feel the strength of da-da-da.” And I’d say, “No, I’d like to lay here and
imagine it and when I imagine myself strong enough then I’ll get up and go.” It’s amazing — it’s a
commitment you see — you have to step out onto the lake. “No Lord, show me it’s frozen, then I’ll
step out.” No, you have to step out when it looks just like water. You have to step out when it
looks you’re just the same angry selfish heavy person you’ve always been. You have to step out in
confidence that you’ve been crucified in Christ.

Faith is not inward sight; it is outward action in the light of your death with Christ at Calvary.
It is not prolonged introspection or preoccupation with self. It is not a morbid interest in every
detail of your physical or emotional health because I think you can so often sink deeper into self

even when you’re in the very act of what you think is being delivered of self. You can be
preoccupied with, “Oh, I’m trying to get deliverance from self.” You can be preoccupied with that
whole thing. It is not a morbid interest in every detail of your physical or emotional health. It
is not a constant struggle over fuller and fuller consecration. See, it’s not a constant, “Oh, yeah
well, I’m almost fully consecrated. I’m almost…” What you end up with is preoccupying yourself and
everybody else with yourself.

It is not a constant struggle over fuller and fuller consecration. Jesus said it is finished and
that means concentration on self for whatever good reason is simply unbelief that the crucifixion
has taken place. I think that’s true. Jesus said it is finished and that means concentration on
self for whatever good reason you know, “Oh, I’m concentrating on myself to get myself fully
consecrated.” Well, it’s just simple unbelief that the crucifixion has taken place because the more
you’re struggling, “I’m struggling to consecrate self.” “Well, I thought self had been crucified
with God?” “Yeah, yeah but I have to get it consecrated.” Well no, it’s been consecrated, God has
done it. You just believe it and go about your business.

In other words, crucified life is a gay abandonment of self to death. A joyous relief that the old
body of sin has been dumped into hell forever and a glorious going forth by Jesus in your body.
That’s what it is. I can tell you what it is each day, it’s in Luke 9:23. Without this every day,
it’ll be hard for you to walk in Christ above yourself. Luke 9:23, “And he said to all, ‘If any man
would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’” That is each
morning, you deny yourself — you make nothing of yourself — you deny that you even exist and you
take up your cross. Like Joseph of Arimathea, you jump out of bed and rush to grasp the cross and
walk down the Calvary road singing. That’s what faith is.

It’s not morbidly lying in bed thinking, “Oh, I have to get victory over this.” It’s, “No Lord,
I’ve been crucified, I no longer exist, this thing that was known as Earnest O’Neill, that was known
as Lucy, this was crucified, dumped into hell before the foundation of the world and I’m new. I
don’t know what I am; I’m free as the air and the Holy Spirit, dear Holy Spirit, come and live Jesus
in me. Let’s go Lord, out we go.” That’s it.

It helps to explain a very interesting paradoxical verse that I don’t even claim to be fully
expanding it well. Who can fully expand anything here but Matthew 11:12? It brings the whole truth
home. Matthew 11:12, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered
violence.” Isn’t that interesting? The footnote c, I haven’t checked the Greek, but the footnote c
is, “Has been coming violently.” Isn’t that interesting? “From the days of John the Baptist until
now the kingdom of heaven has been coming violently, and men of violence take it by force.” Isn’t
that strange?

I think this is part of what it means. You go out and you grasp the cross and you walk down Calvary
road rejoicing. That’s it. There’s a sense in which you get up and you act, that’s faith. I get
up and I go out. I’ve been crucified; let me go to it, Lord. And so I can see it in the mornings,
the moment you awaken in the morning, “Lord Jesus, I thank you that I’ve been crucified with you. I
thank you, Lord, that it’s all done. I thank you that it’s finished. Lord Jesus, come let’s go up
and out.” And as you go up and out indifferent to self with a gay abandonment and a gay
indifference to your body and your emotions, the Spirit of Jesus comes in and strengthens your ankle
bones as you walk.

But that’s it. It’s a glorious freedom from introspection and from long psychic meditation – that

is a work of salvation. Salvation is not by a work. It’s not by your effort. It’s not something
man can do least you should boast but, it’s simply believing God and walking out. We’ve given so
many examples of it. You know, I’ve told you about my dad teaching me to swim and you know it so
well, it’s a big moment when he says, “Okay now son, okay, now I’ll hold your chin and you get your
feet up off the ground.” And you cannot believe if you get your feet up off the ground you’ll do
anything but sink you know, but at last you decide, “I’ll bring the feet up off the ground.” That’s
the moment of faith and that’s the only moment when you begin to swim and it’s the same, it’s the
moment of action.

I think, you know, I’ve struggled as much as anybody here has over mysticism and introspection.
But, I think it’s death. The life of salvation is simple faith and simple faith is action that is
consistent with the fact that you believe. The fact that we believe is that we were crucified with
Christ, we’ve been completely made new and we go out in that confidence. The moment you do that,
Jesus begins to rise in you and the Holy Spirit begins to bring resurrection life into you and you
begin to float instead of struggle.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, words always fail us, only you through your Holy Spirit can show us how gloriously free
it all is and we thank you for that. We thank you, Father, that it couldn’t be more fully proven to
us than it is by your word and by the recent discoveries of the quantum physics.

It couldn’t be more fully proven to us that we have been crucified before the foundation of the
world, that it’s all done. That all the anger in us, and the desire to be well thought of, the
desire to be looked up to and respected, the desire to be successful, the desire to be somebody, the
desire not to be a failure, the desire to avoid people’s criticism and thinking ill of us, all that
was crucified with Christ. Destroyed and dumped into hell forever and has been and is finished.

