Revival

Communion: Forgiveness Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill The problem is what you and I in our generation think is forgiveness of sins. We don’t see forgiveness as it really is and like so many things in our world, we’re losing touch with reality because we’re losing a sense of what truths really are. So all of us probably suffer from a total misconception of what forgiveness is. Let me give you an example that we’ll all know immediately and will sympathize with. You have a roommate or you have a husband or a wife or a friend, someone who lives with you, and one day they just burst out in a show of bad temper and criticize you and tear you apart. So there’s coolness between you for the next couple of days and they come to you and say “I’m sorry, forgive me.” You of course want the relationship to be right and you forgive them. It goes on like that for a week or two weeks and then once more they burst out in a show of temper and they tear you apart and they criticize you and there’s coolness between you for the next two days. And they come again and say “I’m sorry, will you forgive me.” And you say “Yes, I will” because you want the relationship. It’s a little harder this time because you forgave them last time and it was right from your end but it didn’t seem to give them any ability to stay right with you. But you still say “I forgive you.” It goes alright for another two weeks and they burst out again in bad temper and they criticize you and they tear you apart and there’s coolness for the next two days. Then they come to you and they say “I’ sorry, will you forgive me?” Well you don’t know what to do; you just don’t know what to do. We’ve all been in the same boat; of course we want to forgive them because we want things to be right between us as they used to be. But we begin to wonder in our minds is this forgiveness? I forgive him or her but what use is it if our relationship is going to continue going through these agonizing crises? Isn’t there something inside your heart that says “I want to forgive them, but I want a relationship. I want a relationship of love. I want a relationship that is continuous. I want a relationship of peace. I want a good friend here whom I feel I can really trust. It seems to me that there’s something that needs to be done in their heart that will enable them to walk free from this bad temper otherwise it doesn’t matter how often I forgive them; our relationship is going to be like that.” And gradually you must admit in your own heart you begin to sense that your relationship is going to sink to a superficial level because bit by bit you’re going to feel in your heart that it doesn’t matter how often you forgive these people because any minute they could burst out against you again. And whatever you say, deep down in your heart, even though you want to forgive them and you do forgive them, deep down in your heart there’s a growing uneasiness. There’s a feeling inside you that this relationship is not very intimate, it’s not very trustworthy and it’s not very dependable. And surely, bit by bit you begin to question what you mean by forgiveness. And you begin to say “Now is this forgiveness? Or if I do keep on forgiving them is it not just indulgence of sin that I’m involved in? Is it not just encouraging them to think that it doesn’t matter how often they burst out in temper, it doesn’t matter how often they lose patience with their friend, that’s the way life should be.“ And is it not true that most of us would start examining whether forgiveness is possible where they is no change in the other person’s attitude to you—that it’s permanent? Loved ones, do you not think that’s what runs right throughout our legal system? Do you not think that’s why we’re all concerned about it? We all rise to the idea of forgiveness, but we feel that there’s something wrong with the kind of forgiveness that we’ve just outlined because it looks to us very like indulgence. It looks very like carelessness about morality. Eventually do you not think that if you carried on that way, if for instance you substituted criticism of you or stealing your money for bad temper, do you not think you’re beginning to indulge in the same amorality as the person who has sinned against you? In other words does there not come a time when you’ve forgiven so often that actually you’re just teaching people to ignore standards? Certainly you must admit that if you were doing it with a child, and I know it as an ex-school teacher, there’s no doubt in your mind that you’d be teaching them to be amoral. You’d be teaching them, “Son, it doesn’t matter how often you lose your temper, it doesn’t matter how often you criticize, it doesn’t matter how often you steal, I forgive you; you’re ok.” And I know from my experience the dear kid takes full advantage of that. He just keeps going one way and probably we’ve all seen homes that have ended up in a mess because of that. In other words, surely you can only talk about forgiveness in righteousness, is that not true? Surely you can only talk about forgiveness, which is really the restoration of a relationship, you can only talk about the restoration of a relationship in righteousness if the other person, sooner or later, after however many time of forgiving eventually comes to the point where they no longer lose their temper with you, where they no longer criticize you, where you begin to have a relationship of love. And loved ones, that’s really what forgiveness is, even in the Old Testament. You don’t need to look up this verse, “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.” And that’s as far as we, in our generation, read: “The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him and his righteousness to children’s children. To those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.” In other words, our dear God does not indulge us in amorality the way we tend to think he does and the way we have presented him to each other as doing. Our dear God planted in us the same common sense that is part of his own nature. Forgiveness only makes sense if eventually the husband or the wife or the son or the daughter or the roommate begins to change in their own hearts and lives and begins to continue a relationship of love with you. So in a sense the problem has never been God’s forgiveness, God has always been willing to forgive us. The problem is that it becomes to us just indulgence of our wrongs or our sins unless we can change ourselves. And loved ones, that’s what communion is about. You’re right, forgiveness is preached in Jesus’ name, but it’s preached in Jesus’ name because Jesus is the one that enables us to change so that forgiveness can be real. And it’s in Jesus that all of us were changed, that’s why communion is precious. If you’ve had things in your life that you know are wrong and you’ve continued to ask God to forgive you them, and he has continued graciously to forgive you them, even though his voice has become quieter and quieter and you’re having more and more trouble listening to it, yet he still has graciously has forgiven you. If you’re in that situation and you know his voice is becoming quieter and more distant because you’re continuing to do the things that you ask him to forgive you for and if you’re getting yourself into that position as we described between the two friends, if you’re in that spot,loved ones, God changed you in Jesus. That’s what communion is about. God changed you in Jesus. He foresaw the kind of life you would live. Could I just tell you a little thing that should make that much easier for you to believe; that God foresaw the kind of life you would live. The little IBM personal computer would take 153 days to solve a certain difficult mathematical problem. Cray invented one of his massive Cray computers that solves that problem in three seconds. If we can do that with our computers is our mighty God not well able to foresee the kind of life that you would live and provide a remedy for them? Of course he is. God has an infinite mind and even though he doesn’t make us do what we have done in our lives, he foresaw that we would do it. And he put you into his son Jesus and destroyed you there and made you anew and clean and whole and if you believe that, you can be changed this morning. That’s what communion is. Communion isn’t just about God being willing to forgive us. Communion is about God changing you and me in Jesus so that we can continue a real, restored relationship with him forever. Just one last thing; you may say, “You mean through the influence of his Spirit, and through my coming to Church, and through my reading the Bible and praying and trying to obey him I can be changed?” No. No. I mean you have been changed. That’s what this dear Book says. It says Christ died for all of us; therefore all of us have died in eternity, above time and space. And if anyone is in Christ, and all of us are in Christ because Christ died for all and all died, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed away, the new has already come. You can be that now because God has already made you it in Jesus. And through your faith in that, the Holy Spirit can bring that into your life. That’s true, loved ones. You can believe into that this moment. Let us pray.

Jekyll or Hyde? Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill I don’t know how many of you have actually read Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” I read it over again this week and those of you who have read it know that Dr. Jekyll, the good respectable doctor was at times taken over by the murderous lustful Mr. Hyde that was his other self. Towards the end of the novel, he writes it all down, of course, in a confession and he describes how the drugs ceased to work, how he was able to call up the worst part of himself, that Mr. Hyde. But how the drugs ceased to be able to get rid of that Mr. Hyde and indeed as the years went on, that Mr. Hyde began to take him over completely. He says this: “All things therefore seem to point to this: that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse. Between these two, I now felt I had to choose.” “Between these two I now felt I had to choose.” And so do we because there isn’t one of us who has even heard of that story, who does not recognize that Stevenson spoke for us because every one of us knows that there dwells within us a self that our friends do not know and have not seen. We too have felt at times that we’re losing touch with the better self that our friends see. Stevenson, of course, even though he was a dear child of God, and you can see that in some of his poetry, he did not tell the answer that God has given for us. And here it is at this communion table. This death of Jesus was the death of all our old selves. It was the death of the human race — that’s the meaning of it. This table sets forth the death of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in 29 AD. And all of this dear book that we have here, all of this dear book tells us that when that man died, he was simply setting forth a complete remaking of the race that had taken place in him even before the foundation of the world. So loved ones, every one of us here in this room can be free, once and for all and forever, from that Mr. Hyde within us, that’s true. Now, loved ones really if you choose not to believe it, that Hyde within you will kill you, it really will. It will destroy you and as the years pass it will just get more and more subtle in its manifestations. Loved ones, you cannot live with it, without it taking over your life. You have to as Jekyll himself said, “You have to come to a place where you choose between the two.” And the truth this morning is that God is offering you an opportunity to believe what he has said he has done in his son Jesus. That he has destroyed that old self part of you that manifests itself in temper and anger and envy and that was destroyed with Jesus and you can believe that this morning and you can go out of here in the power of that, that’s right. Don’t sit there and say, “Oh, I don’t know how to make it real.” Believe, believe — that’s what God has said, simply believe. Believe that it is done away with in Jesus. Believe that when he died that was destroyed with him and you will see that the power of it in your life will be destroyed and the Spirit of Jesus will begin to take over, and loved ones that’s it, you know. Forget all the deep theology and all the labyrinthine twisting of our own minds. That’s the plain simple Gospel: that you can be free this morning because God has already destroyed that part of you that is spoiling your life and if you will simply believe that, the power of that reality through the Spirit of Jesus will begin to manifest itself in you. Just three simple steps. First, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Be real this morning about your sins, just be real, confess. The Greek word “confess” means “raising your hand and agreeing with God”. “I agree Lord, that is a sin” — that’s it. That’s usually where the trouble is, where you’re trying to pretend a certain thing is right and it’s not. First of all confess, repent and believe the Gospel. Second, repent. Change your whole mind — that’s what repent means. Stop thinking of yourself as living your own life. See that that self has gone and that your life is now in the hands of the Son of your Maker and he can live again his life in you if you’ll give him room, that’s it. Thirdly, “to as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the sons of God.” Receive Jesus’ Spirit into yourself by faith this morning and go out and let that Christ Spirit live in you. The Christ Spirit that actually controls the swallows as they soar in the sky. It’s that Christ Spirit that makes the breakers roll on the Hawaiian beaches. It’s that Christ Spirit that makes the snows lie on Everest. It’s that Christ Spirit that makes the daffodils come up in springtime. Accept that that Christ Spirit is in you now and respond to him, that’s it. Loved ones, your life can change this morning, really. Now if you want to take part in communion that’s what you need to do. None of us are members of this church, you don’t need to be a member of this church, you just need to be real about those things. So, loved ones will you stand and 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. 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, we will eat the bread and drink the wine, that we will proclaim the Lord’s death till He come. Grant us therefore Lord Jesus so to eat this bread and so to drink this wine that you yourself may come inside us and may possess us and may fill us and energize us. Lord Jesus we want to live that life above self, freed from ourselves and our own enslavements, and possessed and controlled and delivered by you. The Lord Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and broke it and said, This is my body which is broken 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.

Can You Change? John 5:39 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill There is that pathetic verse you remember in the famous poem by Robert Frost of “Two Roads” where he says, “Both roads that morning equally lay in leaves, no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept to the first for another day, but knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back”. It seems that that is Satanic, doesn’t it? I mean it’s true, but it’s Satanic. So many of our lives drift along in that way. You might almost say, drain away in that way. “Oh, I kept to the first for another day, but knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back”. And it’s a shame that not only older people here but some of us who are younger, can get ourselves into that spot where we say, “Oh I’ve chosen this way and it’s led to that way and it’s led to that way and I really can’t go back now.” And it’s the same truth that comes through in Auden’s pessimism, “in headaches and in worry, vaguely life leaks away.” “In headaches and in worry vaguely life leaks away. And time will have his fancy tomorrow and today.” Loved ones, that is a Satanic lie. That is Satanic untruth. The meaning of every springtime is the same. It’s what Hopkins said, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” When you see the daffodils come up and the tulips come up, you realize there’s something on this earth that is eternally renewing and fresh and resurrecting. It’s the same in your life and mine. It’s never too late to change. You’ll never go far down along a certain path that you can’t decide today, “I’ll change”, and the reason is that each one of you is actually part of the Son of the God who made our world. Each one of you was made by Him. There’s not one of you here this morning that wasn’t made personally by Jesus. That’s what the best book we have that tells us about what is beyond the world. It says, “all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything (or anyone) made that was made.” (John 1:3) Every one of you was made by Jesus. Every one of you has something of Jesus within you. The literal translation of John 1:3 in the Greek is “That, which was made, was previously life in Him, you’ve been made.” You were originally life in Jesus. You were part of Jesus’ life. You were a spark of his Spirit that has been given your body and your personality. You are part of Him. And there’s another way you are part of Him. This dear book says, when He died, you died too, and everything that has been a failure in your life was destroyed in His death. That’s an eternal, a great eternal event that can be brought down into time and space at any time by anyone of us here. Just as lightening fires from one cloud to another and can be brought down to earth by a lightening rod, so you and I are able to bring down into time and space- into our life – the eternal change that took place in Christ. You bring it down by simply one thing – faith. The moment anyone of you says, “I will be done with this, I am determined in God’s name, I am determined I will be done with this”, at that moment, all the power of that eternal destruction and remaking of you which God carried out in Jesus comes down into your life. Do you realize that’s why even non-Christians, people who don’t believe in God, are strangely able to make mighty changes in their lives? Have you noticed that? I mean there are some people who don’t believe in God at all, can turn away from hideous situations in their life and can change completely. You see it is because they too were put into Christ and were changed and the whole dynamic of that eternal event is released into their lives the moment they determine it. Now, I agree with you, they don’t give glory to Jesus and in that way they do not come alive in His Spirit but they are able to make use of the power of that event. So it is for every one of us. You’re able this very morning to say, “Lord God, I am not going to touch that stuff again. Lord, I am not going to touch that habit again. Lord I am going to get out of this meaningless, directionless, purposeless life that I have and I am going to accept what You said in Your word that I am part of Your son, that you did put me here for a purpose, and now Lord, I am going to find that purpose and You can use me for yourself.” Loved ones you can do that, you can do that this morning. Simply because Christ died for all of us and all of us died. If anyone is in Christ and that means all of us, all of us died. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation and you can be new this day. So I would plead especially with those who are kind of worn down. You get worn down, don’t you? You get worn down after a while. Either you get worn down outwardly or you get worn down secretly in your heart, but you get worn down. You just begin to get to the point where you think “Oh, nothing is going to change very much, I am just going to drain on the way I am draining and dwindle out at the end”. Elliot said, “Not with a bang but a whimper”. And that’s the way it’s going to go. Loved ones, get up. Get up! God, our Father put you into His Son and He destroyed all that hopelessness in you. He destroyed all that weakness in you and He raised you up in His Son and He made you new and He is able to give you the power of that event here in your own life but you do have to do one thing. You do have to move towards that in faith. You have to believe it and you have to make a move with your will towards it. If you get a car with very good power steering, it is so easy. But the wheels only turn if you put the pressure of your finger on the spokes of the steering wheel. You do have to do that. But none of us here are in any doubt about whether it’s our strength that actually turns the wheel. It’s not. It’s the power steering that turns the wheels. But you do have to put at least your little finger on the spokes of the steering wheel, that’s what God says to you this morning. I have made available a power, indeed I have already changed your whole life but I wait and the whole resources of heaven wait upon you saying, “I want that Lord, I commit myself to that.” So I would encourage you, especially those of you who have never made any move towards Jesus at all. Those of you who have listened to this for weeks and months and have never actually taken the stand, “I am part of Jesus and my God has put me here to do something that only I can do. Lord I believe that. Lord Jesus I believe You’re in me and I now give myself to You and You can do what You want with me.” Loved ones, I would suggest that you do it. Open yourself to God. It might be good to look at the means of grace. Many of us are dissatisfied with our own spiritual lives. We are vague about God’s voice and can’t get much strength from a sense of His presence. We find ourselves at odds with other Christian’s views and attitudes and generally miss the joy of our salvation. Then on the next page the spiritual life has the same symptoms of disease and rules for health as a physical life. Removing the symptoms of disease and following the rules of health opens the way for God to revive us with His spirit. It’s not actually your breathing that keeps you alive. Isn’t it the air? You could breathe like mad but if you’re breathing coal gas, you could die. It is not the breathing that does it. It’s the air that you breathe. So, with this, it’s the grace that you receive in. It’s not actually you coming to a prayer meeting or doing bible study, but it’s the grace that you receive through that. The way to do this is to use the means of grace, which God has provided in the body of Christ. Examine yourself and act and then God will answer. Don’t argue or philosophize or rationalize. Appropriate action enables God’s grace to renew your life and that’s what I suggest loved ones. Why I did this, was to show you there’s something you can do about it. Some of you will say, “Well, how do I exercise faith?” Oh well, it’s easy, look at… – #10 how many mornings in the week did you have a personal half-hour prayer and bible study? That’s exercising faith. – #11, did you invite anyone to fellowship lunch at Sunday morning service? In other words, did you think of anybody else after Sunday morning service? – #12, did you witness to anyone? – #13 did you experience any answer to prayer? – #14 did God speak to you about anything? – #15 did you send anyone a book or tract, did you make any venture to bring a friend or relative closer to God? Well, that’s it loved ones. Faith is action. Those actions themselves are useless. Those don’t do a thing for you but they express your faith that God has chosen you to be His child and is intent on using you. So loved ones, I would encourage you to take the opportunity that this beginning of a new year offers. Look briefly over your life especially during the quietness during communion when we distribute the bread and the wine. Just look at your life and see where it is going. Then see, you can change it today. The power of Heaven waits upon you and waits upon you exercising the little finger of faith. Now loved ones, over the years we have always used this first Sunday, just as I have outlined here. We renew our covenant with God and bring before our own hearts our commitment to the One who has made us. John Wesley wrote these words and I’d read them just before we make our own covenant. “Dearly beloved, the Christian life to which we are called, is a life in Christ redeemed from sin by Him and through Him consecrated to God. Upon this life we have entered, having been admitted into that new covenant of which our Lord Jesus Christ is mediator and which He sealed with His own blood, that it might stand forever. On one side, the covenant is God’s promise that He will fulfill in and through us all that He declared in Jesus Christ, who is the author and perfecter of our faith. His promise still stands. We are sure for we have known His goodness and proved His grace in our lives day by day. On the other side, we stand pledged to live no more unto ourselves but to Him who loved us and gave Himself for us and has called us to serve Him, that the purposes of His coming might be fulfilled”. From time to time we renew our vows of consecration especially when we gather at the table of the Lord. But on this day, we meet expressly as generations of our fathers have met that we may joyfully and solemnly renew the covenant, which bound them and binds us to God. That is in remembering the mercies of God and the hope of His calling, examine ourselves by the light of His spirit that we may see wherein we have failed or fallen short in faith and practice and considering all that this covenant means, may give ourselves anew to God. Loved ones, though I’d encourage all of us to stand, I’d ask only those of us who are really serious about this to take upon our lips these sacred words and this holy covenant. So let us stand together. If you intend to give up the ownership of your own life and the governing of your own future and intend to put it into the hands of Him who really owns it anyway and intend to live the life that is pleasing to God and that is empowered by Son Jesus, I ask you to join with me then, in repeating this covenant. “I am no longer my own but Thine. Put me to what Thy wilt, rank me with whom Thy wilt, put me to doing, put me to suffering, let me be employed for Thee or laid aside for Thee, exulted for Thee or brought low for Thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now oh glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thou art mine and I am thine, so be it and the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen. Let us be seated as we pray.