We thank you, Lord, that the only thing that really lives is the new creation that you have given us
in Jesus, completely new and interesting, an exciting new person that you want to unfold to us and
to the world day-by-day.

We thank you, Lord, that ours is simply the choice and we just choose and go forward in that
confidence and, lo and behold, you, through the Spirit, make it real in us. Lord, we thank you,
thank you that it’s not a matter of long meditation, it’s not a matter of trying to make our minds
think something. Lord, we thank you it’s just action that is appropriate to the truth of the
historical and eternal fact.

Thank you Lord, thank you that the kingdom of God is taken by violence and that we can do that each
one during the days of the rest of our lives for your glory.

Now the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us
all this week. Amen.

Easter: Knowing the Power of Resurrection Life

Philippians 3:10

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I think that God has something to say to us and I pray that I’ll be able to get it over simply. We
in this room will be a little bit different from so many people that will gather in the churches
today because we all know the certainty of the historical fact of Jesus’ resurrection. And I’d just
repeat to you that certainly for me that’s been – really I suppose it’s terrible to put it this way
and maybe some people don’t like it, but the intellectual certainty of that has been a great rock
for me. And I think its right; I think that’s the historical orthodox faith because I remember
James S. Stewart wrote a book Heralds of God he was an old homiletics preacher in the New College
Edinburgh years ago. He wrote a book Heralds of God and he said the whole task of preaching and the
whole task of the Christian witness is as a herald of God to proclaim what God has done in Jesus and
that that’s a fact, a historical fact. And so I think it is right that that should be the rock like
base of all that we do.

But I’d just repeat to all of us again today that we do not believe in God because he has blessed
us, and we do not believe in God because he has given us faith, and we do not believe in God because
he has answered our prayers about sales, and we do not believe in God because of the things that he
does for us in answer to prayer. If he didn’t answer one prayer of ours we would still believe in
God. And it’s good to be clear on that in our own hearts especially, in today’s world when
existentialism has emphasized so much the importance of personal experience.

I think personal experience is great but I don’t think it is any more than an affirmation that God
has done the work in Jesus. It’s not even a confirmation. I mean, a confirmation seems to me too
strong. “Oh well, I mean, God has answered my prayer so it kind of confirms me in my belief that
Jesus has died for me.” Well, no I don’t think it’s anything as strong as a confirmation, it
affirms, it’s an affirmation. When we experience answers to prayer, when we experience victory over
sin here in this world, it’s maybe affirmation. It’s saying, “Yes, that is true because here it is
once more happening.” But that’s what it is.

But really we’re different from so many people in the churches that will gather today because we are
certain of the historical fact of Jesus’ death. And I’d just remind you that the historicity of
that fact depends on several simple questions, and I’ll just flip them up quickly on the overhead so
that we don’t have to spend a lot of time on them. If Jesus died and rose from the dead, did anyone
observe it? Yes, the whole first century observed it, the whole of the first century world.
There’s a verse in scripture, you remember, that says, “These things were not in a corner.” Paul
says that to the King Agrippa, or someone isn’t that right and he says, “No, King these things
weren’t done in a corner.” Well Agrippa didn’t reply, “Oh they were, I’ve never heard of them.”
Because everybody, it was a buzz among the people of the world at that time that this miracle had
taken place in the first century.

And I’d just remind you, of course, that’s why a man like Tacitus, the historian of imperial Rome
wrote this. I mean, he didn’t want to write something that they were uncertain about. He was one
of those very official historians really. He said, “The author of that name Christian was Christ
who in the reign of Tiberius suffered under his procurator Pontius Pilate. Tacitus wrote that in
100 AD. He wrote that because he had examined all the accounts. The Roman historians did not write

of things that were uncertain. They didn’t write about Judas Maccabeus, they didn’t write about
little revolutions and little things that had happened, they wrote only about things that were
certain and sure. And so I’d just remind you that the whole of the first century virtually observed
the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Are the details of it known rather than just the vague rumor? Because you might say, “Well, I mean,
maybe he heard of a vague rumor of this and so it was a general kind of thing and he wrote that the
author of that name Christian was Christ, da-da-da.” So, are there any details? Yes, I mean 1 John
1:2, the details of Jesus’ death and resurrection were carefully observed by these apostles who
wrote the New Testament. 1 John 1:1-2, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes,” they were eye witnesses, “Which we have looked upon and touched
with our hands,” so it wasn’t Tacitus writing in 100 AD, these men were writing now at the very
moment just a short time after Jesus had died, “Which we have looked upon and touched with our
hands, concerning the word of life – the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it,
and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.”

And we’ve dealt often with the obvious question, “Well, well, maybe they observed an ordinary man
Jesus of Nazareth and maybe they saw an opportunity to make themselves important in the world at
that time by trying to pretend he was the son of God, and trying to pretend he had risen from the
dead.” And you know the answer to that, that’s alright as long as they were becoming rich, as long
as they were becoming famous, as long as they weren’t being harmed. But what when they started to
be persecuted and men started to kill them, and they killed their children? Well then surely they’d
have said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, okay the joke is over. Okay, okay he was an ordinary man
he didn’t rise from the dead.” And then everybody would have said, “Oh, that’s alright we accept
his teaching its beautiful teaching. We’ll accept that.” But they didn’t say that. Despite the
fact that they suffered persecution and that they were executed, and their children were destroyed,
and their children’s children were destroyed for their teaching of the resurrection, they continued
to teach it.

And you know what we’ve often said, that there’s an ethical and psychological impossibility in
people dying for a lie. People will die for something they think is true, but they won’t die for
something that they know is a lie. Actually we have a very cast iron example here because if I died
and I didn’t rise from the dead and you proclaimed, “Oh this Ernest O’Neill rose from the dead,” and
then they not only persecuted you but they killed Nathan, I mean, there’s no question you’d say,
“Wait a minute, wait a minute it was a lie. It didn’t happen.” Because, blood is thicker than
water and really we will not die for things that we know to be lies. So yes, I mean, the witness of
the apostles is rendered more sure because of the fact that they didn’t in fact become famous and
wealthy. They became infamous if anything and they suffered persecution for what they taught.

Of course you know that the only thing you’re left with is, “Well, I mean they wrote it down here,
okay you say that but are we sure that what we have here written is what they wrote?” And of course
that concerns the multitude of manuscripts that lie behind the whole writing of the scripture. And
of course, I can really highlight it pretty easily by reminding you that for instance, in the case
of Plato, the Republic, the Republic was written round about between 427 and 347 BC. The earliest
copy we have of Plato’s Republic is 900 AD. So you can see there’s a gap of 900 years in there
between the earliest manuscript we have and when he wrote it. Really, a gap of 1200 years and so
there was plenty of opportunity during 1200 years for people to forget Plato even but certainly for
many people to get at the manuscripts and change them especially, since there are only seven of
them. And so it would have been easy, relatively speaking, to get to those manuscripts, switch them

around, change them, put in new stuff and then just bury ancient manuscripts. But of course, no one
in the universities of the western world question but that our copy of Plato’s Republic is the
Republic as he wrote it.

It’s the same with Tacitus’ history, nobody questions that what we have as Tacitus’ history is
Tacitus’ history in spite of the fact that it was written about 100 AD and the earliest copy we have
is 1100 AD so there’s a gap of 1000 years during which anybody could change it. It’s a little more
difficult because there were 20 manuscripts they’d have to change and they’d all be different dates
so it would be a little more difficult but there was plenty of time for them to do it, yet nobody
questions that when you read of Tacitus’ history you’re reading what Tacitus wrote. It’s the came
with Caesar’s famous Gallic Wars any of us who had to translate it out of Latin, all we were working
on was stuff that came from a manuscript of 900 AD which was a 1000 years after he wrote it and yet
none of us ever questioned that what we read is what Caesar wrote. And again, there were only 10
manuscripts and so there were only 10 manuscripts to change.

And so it just goes on, it’s incredible whether it’s Livy or whether it’s Pliny, right on down.
Whether it’s Thucydides, the same thing 1300 years gap between the earliest manuscript we have and
the time it was written, plenty of time for people to change. And you notice, even with Suetonius
it’s only eight manuscripts and the oldest one is 800 years. Lucretius, the two manuscripts and the
oldest one is 1100 years after he wrote it. Euripides is the same, only nine manuscripts and 1500
years between when he wrote it and the earliest manuscript we have. Aristotle, you know, and which
really so much of our philosophy is based, Aristotle is the same, till five manuscripts 1400 years’
gap.

Of course, when you come to the New Testament it’s like entering into a different world. You talk
about 4000 manuscripts, 4000 manuscripts and that’s 4000 before the year 1100 AD and one of them
actually is as old as that, it’s dated 125 AD only 25 years after John wrote this, “That which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon
and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.” Twenty five years after he wrote that
this manuscript came into existence, I mean, it’s incredible.

I remember saying this once in a Sunday morning at Campus Church and some girl came up from the
university history department and said, “You know, in university history departments now we regard
any manuscript as eye witness if it’s written earlier than 200 years after the event took place.”
And of course, this one was written 25 years after it took place. And so really, ordinary
historians regard that of course, as really eye witness account and that’s it you know, that’s it
there it’s in the Manchester Museum library you remember, it’s John’s gospel. Sorry, it’s too big
to get on the screen, but it’s John’s gospel, fragment of John 18:31-33, John Ryland Library
Manchester England dated about 125 AD. I have a slightly better copy of it than that but that’s the
date.

So when we talk about Jesus’ resurrection we’re talking about something that is intellectually
proven as history can ever be proven. In fact, if you don’t recognize the truth of Jesus’
resurrection you don’t recognize any history as true at all and actually you have to withdraw into
absolute skepticism from which position of course, there’s no point even in living.

Now you know that then the normal teaching in the churches today will be, yes but I mean what good
is that if Christ lives now at God’s right hand? What we need is him here to do the same things he
did in that day, so what good is it that he rose from the dead and went off to be with his Father in

heaven? And then of course the minister answers, “Well, you now have to try to imitate Jesus. You
now have to try to follow him. That’s why he lived and died so you would then follow him and be
like him and begin to change the world by following his example.” And of course, we know that the
heart of the gospel is that there’s no way we can do that. There’s no way because of what we are.

It’s in Romans 3:23. There’s no way we can be like Jesus because of the simple fact, even if we
didn’t observe it within ourselves how unlike him we are – well, just what we were saying about
children, we are born it seems selfish and ever since we were children we’ve seen how evil we are
inside. But the Bible says it plainly Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God.” And of course, we find that we try to be like Jesus but we can’t and the fact is that we have
sinned. And of course, the consequences of that are stated in Romans 6:23. Romans 6:23, “For the
wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The
wages of sin is death and so there is no way in which we can imitate Jesus because we are sinners
and we’re miserable creatures unlike him in every way and God has determined that he will destroy
all such as ourselves.