Decide Today! Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Even for those of us who are young, this is a solemn day because this is the first Sunday of another year and however young we are, we know we have only so many of these years to spend. So it is a solemn time and a time when we need to, if we have any intelligence at all, look at our own lives and see where they’re going, and try to fix in our minds where we want to try to get them to go this coming year. Loved ones, if you don’t do that, you will drift. And some of us here find we’re in the tragic situation that we feel we’ve been drifting for longer than we care to imagine and we feel we’ve been drifting from one spot to another, from one job to another, not really choosing our way, but almost just bouncing from one spot to another. Often we have found — those of us who have believed God for a long time – often mouthing the same old beliefs and the same old clichés but not really being changed at all by them. Now, I would ask you, whether you believe in God this morning or whether you don’t believe at all, would you look at your own life and try to determine in your mind where it is going? Because you only will have a certain number of years like this past one, and they are precious, and there is no guarantee that you will see the end of this year — there just isn’t — and you and I both know that. That’s no “hellfire and damnation preaching”, that’s a fact of life. None of us know whether we’ll see the end of this present year or not, this is an important time for us. There is that pathetic verse you remember in the Old Testament, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not yet saved.” So I would ask you, where is your life going and what is happening in your professional life, your job life, and your vocational life? And then what is happening in your resolution life? Because it’s one way out of the difficulty to become cynical about new year resolutions but it really doesn’t solved anything, you’re still left with a thought that there are countless habits of thinking and habits of behavior that you’re still fighting and you were fighting them 10 years ago, you were fighting them 15 years ago and as far as you’re concerned, you can see little improvement in your own life over these past 5 or 10 years. Now loved ones, it’s vital to look at those facts and not to ignore them and to see that that is not normal, that’s not normal. It’s normal in a fallen world that has no God — but it is not normal in a world that has been made by a Father that makes a new sunrise every morning. The norm for people who live in that kind of a world is that they progress in their lives, their lives become more ordered. They grow into greater and greater peace and contentment, greater trust, they have less anxiety than they had before. They are fighting greater battles because God gives them to them, but they’re able to fight them and win, that’s normal. If your life is not like that, if your life — I remember it was an 18th century novelist called Sterne and in one of his books, I think it was “Tristram Shandy”, he did a diagram showing the plot of the novel and of course it went like that, then like that, then like that and then away back there and it was a hideous novel to read because it kept flashing back and going back and forward. Now, if your life is like that, it’s not the way your life was meant to be. Your life was not meant to be a trail of unfulfilled promises, of failed resolutions, of broken relationships, of uncertainty about your future and your job life. It’s not meant to be like that. Your God put you here to do a job and He has a plan for your life and He means your life to go from glory to glory, that’s it. So I’d ask you, if your life isn’t going that way, will you seriously examine your life before your Maker today? And I would say, will you do something about it? You may sit there and say, “Well, why doesn’t He do something about it?” Well, He has done everything that’s needed, but He does require you to stand up on two feet like a man or like a woman with some backbone in you and get going the way He has shown you. And if you say to me, “Oh well, I don’t know which way to go”, you know fine well, you have a thousand little signals from your conscience from time to time that give you an idea which way you should go and you should head out in those directions. Whether regarding your own personal behavior or regarding your own professional future, you should head out in that direction. It’s only in action that your faith is seen by God, and it’s only when your faith is seen by Him, that He can operate to bring your life into order. So I would ask you loved ones, if you’ve been drifting, or you’ve been sliding from place to place now for several years, would you stand up this morning inside in your heart and your mind and decide, “Lord God, You have something for me to do, I want to get my life going in a straight line,” and loved ones, honestly, believe me, if you even make that kind of move, if you make any kind of a move towards order in your life, the Creator will begin to work in your life. But loved ones, we aren’t jellyfish. We aren’t jellyfish, wobbling about like that forever, we aren’t. The society tries to make us think we are, that we’re the victims of our heredity plus our environment, but we aren’t. We are able to make our lives go in a way that we believe our Maker wants us to, that’s why He gave us intellects and minds. And you know fine well that the only way you can achieve anything in this world is to determine what’s to be done and do it. So I would ask you, will you think now, each one of you, wherever you are in your Christian faith, wherever you are in your belief in God, wherever you are in your atheism or your agnosticism — would you pause for a moment now on this first Sunday of this year and would you in the quiet times that we’ll have for prayer during this communion service, will you examine your heart and look in and see has God given you any impressions there that would give you a direction in your life? Has He given you any hint over the years of which way you should go? Then will you align your will with that? Why I pleaded especially for that, is my heart goes out to those of us who have been educated in recent years because we have been the victims of this kind of brainwashing that you can’t do anything about it. “You are determined by your father and your mother and your environment” — you’re not, you’re not. You’re a free person and that’s what we say, here in this country we say, “We’re free and we can do what we really want to do”, and that’s true, loved ones, that’s true. I would ask you to think seriously about it. This is what we call in the family here Covenant Sunday. When we renew our covenant with our God, with our Creator — and we do it in some formal words that have been used over the years, but most of all, we do it in our heart of hearts. So, that’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to have the short covenant service and then we’re going to have the communion service. So, I’ll just read the words really that we’ve used so often before and that thousands of our forefathers have used. I am no longer my own, but thine.

Testimony: Ernest O’Neill Romans 6:6 by Rev. Ernest O’Neill 17 April 1983, Minneapolis, MN U.S.A. It’s difficult loved ones for me to go too long without testifying again to what Jesus did in my life. So I’d like to do that simply. I was a Methodist minister in Ireland and I sensed that God wanted us to go to London to study, so my wife and I went there and I really didn’t know what to do next. I was a Christian and knew that God had forgiven my sins. I knew that from when I was 17, when I went to University. That whole business of sex and the impossibility of doing anything about the strong drives that I had in that direction brought home to me the power of sin and the need to at least have it forgiven. So when I went up to University in Ireland at 17, I got down to what was to Protestants a dreadful thing, the Stations of the Cross. I began to spend my prayer time thinking about Jesus dying. I tried to get it through my own thick head that He had actually died and that there was a piece of soil in Palestine where His Cross had actually been thrust into the ground. Gradually, as I thought about that and my mind dwelt upon it, I came to the conclusion He had really done that. There was really a man Jesus who had a beard that you could maybe smell if you were close to it or He had ears like mine and He had clothes on. And He had actually died on a cross in Palestine and He had died looking right down the centuries past the Roman soldiers to Ernest O’Neill and saying, “Father, forgive HIM for he knows not what he does.” So it came home to me when I was 17 that Jesus had actually died for me, and that because He had died for me, God was willing to forgive me my sins. So I was born of God when I was 17. From then on I had a Bible study and a prayer life, not daily but pretty close to daily. Then I sensed God calling me to the ministry and that’s why I went into the Methodist Ministry. Now after teaching English literature for a couple of years in Ireland, I went into the Methodist Ministry and then ended up in the position that I’ve described, where I felt God wanted us to go to London. We found ourselves in London in the Methodist Church there and then did not know what to do next. My life, even though it was Christian and I was committed to the ministry, was not what it was meant to be. I didn’t know what was wrong then, but I knewm this is not a wonderful life. My mother would often say to me, “Ernest, Christians are supposed to be happy.” I mean, it was just like a sword in my side because I wasn’t happy. I was worried and anxious and concerned and troubled most of the time or a lot of the time and very tense, and yet I was a Christian. So I knew that something was wrong but didn’t know what. When so it came to whether I’d go back to Ireland or stay in London I at last just said, “Lord, I don’t know.” I began to seek God, fairly much day after day in London, where should I go? Through prayer came “America” and that was the last place I wanted to go because America had a lot of money, a lot of commercialism, it wasn’t the place where you wanted to go if you were really serious about God, at least as a little Irish minister. And I felt I WAS serious about God. That was the only answer I got so I went to my neighboring pastor and said did you know anybody in America? He said he knew the Bishop of Minnesota and he’d arrive in London in the next month. So eventually I had dinner with the Bishop of Minnesota and ended up here in Minneapolis. That was about 20 years ago, the same year that Kennedy was assassinated. Then I got into the Methodist ministry here in America but found the same problem there as I had in Ireland. It was this, and I can tie it down fairly precisely: a lady could come into my study after I’d preached a sermon and could say, “Well, I didn’t think this and this and this was good, I thought you could have left that part out.” Well I sat there in my chair because in seminary we’re given smiling classes and I would smile because you’re supposed to smile when they tear you apart. But it really didn’t matter if I was smiling because inside in my heart, I was resentful of her. I had rising up within me the feeling, “What right has she to talk about my preaching? What does she know about homiletics?” That was one of the problems. A rising up of resentment and criticism towards other people which I did not show on the outside but which were inside all the time. And that was inward sin; I didn’t know about that. I didn’t know the distinction. I knew it was there, but I didn’t know what you could do about it. That was one of the problems. I didn’t show it on the outside because I had trained myself, I suppose, to discipline my outward expressions to other people so that they wouldn’t see what I was really thinking. But I knew what I was thinking. And of course it really makes a break between you and the person you’re speaking to because they think you’re one thing and you’re really another. So you don’t feel in communion with them — they may feel they’re in communion with you– but you know right well they’re just in communion with a just a hypocritical appearance that you’re putting on. So that was one problem. Another problem was selfish ambition. I don’t know about the brothers here, but we men are taught that we must achieve things. We get the idea that we must make a niche for ourselves in the hall of fame somewhere. I certainly was convinced of that and felt often driven by a selfish ambition to be somebody important. I wanted to be somebody well known, somebody famous, for people to like me, people to respect me and to be successful. I wanted to be able to write back and tell my mother what I’d done in this world or something like that. So selfish ambition, which often drove you to be very jealous of anybody else who did anything half reasonably. So even if someone sang a song or somebody else did something well, that wasn’t doing me any harm at all, yet I was so preoccupied with being center-stage and being the important one that I would feel jealous of them or envious. I did not even want to sing, I just felt I didn’t want them to be that well known or well liked or well respected when I wasn’t. And so selfish ambition begot in me jealousy and envy and of course a lot of pride. And that was the second plain thing that I knew in my life: pride. It’s so ridiculous now when I look at it, but I remember what it was. It was pride in my own insight into Christianity and my ability to explain it to other people. That came to me later one night when the Holy Spirit give me revelation and it came in those very words. So I had pride and it was a thing that was debilitating because you’d preach a sermon and everybody would say, “Oh, that really brought God’s Word home to me” but actually you took that to yourself and said that means it was a good sermon and I did well, and that I had succeeded and I’m very clever — that I can really see truths about God and am obviously pretty good at communicating it to other people. So actually it stole the whole of joy and delight of being any use to God at all, because I was so concerned with pride in what I could do. And of course that’s what brought the resentment when somebody criticized me. I felt, if only they could see all the good things that I do, if they could see all the wonderful things I do, they wouldn’t criticize me. There was a great deal of reaction against any criticism because of that pride. The third thing was just very plain, it was lust. I don’t know how you all are and eventually I suppose as life goes on, we get too old or we wear out or something, but it seems to me most of us men anyway, find we have tremendous problems with unclean thoughts, with fantasy life, not only with dreams at night, but the terrible things that are the conscious dreams that we have during the day and the fantasies we have and the playing around with the unclean pictures and unclean movies in certain situations. It really spoils your relationship with all girls, you know. Well, they actually are often very open and very straight and don’t have those same feelings about us. Often they are very appealing in the holiness and the goodness of their feelings towards us, but of course we are always after the main chance and always with an ulterior motive in the back of our minds. So lust was a pretty constant problem and spoils all that you try to do, of course, with the opposite sex at all for Jesus’ sake and much that you try to do in your own marriage because those of you who are married and still have trouble with lust know that it really spoils marriage too. And it prevents it being a relaxed and lovely and beautiful experience. So those were the things that were working inside me as a Methodist minister. I was by that time, I suppose when we came here, about 29 or 30 years old. I’d been in the ministry about eight or nine years by then. I went in when I was 21 and yet it was no better, it was still the same. It was this struggle within and this pretense on the outside. In fact, really there’s no question, there’s no question what was my favourite verse, but it was the verse in Romans 7:15 that described my almost daily experience. “I do not understand my own actions for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” When I look back on it of course, I really did what I wanted. I mean not actually, it wasn’t exactly true — that verse in fact describes the situation of a Jew living under the law. In fact, if anything it describes an absolute non-Christian. In fact, I did do the things I wanted. I pretended that I wanted more holy things that I read in the Bible and the things that I’m supposed to want, but actually I did what I wanted because I found inside me that there was an irrational streak that wanted things that I, as a Christian, was supposed not to want. This irrational drive within me wanted to jump into bed with some girl. This irrational drive within me wanted everybody to praise me. This irrational drive within me wanted my satisfaction, wanted everybody else wiped out and me elevated. So I found that there was a strong drive inside that actually produced a wanting of its own. So in a deep way I DID do what I wanted. It’s just that in fairness, I suppose there seemed to be two “I’s”, there seemed to be an “I” that wanted those things and there seemed to be a little weak “I” that did want something of Jesus. And of course that was the Spirit of Jesus. When I was born of God, the Spirit of Jesus did graciously come into me. That’s the situation we’re in when we’re carnal Christians because that’s the state I’m describing. I was a carnal Christian. I had in fact received the Spirit of Jesus into me. It was Him that drew me into the Methodist ministry. I mixed it up with a lot of my selfish ambitions and tried to dirty it and spoil it, but He still kept wanting His Father and it was His Spirit that made me want to pray at times and to read the Bible or made me want to preach or to help other people to know Jesus. And it was His Spirit that at times wanted God and it was His Spirit that pointed out to me that these other things were wrong. Then beside me there seemed to be this Old Man, this Old Self that wanted all these sinful things — and that was my situation. I saw no way out. I had not heard of any way in the Methodist Church, I had not read of any way in the literature. I was brought up as a in fairly liberal Methodist theolog. I had not read anywhere that you could do anything about those things. Indeed I felt that this was the result of just being human and that throughout your life your job was to hold those things down. Indeed in my semi-sophisticated way I thought, that is where discipline comes in, that is where maturity comes in, that is what growing in grace is about. I always looked forward to growing in grace to the point where I would have victory over these things. If you had pressed me, I would have to admit that I wasn’t much better now, than I was nine years previously. In fact, I would say that I was worse, because these things became more subtle in their expressions. You became cleverer at holding them down. You became cleverer at avoiding them or evading them in your own conscious mind because they brought such tears to your eyes and such frustration to your heart. So that was the situation, and that’s a carnal Christian and that’s what I was. I didn’t know it then. I was invited to a little Bible school in north Minneapolis to speak because I was the new Irish minister come to the Methodist Church a few blocks away, and so they invited me to speak at the little chapel hour. I don’t know why I spoke about it, but the closest that I could see to any kind of hope was a sermon that they had given us in the 44 standard sermons of John Wesley that we had to read in seminary. Now, they did not give us the good sermons, but they gave us at least this one which was closest. It was the one in First John 3:9, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.” But Wesley in that one does not go into the details of deliverance from the power of sin or deliverance from carnality. He just states it pretty clearly, that if you’re born of God you don’t commit sin. And you can’t get out of it by saying, “oh well that means I don’t on the whole commit it.” You just don’t commit it because you’re free of it and I shared that at the little chapel hour. In other words, really what I did was share my best aspirations, I suppose. I realized this was a Bible school, I was a miserable old liberal theologian that was hardly meant to believe the Bible, so I’d better share the best that I knew, so I did share that. It was from my heart that I said, I believe it’s possible some time to come to a place in your life where you can live in this, you can live “whosoever is born of God does not commit sin”, you can live like that. Now I had a theological problem obviously in my own understanding because I was born of God, but I did commit sin and so I couldn’t make sense of it. But at least I shared what I thought. There was a man sitting at the back with a bald head and he had no clerical collar on, which is ridiculous to anybody who thinks he’s a minister in Britain — and he came up to me afterwards and introduced himself, and said to me that he was a pastor of this church. I thought, how can you be a pastor if you don’t have a collar and tie on? And then the guy started to tell me that he used to be a used car salesman. And I thought, “Here am I sitting with the degrees and all my training and this guy’s a used car salesman. Well, the sooner I get off and get on with my work the better.” But he of course started to talk with me and I saw an honest light in his eyes, I think that’s it. An honest light, you know. He didn’t know Greek, didn’t know Hebrew, didn’t know all that stuff but he seemed to be honest, that came through. So I talked with him a little in the study. He started to tell me a story. He told me that his church specialized in this very issue that I had touched upon in the chapel hour. Well, I hardly knew what issue I’d touched upon in the chapel hour, I just had spoken the best I knew. Then he went on and started to tell how he had been a missionary in Bolivia for years in that church and had tried to preach this. And yet he had not experienced it at all. Then he began to outline — I didn’t know what he was talking about — but then he began to outline in detail, he began to describe me. He was actually describing himself. Then he began to describe me, as he described the state of his own inner heart. Because most of us, if you’re sitting here and you’re carnal, you recognize yourself. It’s not me I’m describing, I’m describing you. As he started to describe his own heart and his own experience of defeat in the Christian ministry and the Christian life, so I began to realize somebody else has experienced this. That was the first time that I had heard anyone talk about these things. I had known them in my own life, but I had never known anybody to talk about them in their lives. I assume that everybody was either playing a game or was not having the troubles that I was having. And he described exactly the carnal state of his own Christian heart, the problem with inward sin that he had over years and years. Then he said, “But then I came to the secret and I found the deliverance that God had prepared for us.” And He didn’t actually go into much detail. He said, “I found that there was only one way.” He said, “I discovered that all the things that I had inside — my lust, my pride, my selfish ambition, the anger, the jealousy, the envy, all the inward sins that rose up inside me that I could not hold down — I just kept from expressing them outside to other people — came from self. They all came from self. And then I saw Romans 6:6.” I knew Romans, but I certainly didn’t know what Romans 6:6 contained. Then he said, “Romans 6:6, you know, says” — or I think he used King James, ‘our old man was crucified with Christ.’ “Our old man was crucified with Christ so that we might be delivered from the power of sin.” I had heard of it, but I had never noticed it before. And he said the Old Man is the Self. I at last realized that my old self had been crucified with Christ and that the moment I was willing to die to that self — and that’s what he said and you might not like it and the psychologists might make mincemeat of it — that’s what he said and it was Gospel to me. He said, “I realized that I had to die to Self. I had to accept what had happened to me in Jesus. The moment that I would do that, that moment I would be delivered from the power of sin.” And so he then described to me how he began to seek God and ask God to show him himself in all the clear reality that God could see it. And to give him Judgment Day honesty with the inward sin that was within so that he would not cover up anything or pretend anything wasn’t there, but would be absolutely honest with God. He said he began to do that. Then he said, “The Holy Spirit began to show me things.” I knew the Holy Spirit — that was the Third Person of the Trinity — and He was a kind of force that came upon the work of God — but he seemed to talk about the Holy Spirit like a person. I never had heard that before. He said, “The Holy Spirit helped me and He began to show me things within myself that I had never seen myself. He began to reveal to me what I looked like before God. I began to see how rotten I was and how absolutely ugly I was. I saw myself in ways that I’d never seen myself before. And I began to be sick and tired and sore. And I began to give up any hope that I could get rid of such a monster as I appeared beside the pure and Holy Jesus.” Then he said, “I came eventually to the place, after several weeks of seeking, where I said, ‘Lord, I’m willing to do anything to be delivered from this.'” He said, “God’s Holy Spirit, in that moment came in and cleansed my heart. And I was delivered from that power of Self. And I no longer after that had that agonizing trouble with the lust. I had no longer the rising up of anger inside.” I still remember him saying it, he said “there was no rising up from within me.” Well I listened to him — and of course, I don’t know if you’re like me, but if your heart is hungry you know, I was desperate for anything that would bring deliverance. I don’t know that I even had my skepticism alive enough to be cynical about it. I just knew that if that’s possible that’s what I want. Then he give me a book, “Possibilities of Grace” written by an old Methodist Bishop years ago in America — “Possibilities of Grace”. I went home and looked up the chapter, I think he calls it, “Holiness” or “Sanctification” and it says, “How to Obtain Holiness”. Oh, that’s what I wanted. I looked right at that chapter. I started to read how to obtain Holiness. How to be cleansed from sin, how to be sanctified, how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, how to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, how to come into a closer walk and into full consecration, it really doesn’t matter you know. The Baptists talk about it as full consecration, full surrender, the Methodists don’t talk about it. The old Methodists talked about sanctification, entire sanctification. Pentecostals tend to talk about Baptism in the Holy Spirit though they don’t always mean an inner work as well as an outward work, but that’s really what it is. It’s the fullness of the Holy Spirit within you. I began to read how you should obtain that. First of all he said, “See yourself as you really are in God’s eyes.” So I started to do that. I know, you all say, “you poor soul, you’ll drive yourself to distraction through introspection.” Well, I didn’t know any better and that’s what I did. I looked at myself as plainly as I could. I looked as plainly as I could at those things within. I didn’t see many of them at the beginning. I didn’t see the pride I had about my own insight into Christianity and ability to expound it others. I never suspected that. I just started to look at the bad things inside me and to see what a rat I was and to look at the things and stop evading them. I wanted to see that they were there and that was me, Ernest O’Neill. I did not just speak unclean words, I was a man of unclean lips. I WAS this person, this was me. It wasn’t just little things that I was doing. It wasn’t little traits or little human tendencies, it was me. This was the real me. I was filled with lust and pride and filled with selfish ambition. I didn’t get very far, and I came to a position of frustration I must admit. It was then that I remembered what this man had said about the Holy Spirit and so for the first time in my life I began to speak to the Holy Spirit. That is, I treated Him as a real person. I remembered in the New Testament, Jesus had said He was a counselor. So I reckoned that’s what I needed, I needed a counselor who would show me deeper, because I’m at a blank wall here, because I was going as deep as I had got before with my introspection. I began to speak to the Holy Spirit. I said, “Holy Spirit will you show me myself as God sees me. Show me myself until I’m sick and sore tired of myself and I’m willing for anything so that I can be delivered. Give me a new conviction of sin.” Now, loved ones I did that; I can’t apologize for it, you know. I feel for all you souls who get all tangled up with false condemnation, but I have to testify to what God did in my heart and how He worked with me. And I had to ask Him to bring me a new conviction of sin. If you say, “Oh, you poor sick creature” – well, that’s what I was then, and I knew that I had to see what was wrong in my life the way God saw it. I had to come to the place where I was willing for whatever deliverance He had for me. So I asked the Holy Spirit, “Show me Holy Spirit, show me how I look in God’s eyes.” Well, that’s when insights such as I said to you would occur to me. I would waken up in the morning with certain words on my lips, which obviously had come from the Holy Spirit and He would have shown me a whole depth of my life that I’d never seen before. A whole gross monstrosity of Self that no one had ever known and even I had never known was there. That’s why loved ones, I think it is a supernatural work. Even in the seeking, even in the conviction of sin, it seems to me it’s a supernatural work, right at that early stage. It is a revelation of things that you have not seen that only God can see in you. And I sometimes think that this was maybe even the beginning of my deliverance because it was kind of separating myself from Self and saying, “Lord, I cannot deliver myself from Self, I need You to do it.” It was the ceasing to be God in my life — to be my own god and to control my spiritual experience. It seems it was a going out to God or reaching out to God and saying, “Lord, You’ll have to even show me what’s wrong in my life.” And so the Holy Spirit did that. Then this book said that you should see that you can do nothing about that. That that Self of yours has a grip on your life that you cannot break, and that carnality within you is so subtle, it loves religion, just loves it. It loves a lot of the things you do in your Christian ministry. It loves a lot of the good things in life, as long as Satan can hold onto your will, and so you will never track down that old Self. Of course, that’s the error that I always made before, you know, you control it, you tame it, you train it by reading the right books, you pray a lot, you have cold showers, you do all kinds of things to try to control that old Self, but this book said, you can do nothing about it, this is part of Satan within you. It’s like a spy of Satan’s is inside your heart, it’s a self that is not under your control, it’s part of Satan’s kingdom. You have to be delivered from it. And so I thought about that and prayed about it, and as the Holy Spirit of course continued to bring out more of the hideousness of my selfish will, I saw, “yeah, I cannot.” I tried, you know, as we all do, we try to do works worthy of repentance which we always should do, we should always try to obey. And I tried to obey and tried to get rid of these things and of course the more I tried the more distraught I became and the more despairing I became, and the more convinced I became that this is right, I cannot deliver myself from this. Then of course the third step that this man said was, “See that it has all been done. See that it has all been done.” And then he got the same verse, Romans 6:6, “See that your old self was crucified with Christ.” And so I began to think about that verse. And really it didn’t mean too much to me. I could get it intellectually, and I could look at the Greek word “polios” meaning, “old man”, I could see that it had been translated “old man” in King James, I could see that “crucified” was the eros of the Greek verb; it meant it had been done in a moment and was finished with, had occurred at a moment in time. I saw that is what it meant. I didn’t understand how my old Self could be crucified in a moment in eternity but I saw that’s what the Greek meant. It meant that it had been done, it didn’t mean that I had to crucify myself, so I saw the foolishness of old Luther even and the others trying to beat themselves with chains or kill themselves or crucify themselves. I saw, yeah, that isn’t it at all, it has been done, I was crucified with Christ. I saw that and I believed it and it said in Romans 6:11, “Reckon yourself therefore to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ my Lord” so I did that. I even knew the Greek word for “reckon” – it’s “legizo” — “to consider and treat yourself as being really dead with Jesus.” Well, I did — mentally and intellectually I tried to do that. I tried to believe, “I am dead, I was crucified, it’s finished” — and I’d get up the next morning and I still had the anger or the lust or the pride, and there would be no change. So it went on like that. I had by that time dealt with my outward sin, so I was back in what we’ve talked about, I was at least back in a justified experience. I was at least back obeying God outwardly anyway, so I was back in salvation which I had at least — whether you believe you can throw it away or whether you believe like Nee that you can be alive but live as if you’re dead. It’s kind of rather a game with words. I was not in the full joy of Jesus anyway. And I got back into the joy of salvation but I was not making headway on this deliverance from inward sin and the old Self and so I kept on trying to believe, trying to believe. And then gradually it dawned upon me what he had hinted at in his book. He said to really reckon yourself dead with Christ you have to be willing to die with Him. You have to be willing to die with Him. I would say that was throughout the whole experience the biggest new fact, although the personality of the Holy Spirit was also fairly new to me. But probably the biggest new fact was that one. The fact that I had to be willing to die with Jesus, because we’d always been taught in seminary that Christ died for you so that you wouldn’t have to die. In fact, that’s where we got a kind of an almost demonic joy thinking, “Oh good — He suffered we don’t have to!” It was kind of a relief: “Good, I don’t have to die for my sins, He died for me so that’s great, I’m scott free and can do what I want.” That had always been a pretty important tenet of my creed. But this was new, the whole thought, “you are to be willing to die with Jesus” and then I began to realize, well of course God has done the thing in Jesus, but He won’t force me to enter into that. He will ask me, “Are you willing? I have already done it in my Son. You don’t have to make it real in you, I will do that but you do have to be willing.” And so that’s were the pilgrimage began. I began to deal with my own heart and will. Am I willing to die with Jesus? I began to think, now what does that mean? I began to ask the Holy Spirit, will you show me what it meant? It might have been different for other people but what was it for Ernest O’Neill? Lord Jesus, what did you bear in your own heart of me on Calvary, that I need to be willing to let go of and die to. Then the Holy Spirit began to dig and dig through the layers and layers — and you dealt with the things that were most obvious, you know: would you be willing not to lose your temper? And you had to ask the Holy Spirit, “Why, why is that a big deal?” He would show you, well you use your temper to actually hold people off. You use your temper to get control of situations that you’ve already lost control of. Now would you be willing not to lose your temper, in other words, would you be willing not to have control of those situations? And that of course involves all the different situations, your job, your home, your money, your salary, your future and that means you have to willing to trust God with those things. So I went through that kind of thing. It’s the same with the lust you know. What was it like for Jesus? Well, He had no woman, He was not able to jump into bed with some woman, He never did have intercourse and would you be willing if necessary never to have intercourse? Would you be willing not to, if that was God’s will? He may not make it your will because you’re married and it’s normal for that to be the relationship, but would you be willing if He wanted? Most of all with us men, would you be willing when He wants or when your wife wants, not just when you want? Would you be willing to die to your right to that? And that’s what it began to come down to more and more. Not attitudes even, but rights. Would you be willing to die to this right? When Jesus died on Calvary He was looked upon as a criminal, they misunderstood Him completely. Would you be willing to die to your right to be understood all the time? Would you be willing to be misunderstood, and be happy and content? Would you be willing to die to your right even to have two coats to your back? Would you be willing to die to your right to a good salary, to die to your right to marriage, to die to your right to a successful future? Would you be willing really to be with Jesus on the Cross? And more and more I asked Him, “Lord Jesus, will You let me see what it feels like close to You on that Cross? Would You help me to see what it means for me, Ernest O’Neill?” And the Holy Spirit would go on and on. It’s different with all of us, there’s some besetting sin in your life, you know. May not be the obvious one — only the Holy Spirit can show you — but it’s usually the one that holds all, the key to the thing, and for me it was one Saturday morning in my parsonage in north Minneapolis I was praying — I spent a lot of time now praying — and the Holy Spirit said, “Would you be willing to be nothing if it were for Jesus’ glory? Would you be willing to be nothing? Would you be willing to be a zero? Would you be willing to be a failure?” Well, that was the very opposite of all that I’d been taught in my education I should be, the very opposite of the motives that often move those of us who are actors or preachers or public people. It was the opposite of what was the tenor of my life. “Would you be willing to be nothing for Jesus’ sake? Would you be willing to be a failure? Would you be willing for your mum back in Ireland to think you’d died, she’d heard so little about you? Would you be willing to be nothing?” That was it for me, but it’s different with all of us. Maybe when we get to Heaven and I’ll find that wasn’t it, you know it was just Jesus. “Would you be willing to be with Me, my son, on the Cross? Would you be willing to be in Me and to be wiped out as far as this world is concerned and to have a tombstone erected now, with your name on it, indeed not even a tombstone with your name. To have a tombstone with nothing on it, for you to become public property for Me? Would you be willing to be nothing and to be an absolute nobody for Me?” And then that was a miracle, and so then I said, yes. I spoke in tongues about a year and a half later. I don’t know that tongues are a big deal in the thing anyway. I think there are many of us that haven’t spoken in tongues — I don’t think that’s an issue. Certainly I didn’t then, but there was an absolute confidence that the Holy Spirit had come into my life and filled me and cleansed my heart. I felt the cleanness inside. I felt the cleanness. There’s a line in a First World War poem that goes — it’s a misinterpretation of course of the First World War – “like swimmers into cleanness leaping.” Well, that’s what it was. It was like a swimmer into cleanness leaping. For the first time I had not had this refuse and garbage and dirt inside my heart. It was the first time I had not had a fountain of strong desire for lust or envy or pride or anger or jealousy coming up from inside my heart. And so it was just a quietness inside. I didn’t testify to my wife but I thought that if this is real, my wife will know it. It was just a quiet sense in the bedroom. In that room a quiet sense that the Holy Spirit had come into my heart and had cleansed me and filled me with Himself. I had of course had to see immediate proof of it. I’ve told some of you before about two of the issues, you know, that one of the most difficult situations and many of you have dealt with them is divorce within the church. It can be a most unpleasant thing for everybody involved and certainly for me because I was their minister. Some people are so nasty that you just don’t want to tackle them. I was in the middle of one of those when a note was passed to me by my secretary. It said, “Will you call Mrs. So and So? I knew what that was about and normally I would do what I think all of us carnal Christians do, I’d run my own life, that’s really what we’d do. We just obey God when it suits us, you know. But we run our own life most of the time and we make things convenient for us and that’s why our life gets all piled up, do you know that? I never had enough time for things. I never had time to do everything. My life was always chaotic and panicky because I never had enough time because I was always lining all the things back there, to do them my way, to do the things suitably and conveniently because I could divide them up into pleasant things and the unpleasant things because I was still alive and I was still controlling things. But now it was different. Ernest O’Neill was crucified with Christ. There was no Self rising up inside. The note came, I left for the phone and called the lady and got right into the messy situation. That was the first time I obeyed with instant obedience. It was a great relief to instantly obey. And you could instantly obey because there was no longer any interest in your Self and in your own convenience. In fact, your life was a schedule for Him to write. It was no longer a schedule that you had filled in all days in and these things I want to do and these things I want to achieve and I’ll try to work you in where I can, Lord. It was now all – that is wiped out, it’s finished. Now Lord, whatever You want that’s what counts. Then the next morning I got a letter from a friend of mine who’d been at seminary with me. I’d gone to seminary with more degrees than anybody else and was ahead of most people. I was always anxious to get on that old academic success line. Yet God had constantly made me want to find out how does the Gospel work. So I constantly preached in churches to find that out. Meanwhile some of my own colleagues had streaked ahead of me and got their doctorates and one of these of course was in Garrett Institute I think in the University of Chicago and was now a doctor in psychology and he wrote to me from time to time. Every time he wrote, of course, you can guess what I felt. I felt why didn’t I get going, why am I not doing that, how jealous I am of him. So the letter came I opened it and there was no jealousy. It was just a miracle. I knew there was a change in my heart. So that changed my whole life. Then everything didn’t go beautifully. Everything then fell, the roof fell in, all the outside things, as I began to preach that in the Methodist church and they didn’t like it. Everything came down around my ears. I left the Methodist Church and was without work for nine months. I ended up teaching at Benilde High School. I remember saying to my wife, “I think I might never preach again,” but I wasn’t even concerned about it. I was happy, “Lord, whatever You want me to be, I’ll be. If You want me to preach I’ll preach. If You don’t want me, I won’t.” So it was a great rest. I would say I entered into the second rest of the people of God. The rest that God entered into on the Sabbath Day when He ceased from His labors. And it seems to me that’s what you do when you at last accept your position with Jesus on the Cross: you cease from your labors. You stop laboring to be God’s child and Jesus Himself takes control and He does it through the power of the Holy Spirit. So that changed my life, loved ones, and then from there some of you know some of the progress, but I had to tell you because a little voice warns me “if I preach not the Gospel.” I had to tell you this tonight. That’s true and it’s for you, you know. I’m not doing any commercials and it’s just true. It doesn’t need selling. It’s God will to do the same for you. The Holy Spirit will deliver you from the power of sin. Now, if you say, “You mean you have power to suppress the anger and the envy and the jealousy?” No, no, that was the battle I fought when I was a carnal Christian. No, you’re delivered FROM the envy and the jealousy. The envy and the jealousy do not rise up within you. You feel Jesus rising up inside you, and it is a deliverance and it is a victory. And of course it is full Christianity, you know and it’s the full Gospel. Now you have to make a choice. You can’t just go away, because it is either hell or Heaven. When God began to make this plain to me I began to see the truth, I knew that it was either Heaven or hell. You have to go on. Those of you who are born of God, you have to go on. There is no way back. There is no where to go back there. The bridges are burned. There is no way back. You remember the old-fashioned evangelical phrase: “You’re spoiled for the world.” You are. You can’t ever go back to the world. You will always feel that you’re living in an anticlimax life. You’ll always feel you left the best if you ever go back there. No, it’s only on, you can only go on. So tonight go on. Go after it with all your heart. Hunger after it with all your heart and God will bring you. I didn’t have a whole lot of information, but I had a hunger I wanted deliverance and God’s Holy Spirit met me, as He will you too. Tonight we could have altar call and I’m sure that many of you would come up here. I would say this to you, you have to get to the point where you’re determined. After the Benediction everybody gets up and all that kind of thing. You have to get to the point where you determine that you’ll stay here and you’ll seek God, if you can’t seek Him at home. Or if you think, “I don’t dare leave here because, Satan will get me before I get home” then you should go to the prayer room, or go back into the corner and seek God. If you want help I think there are enough of us here who are in the fullness of the Holy Spirit; I would ask them to maybe stay around, and they can come over if you just raise your hand up, they’ll come over and pray with you. Really what I would urge you to do is either that or to go home and to get down to business with God and don’t give up until you come through because you must be determined. It has to be, “I will not let you go until You bless me.” It has to be that kind of attitude. It might take you weeks, might take you months, but if you want that with all your heart and you keep going, God will answer you because that’s why Jesus died. Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank You for that. We thank you, Lord, that Jesus died to save us from our sins. Not to save us in our sins, but to save us from our sins. We thank You for that, Lord. We thank You that His death was effectual because we were actually in Him when He died. That our old self was crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. Lord, we thank You for that. That each one of us and indeed every soul that has ever lived or will ever live has been crucified with Christ and that has been done –and that it is our great privilege to bow before our Savior and accept from His dear hand the benefits of His mighty death. Lord, we thank You for that. We pray for each other, our Father, pray Holy Spirit for each other that we may get down to business with You, this evening at home or here or wherever we can get hold of that great pearl of great price that is worth selling all the other pearls together. Lord, we thank 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.