And we see it if you look over the page Romans 7:18. Romans 7:18, “For I know,” and we know it,
“That nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot
do it.” And that’s our situation. Yes, it would be great if we could imitate Jesus but we know we
can’t. In fact, we know that we have been condemned to death because of the evil within us. And of
course, we’ve seen that the purpose of Jesus’ death is to deal with that, it’s 2 Corinthians 5:21.
We were to die because of our sins and in 2 Corinthians 5:21, we see the way God dealt with that in
Jesus, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God.” And in fact the meaning of Jesus’ death for us is that he took us into
himself and he allowed himself to take all the sin that we have and allowed that sin to be burned
out of existence in himself so that you remember, the Bible says, “All have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God and the wages of sin is death.”

But when Christ died you died and that’s you remember, in Colossians 3:3, “For you have died, and
your life is hid with Christ in God.” And I’d just remind us this morning that the only option we
have in this life is to accept what God has done to us and accept what he has said has happened,
that we have died and our life is hid with Christ in God. And every time we refuse to accept that
and pretend, “Oh no, Jesus died for us so that we can have a shot at being like him,” every time we
do that the Holy Spirit will bring a condemnation of death upon us. And that’s why we have such a
heaviness in our consciences at time when we try this old heretical business of following Jesus. We
say, “Alright, I’ve sinned and fallen short. Okay, I deserve death but Jesus has died for me. Now,
I have to have a shot at being like him.” Every time we try that the condemnation of the Holy
Spirit comes upon us and we cry out, “The good that I would I cannot do.”

The fact is the only option we have in this life is to accept, “Alright Lord, I accept I have died
and my life is hid with Christ in God.” And every time we get uppity and we make like we’re not
dead, or we live as if we’re still alive and we can still have the hopes that we had when we were
born into this world, every time we live that way the Holy Spirit brings a condemnation to our
consciences. And that’s why we feel condemned and we feel uncertain when we cry out, “The good that
I would I cannot do” because it’s God lovingly saying to us, “No, I killed you in my son. That was
the answer to your sin. I killed you in my son.” And we’re saying, “Yes, yes, yes, but of course
I’m alive that’s just metaphorical. I know Jesus died for me and now I have to…” and God keeps on
saying, “No, no, that’s real. That’s real. Only when you begin to regard yourself as no longer
alive, only then will you begin to experience my Son’s resurrection.”

And seems to me that that’s the meaning of Luke 9:23. Luke 9:23 and it seems it’s the verse that we
need to exercise our faith in every morning we get up because it is mentioned that it’s a daily
thing in this verse. Jesus “Said to all, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross daily and follow me.’” And it’s just good to remind ourselves that Jesus meant,
“Not let him deny himself sweets, or cream, or chocolate,” but, “Let him deny himself.” That’s what
he said. He didn’t say, “Let him deny himself wine,” or, “Let him deny himself meat.” He said,
“Let him deny himself.” That means let him deny that he even exists. Let him deny to himself that
he even exists. Let him take an attitude to himself each morning when he gets up, “I don’t even
exist. I’ve been crucified with Christ. I’ve been destroyed. And now Lord Jesus, there’s no one
here so will you come.” And then take up his cross daily and follow me.

And so really, each morning, that’s what God asks us to do. Let us get up and say, “Lord, I’m no
longer here I’ve been crucified. I don’t even exist so there’s nobody at home here to run this
life. So Lord God, will you do something?” And then here’s what God does Galatians 4:6. But, he
can only do it when we have that deep attitude you know. He can’t do it when we say, “Oh, we’re
going to be like Jesus with your help.” It’s only when we say, “No Lord, there’s nothing of us left
here. We’ve been destroyed. There’s nobody here at home to run the place.” And then we look up to
God and God does what is said in Galatians 4:6, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit
of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!” And Jesus’ Spirit then comes in and makes the
resurrection personal by the faith of the Son of God. Just back one page Galatians 2:20, “I have
been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I
now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

So, for us Easter is not just a restatement that Jesus rose from the dead. It isn’t. For us Easter
is a rededication to letting Jesus live in us. I don’t know how you all think about these things
but I know there is in me, just a heart’s conviction that there’s more to experience of Jesus today.
I mean, that there’s a greater liberty to be experienced today. I mean, that there’s a new
breakthrough that Jesus has in his living in this body. There’s a new rising into more of his
power. Not me, but him and that every day that’s why you get up each morning, “That’s the hope for
each day, that Jesus you’re going to really break out today. That you’re going to be able to be
yourself this day and leave me way behind and let all that be put to rest in your grave.”

And it seems that’s the purpose of Easter for us, it’s a rededication to Jesus living in us. And
Paul expressed the attitude in Philippians 3:7-9, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for
the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as
refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own,
based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on
faith.” And what things did he count for loss? You know, he had plenty of them if you look back at
Verse 4, “Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If any other man thinks he
has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eight day, of the people of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee, as to zeal a
persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law blameless.”

And then we have our list because we were born in Minnesota, or we were born of these parents, or we
were born – not so much that, we can laugh at those but it’s the old egotism you can always laugh at
your mum and dad or laugh at the home but then we get to the things closer to us. You know, “Well,
I’m quite a remarkable person I have this talent and that ability. I have these looks and I have

this, and I have that, and I’m this certain kind of person and I am different from everybody else.”
Then Paul says, “All these things I count as loss. I count them as nonexistent.” In fact, doesn’t
he use the word dumb at one point which is a horrible word but he counts it as dirt he counts all
these things as unimportant, all these things as dead and past.

So different from us, who so often think of our own personality as so much alive, he thinks of it
all as done, as finished. And so Easter for us is an entry into that again, that all that has past
that we no longer exist. That Jesus, “This is your life,” and that there’s a bursting into freedom.
I tried to, in my innocence now that I think of it, back in – it must have been back in Ireland, I
once did a little model for – I was always dealing with maybe children and I was doing a model for
children and I did a rocket for one of the first rockets that had gone up and I did the last stage
as the one – that oh yes the earth’s atmosphere and the stratosphere and all that kind of thing, and
the last rocket broke clear of the earth’s atmosphere. And I pointed out that once that happens
you’re into free air, then you just flew there was no pull of the earth pulling you down.

And it seems that that’s what the Holy Spirit does for us. Such deliverance from self and such an
abandonment of what we are and a forgetfulness of all it used to be that Jesus is able to live
freely in us and do what he wants. And it seems to me that that’s the hope. I don’t know what you
all think but the radio station, it’s just more work, it’s just more work if there’s no new breaking
out of Jesus in us. It’s just another thing, it’s another method. But if there’s a new breaking
out of Jesus in us so that he lives and he glorifies his Father through us so that people begin to
meet a group of people who are freed because they’ve left themselves way behind in the tomb, then I
think the healing powers and the miracles of Jesus, but most of all his gentle beautiful life will
begin to touch those that are here.

And it seems that that’s what God has called us to. The verse that I felt he had brought to us was
Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection,” and that’s really it,
“And may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,” but that I may know him and the
power of his resurrection. And of course, the only way to do that is becoming like him in his
death. But the whole purpose I think, of our lives is that we may know the power of Jesus rising
inside us. And how do you know that? Well, it’s a paradox back in 2 Corinthians 12:9, you
remember. 2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is
made perfect in weakness.’ I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of
Christ may rest upon me.” But my power is made perfect in weakness.

And it seems that as we live in the light of that that we are good for nothing but to be destroyed,
the power of Jesus rises within us. But while we think that thought we’re quite bad we’re not bad
enough to be utterly destroyed and there ought to be some little bit of us that we can take into
heaven. While we still think in those terms Jesus will not rise within us. We’ll have an imitated
life, we’ll have an imitation of Jesus. But if we realize that we are so rotten, so sinful that God
condemned us to death and he carried out that death condemnation in his son Jesus so that we have
died and we’re no longer alive, when we live like that then the power of Jesus and he himself will
rise within us.

And I mean, I’m probably like everybody here but I do see that every time we get annoyed with our
own weaknesses or every time we get discouraged by our own weaknesses we are really denying Easter
and we’re really proclaiming, “I’m still alive and I’m trying to follow Jesus, and I did make a
mistake and I’m mad with myself because I made a mistake because I should not make mistakes. I can
do better than that.” Every time we have that attitude we are denying that there is no good in us

and we’re hoping for some good. And on the other hand, every time we forget ourselves and agree
with God, “Lord God, the only thing you could do was destroy us because we’re so full of sin and so
naturally independent of you. And we thank you for destroying us in Jesus and that we’re dead and
Lord Jesus this is your life.” Every time we have that attitude each day and in the morning hours
Jesus himself will rise and live in us that day and that for us is Easter.

Easter for us is not just proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Easter for us is Jesus
rising in us today again and hoping that tomorrow he will rise even more, or this minute he will
rise even more with that immediate faith that Wigglesworth had that Jesus is right here, an
immediate faith in him.

Let us pray. Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you that it is nothing less than that. And we thank you
that the first Christians made their impact because it was nothing less than that for them, because
it was nothing less than you alive in them. We thank you Lord, that it’s nothing less than that for
us today. That it’s you, alive in us. Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, we give ourselves to you for a new
and fuller Easter to take place in us today and tomorrow and in these coming days, and weeks, and
months so that Lord Jesus, you may rise and live within us every day and do your things in us
whether they’re wonderful things or not, they’re your things and that you may live your life and
manifest it through us so that others may be touched by you and may again see the word made flesh
and dwelling among us.

We thank you Lord, that you’re alive and we thank you that you’re alive to live in us today and that
we are the great beneficiaries of your resurrection and we are the ones in whom you show yourself
again to the world. Lord, we would step aside and welcome you in to take your rightful place and to
take over this life and live in it and live it for your own purposes. Amen.

Emotional Stability No. 1

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

We’ve been reading these Sunday evenings Watchman Nee’s “The Release of the Spirit”. And you
remember, it’s really concerned with the process work in sanctification, which concerns the breaking
of the outward man — or the soul, the mind, the emotions, and the will. The breaking of their
habits, or the ruts they have got into for years, and the releasing of the inward Spirit of Jesus
within us.

It’s maybe good to see that you did not inherit your emotions just from your mum or your dad, nor
did I. But we inherited not only from their fathers’ mothers, but from THEIR fathers’ mothers —
and right down back to Adam. So what we have here is something in a sense as solid and as
unmanageable as our selfish wills — because they are souls that have been bred into the human race
for generations.