Revival Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill (With Ted Farcasin sharing at the beginning) Ted: We discussed the impact that Evan Roberts had on a small community of believers in Southern Wales and it essentially was a revival. It transformed the entire nation to some degree, the British Isles and later on into Europe and it all started at a tiny little chapel. I would assume it’s relatively tiny anyway, called Mariah Chapel in South Wales. Evan Roberts who was a member of that particular chapel, went to the pastor one day in October, October 31st as a matter of fact and he said, “I would like to have a time to go and speak with the youth of the church here and speak to them and encourage them in the ways of the Lord.” He said, “Sure, go ahead, do it”, and Roberts got together the youth of the church there and he spoke to them specifically on four matters. The first matter was simply this, that if we want to gather together and we want to move toward Christ then let us first of all get rid of any un-confessed sin. So remove that from you, take it away from you. If there be anything that is within you, that is a hindrance between you and God, a barrier, remove that from you. That was point number one. Point number two was essentially this: we need to be obedient. Obedient to what? Well, obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Remember Samuel’s admonishment to the prophet of the Old Testament that obedience is better than sacrifice. That was the message of Evan Roberts to these folks that they be obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. When he speaks to you, walk, function, move in accordance to that and let Him demonstrate whether or not it is His will or not but be conscious of that, be prompted by that and move in accordance to it. So those are a few things. One, be obedient to His spirit and put away any un-confessed sin. The third element that I tried to get across was simply this, to proclaim the goodness of Christ within you, to make some sense of a proclamation of what Jesus has done. He encourages folks to do as what Christ has admonished all of us at one time or another, I am sure, you know if you declare me before your fellow men then I will declare you before my Father which is in heaven. In the King James Version it says “I would declare you before the angels of God.” I do agree that what he is getting at is that we can have a proclamation by our life. We can have proclamation by our own ethic or theology and how we believe. So much is manifested by our personal behavior. But it’s interesting to note that 93 percent of all people are saved because somebody spoke to them. Somebody spoke words to them. Isaiah said, “How shall a man hear unless there is somebody who would preach?”- to your colleague, to your friend, to yourself. Those are the three primary factors that Evan Roberts spoke to these young folks about. Consider them in your own mind. Rev. Ernest O’Neill: And what came home to me as Ted was sharing was that there was an incredible outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit during the next few months. That took place about the 30th of October and then he read a newspaper article which indicated that by December, about three months later, 34,000 people had partaken in these meetings. And then of course after that, any of you who know about the Welsh revival know that Evan Roberts would turn up to preach at a church but the church would have been full from early morning. People would have closed their businesses to get a seat in the church and there would be hundreds outside and when he would arrive, he would go up and just open in prayer in Welsh and then sit down and the service just went on. Prayer and confession of sin and conversions and baptism of the Spirit and they would still be there 2 o’clock in the morning and at times right up till 6:00 a.m. the next morning. So, it was that God moved among them and it came home to me, wouldn’t God move that way among us? I mean we couldn’t make God bring a worldwide revival but it does seem that where God’s people walk in light, at least the Holy Spirit moves freely among them and brings Jesus life into existence among them. Maybe it’s being extreme but could it be that we actually, here even in this room tonight, have a whole lot of un-confessed sin? Or a lot of doubtful things? It just came home to me that there are all kinds of things that we need to see happening among us ourselves. There are healings that we need to see completed. You have loved ones that aren’t in Jesus. We have a campus that is fairly well untouched by Jesus these days. We believe that Jesus moves freely among us in power when we fulfill those conditions, indeed when we just walk in light. So I was wondering does that mean that on the outside, we look like good Christians and we’re a nice body of people but does it mean that we actually have a whole lot of un-confessed sin among us? Or maybe we’re involved in all kinds of doubtful things that we’re not really sure of but we’re carrying them on because we say, well, the Lord hasn’t really convicted us. Then, when he mentioned the profession of Christ, I wondered do we have it in our heads and are we all saying day-by-day at work, “Well, we don’t want to put them off Jesus by being too open about it,” or, “We don’t want to go around knocking on doors like Dan Salem does because that doesn’t come too naturally to us.” And could it be that we’re all actually living in sin? We don’t think we’re living in sin because we’re not sleeping around with anybody or we’ve turned away from a lot of the sins that were in our lives, but we’re actually not doing obedience. We’re not doing obedience, you know. In other words, could it be that all of us have all kinds of little feelings about somebody else here tonight or somebody else who isn’t here and we keep that in our hearts and we just keep it there? It’s kind of a root of bitterness and it just stays there but that’s what stops us entering into the revival life in our own lives and the revival life as a group. Don’t you think it must be? Don’t you think that wherever God’s people fulfill the conditions of revival — wherever they confess their sin and get it out in the open and get rid of it and agree about that and turn from it — and wherever they turn from things that are doubtful, God sees them. And wherever they obey God’s spirit, obey in actual action, and wherever they begin to go out of their way to profess Christ or to talk about Him to somebody else, do you not think that the Holy Spirit would move among us as He did in that revival? Loved ones, I know it’s just not sensible to say He wouldn’t. I think we’re a great group. I think the world of you and we all like each other and I think it’s great. We have a great operation but we don’t have revival, sure we don’t. We don’t. I mean other churches would look at us and think we’re in revival and we’ve been in a remarkable state of revival compared with other churches for years almost since we started, but we all know it isn’t what is talked about in this Welsh revival. It isn’t that. There isn’t a deep conviction of sin. I mean you find that with the ones you talk to, don’t you at work? There’s no deep conviction of sin. Look, there are some of your relatives and there’s no conviction of sin in them at all, you know there isn’t. There’s not even a vague interest in God and it seems that conviction of sin comes when we get convicted about our sin and it seems to me that what we could have, is a kind of a hard packed ice down there. We’re kind of soft and squashy up here but when we get down here somewhere in maybe most of our lives, there’s kind of hard packed ice where there is unconfessed sin that we have no intention of confessing because we don’t want to forsake it. And where we have doubtful things, we’re glad when we’re not absolutely sure what God thinks of them because we want to hang onto them. All of that is really a controlled surrender, isn’t it? It’s not wanting to do whatever so that God would move. I mean it’s not an attitude of, “Lord, I’ll do whatever. Here Lord, cut me open. I’ll do whatever Father for You to move”. It’s not that. It’s a kind of uptight close attitude ‘I am a child of God’ and that’s all that matters. But it seems loved ones that if we would break open, surely God’s Spirit would move. Douglas Crossman, who is the gentleman that sold us the library upstairs, the Scroggie library, preached in that Mariah chapel maybe 10 years ago and he knew there was one very old man there who had been in revival and had written a little book about it. He asked the minister, “Is that man here? Could you introduce me to him?”, and the man had come up, came up to him afterwards and Douglas Crossman said to him, I forgot the man’s name but he said to him his name, “You, Mr. so-and-so, you were in the revival”, and the man almost crumpled to the ground. It was as if the power of God was still there and he almost crumpled to the ground when he had mentioned it. It seems that that’s what we want to see. We want to see a deep working of God that will move among our hearts and will enable you when someone comes along 30-40 years hence or somebody comes to our children and asks about it, that they will sense that. It seems to me that doesn’t come with trickery or with such stupid tears. It doesn’t come with all that stuff. It doesn’t come with emotion. We turn from all the tricks of the clever music and all that stuff or the showy preacher. We turn from that because it doesn’t come with all that stuff. It seems from what we read that it comes from honesty in the hearts of men and women like you and me and I think that requires us to search our hearts and to act so that we say, “Well, we don’t know what everybody else is doing, but as for me and my house, I will serve the Lord.” I am going to get the things right with You Lord and I am going to clean out everything that’s doubtful and I am going to turn from it and I am going to confess any sin both to You Lord and to the person that I sinned against and then Holy Spirit, I am going to obey You whatever it means and then Lord Jesus, I am going to stop being a clam — a closed mouth Christian who won’t speak Your name to anybody lest I suffer some of the reproach that You bore. Lord Jesus, I am going to start talking about You to other people.” Loved ones, I do think that it would be the same as most other things in your life and mine. I think action would release a lot of pressure and tension and would resolve a lot of problems and I think God’s spirit would move among us and I think it wouldn’t be long. It only took three months and there were 34,000 involved. It wouldn’t be long before men and women would know that some men and women are dealing with God in honesty. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to carry on running services to you. Anybody can run services. What we want to see is God’s Holy Spirit moving among us in power and what we want to see is thousands going abroad, don’t we? Because we know only God’s Spirit can bring that about, we can’t bring it about, but it seems to me that’s what we want. I think that’s why most of us came together here over these past 14 years. I think it has to start with us loved ones. I start with what I know and then God’s Spirit can take me deeper. So it might be good to have a prayer time to be free to pray as God guides you in quietness or aloud, and to simply guide you to just deal with your sins. I’ll deal with those that I know and then the important thing would be that we begin to walk in this obedience. We would begin to profess Christ, would begin to obey the Holy Spirit and not do what is convenient for us or what somebody else thinks. And then that we’d walk in openness with each other. Where we’ve got used to criticizing, would you stop that? I mean we just start being open and start being real with each other and you know we’ll have to do it some time. I mean there is nothing Jesus said, whispered in private rooms that will not be proclaimed upon the house tops. There will come a day when everything will be manifested you know, then, for our condemnation. So it really is how we’re coming into cleanness now so we can be saved and delivered and be used by God or it all being proclaimed then. I think if you found heaviness in your own life or kind of a deadness or coldness, it’s because of this. So let’s just pray together. Let’s pray. Dear Father, we don’t want to be just an ice church. Lord we don’t want to be hypocrites. Father we don’t want to be doing something that other human beings could imitate. Lord, we want to see You work Your work that can’t be imitated among us. Lord, we really do want that kind of revival, new life from Your own right hand. So Lord, if You see sin in our lives or Lord, if You have been pointing out sin to us and we have argued with You about it and pushed it to the back or Lord if You’ve brought things up to us and we like to call them doubtful, Lord we see we’ll get nothing from You unless we put away all doubtful things and are absolutely honest before You — open and clear and clean. Lord we know enough about our society to know that only such people can be used by God to cut through this gray and lukewarm society. Then Lord, if You see that we’re not obeying Your Holy Spirit, anywhere in our lives, will You make us aware of that or if we’re not professing Christ? If Lord Jesus, there are people in our work that don’t know we’re Christians because we are so quiet about it, Lord we want to put ourselves outside ourselves. We want to put ourselves out on the line and separate ourselves from all this self-defensiveness and self-protectiveness which is just God, just being God, just wanting to keep ourselves to ourselves and run our own lives our own way. Lord it’s just sin but we’ve just got so used to it that we think it’s the way we live the Christian life. Lord we want to begin to be honest with You tonight, confess and turn from these things. Amen.

Break Up Your Fallow Ground Hosea 10:12 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill During Lent we remember Jesus’ suffering which preceded His dying on the Cross for us. Down through the centuries since Jesus’ death and resurrection, Lent has been a time for self-examination. So those of us who are Catholic in background remember how Ash Wednesday with the mark of the ashes signified the sackcloth and ashes in which we examined our lives in preparation for our death with Jesus on Good Friday and then our glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday. So Good Friday and Easter Sunday will mean the world to you this year, if you begin to honestly prepare yourself during this time of Lent. It’s not so much a time when you give things up for Lent. That’s not the right attitude to Lent. That’s just an excuse that we invented to offer to God instead of real change in our lives. We shouldn’t in that sense give up things for Lent and then go back to it after that. We need to see this as a time for rooting out from our lives the things that God has convicted of us as sin. We need to be real about that, just down to earth and practical. Repeatedly, when all kinds of buildings are put up in large cities, men are amazed that through the slightest crack in a piece of concrete slab there will poke a little snowdrop or a little daffodil. Men are constantly amazed at the “dearest freshness deep down things.” That’s the way the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins told it. “There’s a dear freshness deep down things.” There’s a dear life underneath all the concrete that man can put over the earth. There’s a dear life that surges up and pokes its head through if it gets half a chance. Men are constantly amazed at the way little flowers poke their heads up through slabs and slabs of concrete if there’s even a slightest crack. It’s as if the earth is full of life and just wants to burst forth if men will let it. It’s the same in your life. It’s the same in your dear heart this morning. God has put you into His Son Jesus and there is springing up within you a Jesus life. A beauty of God’s life that will spring up if you’ll give it half a chance. If you’ll just give it half a chance it’s there surging within you. It will burst out. The fragrance of Jesus will burst out in you along with hope and joy and delight if you’ll give it half a chance. That’s the truth, that’s what Lent is about. Get the things out of your life that God has shown you are a substitute and an alternative for his life. Get them out of your life and His life will spring up within you. Get the lust out of your life and the beauty of God’s pure love will begin to pour forth on you. Get the anger out of your life and the beauty of His gentleness and His patience will begin to lift out through you. I don’t know if you realize it but in spite of all our medical research, most surgery is cutting away the bad stuff to give the good stuff a chance to grow. There are some exceptions, but most surgery is cutting away the bad stuff so that the good stuff will grow. In other words, the only hope of man being healed is the power of healthy life that God has put in every physical body. That’s the life that He has put in your heart and your spirit. That’s why He has told us that our primary contribution to Him changing our lives is simply breaking up old hardened concrete that has settled in any area of our lives. One prophet put it this way, he said, “Break up your fallow ground so that the Lord can come and rain righteousness upon you.” Fallow ground is ground that has been trodden over again and again and again and left without anything growing in it. It’s dead and solid. It’s been stomped on like that, flattened and pressed down. All you have to do to get some flowers growing there, to get some crops growing there, is to break up that fallow ground. That’s what is involved in a time of repentance. Don’t see it as a time of negativism. It’s a time of positive breaking up fallow ground, fallow areas in your own life where you’ve become blind and dead and therefore where God’s life has ceased to spring. You break it up and God will make it spring up. One dear man that was used in America mightily in this kind of revival experience was Finney. He just listed some areas of sin that you and I might want to look at this morning. I really think I should just read them slowly and you should listen to the Holy Spirit and if He speaks to you about any of these, you should during our time together in prayer put them away from you, and repent of them. God said if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. You should just do that. Just agree with God, “This is a sin in my life, Lord. I am going to repent of it. I am going to put it away now. I know this is what caused Jesus to go to the Cross. I am going to put it far from me now so that when I take this wine and this bread, the life of Jesus will spring up within me.” That’s what will happen, loved ones, if you do that. Break up your fallow ground and God will take care of bringing forth the fruit. Here is a listing of some sins of omission: ingratitude, want of love to God, neglect of the Bible, unbelief, neglect of prayer, neglect of the means of grace, want of love for souls, want of care for the heathen, neglect of family duties, neglect of social duties, neglect of watchfulness, neglect of watchfulness over your own life, neglect to watch over your brothers, neglect of self-denial. Those are sins of omission. God will through His Spirit, settle your mind on one or two of those. Don’t let them all fall on top of you. God will deal with you on one or two. So settle those two now at this moment. And determine to deal with those in the prayer time. Here is a listing of sins of commission: worldly mindedness, pride, envy, censoriousness, slander, levity, lying, cheating, hypocrisy, robbing God, bad temper, hindering others from being useful. I know what I should deal with God about and if you do, I believe that we should just go before God and be honest about these sins. Confess them to God and repent of them whatever the cost. There will spring up in your life a new freshness that is of God. There will. Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank You for Your patience with us over these years and now, as we come to this holy season of Lent, when we remember the beginning of Your Son’s dark journey to Calvary for us Father, we would engage ourselves in solemn and holy self-examination so that our Savior Jesus will not have died in vain for us. As we face You Lord Jesus, we would be honest now about any sins in our lives. In these sacred moments we would now confess them to You. We would repent and we would ask You to replace them with the fragrant virtue of Your Holy Spirit. Lord, we would amend our lives. We would not wait for that moment before death. We would amend our lives now Lord, we would change our ways this very day, we would prepare ourselves now for burial and not wait till that moment of panic. We do not presume to come to this Thy table, O 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 evermore dwell in Him, and He in us. The Lord Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He 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 cup is the New Covenant in My blood: this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He come.

Heart and Soul Revival 2 Timothy 3:5 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill I think most of you know that Campus Church has a missionary outreach arm which we call Christian Corps, and that’s what that newsletter is that you received with your bulletin. It’s Christian Corps International. You can see loved ones, the unique purpose it has on the back page there at the top left hand corner of page 4. It reads, “Christian Corps International is a federation of businesses committed to personal evangelism through the practical expression of the spirit and principles of Christ in the secular world.” Our aim in this most opportune era, when Gorbachev and Deng are interested in opening up their two countries to free enterprise, is to get thousands of us abroad as businessmen and women who express the Spirit and the principles of Jesus in ways that will begin to affect the ordinary life of the man on the street who never goes to church. It is a vision that God has given us that is just right for the time. I said that many of us are also involved in educational ministries because that’s what Ted and Cathy have been doing in Beijing. Cathy has been involved with IBM the past year and Ted has been involved in teaching business management in the University in Beijing. Many of us have a vision for our worldwide English as a Second Language series at colleges — because at no time have so many people wanted to learn English. So that’s what Christian Corps is about and I’d encourage any of you who are feeling that God wants you to be abroad in that way to apply and begin to come to some of our Christian Corps Institute classes which meet during the week and deal particularly with doing business in the Spirit of Jesus and according to the principles of Jesus. As you can guess, several of us in Guadalajara, London and here in Minneapolis are connected together in a worldwide trading company. Communication is key to us and one of the ways we communicate with each other is through telex. It’s a kind of ticker tape system of communicating via high-speed telephone wires. During this past week, I had the responsibility of taking the IBM computer apart and trying to put a phone modem in it that will connect up with the telephone wires. Gentry went off and enjoyed himself this week and my job was to solve that problem. I spent hours and hours trying to do it. I took the computer apart, put the modem in and then you type in the various signals and I typed in percent Q and I am supposed to get back an answer percent H and percent 2. But there was nothing on the screen, nothing. At one point in the week, an expert came along and said, “That modem is dead, it’s dead”, and I said, “It’s not. It’s alive, I put it in it.” And he said, “Yes, but the computer can’t find it.” And so for the past week I’ve been typing in percent Q, pulling out memory boards and putting them in again. At last it’s solved. I’ve got through. But I just thought many of us find ourselves in that situation with God. We send all the right signals, we do all the things that people tell us we’re supposed to do, but we don’t get any response back from God. We’re doing everything we’re supposed to do. We’re saying the right prayers, we’re reading the right part of the Bible, we’re going to church and we’re sending the signals but somehow we’re not getting anything back from Him to tell us that He is alive and that He is responding to us. Now some of us are in the position that we once did get responses. Some of us have been born of God in past years or have even been baptized with the Holy Spirit and there was a time when we were getting responses and when we were having some sense of aliveness in our spirits and we could tell there is somebody out there. There is someone out there who is feeding back signals to me. But that ceased some years ago and since then, we have never had any signals back from God to tell us that He is alive and we have joined another group of people who call themselves Christians (and there are thousands of them in this dear land of ours). They are Christians who run their own spiritual experience totally and completely by their own will power. They have a spiritual experience that they control themselves and actually it wouldn’t make much difference to them where there was a Holy Spirit or where there wasn’t a Holy Spirit. It doesn’t make much difference to them whether there is a God or there isn’t a God. They do the things that they’re supposed to do and they do them very religiously and very faithfully and very obediently but they have never any sense of God’s Spirit feeding back to them. They are often very faithful in their duties and responsibilities. But the chief mark of their life is a lack of the fragrance of the Holy Spirit and a certain coldness and a certain deadness that pervades all their religious duties, all their church going, all their Bible study, and all their praying. It lacks the liveliness of the Spirit of God coming back to them. They never really have any encouragement from God out there. They just keep on doing what they’re doing. Now in some ways, it’s good for a short time, because it delivers you from introspection and from being preoccupied with feelings and being concerned with “is God present in my life or is He not.” So, to a certain extent it’s good not to be always looking in and introspecting to see if God is feeding back to you. But in some ways after a period of time, it becomes a dead Old Testament kind of religion. In other words, it lacks the chief mark of the New Covenant. Here is the chief mark of the New Covenant loved ones, if you look at it in Acts 2:38, it was stated very plainly by Peter in the first truly Christian sermon that was ever preached. That is, the first sermon that was preached after Jesus rose and ascended to the right hand of God and poured out the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:37-38: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins’; (and here’s the chief mark of the New Covenant) and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'” (And that they had no experience of.) They have no experience of a new dynamic in their lives that gives them an awareness of a whole new spiritual world that they never knew existed before. They had no sense of the rising of springs of living water within them, a whole fragrance in their life that seems to come from beyond. They don’t have that experience. Their religion is primarily a human initiated and human disciplined experience. It has nothing of the freshness of God’s Spirit. It has nothing of a sense of Him feeding back to them responses. Loved ones, the mark of that kind of religion is outlined in the Bible here and it describes so much of a religion here in our dear nation, it’s in 2 Timothy 3:5. Such people are “holding the form of religion but denying the power of it.” It’s the kind of religion that enables a nation like ours to be filled with church going, right alongside gross immorality and widespread immorality. It’s a religion with a lot of outward form and a lot of people doing religious things but without the power of God’s Spirit moving mightily. It’s a religion without a Christ-like love, with a lot of sense of responsibility and duty, a lot of sense of what God wants from us but little sense of the fragrance and the gentleness of Jesus’ love in a Spirit rising within. Brothers and sisters, God has told us what to do if we ever get into that position as a nation or if we ever get into that position as individuals. If we ever get into the place in our own Christian experience where we can’t sense God feeding back to us, we can’t sense that his spirit is alive and within us, and we don’t feel that we’re getting signals back, God has told us what to do. So will you turn to 2 Chronicles 7:13. The Father describes that state exactly to us in verse 13. 2 Chronicles 7:13, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people,” now that’s the situation. “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain.” That’s when you sense there is no rain coming from God into your life. When there is no coming of the Spirit of life into you from God. When you’re not sensing that He’s alive out there. He doesn’t seem to be responding to you when He commands the locust to devour the land as our land is. I have to tell you this because it hit me so hard. I don’t know if there are any loved ones who are homosexual here this morning, but you know how I love you and how my heart goes out to you. But I was sitting, having coffee in a restaurant in a certain area of this city and I looked up at this little guy who must have been about 13 years old. He was a newspaper boy. He had sunglasses on and he turned around to me and he had lipstick on. So when God sends the locust to devour the land — in the disease of aides – it’s not a time for preaching at each other but rather the time for getting God to come through to us. It’s not a time for condemning and pointing the finger. And it’s not a time for trying to whitewash the mess that we’re in. It’s a time for getting God to come through to us. “Command the locust to devour the land or send pestilence among my people”, and then He gives the direction to us in our personal lives or our national life. “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” And that’s it. If you’re in that state personally and we’re certainly in that state nationally, that’s what God says. He will bring revival to us. He will begin to get signals of His Holy Spirit through to us, “If my people who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” In 1902, Wales was as dead as our nation is. It had lots of church going as our nation has. It had lots of religious activity, but it was dead religious activity. There was not the fragrance of Jesus’ Spirit alive in the hearts of people. Then some people began to get together in prayer groups and began to pray for their own individual lives and for their nation, as some had begun to do in Melbourne, Australia. In a certain school was a young man called Evan Roberts, a young collier of 26 years of age, preparing to enter the ministry. For 11 years he had prayed for a revival and for 13 years he had prayed for the fullness of the Spirit. A word dropped by a deacon in a church meeting 13 years before caused him to determine to know the Holy Spirit. The deacon said, “Be faithful. What if the Holy Spirit descended and you were absent?” So, through all weathers and difficulties, refusing to be tempted by the boys and the boats on the river near his home, Evan Roberts made his way to prayer meetings and other chapel services year after year. He came from a typical Welsh home and was the son of godly parents. At 12-years-old, he became his father’s right hand in the mine and shortly afterwards commenced regular work underground in the mines. He was never without his Bible, which he studied in the intervals of work. And so the time went by until one night, in the spring of 1904, God seems to have drawn near to him in a very special way. He says that as he prayed by the bedside all night, he was taken up into a great expanse without space or time, into communion with God. This was obviously a crisis in his spiritual life for up to then, God had seemed to him a far away God and he was afraid of Him. But after this, the Lord would awaken him night after night a little after 1:00 O’clock and took him up in divine fellowship for about four hours. He would sleep until 9 o’clock. Then again he would be wrapped in communion with God until about noon in the day. Just about this time, one of the ministers who had been praying in the prayer groups, came to conduct services in the town where Evan Roberts was attending this training school. He, with some other young men, went to the service. The service was in a place called Blaenach. He went at 7 O’clock to the service. Roberts was already deeply moved, but he quite broke down when at the house, the minister led in prayer and used the words, “Bend us, Oh Lord.” The soul in travail, heard no words but these. “This is what you need,” whispered the Spirit of God. “Bend me, Oh Lord”, but even yet, the fire did not fall. At the 9 O’clock meeting, the Spirit of God led one and the other to pray and then Mr. Roberts says, “I fell on my knees with my arms over the seat in front of me and the tears freely flowed. I cried, ‘Bend me, bend me.'” Bend us, for we are a self-righteous nation. With all our methods, bend us. Roberts continues, “What bent me, was God commending His love and I, not seeing anything in it to commend.” The Holy Spirit had come and melted his whole being by a revelation of the love of God at Calvary. “For God commended of His own love to us in that Christ died for us.” The young man returned to the nearby town and prayed God to give him the seal of six others set on fire by God and the six were given. Then the Holy Spirit bade him return to his own people and speak to them. But he didn’t obey. He grew more and more troubled and ill at ease. One Sunday in chapel, he could not fix his mind on the service for always before him as in a vision he saw the schoolroom in his own village and all the young people and his old companions sitting in rows while he addressed them. He tells how he shook his head impatiently and sought to drive all this away but God would give him no rest. Back and back it came as the Holy Spirit whispered clearer and clearer, “Go and speak to these people.” At long last Even Roberts obeyed God and went to Loughor, his native place early in November 1904. He says that he consulted the pastor of his church who told him that he might try and see what he could do. He would find the ground stony and the task hard. Young people came together and they all sat before him as he had been shown by God. At first, they did not seem touched, but presently the Spirit of God began to work and six came out for Christ. Then the Pentecost began. This is what revival is. Soul after soul came forward and the most extraordinary results followed. The whole community was shaken. Meetings lasted until 4:00 in the morning and at 6:00 the people would be awakened by the sounds of the crowds going to the early morning prayer meeting. The work went on until a local minister said, “The entire population had been transformed into a praying multitude.” Man and woman, of whom he had despaired, had voluntarily come to Christ. The lives of hundreds of colliers and tin plate workers were transformed. The men went straight to Chapel from the mills and the public houses were practically deserted. On November 10, the first public reference to these remarkable scenes was made in a Wales secular paper, which from this time to the wonderment of all, devoted columns to the reporting of the work. They did much in the province of God to spread abroad that which God was doing among His people. Other secular powers did the same and man marveled at the sovereign power of God to move the secular press to report the work of God. “From Rhoulacore”, the Revivalist says, “The young student began to be called, went on to another town and other places, carried on their crest of a mighty wave of the Spirit which swept like a cleansing tide along the mining valleys of Glamorganshire. Everywhere the people thronged in multitudes to hear the Spirit-baptized young student. At Loughor he spoke, it is said, with impassioned oratory, but once the overflowing stream had broken out, the Spirit of God appeared to put aside preaching and used the voice of testimony. “He slew hanging Him on a tree, him did God exult and we are witnesses,” was the burden of the message of the Spirit possessed souls in the days of Pentecost. This was the Holy Spirit’s message through his people as he bore co-witness by signs and wonders wrought among the thronging multitudes. Under the constraint of an unseen power, the chapels were filled with eager people at all hours of the day and the services took their own course under the control of the Holy Spirit presiding as the executive power of the Godhead. Prayers, testimonies and singing broke out in seeming disorder yet acknowledged by all to be the most harmonious order.” The revivalist would enter during the meetings, sometimes unknown to those present until he arose with some word to the people. The burden of his message would be “Obey the Holy Spirit” and when one in the meeting would break out into prayer while he was speaking, he would calmly give place and show to others, his acknowledgement of the presidency of One greater than he. At some point perhaps, Mr. Roberts would test the meeting and put to it the four definite steps necessary to salvation, which he said the Holy Spirit had given him to urge upon the people. These are the steps. One, the past must be made clear by sin being confessed to God and every wrong to man put right. If you want a revival in your own life, the past must be made clear by sin being confessed to God and every wrong to man, put right. Two, every doubtful thing in the life must be put away. Every doubtful thing in the life must be put away. Three, there must be prompt and implicit obedience to the Holy Spirit. Four, there must be public confession of Christ. Publicly testifying in a meeting like the communion service tonight, where we will have an “open microphone”, testifying openly, confessing Christ in what He is in your life. Forgiveness of others as an essential to receiving the forgiveness of God was often emphasized as well as the distinction between the Holy Spirit’s work in conversion and in baptizing the believer with the Holy Spirit. In truth, the revivalist was giving the full Gospel as preached at Pentecost and like Peter’s message had received the co-witness of the Holy Spirit and produced Pentecostal results. “Repent, change your mind toward God and put away wrong to your neighbor, remission of sins will then be given you and you shall receive the Holy Spirit if you will obey Him and publicly bear witness to Christ.” Indescribable scenes took place at the meetings. Sometimes a very torrent of prayer and then of song would sweep over the audience and hundreds of souls would rise to declare their surrender to God. The congregation would burst out in joyous thanksgiving and hymns of gladness. But the revival’s special burden was always the church. Bend the church. We think we’re so great. We think we’re such a mighty American church but we’re nothing. We have our beautiful buildings and have beautiful choirs but the little guy still has lipstick on his lips and we still have our murders and we’re trying to legislate it out of us. “Bend the church and save the world” was his cry. “Bend the church and save the world.” The word ‘bend’ in Welsh conveys the meaning of submission to God and the taking away of resistance to His will. His one aim seemed to be first to get the Christians right with God so that the Spirit might break out in converting power of the unsaved and Calvary was the power both for sinner and saved. The revivalists would break down in a heart-anguish sobbing when he touched the thing. “You would not be cold if you had come here by Calvary”, he would say. Thanks for Calvary was the burden of many prayers. The hymns rang with Calvary, the one most often sung was “The Mount of Calvary”, an exultant song of triumph telling of Christ’s victory over death and hell at the cross. Another hymn sung with melting power was “Here Is Love Vast As The Ocean.” The people sang without books for these hymns had been in their memories from childhood but now quickened and used by the Spirit they rang out as never before. Many of the sweet singers of Wales were drawn by the Spirit of God into his service and often would be heard a sweet warbling voice like a nightingale’s trill breaking out into a hymn while the people were bowed in prayer. A singing revival it truly became. Souls were sung to Christ and exulted over in song when won. The Spirit of gladness and praise filled all hearts as thousands rejoiced in a newfound assurance of salvation. The Spirit of God did His own work of convicting and many were the evidences of His power working through him in testimony. A young man would return his prize medal and diploma because he had gained it unfairly. A grocer would return money picked up in his shop and kept although knowing the one who dropped it. Long standing debts were paid, stolen goods returned, prize fighters, gamblers, publicans and others of the class rarely touched by ordinary means, came to Christ and quickly the world knew the results. Magistrates were presented with white gloves in several places because there were no cases to be tried. Public houses were forsaken, rowdiness was changed to soberness. It was said among the collieries that the horses could not understand the language of their drivers because they had given up swearing at them. Well, you can see, it’s not just good preaching or bad preaching, not just nice singing by Bob or playing by Carmen, it’s something deeper loved ones. That’s what they need. And if you need it in your own life the directions are plain. You repent, you bend before God. You clear up the past completely, you make everything right with all your neighbors, you put everything doubtful out of your life and you give yourself wholly to God. He remits your sins and gives you the Holy Spirit. Then you have to obey the Holy Spirit. Do whatever He tells you and confess Christ publicly. God will begin to feed back to you and this nation and begin to change it. But it starts with us. The loved ones out there, the homosexuals, don’t even know what they’re missing. What’s the good of preaching at them? It’s wrong what they are doing, but do they see Christ like fragrant love in us that attracts them and exposes the coarseness of what they’re experiencing in their desperation as a shadow of the truth? Bend the church and save the world. Let’s begin to bend. Let’s begin to seek God for a revival in our own lives and in our church and in our nation. Let’s pray. Dear Father, it is more than 80 years since that move and it is more than 30 years from the movement in the Hebrides in Scotland. Father, we need your mighty touch upon us. Oh Father God, we come before you to ask you to bend us. Father, we know that no man is an island. We know that the little guy with the lipstick on is as much our responsibility as that of his father or his mother or the dear men that are misusing him. Father, we come before you to acknowledge that they are all my sons, that he is our son also. Lord, if you see anything in our lives that is preventing you coming again in mighty power of revival Spirit in our nation, will you reveal that to us now this day so we may bend these mighty wills before you and that we may clean these consciences and make whatever apologies or restitution we need to make to people past and present. We will put everything doubtful in our lives away from us and give ourselves wholly to You so that even Satan will not be able to contradict us when we say we have surrendered all to God. And You Lord God may do whatever you want with our lives from this day forward. Amen.

Have You Given All For Jesus? Mark 1:18 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill I have a great sermon which I will deliver next Sunday but God has just made it clear or confirmed really to me that I should go just with the Holy Spirit. So he just gave me the piece to read a moment ago and I’d like you to turn to it please and then we’ll just trust him to speak to us, Mark 1:16. Mark 1:16, “And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending their nets. And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.” You can see there was a lot of net mending going on there, everybody that Jesus passed were mending nets. And then the verse that God put in my heart is the one in verse 18, “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” I think it’s obvious to all of us in America that church going is much more popular here than in the rest of the world. And there are churches everywhere in America. And I think if you look at some of them on television, you’ll see that some of them are massive and are crowded with people. And it is very easy in this kind of atmosphere to create a form of following Jesus that is comfortable and that fits in with our own activities and the plans we have for our own lives. But it may well be a counterfeit of true following of Christ and yet the great danger of it is that huge numbers of us are involved in it and the further danger is that we’re involved in saying many true things in the midst of it. For instance all of us in some way or other read this Book, all of us sing the old hymns, all of us pray prayers and so it is very easy in such an atmosphere to get used to coming to church and thinking this is what God wants me to do because it has a great deal of truth in it. It’s just that the crucial point where that verse cuts across it, it fails. And you remember that verse runs, “And leaving their nets, immediately they left their nets and followed him.” It’s very easy in our kind of church going atmosphere not to leave your nets and yet to try to follow him. And so what a lot of us end up doing is, “I want to follow you but my foot’s caught in my net and I can’t get it out. Yeah, I really do want to get it out. Oh, I wish I could get this foot out of this net but I can’t get it out”, so we end up following Jesus with a limp. In other words, we’re a little like lame duck disciples. We kind of appear to be following him but not really wholly, not with our whole hearts. Now the further danger, loved ones, is that we ourselves here this morning could comfort and encourage each other to do that. It is possible to do that, you know. It is possible to get together and so enjoy being together and so love each other that we just comfort each other in that half-following of Christ. I feel it of course especially in these days because – not all of you know but some of you know — that we have had exciting years in this church over the past two or three years and you all have been just magnificent. You’ve been just so faithful and really what I should do is be nice to you. You’ve been so nice to me but that’s not my calling, my calling by God is to continue to present to all of us, including myself, the full call that God has given us through Christ. Loved ones, that call is not simply to run a church. You know I think that we could run a much better church than we do now. You just kind of switch the preaching a little and you’d enlarge the choir, and you’d share the little money around and before you’d know it, we’d have a massive church again. But loved ones, that isn’t what God is calling us to. The Lord Jesus is calling us to leave our nets and to follow him. Not to comfort each other in a kind of controlled surrender, not to comfort each other in a kind of pseudo Christianity or a pseudo churchianity, but he is calling us to leave our nets and follow him. That’s really what I want to bring before you. The Holy Spirit is good to us, he kind of whomps me with this, maybe every six weeks or so, so you don’t have to face me battering on you every week. But at times like this, I know the Lord wants me to bring it home to you clearly again. Jesus has given his whole life for you, his whole life for you. Jesus has died his death for you. Now, it is no answer to him even to give a tithe. I mean it’s good to give a tithe, but big deal you know it’s no answer just to give a tithe. The Lord Jesus, the Son of the God who made you and me, has given his life for you. He died for you and me. He went to hell for you and me. He took the worst of your sin unto himself and he allowed his Father to burn it out of existence and to give him a sense that he was utterly forsaken. In other words, if Jesus hadn’t died for you there’d come a moment after death when there’d be absolute darkness and desolation around you. And because of the sin that you have in your life, because of the selfishness, the uncleanness over the years, the lying or the deception, even if you are very good now compared with what you were, still some of the selfishness that is in you, if you had at that moment after death, that all inside you, then there would be such a sense of desolation and loneliness and outer darkness and coldness that you would absolutely collapse into hell, hopelessly in despair. Now, Jesus did that for you. He went through that moment of death with your sin in his own heart and he bore that terrible moment of God’s forsakenness when he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou, (of all people, my Father) forsaken me (your only begotten son, the one who is without sin?).” And the answer was always because God made him to be sin who knew no sin. Now Jesus bore that for you and me. See, he died for you and me. He gave up his whole life for you and me. Loved ones, you know you cannot sit there, you cannot sit there and see him trailing down that Calvary road bleeding to death and then going to hell for you and then quietly and complacently get up from here at the end of the service and go on and get on with your own life and then come back and give him an hour and give him a tithe. You know what it means. It means you owe your whole life to him. You know me too. I’m in the same boat. We owe our whole life to Jesus. We don’t owe just a little bit of suffering, or a little bit of hardship or a little bit of popularity or unpopularity or a little bit of unhappiness. We owe everything to Jesus. I mean I am saying to you I am with you, we have to look to him here and we have to say, “We owe you everything, there’s nothing we don’t owe you. We owe you our whole lives. Anything less than our whole lives is bargain hunting.” Anything less than our whole lives is the Daisy sale at Dayton’s, it’s an attempt to get a good deal. It’s not honesty and of course, you know what the Lord is saying to you today, “Are you really forsaking your nets?” Actually, when I look around — because I see some of you and I know the love in your hearts — the issue actually isn’t not living in Bloomington or not living in Richfield, that’s not the deal. I think for some of us that is the deal. But the deal, in other words, I am not saying to you all, “Get up and leave and go to London or get up and leave and go to Germany or go to Africa or go to India.” I think maybe some of you are being called to do that. But that isn’t the issue. The issue is “have you given your whole life to Jesus wherever you’re going to live it?” He won’t want us all to go to Africa or India. He won’t want us all to go out of America. On the other hand he won’t want us all to stay here. But the issue is, have you given your life to Jesus and said, “Lord, whatever you want me to do with my life, I will do, I will do. I will not be part of that group of spectators who clap you as you walk down the Calvary road and give you money each Sunday to thank you for it. I will not be like that. I will lift up my own cross and I will walk down my Calvary road to whatever that costs.” And that is what Jesus is saying to us this morning through this verse, “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” Your nets are what you’re caught up in and entangled with, that’s it. Your nets are what are catching your feet. I mean with the disciples, they were the means of earning their money. With us, our means of earning our money often becomes the things that entangle us. They become our nets. We’re caught up in a thousand impossibilities. Well, I have shares in IBM, what would happen to them? Well, I have a retirement plan. What would happen to that? Now I ask you, can you ask any good Westerner to give up their retirement plan, can you? I mean, who would look after me? And then we go on and on and on. If you men and women who have received education are like me, I was faced with my parents saying, “You have got a good education. You ought to use it to make good money and make a good living for yourself.” And so we find that our education becomes a net that entangles us. And of course, we want to rise to that, it appeals to us. Of course, we have got a good education, but the Lord gave you a good education to do the same with it as he did with his position with the Father. “He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and humbled himself even onto death, death on a cross.” Do you see you can’t live with that Lord and have done less than that? You see that. I mean, let me just put it to you humanly, you’d feel uncomfortable, you’d feel uncomfortable. I mean you just wouldn’t feel right in heaven. You just wouldn’t feel right. I mean they’re all — and dear love them they won’t be — but you know they’re showing their scars, and you’re sitting there with your clean hands, and not a mark on you. It can’t be. Those of us who believe in the crucified one, we have to take up our cross and we have to follow in whatever that means. Of course, my job this morning is not to tell you what that means because I don’t know what it means for you. I don’t know what it means for you, or for you, or for you, or for you, I don’t, that’s not my job. That’s the job of the Holy Spirit to tell you that, but he can only tell you it if you have determined that you will not live a controlled surrendered life but you will give everything to your Lord Jesus. It will be life for life and the reason for that is that in Christianity, the truth is, it’s all or nothing. That’s the truth. It’s really all or nothing. You know you may say to me, “Now Pastor, some people seem to get a good deal. Some people seem to just live an ordinary life and make all the money they want and just take care of themselves and they go to church on Sunday and life looks pretty nice.” Loved ones, it’s all or nothing. If you don’t give all, you end up with nothing. You end up with only a pretence or an imitation of Christianity. And it may look good on the outside but it has nothing of the certainty or the confidence that God witnesses within through his Holy Spirit. It is all or nothing and I encourage you especially in these days to make absolutely sure that you are giving all. Now why do I say that? Because you know all the stuff about the last days, you know it. I don’t need to tell you. You know that in the last days, people will have the form of religion but not the power of it. You know that in the last days, things will become blacker and whiter, they actually will. Things will become blacker and whiter, it is not chance, whatever explanation you want to give about AIDS and everybody seems to have their own explanations. It’s obvious from that, and from the terrorists’ activity, that things are beginning to break apart. They’re beginning to move apart. Even those of us who say, “Oh, there have always been great communications, oh people have always, there have always been rumors of wars and wars, oh there have always been earthquakes.” Even those of us who try to rationalize it all, we have to bow down to the fact that there are an incredible number of wars now. There are an incredible number of earthquakes now. There is a tremendous sense of communication so that everybody in the world knows exactly what is happening everywhere and there is an increasing feeling that we are not able to control it all. The world does not feel a more secure place now, does it? It doesn’t. You’re able to dial a certain number and you’ll get the police in a moment, you’ll get a heart attack unit immediately at your door, but we don’t feel more secure, do we? We feel less secure now than we ever did. We know exactly what is happening everywhere in the world. We have magnificent missiles that we can send anywhere to destroy anybody but we don’t feel more secure. The whole world feels more and more shaky than it ever did. Loved ones, these are the days when counterfeit religion comes in. These are the days when there will rise up a Christianity that has an appearance of Christ’s gospel but does not have the sacrifice and surrender of Christ’s gospel. And I would ask you “where is your life this morning? Have you surrendered everything to him?” You know what that means. And you know if you’re sitting there and thinking, “Do you mean give up my car, give up my money?”, it’s usually not those things, it’s usually not the things. It’s the attitude of your heart. Is Jesus everything to you? Have you given your whole life to him? If he said “Tomorrow, I want you to go to Africa or I want you to go to India, or I want you to give up your present way of life. I have something for you to do in the mountains in Kentucky or in the mountains in the Appalachians”, then would you do that? Would you obey Jesus? Or are you trying to work the Lord into your plan and your program? In other words, all of us are in a very real situation this morning. We are all gathered here to thank a man for giving up His life for us. And now I am suggesting to you that there is only one real thanks that you can give that is appropriate to such a sacrifice. And wasn’t it one of the old, I think it was Papious; it was one of the old saints you remember in the early church. And he was being burned at the stake and he was 86 or 87 and they said, “Have you anything to say?” and he said, “I have served my master these eighty and six years and after what he has done for me, there is no sacrifice too great that I could make for him.” Well, those are the guys that will be in heaven. See? It’s not by being like them that we’ll get into heaven but I am using that to say to you that there is only one appropriate response to what you and I see Jesus has done for us. And that is to bow before him and say, “Lord Jesus, I give my whole life to you. Whatever you want me to do, I will do. You just tell me.” Loved ones, that’s I think what the Father wanted me to share with you so that we would not be involved, any of us, in just a kind of nicey-nice religion or a nice little bit of church going but we would be real. That’s the most important thing. There will come a day when you’re not able to hear anybody speak to you. There’ll come a day when you’re not with any of us, you’re on your own and then at that moment, it will be important to know inside in your heart that you didn’t sidestep Jesus but you faced him straight on and you gave him life for life. It’s really up to you what you want to do, I think it would be good if you feel that God has spoken to you then that you’d go to the altar during the last hymn and give your life to him and then go back to your seat. But really, we’ll just sing a hymn through once and it’s just your opportunity to do it if you want to privately and I would encourage you to do what God tells you this morning. I would think it would be good to sing that hymn “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross”, you remember that verse “Were the whole realm of nature mine, it were a present far too small, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all”. It’s number 147 loved ones and let’s stand as we sing and as we’re singing, if you feel there’s a declaration that you need to make privately to God, you should just come up and make it at the altar and then return.