And just as it’s very difficult to train an animal not to swing around when it hears the crack of a
twig in the forest, so it’s just as difficult and probably more difficult to train us not to respond
the way our mind, emotions, and will have been trained for generations. That’s why such a strong
word is used as “breaking” — because it’s not just a matter of seeing what we do and how we react
— but we know that it takes something miraculous from God to destroy those powers — because we
repeatedly have tried to bring them under control. And all we succeed in doing is making the soul
in some way imitate the spirit — but still the Spirit of Jesus is somehow not able to come forth.

Unless the Spirit of Jesus comes forth from us, no spiritual work will be done in anybody’s hearts.
It was striking to us when we saw last week that when our spirit comes forth, the Spirit of Jesus
comes forth. And if our spirit does not come forth the Spirit of Jesus doesn’t come forth. You
remember how Nee says that though the Bible often distinguishes between the human spirit and God’s
Spirit, yet in many parts of the Bible they are not distinguished. Because what happens is the Holy
Spirit comes into your spirit and mixes with your spirit.

So we like to think, “Oh, Holy Spirit. You do it. You get out to others.” He says, “I cannot. If
your spirit does not come forth, I do not come forth.” So we can see how a person can be born of
the spirit, and yet can be absolutely useless in bringing anybody into the new birth, or in allowing
the Spirit of God to bring somebody into the new birth.

I think there often is what we think is a humility in us — but it’s a false humility. We say, “I
could not bring anybody into the kingdom.” You’re right. But we think the Holy Spirit has to do it
direct from heaven. The Holy Spirit says, “I refuse to operate that way. The only way I can touch
somebody and regenerate them is by your spirit coming forth.”

As we say, there is so little lack of conviction of sin in our society. It could well be that the
responsibility is not in the law makers. And who knows? It might not even be in the preachers. It
might well be that the Spirit of Jesus is not able to come forth from many of us who have the Spirit
of Jesus within us, because we have not allowed God to break our outward man and let the Spirit of
Jesus come forth.

So it is good, because it somehow makes sense to you, doesn’t it? It makes sense. It shows us the
depth of the imaginary story that’s told of Jesus going back after his ascension into heaven, and

Gabriel asking him, “What arrangements have you made to continue the work on earth?” And he said,
“I’ve appointed 12 men.” Gabriel said, “What if they fail?” Jesus said, “I have made no other
arrangements.”

Of course it’s just an imaginary story. But you can see the reality of it in the way the Bible
continues to depict the working of the Holy Spirit — that he works through men and women and cannot
work any other way. So I’ll just begin by reading the last paragraph of that little section in
Nee’s The Release of the Spirit: “Everyone who has received grace has the Holy Spirit dwelling in
his spirit. Whether he can be used by the Lord depends not on his spirit.” It’s interesting isn’t
it? “Depends not on his spirit, but rather on his outward man. The difficulty with many is that
their outward man has not been broken. There is not evident that blood-marked path, those wounds or
scars. So God’s Spirit is imprisoned within man’s spirit and is not able to break forth.”

I certainly used to think that if I had the Spirit of Jesus within me, then my personality, which
was semi-intelligent, which had some personality in it, would be used somehow by Jesus to impress
himself upon other people. So I thought you don’t change your personality — it’s just that now
your personality contains Christ, whereas before it didn’t — and it’s Christ of course that will
make the difference to other people. I thought somehow Christ will jump out of me apart from my
personality, and will like a spark leap over the wall and into somebody else’s heart.

Of course, what Nee says is the truth — that no way will that happen. That our personality has to
be completely remolded and has to be a picture of Jesus as he is. I think that’s where some of us
make a mistake. We think, “Oh yes. You mean I’ve to copy Jesus. I’ve to make my emotions like
Jesus’ emotions.” No — Jesus is in you and is going to create a new personality for himself in you
that is different from the personality that you understand he had in the New Testament times.

I agree with you — it will be consistent with that personality but it will be different. And
that’s why it’s so vital to see that only the Holy Spirit can mold your personality so that Jesus
can come forth in you as he is meant to. That’s why it’s such a mistake to try and copy each other
— because Jesus’ Spirit is going to show himself differently through you from the way he shows
himself through other people.

So it’s vital to lean on the Holy Spirit and confide in him, and allow him to utterly rearrange your
personality, and to break it of its old ways. I think that what Nee says is true — that often many
of us don’t do that because we are proud. We don’t want our personality to be changed, and we don’t
want it to be broken. Or it’s too painful, or we’re afraid if we let it be changed – it’s a big
thing, like throwing yourself into the arms of an invisible person. So some of us don’t like the
idea of abandoning ourselves to a spirit. Yet, unless we depend on the Holy Spirit of Jesus within
us, we’ll never enter into that ministry of life and into that freedom.

“There is not evident that blood-marked character, those wounds or scars.” You don’t need me to
outline to you. We have all devised our own self-defense mechanisms to keep people away. We all
have them to defend ourselves, and to swipe back at anybody who seems to be either coming too close
or seems to be about to destroy us. We have all those self-defensive reactions.

God wants to break you of those powers, the powers that would cry for 10,000 angels to come and
deliver him from the cross. So God’s Spirit is imprisoned within man’s spirit and is not able to
break forth. It’s not that Jesus’ Spirit isn’t within you — but it’s that he’s imprisoned within
you and not able to break forth.

You can see this is what we’re talking about all the time in ministering Jesus’ life through
business. It’s possible to go into a store and for the person to say, “I’ll have 10 of those,” and
they don’t realize that it’s going to cost them this much. You could just put it down on your order
form knowing that they don’t really know how much it’s going to cost them. You can put it down and
take advantage of their ignorance. Or, you can say, “You know I know you quite well, and I know
your store. I wonder — do you see that this is going to cost you that much?”

But do you see when you say that, that can impress them with your honesty? Maybe it can even
impress them with your friendliness. But it’s not necessarily ministering Christ. Christ
ministering himself to that lady or that gentleman, comes when your outward personality is so broken
and molded by Jesus’ Spirit that – he just pours forth and his whole spirit fills the store. Not in
some holy way — I’m not talking about like Carvosso, where he got into the stagecoach and they were
slain in the Spirit — they were converted immediately.

I’m not talking about something dramatic. I’m just saying that where your outward man is broken,
where your mind, emotions, and will are broken of their ways — then the person is impressed not
with the personality that your mom knew, or your dad, or your friends, but they are impressed by
something they don’t know what it is. I think they might not even say, “Oh, this is the Spirit of
Christ.” They just sense – you can’t even put adjectives to it, or nouns — the beauty of Christ,
or the patience of Christ. It’s not that it’s just a Christ-likeness. Rudolf Otto wrote The Idea
of the Holy. He used a word that means transcendence — “the numinous.” There can be a sense of
the numinous — the sense of something supernatural, of something beyond man.

Now, it’s possible in a store that a person will sense that. Not a sense of falling down
worshiping, but a sense that there’s something different here. That’s part of what we mean by
ministering the Spirit of Jesus, as opposed to the kind of ethical impression that you make if
you’re just honest with customers. This is part of what Nee is talking about.

“Sometimes our outward man is active, but the inward man remains inactive. The outward man has gone
forth while the inward man lags behind.” A very clear example is of course, “Hello, how are you?”
“Fine.” That’s a very obvious example. Outward man goes out in the old conventional phrases and
you don’t care how the person is, and they know you don’t care. That’s a crude example. But often
too, it can happen that you go in with your patter organized. You go into the store, “Good morning.
Here we are again.” You just go through it, your little patter, and nothing comes forth from your
spirit — nothing.

Now do you see that when we talk about something coming forth from your spirit, we don’t mean you
going in and saying, “Bless you my brother, on this beautiful day that the Lord has made.” You
don’t do that. But there is a difference between coming in with your patter, patter, patter that
you’ve planned, and coming in with the quietness of Jesus’ Spirit. When I say quietness of Jesus’
Spirit I don’t mean that you need to come through quietly. You might come in blasting through the
door — but you come in with the Spirit of Jesus alive and active in you.

When I say that in the car you praise God, that can be a false practice, because we all know the old
outward, “Oh praise the Lord! I’m really praising myself up until I go into that store.” That is
just a rousing of the emotions. But the purpose of the prayer time before you leave the motel is
using God’s Word to get into the Spirit — that you’re in Jesus’ presence, that you’re touched by
the sensitivity of his presence — so that when you go into the store — that’s bubbling out.

I don’t mean it’s bubbling noisily or it’s bubbling obviously. But you’re more aware of his
presence within you than you are of the store owner. So that when you come into a store and the
buyer has another rep with her, and that’s your time, or she has some customer and they’re blasting
back and forth — you’re so filled with Jesus’ presence that that kind of acts like a glow around
you or an aurora, so that you’re in a cloud of peace. And when you speak to her you speak out of
that. That’s something of it.

It’s where the outward man comes forth shaped, molded, and empowered by the inward man. It’s not
just the outward man going forth and the inward man dead, but it’s the inward man coming out.
That’s a great ministry. That’s as great a ministry as anybody standing in front of hundreds, or
thousands, or millions. That is as great a ministry as any preacher — because this is true
proclamation of the word — which is what preaching is.

This is proclamation of the word, because it’s the word coming forth — the word made flesh. That’s
preaching. We have such a silly idea of preaching — “Oh, that’s preaching, brother” — when the
minister says something the right way. But that is preaching — the proclamation of Jesus’ word —
when you go in and what we’ve just mentioned happens. Whereas when you go into a store and the
inward man is dead, or sleepy, or half-alive – your outward man comes forth and you’re a robot and
an empty shell. We are a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. That’s what we are when we go in there
and clang back and forward, “Would you like to buy our products?”

So there’s a great difference between the inward man going forth through the outward man, and the
inward man being dead or being supine. And if you say, “Well, I mean, I have do something.” Yes,
you do have to. You have to get in. You’re right. So you go in. But it’s not what Jesus has in
mind for us. His mind is that we go filled with the Spirit. That’s what they mean when they say,
“Stephen was full of the spirit,” {referring to Acts 7:55.} They don’t mean Stephen babbling away
in tongues. They don’t mean Stephen even talking a lot. They mean Stephen seeing Jesus at the
right hand of God and filled with that sense.

“Let us review this through some practical problems! Take preaching, for instance. How often we can
be earnestly preaching — a well-prepared, sound message — but inwardly feel as cold as ice.” And
I don’t mean as cold as ice about our products. I’m sure you’re enthusiastic about your products
you sell. But you feel as cold as ice as far as Jesus is concerned.

“We long to stir others, yet we ourselves are unmoved. There is a lack of harmony between the
outward and the inward man. The outward man is dripping from the heat, but the inward man is
shivering from the cold.” And how often have you said something about Jesus, and you’ve said it
because it’s right and true and they need to hear it, but it’s not thrilling you. Well, if it’s not
thrilling you, it’s not coming forth with Jesus’ Spirit. It’s coming forth just as words.