Traits of the Self Life Mark 1:18 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill God wants you to feel like Him inside and we’re all so preoccupied with outside and with the way we appear that we forget that. But the whole purpose of Jesus Christ is that you and I would be like God on the inside and that’s, loved ones, the whole difference between the New Testament and the Old Testament and unfortunately here in our society, we have all entered into an Old Testament experience very readily. Outwardly we are God’s people and outwardly we come to church. We may not offer our sacrifices but we come to our temples and we look on the outside like godly religious people. But we are just Old Testament people. We may not have been circumcised, but many of us are just Jews. We live under the old covenant. Many of us here this morning believe that our sins are forgiven. Many of us here can sleep at night because we believe we will go to heaven but our hearts are not converted and we are not New Testament Christians. We use the term ‘Christian’ in a generic way. We are Christian in that we’re not Hindu or we’re not Mohammedan or we’re not Buddhist, but we aren’t really Christian in the sense that Jesus came to make us Christian. He came to make us Christian by changing our hearts and many of us — we men of course, are the class examples of it, but you ladies are in the same boat often — but we men, we do things that are outwardly Christian but our hearts are unchanged and untouched. We talk about the spirit of God but our hearts are really unaffected by that spirit and we’re moved by the same things as our brothers in business are moved by. We are moved by the same ambitions, the same selfishness, often the same greed and often the same defensiveness and certainly the same jealousy and pride and lust that they are moved by. It’s simply that outwardly we come to church. Many of us read the Bible; many of us believe the right things. Many of us do believe that God has forgiven us our sins, but our hearts are really unchanged. We have odd moments such as perhaps a Mother’s Day, or a Memorial Day or a day when we remember our dad’s death or some moments when tragedy hits our home or we go to the funeral of someone whom we care deeply for and then our hearts are a little softened. But on the whole, our hearts remain untouched and unchanged by God’s spirit and indeed the term ‘spirit’ is strange to us. We regard it primarily as a kind of an influence or an atmosphere that supposedly we feel at certain times when Al would sing a song like that or Carmen would sing or someone else would sing or maybe at the end of a sermon here there’s a certain atmosphere that God seems to bring about among us and we think of that as God’s spirit but we ourselves are unacquainted with the spirit of God. Our day-to-day lives are largely uninfluenced by that spirit. Our heart’s movements are what we were born with as children and they haven’t been changed very much since then. Our hearts really are like the hearts that are described in this little tract that has been on this table for some Sundays. “Are you ever conscious of a secret spirit of pride, an exalted feeling in view of your success or position because of your good training or appearance, because of your natural gifts and abilities? Are you ever conscious of an important, independent spirit? Are you ever conscious of a love of human praise, a secret fondness to be noticed, a love of supremacy, and a drawing attention to self in conversation, a swelling out of self when you have had a free time in speaking or praying? Are you ever conscious of the stirrings of anger or impatience which, worst of all, you call nervousness or holy indignation; a touchy sensitive spirit, a disposition to resent or to retaliate when disapproved of or contradicted, a desire to throw sharp heated flings at another?” Many of us who call ourselves Christians are conscious of those things but of course, we have encouraged each other for years to believe that that is the normal Christian life. If you read the classics written by Plato and Socrates, you would find that that isn’t even a normal life for heathen philosophers. Even they taught that there should be enough control over our inner heart attitudes that we would not feel those things. But certainly the God who has said that he desires truth in the inward part, the God who has said that the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and long suffering and gentleness, goodness, the God who has said that strife and jealousy and pride do not belong to the kingdom of God, he certainly says there is no place for these things in our hearts, but loved ones, we have got used to these things, you see? We have got used to these things and these are the things that bring tragedy to our homes, you know they are. None of us have murdered anybody. Few of us here steal, few of us here probably even swear, few of us here probably drink to excess. In fact, we are among the noblest of sinners. We’re moral people, probably most of us here are outwardly very respectable people and yet we know that in our relationships at home, in our relationships with those who are closest to us, we are monsters. All domestic strife comes from hearts that are not clean and pure, they do. Actually even your outward feelings come from that. Why do you resent people? Because they are not giving you the praise that you think you deserve or because someone else is getting praise that you don’t think they deserve as much as you do. That’s why you get resentful about people. That’s why we get all kinds of complexes about people, because they’re not giving us what we believe we ought to have. Why do you lose your temper? Because of the stirrings of anger, that’s why. You can’t hold the thing down, it just bursts out, you can’t control it. It’s because your heart is rising up. That’s the explanation you remember, in Romans 7, “I do not understand my own actions because when I want to do good, I cannot. The good that I would I cannot do, and the evil I hate is the very thing I do.” That is, you set your will to do good but there rises up from inside you, something that you can’t control and that bursts out upon the other person. You know the illustration that we’ve shared before. Well, you go home at night, husbands, wives; we’re all in the same boat. We go home at night and we are determined that this will be a beautiful evening. We are determined that this will be a blessed evening for our partners. We are going to make them happy tonight and then she cooks the wrong meal or it’s late or it’s a little burned or he is a little late or he doesn’t say the right thing to us and there bursts out from our innermost hearts, attitudes and feelings that we didn’t believe existed within us and the end of the evening is worse than the beginning. It ends up in a disaster area. It ends up in a full-scale battle. That’s what this is about. It doesn’t matter how good you are outwardly. If your heart is not changed, if your heart is not cleansed, you won’t be able to live as you want to live and that was the problem with the Jews. You understand that Romans 7 is a Jew talking, he’s a loved one from the Hebrews that is saying, “I am under the law, I cannot do the thing that I want to do. I cannot do it because there is something inside me that won’t let me”, and loved ones, so many of us are Christian in name only. We really are Jewish. We live under the old covenant — trying to obey outwardly but unable to do it because this monstrosity within us keeps rising up. “Are you ever conscious of self-will, a stubborn un-teachable spirit, an arguing talkative spirit, harsh sarcastic expressions, an unyielding headstrong disposition, a driving commanding spirit, a disposition to criticize and pick flaws when set aside and unnoticed, a peevish fretful spirit, a disposition that loves to be coaxed and humored?” I don’t know about you men or you ladies, but when the other person feels you don’t understand them, it’s usually because of this stuff. It’s because our hearts are not tender. The problem is not in the sarcastic expression, there’s enough problem in that, but the problem is not in the sarcastic expression. It’s the absolute indifference and cynical, almost hatred for the other person that produces the sarcastic expression. Your friends, your children, your husbands, your wives — it’s not the outward word that cuts them — it’s what it says to them about your inward heart, that’s what cuts them. No, they’re no sillier than you are, they can interpret outward things but it’s the heart that it comes from, that’s what’s wrong. That’s why you see at times you can say something that isn’t right, but it isn’t so cutting because it doesn’t come from your heart. It’s a mistake. It’s something you didn’t intend to say but it’s the things that come from your heart that cut into another person’s heart. For some of us who are at work in business: “Are you ever conscious of a carnal fear? A man-fearing spirit, a shrinking from reproach and duty, a reasoning around your cross, a shrinking from doing your whole duty by those of wealth or position, be it your boss or someone else, are you ever conscious of a fearfulness that someone will offend and drive some prominent person away? Are you ever conscious of a compromising spirit?” “Are you ever conscious of a jealous disposition, a secret spirit of envy shut up in your heart, an unpleasant sensation in view of the great prosperity and success of another, a disposition to speak of the faults and failings rather than the gifts and virtues of those more talented and appreciated than yourself? Are you ever conscious of a dishonest, deceitful disposition?” “The evading and covering of the truth; the covering up of your real faults, leaving a better impression of yourself than is strictly true, false humility, exaggeration, straining the truth.” Those are all the things that come from a heart that is not really at peace with God. It’s a heart that is not really content to receive all it needs from God. It’s a heart that is expecting things from other people, that’s it. The real reason why your heart and mine are not filled with the Holy Spirit is because you and I still look to other people or other things and we expect things from them, we do loved ones. We’re wearing each other out, we’re expecting things from each other, we sons and daughters are expecting things from our parents. We parents are expecting things from our children. We husbands are expecting things from our wives. We wives are expecting things from our husbands. We friends are expecting things from each other. We are looking to each other for all kinds of things that we cannot supply each other with and only God, our Father can supply us with all that we need. And every time we 1ook to each other for these things, there’s a spirit of dissatisfaction and discontentment that takes hold of us and makes us demand more. That’s where this heart comes rising up; we demand more from the other person and the other poor soul is already worn out and already feels that you are demanding too much from them. But we demand more and more and that’s what fills a home with demand, demand, demand, and no offer, offer, offer. That’s what fills a home with empty hearts that are desiring love, love, love and there’s short supply of love. It’s because we’re expecting things from each other and so our hearts become filled with all kinds of dissatisfactions, all kinds of uncleanness, and all kinds of resentment against other people. Loved ones, there is a way to be free from that. Jesus looked down at the disciples from whom I think you’ll agree he had a right to expect loyalty. He looked down at his mom from whom he probably had a right to expect understanding of what he was trying to do in his life, especially at that moment of death. And he looked down at the crowds who had come and gathered around him when he was healing and had thrown down palm branches in front of him as he came into Jerusalem. And he saw all of them with blank looks on their faces, maybe worry and anxiety and despair but not primarily about him but primarily about themselves and what was going to happen afterwards and yet, he died in absolute peace because he had, once and for all, died to what they could give him. He had died to expecting anything from them and he had looked up to his Father for everything that he needed so that — who of us can imagine what it was like in his own dear heart on the Cross? I mean it’s impossible but it was certainly desolate and lonely and yet he was absolutely content that his Father was looking upon him and loving him and was going to give him all that he needed. Loved ones, that’s the place of peace for you and me. And God is able to change your heart so that your heart becomes like Jesus’ heart but he does ask you to join his son on the cross. Now could I just point out to you in a very commonsensical, practical way that every one of you has seen anybody die, know fine well that you, and each one of us here, will come to a time in our lives when it won’t matter who knows us. It won’t matter how many of us are outside your bedroom, it won’t. It won’t matter how many nurses are gathered around you and putting all kinds of tubes into you to try to keep you alive. It won’t matter if your pastor is by your side, it won’t matter if your dearest mother or your husband is holding your hand. There will come a time loved ones. We need to face this firmly. There’ll come a time in your life when you are on your own truly and you actually know it yourselves. You have seen dads or moms die. You know there comes a moment when it doesn’t matter how close everybody else seems to you, you are on your own. So do you see what I am saying? There’s going to come a time when you can look only to God, that actually all of us are limited in what we can do for you anyway, that if you get anything from any of us during this lifetime, it’s purely temporarily and actually it ill-fits you for the great moment in your life — which is the moment when you enter into true life? In other words, will you not die today and enter into reality? That’s it. Will you not die today to the world and to your husband and your wife and to your friends and to living in dependence upon them and living in expectancy of what they can give you and expecting them to give you love and expecting them to give you care and thoughtfulness. They may do it and they may not but if you die to that with Jesus, today, then you’re free, free from what they can give you and free from what they fail to give you. And you’ll find that instead of your heart rising up in resentment, your heart will experience a strange new spirit, because that’s the amazing truth. If you will take your place with Jesus, which sooner or later you will have to take, sooner or later you’re going to face that moment when you’ve got only God. If you will take your place with Jesus today on the cross and will at last give up looking to people and to others for what God alone can give you in the way of love and attention and affection and care and protection, God will send the spirit of his son Jesus into your heart, into your innermost heart and you will experience a new freshness coming into you. You’ll sense there is something beautiful inside you that wasn’t there before. You’ll sense a tenderness in your heart. You’ll sense actually a peace and a contentment and a satisfaction in your heart but most of all, you’ll sense a love for all of the rest of us. You’ll sense a new love for your father and your mother, for your friends. You’ll sense something beautiful coming out from inside you. It’s a miracle. That’s God’s Spirit. That’s what he gives, that’s what those converts in the lesson that was read for us, did not have. They had been baptized in John’s baptism, but they had never received the Holy Spirit. Many of us have been baptized into a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of our sins but we have never had any experience of the beautiful and fragrant spirit of Jesus coming in and cleansing and filling our hearts. Loved ones, that’s what becoming a Christian is. But it does mean that we have to stop depending upon each other for all this attention and all this affection. We have to stop insisting on the rights that we have to this person’s friendship or this person’s attention or this person’s love or this person’s care and it’s amazing when you enter into that death and God sends the spirit of his son’s heart into your heart, suddenly you discover the love in everybody else, it’s amazing. Suddenly you’re amazed that people care about you. You’re amazed that people do love you that much because the little bit that they’re able to love you, seems great to you because you already have this sense of love from your Father. I don’t know where you are, you know in all this but I would encourage you to see that today, that spirit can change your heart if you are willing to die to demanding things from the rest of us. If you’re willing to look to God as your God instead of looking to all of us, if you will do that, your Father will give you a great assurance of his love for you and he’ll give you a great sense and heart feeling of his love for others. Needless to say to the husbands and wives, we know above everybody else don’t we? We have to have something like this, you have to, otherwise we are finished, we know it. Marriage deteriorates badly unless there is this kind of love. It’s divine love, I suppose that’s all you can call it but unless you have this kind of divine love, you’re tearing each other apart after four years and you’ve torn each other apart after ten years and you have buried each other after fifteen years, it just does not work. But the fact is it’s the same with all of life, the only way it will work, is by us receiving this spirit and allowing our hearts to be changed. Let us pray. Father, we know our own hearts, we know that we have been outwardly Christian and many people regard us as Christian except that our hearts aren’t converted and our hearts aren’t born again, our hearts haven’t received your spirit, our hearts haven’t been filled with your spirit. We find that our wills are often set towards you but our heart rises up and contradicts our will. Father, we ask you to look down upon us now, each one of us, and deal with us now individually and reveal to each of us what dying with Jesus to other people and to other things means for us today. Show us Father, where our hearts are filled with impurity and resentment because of wrong attitudes to you, because of looking to people or to things for the things that we ought to trust you alone for. Father we ask you to give us light this day and then Lord, we come to you now, we know this is right, we know these things are true that witnesses with us deep down that this is reality. We see clearly that sooner or later in our life, we will come to this point so Father, we now look to you and we want to thank you for everything you’ve given us and Father we want to acknowledge you now as our God, as the supplier of all that we need. We want to tell you that we believe you that you will supply every need of ours from your riches in glory in Christ Jesus. We want to tell you Father, that what love you don’t give us, we’re content to be without, what possessions you withhold from us, we are content to lack, what affection and attention and approval and praise you decide to give us, we are content to receive. Lord, we give ourselves now to you and we tell you that you are our God and we will look to you now. And Lord Jesus, we thank you that you did include us in yourself on Calvary and we accept that position Lord in you on Calvary, dead to what our mothers think, dead to what our friends think, dead to what all the people around this cross on which we are, can give us. And Lord Jesus, we thank you that you have taken us into yourself and Savior, we ask you to fill our hearts now with your own spirit, with your own attitude to things.

Can God be Seen in You by Others? Romans 7:19 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill There’s a story that you might have heard about five wise men in a certain Indian village, and they decided they’d try to find out who was the wisest. And so they arranged really a test for them. They put something in a huge building in the middle of the village, except that this building had no windows in it; and so it was absolutely dark inside. And then each of these wise men were to go into this dark building and tell just by touch what was inside the building. And so all the village gathered, and the first wise man went in through the door, and they closed the door on him. And he felt forward and felt with his hands a huge flat surface. And he felt a little to the right and a little to the left and still that flat surface seemed to go on and on, and he couldn’t find the end of it, as far as he was able to move. And so he came out and he said, “It’s a wall. There is a wall in that building. There is a huge wall, the ends of which I couldn’t touch at all.” And then the second wise man went in and he went into the darkened building and verged a little to the left and bumped into what seemed to him round like that, a kind of pillar. And he tried to put his arms around it but it was so thick that he couldn’t get his arms around to the other side. And so he came out and he said, “It’s a tree. There’s a huge tree in that building, so big that I couldn’t get my arms around it.” And then the third wise man went in and he verged over to his left, a little further this time, and he found this thing hanging down it seemed from the ceiling. And he put his arms around it, and he could get his arms around it and it seemed like a thick, thick thing. And so he came outside and said, “It’s a rope. There’s a huge rope in that building that is hanging from the roof.” And then the fourth wise man went in and he went over vaguely in that direction and he put his hands up and almost put what seemed like a sharp, sharp point right through his hand. And he felt it and he was clear what it was and he came out and said, “There is a massive spear in that building. It is just a big long spear, and it has a point so sharp that it will go through your hand in a moment.” And then the fifth wise man went in and he was feeling up in the direction of where the spear was and then he felt a breeze, and he suddenly felt a kind of wind blowing on him. And he put up his hand and it seemed like a huge leaf, bigger than any leaf he had ever seen on a tree. And he came out and said, “The building is full of huge leaves.” And the wise men gave all that information to the villagers and then the villagers said, “Alright, we’ll see which of you is right.” They opened the doors and out lumbered the most massive elephant that you could ever imagine in your life. And one man felt the side of the elephant and said, “It’s a wall.” And another man felt the leg of the elephant and said, “It’s a tree.” And the other man felt the tusk of the elephant and said, “It’s a spear.” And the other man felt the trunk of the elephant and said, “It’s a rope.” And the other man felt the huge ear of the elephant and said, “It’s a leaf.” And in a way, I mean, they were all right, in a way. And yet you could imagine the confusion in the villagers mind as they tried to imagine a wall that has leaves on it, and a spear, and has a rope. It’s impossible to create a picture that makes any sense, because even though they were all telling the truth, and telling what they had seen, they made no sense to anyone else, because they were telling only parts of the whole. They were describing only parts of the whole, and it didn’t make sense to anyone. When you say, “It’s probably better to eat fruit and vegetables than to eat meat.” It probably is. When you say, “It’s probably better not to smoke, or drink too much.” It probably is. When you say that, “Unselfish capitalism is probably more scriptural than the socialism that we see in our world,” you’re probably right. Those are all parts of reality. And they’re all parts of the truth that is God. But loved ones, it’s interesting, if that’s what your friends hear from you about God, you can see they’re in a worse shape even than the villagers, who heard about the part of the elephant that was a wall, or the part of the elephant that was a tree. They really have no touch with reality when you tell them about those individual parts. And of course, if you major in those individual parts, if you’re really hot on ‘no smoking or drinking’, or you’re really hot on ‘eating fruit and vegetables and no meat’, or you’re really hot on ‘capitalism as opposed to socialism’, then, if you major in those things, you actually don’t only fail to give them a picture of God as he really is, but you actually give them a contorted picture of God. Because even those are all parts of reality, they are only parts and they don’t represent reality itself. They don’t really enable a person to touch the reality of God. Now actually our song book might not be too bad. I think some of Wesley’s hymns are better than some of these, but this song book may well touch our contemporary life in a better way than many of the old traditional hymns. But if that’s what you tell people about what you do on Sunday they’re hearing only a part of reality and they’re not getting any true picture of God as he really is. I think our open prayer time is far better than the pastor fiddling away on his own, trying to pray a prayer for all of you, instead of you praying your own prayers. But, that is only a part of reality; it’s not God himself. It may be that victory over sin and self, and victory over anger, and envy, and jealousy through faith in our death with Jesus, is even a vital truth. It’s absolutely vital. But if that’s what others hear from you about God and about reality, actually they’re only hearing a part and they’re not seeing the whole. Indeed, at the risk of tramping on your toes, the virgin birth I think is absolute truth. I think it is essential. The resurrection of Jesus is absolute truth. This dear book, I think, is God’s supernaturally inspired revelation of himself. But even those things, however essential they are, are only parts of reality. They’re only parts of God; they’re not God himself. And to the extent that you share only those things at work through the week, you’re actually not helping anybody very much. You’re giving people a part of reality, or a part of truth, and actually it may just be that part that will put them off God rather than will draw them to God. And so it can be argued that even our muddling attempts at witnessing can often do harm, and we can end up discussing doctrines, or principles, or methods of worship, or points of belief, or behavior patterns, and all we’re doing is distracting people from God himself, to subordinate parts of worshipping him and subordinate parts of believing in him. And really in some ways it is deceptive, because it’s very easy for dear friends of ours at work, and dear colleagues at school to get a very contorted view of what God is like, when they listen to you and me outlining our doctrines, outlining our beliefs, spouting off about what we believe about this and what we believe about that, telling them about our church and the way we do things. It can often ‘put them off’ God more than it leads them to God. And in fact, what they need to see is reality as a whole. Reality as a whole; not bits of reality and parts of reality. You may say, “No Pastor, I mean a part of reality is better than nothing.” No, really it’s not. A part of reality gives them a false impression of what reality is. What they need to see is God as he really is. Now you may say, “Well, I mean, that’s impossible. It’s difficult for you or anybody else, with all of us concentrating here on a Sunday morning, it’s difficult enough for you to present all of reality. How are we going to present all of reality? We cannot show them all of God, because of the inadequate creatures that we are. How can we ever show them God as he really is?” And yet if they don’t see that, really they won’t be able to respond to God. Stand back for a minute. Stand back from that building. What is in that building? An elephant, that’s what’s in that building. Stand back now from God. What is God, or who is God? God is our Father and he’s our Savior. He’s our Savior because he made us over again in Jesus, and he recreated us, and enabled us to become new creations in Christ. That’s the only part of God that you can actually show your friends at work: the part of him that has replaced something selfish, or something sinful, or something unlike him, in your life. That’s it. That’s it. You can’t actually show them the part of God that you don’t need. Maybe you are a very honest person; you probably can’t show them God, through your honesty, because maybe you were brought up by your mom and dad to be honest, and you are honest. But you have something in your life that you know is not like God. You have something in your life that ‘they’ know is not like God. When you allow ‘that’ to be replaced by God’s own nature, when you allow that to be crucified with Christ, that’s the part of God that you can show them. That’s a glimpse of God, as he really, is that will come home to them as live. When they see something in you and they say, “He is a changed man; she is a changed woman. I’ll tell you what she was like, and here’s what she is like now. And it’s not just that they’re better; it’s not just that they’re morally good; there’s something beautiful in it; there’s something of God in it; there’s something of Jesus in it.” When they see that, they’ve seen God. I read an expert in ‘aesthetics’ — ‘aesthetics’ not ‘ascetics’ but ‘aesthetics’, the study of beauty. Yates and all the English poets were involved in that. And this writer said, “The only authentic thing, the only truly authentic thing in a painting, the only really authentic thing in a painting, of any kind, is that which cannot be expressed any other way.” Now think of it, the only authentic thing in a painting is that which cannot be expressed through any other art form. You see in other words, if you can describe in words what there is in a painting, then that’s not the ‘one’ authentic part of that painting; then it can be expressed in words just as well. If you can express in sculpture what is expressed in painting then that’s not the authentic part of that painting. The only authentic part of a painting is that which cannot be expressed in any other way. Similarly you can apply it to sculpture. The only authentic part of a sculpture is that that cannot be expressed any other way. I don’t know if – I haven’t done much study of this, but you know that sculpture appears to your sense of touch. And so it’s the shape, and it’s the smoothness; it’s the feel of a sculpture that makes it different from a painting. Now if you could reproduce that in a painting then that is not an authentic part of sculpture. So whatever cannot be expressed in any other way, that’s the authentic part of the painting. That’s the authentic part of your witness. The only authentic part of your ‘presentation of reality’ to your friends, and to your colleagues, and to your relatives, is that part of you which has been destroyed on Calvary in Jesus, and has been recreated in his image and beauty; that’s the part of you that is authentically God, and that is your testimony to the reality of God. 2014-11-02 To Here 16:20 p.4 Now loved ones, I sympathize with you if you sit there and say, “What about my brilliant explanations of theology? What about my insights into politics? What about my understanding of human nature? What about the way I love them, I just love them to pieces?” No, no it’s all bluff, it’s all bluff. I sympathize with you, we’d all like it to be those things but all those things do is testify on the whole to ourselves. The only authentic part of God that others will touch through your life, the only part of reality that they will touch, is the part of you that you have allowed Jesus to replace with himself and that part they will recognize as God. That’s it folks. It’s not all the discussion about doctrines, or beliefs, or views, or ideas. It’s not all the talk about what is the right way to behave, or what is the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. It is simply a question of what you have allowed God to redeem in your life. That’s the part of God that others are seeing through you. That’s it. That and nothing more, that and nothing less. So if only to cut down all the airways, if only to cut down all the air traffic and all the chaos that is going out from you as so called witnessing, will you bow before God this morning and ask him, “Lord God, I’ve done a lot of talking about you, I’ve done a lot of describing my views on things. I’ve done a lot of advising but I think all I’ve told them is that there may be a tree in there, or there may be a rope in there, or there may be a wall in there. But Lord, I want them to begin to touch you. Now what in my life do you want to change so that they can see you through me?” And loved ones, that’s all we’ve got to give. I would ask you as we bow our heads before God, would you ask him that? Would you ask him if there’s something in you that he wants to change so that your children, so that your roommate, so that your colleagues, so that your friends could touch God? And then ask him to change that in you this morning. Let us pray. Dear Father, the discussion of religious views comes so naturally to us we just love to talk Lord, you know that. Our tongues just go up and down like mad trying to give out all the great wisdom we have. And then Father we just love to rule over people’s lives, we love to make them do what we think they should and so Father you know how often we’ve attempted to witness and ended up telling people what they ought to do. And Lord we see that even though all these things may be true they are only parts of reality and not reality itself. And we see Lord that there’s only one way in which our dear friends can see that you are their redeemer and savior and that is if they see the part of us that has been redeemed by you and has been changed by you and destroyed by you and replaced by your own nature. So Father we bow before you now this morning and ask you to give us light about that. Lord, what is it in me that puts other people off you? What is it in each of us that distracts other people from your nature and your dear character? Lord we know that you destroyed that in Jesus on Calvary. Father we say to you take it now, take the rotten thing from us now. We give it to you Lord, take it and destroy it now this morning in us and Father replace our impatience with your own patient heart and character. Lord as we are willing to bear with other people, as we are willing to endure the consequences of their wrong actions, will you replace our impatience Lord with your patient heart and character? Father, will you replace our indifference and our casualness with your heart of love? As we are ready Father to begin to give ourselves to other people, and as we are willing to forget ourselves and to put them first, and to begin to want the best for them whatever it costs us. Lord will you now replace our casualness and our indifference to people with your heart of love? Father we ask you now this morning to give us reality in ourselves so that when others touch us they touch you. 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.

How to Become a Christian 1 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill … he said, “Look, my Father is the real God but you don’t let him be God in your life and because you won’t let him be God – he himself has given you up.” And Jesus you know, pointed out that there was no other alternative really. Once you had a group of people who wanted to be their own Gods, well it would be like the sun deciding to run in whatever way it wanted throughout the universe. It only has to make a little move and we’re burned up or we freeze to death. And if you can image it careering at its own will throughout the universe, it wouldn’t be long before it shattered the universe completely and that’s why Jesus said, “God had to bring us under condemnation of death once we decided to live without him and be our own gods.” And loved ones, you’ve seen some of it, you know, in your own homes you know it. Where you’ve decided to have your own way, you’ve brought chaos into your home, you have shattered you’re relationships, you’ve trampled on top of people. Now, do you see that if God let us continue being our own gods in our own lives we would spread our dirt, and our pollution, and our hatred, and our misery throughout the universe? We have got as far as the Atlantic Ocean with some of our waste oil and I think we’ll eventually get as far as space with our garbage. Do you think that if God let it continue there would be no universe left and Jesus says, “Listen, that’s why you feel alienated because there’s God my Father, has had to condemn you to death and he’s only allowing you to live for a little while longer to give you a chance of responding to him.” And this, you know, is the explanation that we found in Romans there, these first three chapters of Romans really explain Jesus’ explanation of reality very fully and you have it there in Romans 1:21 where Jesus explains why we feel so alienated and why we feel so lost and lonely. It’s not because people won’t have anything to do with us or because our parents reject us, or because we have no sense of significance in society, but it’s because God himself has rejected us. It’s Romans 1:21, Jesus says this is what we’ve done, “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.” And then in Verse 24, “Therefore God gave them up.” And you see in Verse 26 again, “For this reason God gave them up.” And then in Verse 28 again, “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up.” And really it’s this consciousness deep down that we’ve been given up by God that makes us feel so alienated. Brothers and sisters, it’s not fear of the mushroom cloud, that’s fearful enough. But it’s not fear of the mushroom cloud, it’s not even fear of death but it’s the consciousness planted deep down in us that we know we have run our lives in our own way, and been our own gods, and we’re refusing to let God be God in his own universe and therefore we’ve been rejected by him and we’re really under condemnation to destruction, you know. Now Paul said that in Romans 1:32. He said, men know this. “Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.” And that’s why we feel so alienated, we know that this is going to happen to us. In 2:2, “We know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who do such things.” And really we see that it’s that consciousness that makes us feel so alienated. No wonder we’re having identity crisis, because we’re not in the right relationship to the only one who can give us meaning in our universe and we’re bound to have an identity crisis, we’re bound to be uncertain about where we fit in because we’ve rejected the person who knows where we fit in. Now as we read, you know, and studied Jesus’ explanation we began to see that all through this God was anxious to find a way by which he could bring us back to himself, and he was anxious to find a way by which he would not have to destroy us, and by which he could suspend the death penalty long enough to give us a chance to really deal with him again. And you find that running through all Jesus’ explanations. But do you see that to just take back his death penalty, to just say, “Listen son, if you want to go right through the universe and destroy all my planets I don’t care. I’ve changed my mind, I’m not going to destroy you any longer.” Then not only the Son but every human being in the universe would say, “He doesn’t mean what he says. We don’t need to take his justice seriously.” And if we can’t take his justice seriously why should we take his mercy seriously. And do you see that if God simply changed his mind and said, “Look, murder your way through the whole of the universe if you want, spread your dirt over every planet if you want I don’t care. I’m willing to forgive you and take you to myself whatever you’re like.” Do you see if that happened brothers and sisters we would have gone on destroying, destroying. But God to be credible at all has to hold to what he said and he said, “Look, I have to destroy any of you who want to be your own gods.” And yet God has been anxious all through the ages to find some way of giving us another chance. And you know that Jesus explained to us, “Listen, God has done this, by exercising his judgment upon me instead of you. So that if you are ever in any doubt about whether he hates any independence or rebellion against him, you can look at me. Look, I died in time and space, I died in the heart of God from the foundation of the world, but I died in time and space in the first century AD. And if you’re in any doubt that God hates sin and hates rebellion, look, look at what his wrath did to me.” And God was able by that means to suspend the death penalty on all of us. And really dear ones, we live in a time of respite today, you see. We really live in a time of respite when God has suspended the death penalty because Jesus has enabled him to by dying in our place. And this is you know, the faith that we believe. It’s the faith that Jesus had died in our place and that God this morning is willing to forgive any of you for your selfishness, and your lust, and your envy, and our jealousy, and your pride, and your desire to make everybody do what you want them to do and he’s willing not to destroy you, but to in fact receive you as his own sons and daughters. And it’s all because Jesus has enabled him to. Jesus has enabled God to remain a just God and yet forgive us. Now this morning we’re going to study a question that I think comes up, a very obvious question in the light of all that. And it’s that question if you’d like to turn to it in Romans 3:31. This is a big moment for us, we’re finishing one chapter of Romans. We do it once every year and a half. Romans 3:31, and this is a question I think that is relevant in the light of our faith you see, that God is willing to forgive us because Jesus has died for us. “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” But that’s the question, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?” There are many Christians that think we do. There are many Christians that say this, “God is running something like the selective service board, and he acts something like old General Hershey used to and he’s trying to select from the people in the world the best people who can live in his universe forever. And he decided,” some Christians say this, “He decided first of all to select them by law.” And he was a bit like our clever selective service board, they tried first of all you remember, “We’ll take all the people of a certain age who can’t get to college.” And then you remember in this highly civilized and sophisticated society that we have, then they saw that with all our computers a far, far better way for such an intelligent society was to throw all the names into a hat and pick the first 300 out and they would fight. Well some people feel that God runs the world something like that. God decides first of all, “Alright, I’ll give them 10 commandments and everyone who obeys the 10 commandments, I will receive him into my universe to live with me in infinity and eternity forever and they will help me to subdue to the rest of universe.” And then some Christians argue, he saw after 1500 years of trying that it wasn’t working and that nobody could obey the law and so they say then he came in with this other idea, “Anybody who believes what I have said about my son’s death, I will accept them into my heaven.” And so many Christians argue, you see, Jesus has changed the whole thing for us. 1God once tried the law as a filter, now he tries belief in Jesus so now if you have faith in Jesus you don’t need to bother about the law at all. Now dear ones, do you see that this is a parody of the whole doctrine of justification by faith. This is a parody of God’s whole plan, he did not work it that way but do you see that that is the kind of believing that has resulted in churches filled with people who believe that Jesus’ death enables them to sin with impunity. You see that? Many of our churches today and the whole attitude that people have of cynicism towards Christians stems from this fact that many Christians honestly believe that the law was tried by God, didn’t work and now he’s set I aside and he says, “You can disobey as much as you want, my Son has died for you. As long you believe that that’s all that matters, I’ll accept you in.” And many Christians therefore, live lives that are not like Christ at all and yet they keep pleading you see, “Ah, God looks at