“We can tell others how great the love of the Lord is, yet we are personally untouched by it. “
That’s the outward man going forth without the inward. “We can tell others how tragic is the
suffering of the cross, yet upon returning to our room we can laugh. What can we do about this?
Our mind may labor, our emotions may be energized, yet all the time one has the feeling that the
inward man is merely observing the proceedings. The outward and inward man are not one.”

It’s very easy to say to ourselves, “Well, I’m just not with it today. I’m just not feeling good.”
And then the next day it’s easy to say, “Well, I’m just not in the spirit.” Or, “Satan is really

getting at me today.” Or, “I’m really under it.” We can keep on saying things like this. But time
after time it’s the Savior who is being prevented from revealing himself to this person. And I
don’t need to tell you, because — Colleen had an example of it — it might be the last time we see
them. It might be the last time.

So it seems to me each of us is in the same position as any preacher who just preaches once on
Sunday. If he misses it that Sunday and he doesn’t preach as dying men to dying men, there are some
there that he will not get the chance to speak to again. It seems to me, we’re each one in the same
position, day after day with our customers. And it seems vital that we keep ourselves before Jesus
and before the Holy Spirit, and we especially note the little signs of strain and tension that there
are in our lives — because those are the key places where God is trying to work the cross into our
outward man and trying to break us.

So wherever you sense a little disharmony between yourself and God’s will, look there and ask the
Holy Spirit to come and zero in, give you revelation, and bring you into whatever experiences are
needed to break the power of that outward man — so that you cease to respond the wrong way there.
Why? Because, there is a corresponding beauty of Christ that will come forth via your outward man,
when the negative side of the outward man is broken.

It’s like an inside and outside of the outward man. It’s as if you clean the inside and then people
can suddenly see right through from the other side — can see Jesus. So you may sometimes think,
“Oh, that’s such a fiddling little thing the way my mind does work there. Yeah, it does seem I’m
not quite right in my thinking, and I often seem to make that response. But I don’t quite see what
that has to do with Jesus coming forth from me.” Don’t you judge. The Holy Spirit never makes you
aware of anything in your outward personality that has to be changed, that does not need to be
changed — and that he will not use immediately.

Probably the truth is what Nee says in other places: {Paraphrasing Nee} “If you’re not broken on the
point of sensitivity to people’s feelings, then you cannot be used by God to give revelation to
anybody else in that regard. If you’re not broken in the tendency you have to express yourself in
an impatient way, even if you don’t feel impatience, then you cannot be used to break that in
someone else. So whenever the Holy Spirit gives you an awareness of anything in your outward man
that is not in harmony with God and with Jesus, then you go at that and bring it to God with all
your heart.”

It’s always wrong to say, “No, no, that can’t be important. Show me something more important.” The
Holy Spirit won’t. He knows the right order and he knows the right things to deal with. In fact,
it’s not so much with anybody our immorality, or our gross sin that keeps people from seeing Jesus.
It’s this business of our soulishness — our good humanity. The part of us that we think is very
noble and is worthwhile.

It’s often what we think of as good human qualities that prevent Christ revealing himself. Why?
Because those good qualities have often inbuilt pride and inbuilt self, and most of all because they
draw attention to self and not to Christ.

“Consider another situation. The inward man is devoured by zeal. The person wants to shout but he
does not find utterance. After speaking for a long time he still seems to be circling around. The
more he is burdened within, the colder he becomes without. He longs to speak, but he cannot express
himself. When he meets a sinner, his inward man feels like weeping, but he cannot shed a tear.

There is a sense of urgency within him, yet when he ascends the pulpit and tries to shout, he finds
himself lost in a maze of words. Such a situation is most trying. The root cause is the same: the
outer shell still clings to him. The outward does not obey the dictates of the inward; inwardly
crying but outwardly unmoved; inwardly suffering but outwardly untouched; full of thoughts within,
but without, the mind a seeming blank. The spirit has yet to find a way to pierce the shell.”

It’s the opposite problem. Here the inward man is wanting to get forth. The inward man isn’t dead
or unfeeling. The inward spirit of Jesus is alive to the situation — but, “Well, I’m a quiet
person.” Or, “I’m a person who has difficulty finding words to express myself.” Or, “My mind does
not work too efficiently.” Or, “I lack discipline in my thought life.” Or, “I’m just a very quiet
person.” Or, “I’m a very shy person.” Or, “I’m a very self-conscious person. This is just my
nature.”

But it’s just the same plea: my personality is my personality and it cannot be broken or changed —
even for Jesus. And Jesus is saying, “Weep with those who weep. Rejoice with those who rejoice.
If I want to express myself to this person this way I have only got you to do it.” So if the
outward man is not brought under the control of Jesus’ Spirit within us, we are not able to express.
That obviously ties up with everything. I can see it certainly ties up with things that we think
are our personality.

So I joke about the untidy desk, but it seems to me if we have ways that prevent the order of Jesus’
Spirit filling the rooms that we are in, then we are stopping Christ coming forth. And it seems to
apply to any of the things that we think are particularly ours — whether it’s our untidy desks, or
our forgetfulness, or some other habit we have in our personalities that we think, “Well, that’s
just me.” Well, that’s the outward man that hides the Spirit of Jesus.

And several times, you remember, we’ve thought to ourselves, “Couldn’t it be that one of the reasons
that God reduced us here to the number that we are now, is so that,” using the vernacular or the
modern way of saying it, “We could get our act together?” So that we ourselves would become
transparent pictures of Christ; so that others would follow that and would not follow our outward
selves — our outward souls. The only way that’s going to come is if we yield everything to Jesus’
changing through his breaking our outer selves.

Let us pray.