the righteousness of Jesus not at my righteousness.” In a real way he does do that but not in the way that I’ve outlined and so many people, many Christians even answer Paul, “Do we then overthrow the law by faith?” Of course, we overthrow it. It doesn’t matter whether you commit adultery, it doesn’t matter whether you’re greedy, it doesn’t matter whether you get angry at times, if you believe in Jesus, if you believe that he died for you, that’s the only thing that God requires. It’s just a new condition now that God has laid down. Now loved ones, it isn’t so you see, that isn’t the situation at all. God has not set aside the law like that and then brought belief in Jesus in in its place. Here’s what happened, God wanted a group of intelligent and spiritual beings who could share with him the fellowship, and the relationship, and the love that he had with his own son. And so he made us out of love. Now, he made us with the capacity to be like him. Obviously, you don’t have too much satisfaction in discussing Sartre with your dog, and it really requires a certain amount of similarity to have any real fellowship, or relationship with another being and for that reason God made us like himself. He made us with minds like his own, and emotions, and with will like his own and he gave us a body. But he didn’t want to make us a captive audience. He didn’t want to make us a group of people who fellowshipped with him because they could do nothing else, or who were like him because they were just made like him, and so he made us only with a capacity to be like him. And inside us he put something like the womb inside a woman. He put inside us a spirit, a womb that was capable of receiving a real spirit from him inside it. And he then allowed his Son to walk among us, and that’s the meaning of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden you know, Jesus was God’s only Son and he had the unique spiritual uncreated life of God running through his whole being. And this life contains the genes of God’s character and wherever this life comes it takes God’s character. And then God said, “Now you men and women, you must receive this life by choice from my Son. So my Son is going to walk among you and I want you to receive this uncreated spiritual life from my Son into the womb of your own spirit and that Holy Spirit of life that comes from me will enable you to be born again in my image. But I want you to be able to choose to be born. I don’t want you to feel you have to be born. I don’t want you to be like me because I made you like me. I make you with the capacity to be like me and now you’ve to choose to opt into my trinity family.” And that was God’s plan and it was his plan from the very beginning dear ones. And you know what men in fact as a whole have done, they decided they didn’t want to take part in anything that would make them as dependent on life from God as that, and they began to take the physical life he had given them, not really realizing it would die out after a matter of 70 years, and they decided, “We’ll make do with this, and we’ll live our own life as we want, and we’ll become like gods without his aid.” And so God was faced with a group of people, a group of men and women who rejected his plan for them and he was faced with the fact that they only had physical life and it was going to die out in a short time. And he was faced with the whole problem of bringing that home to them. And you know what God did, first of all he gave a set of symptoms of spiritual uncreated life to men to show them plainly that they didn’t have his own uncreated spiritual life within them. And he said for instances this, “Look, anyone with uncreated spiritual life inside them, anyone who has that kind of life from me will put nobody before me in their own lives. They’ll spend no more time, or thought on objects made of wood or steel than they do on me. They won’t treat me carelessly or lightly, they won’t take my name in vain. They will set one day in seven apart for me. They will honor and love their father and mother. They will not do anything to harm another person by word or deed. They will not have unclean thoughts or actions. They will not deprive others of anything. They will not covet people’s positions.” And God said, “Look, if you have this uncreated spiritual life in me then these are the laws that describe the way this life works so you’ll be able to tell if you have it or not.” And so for 1500 years God allowed us to measure our lives against the law. But do you see dear ones, the law was never a means of salvation. It was always a means to expose sin and you remember, you find that if you’d like to look at it in Romans 3:19, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.” That’s the purpose of it all, to stop every mouth and convince everyone that they have not received the uncreated spiritual life of God. “For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” And the whole purpose of the law was so that we see that we had not received what God wanted us to receive. And then you remember, what he was faced with, he was faced with the fact that he was committed to destroy any being that existed by his own life. He was committed to destroy anyone that did not receive his own life in order to protect his own universe. And unless he did that the whole universe would cry that he was an unjust God that did not keep his promises and did not keep his threats and wasn’t worth treating as God and that’s why Jesus had to die in our place, so that we would have no doubt that God would destroy everything that did not have his life within it. And God took the lifelessness that you have inside you this morning and put it in Jesus and he destroyed it there in Jesus. And so God is able at this time to give life to any person. But do you see that the whole purpose of God’s creation is that we would receive his life. And the whole purpose of faith is not to believe that because Jesus had died God is able to forgive us, that’s only part of the story, that’s only the belief part of faith. The other part of faith is to actually receive the life that caused all the trouble in the first place. In other words, it’s no use, it’s no use believing that God is able to give you the life if you don’t receive the life. And do you see that once you receive this life into you, and the person of the Holy Spirit, do you overthrow the law? No, the law is the description of the way this life works and so if you really exercise faith in Jesus and not only believe he has died so God could forgive you but also actually receive light through the Holy Spirit from God, then those laws will be true of you. You will find when the Holy Spirit comes into you, that you will in fact put nobody before God. You will in fact find in your own life that you’ll spend no more time or thought on objects of wood or steel than you do on God. You’ll find that you set one day apart in every seven. You’ll find that you don’t treat God carelessly or lightly. You’ll find that you’ll honor and love your father and mother. You’ll find that you will not do anything to harm another person. You’ll find that you are filled with the very life of God himself and that life is described in the laws, and so you’ll find yourself keeping the laws. And when Paul asks, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?” If it’s real faith that not only believes that Jesus died for you but receives the light that he died so that you could receive. Then you don’t overthrow the law by no means. You establish the law, you strengthen the law because every one of us who have received the life of God live that law before people. Of course you see that that’s the way the world is convicted. The world isn’t convicted by preachers standing up and thumping the Bible and saying, “You’re a bad world, you’re a sinful world.” The world is convicted because it sees the law alive in other men and women, it sees Christ walking among them and it realizes it should be like that and it should receive this life. Now dear ones, real faith does not overthrow the law. Real faith establishes the law because real faith is not just believing that Jesus has died for you. John 1:12 describes what real faith is, “As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God.” And it’s receiving, it’s not believing. It’s receiving the Spirit of Jesus into you this morning that enables you to live forever. It’s receiving the life of Jesus into you that enables you to live the law in your family, and in your dorms, and in your homes. It’s receiving the Spirit of Jesus into you that banishes the meaninglessness and the emptiness of your own life because that was God’s purpose at the very beginning, that you’d receive his life into you not just believe. Now do you see dear ones, that faith is not taking the place of obedience? Faith in Jesus does not take the place of the law, but when you exercise real faith, believe all that I’ve shared with you this morning and then receive Jesus’ Spirit into you, you find yourself keeping the law. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “I have come not to abolish the law, I have come to fulfill the law. For not one jot or tittle will pass for the law until all is accomplished.” And brothers and sisters, what most of us have found is whenever we receive this super natural Spirit of Jesus inside us, we find it easy to live above the law. We find it easy to go beyond the law. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, not only to be free from hatred and killing but to be filled with love for your brother and sister.” Real love, not just soft effeminate or imitation love, but a real honest, strong, robust love. And we’ve found that when we received the Spirit of Jesus into us, we’ve lived well above that law. Do we then overthrow this law by faith? No, by no means. We establish, we strengthen the law. Now have you come into that experience, you know? See, all of us believe that Jesus died so that God could forgive us without denying his justice but that isn’t what makes you a child of Gods. What makes you a child of God is receiving the spirit of life through the Holy Spirit that God originally planned to give us. And he’s willing to give you that this morning, you know. You could receive that this morning. Those of us who have found ourselves living above the law, do it not by will power or by our own strength or dynamic, but by a miraculous spirit of Christ that God is able to put inside you this morning. You have a womb, like every one of us, you have a womb inside you called the spirit and that womb is ready to receive the seed of the Holy Spirit within it so that you, man or woman, can live the spiritual life that God gave you. So it’s possible this morning, you know. You may say, “Well, what do I do?” Well, just as we bow our heads all you need to do is to say, “God I believe that this is the explanation of reality. I believe this does explain why I feel alienated, and lonely, and insecure. I believe that your Son did die so that you could give me this life. Now Lord God, I’m going to give you my life now will you give me the Spirit of Jesus? I don’t know whether you receive it by emotions or by intellect, but will you give it to me? I ask you now in all honesty for the Spirit of Jesus. And brothers and sisters, God will keep his word with you as he kept it with us, you know, and you’ll find yourself living above the law really where God himself is. I pray you know, that he’ll give you grace, and wisdom, and guidance to do it this morning. I know a lot of you are sitting there, you know, wondering, “Ah, I wonder what it is all about?” Well really, all I can say is if you’re honest with God whether you know a whole lot about it or not, if you’re honest with God this morning he can put the Spirit of his Son inside you and can guide you on from that, you know. And if you want to talk to any of us afterwards, there are lots of kids here who experienced this and will share with you either here or in the entrance all, or if you want to talk during the week just call Ashland or call me and get together. But we have found that this does much better than the Ouija board, and the spiritualists, and really it is the answer and we’ve found it so we believe you can find it. Let us pray. Lord God, we thank you that you have not left us with no guidance. You have not left us with nearly counterfeits, but you have given us plain clear presentation of yourself and your own plan in your word and in Jesus your son. Now Lord God, if this is true, we would trust you by the Holy Spirit to reveal that truth to us and to make it real to us. Lord God, if we’re honestly seeking you we ask you now to make this real to us and enable us to see that this is more deeply true than it is intellectually acceptable. And oh Lord God, we would ask you to put the Spirit of your Son Jesus inside us to take away the emptiness and the loneliness, and the insecurity, and to enable us to be the people that you intended we should be at the beginning. We trust you to do this for the sake of your Son Jesus and so that we will please you and we will live the lives that we were made to live. Amen.

How to Become a Christian 2 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill I have sensed God saying to me that it’s very easy for us to come here Sunday after Sunday and be glad for what was sung to us this morning, and be excited you know, that people like Kent have experienced it and Helen, and we tend to enjoy being in this atmosphere. And yet, God witnessed to my own spirit that there was a great danger of us being snow bunnies, you know. And a snow bunny just goes on to the slopes, and looks beautiful but doesn’t ski. And it is very easy to get used to such a good atmosphere because this is the way God wants us to live, you know. Let’s face it, this is love and this is the way we’re supposed to live and it would be bad if this were not attractive or winsome. There’d be something wrong with it if God’s children were not more attractive in many ways than those who aren’t God’s children. But do you see brothers and sisters, that it isn’t enough to be snow bunnies? It isn’t enough to sit there and to watch, and to enjoy because you see that that can bring you into tremendous condemnation because in a real way we have a greater opportunity here to understand what our Creator wants us to do than anyone else in the whole world because again and again we see the joy of people who live in God and we also listen to the explanation of how to enter in. But there is a great danger that we with our student oriented habits will tend to study, and study, and analyze, and discuss, and argue, and admire, and then turn it over the other side and discuss that side, and admire, and look, and talk it over, and question and never really act. And loved ones, do you see that Jesus was wise when he said to us, “Listen, the first thing I want you to do is not to understand, and not to think, and not to discuss, and not to question, and not to talk about it, and look at it, and admire it, but the first thing I want you to do is to repent and believe in the gospel.” Now dear ones, it’s good for us to listen to a practical man like Jesus speaking very directly to people like ourselves who are in danger all the time of being academic and of thinking, and believing, and not acting. And do you see that the way into all this, the way into the life of God, the way into making your own life meaningful, the way into getting your own insignificance, the way into getting some purpose into your own life, but most of all the way into making your own life worthwhile and fulfilling the purpose for which you were created is to repent and believe in the gospel. You know? And you may say, “Well, I mean, why should I repent? I have not done anything very bad. I am not a Manson, I am not a prostitute, I am not an alcoholic, I have not destroyed my home, I have not wiped out millions of people, I have not destroyed thousands of people with guns, why should I repent?” And you know what Jesus said? He said, “Listen, all of you, even though you’re very respectable people to look at, and even though you’re very good people in many ways, yet all of you have sinned and you’ve fallen short of the glory of my Father.” And Jesus, who is the only one who can really give us any justifiable reason for accepting him as God’s son, he said to us, “Look, you’ve all fallen short of what my Father wanted you to be.” And you know dear ones, many of us opt out of the experience of Christianity at that point because we tend again, and again to sit back and say, “I agree with what you say, that all people as a general rule have sinned and I certainly can see it plainly in those miserable Irish that shoot one another. I can see that those people have sinned.” Or we say, “You know, I can see that Charles Manson has sinned. I can see that the men who fight in Vietnam they have sinned because they kill people.” And we often say, “I can see that the mafia have sinned. I can see that Nixon has sinned. I can see Lee Harvey-Oswald has sinned.” And do you see we have a great danger of accepting ourselves. We have a great danger of saying, “I’m with you pastor, you go to it and you bring social action into the world and put all those people right because all of them have sinned. But, I’m glad that I have not sinned.” Now dear ones, do you see that many of us opt out of the experience of Jesus at that point? Because, we’ll agree that everyone has sinned but us, you see. All have sinned except the Presbyterians. All have sinned except the Baptist. All have sinned except the Catholics. All have sinned except the Methodist. All have sinned except the people who come to Campus Church. And dear ones, do you see it isn’t so? Jesus said that all of us have sinned, you know. Every one of us and you too as you sit there and I know you’re a great person in many ways, I know you can do many good things, and you have done many good things for people, and you’ve shown much kindness. But do you see that it’s Jesus who says, not on the basis of empirical observation but on the basis of his Father who knows all things that you have sinned. And the beginning of your coming together with God is believing what he says about you, and really it’s a first step you know, to admit that you have sinned. That even wonderful, magnificent, faultless you have actually sinned. And you know a lot of us feel, “Well, in what way sinned?” We can see how those primitive people in Old Testament days how they sinned. We can see that sin is disobeying God’s will in any way. We see that sin is not doing what God wants us to, and we can see that he said, “Though shalt have no other Gods before me,” and we can see how those miserable Jews had all kinds of idols and gods before Gods, and we can see that they have sinned and they deserve everything God is going to do to them. We can see that. But do you see dear ones, that we are naïve if we really believe that the Jews set up a god called Baal made of wood or stone and worshiped that? You know, they weren’t fools. They knew the stone didn’t move, they knew the stone wasn’t a god. Do you see that it was the meaning of the word Baal that was their god? That’s why it was called Baal, the word Baal in Hebrew means owner. It means somebody who gets things. And when they worship Baal, they weren’t worshipping a stone. They’re no fools, they weren’t so stupid that they thought that was a god. But they lived for getting things. You see, a god is what you live for. A god is what you’re thinking about most times when somebody asks you what are you thinking about. That’s your god. A god is what you spend most of your time and most of your energy in doing. A god is what you dedicate your future to and your life today to. And you see, for the Jews they were dedicating their lives, many of them, to getting things. They planned their futures with a view to how much they could get. They planned their careers with a view to how much money it would bring them. And they lived for getting things. When they got into tight situations where it was a choice of getting profit for themselves and doing somebody else some good, they got profit for themselves. And when you live for getting things, when you live preoccupied with your getting the clothes you want, or you’re getting the position or the job that you want or you deserve, when you live, you know, for getting the necessary books out of the library that you need whatever everybody else needs, do you see that is worshipping another God? That is setting up and getting acquisition as our guard. You know loved ones, a lot of us tear down the establishment and say that they’re living for what they can get. But dear ones, we often with our poverty, often with our sparsely furnished rooms, we are as covetous over the few things we have as they are over the many things. And do you see that it doesn’t take you to be rich to worship the god of getting? You can be poor and worship that god far more by coveting and wanting. Loved ones, I ask you, you know, what are your plans for your own future and your own career, and what are the considerations that govern your plans? And so many of us talk so high and mighty about serving society and humanity, but deep, deep down in us it’s really the desire to get things. You know, we’ll be a social worker because a social worker pays a certain amount and you can live reasonably and do good. Or, we’d love to be a doctor or a dentist because you’re helping humanity and you’re getting. Now, do you see that it’s not that you can’t enter into some of those things, but you must enter into them with an honest motive. In other words, many of us sin because we live for getting. Another of the images they worshipped was Ashtoreth, the god of enjoyment. And that was really what they worshipped, it was enjoyment, it wasn’t a stone idol, it was the god of enjoyment and they just lived to enjoy themselves at all costs. Now, do you see that that’s what led into the Manson situation? Do you remember, that girl as she stuck the fork in the old man that she had killed and then the judge asked her why she did it and she said, “Because, I enjoyed it at that moment. That’s what I wanted to do at that moment so it was right.” But do you see loved ones, that when we act from that motive we’re just as great sinners as she is even though we haven’t killed anybody? When we make people suffer because we want to enjoy, then we are sinners too and that’s what sin is. You know, it’s worshipping the god of enjoyment at all costs. And you’re honest people and I ask you just to be honest in your own hearts, how many times, you know, we have walked over somebody else so we could get what enjoyment we wanted? Brothers and sisters, you know in our own relationships with each other we have often turned off a friend, we have often shrugged off a friend because there was a certain girl or a certain fella that we wanted at all costs to be with. And you know when that god of enjoyment lifts up in your mind everything goes to the side. Now do you see that is what Jesus meant? He said, “All of us have sinned,” and we’ve all fallen far short of God’s glory. And he said, “Listen, my Father cannot let people like that live. It he lets masses of you live throughout his universe who are living only for your own enjoyment and are living for what you can get, you’ll destroy his universe. You’ll make it an unfit place for dog, or animal, or beast, or man. You’ll destroy God’s own plan and his own purpose. Indeed, it’s either God lives with his idea of goodness or it’s you that live because the two can’t exist side-by-side.” And that’s why Jesus said, “The wages of sin is death,” you know. Loved ones, you know it. In our own experience here this morning you can see it. It only takes some dear one to come in among us this morning who does not love the same things we love, who does not treasure Jesus’ presence and that dear one can cut the atmosphere like a knife and you can see it. It only takes some dear one to come in among us who is not in sympathy with Christ and suddenly our own fellowship can be destroyed. Now, do you see it was the same with God? That the two things can’t exist side-by-side and that is why Jesus taught us that the wages of sin is death and that’s why many of us live in a terrible angst, a terrible worry of an impending disaster, because dear ones we are under condemnation to death many of us. Many of us have never made things right with God. Many of us have never stopped worshipping other gods and therefore we are actually under condemnation from the Creator of the universe and that’s what we’re living with. Loved ones, many of us are not really worried about the mushroom cloud. Many of us are not really worried about our futures. Many of us are really worried behind all those things about the fact that deep down our conscious registers that we are sinners and God is going to destroy us at the end of this world. And that’s why many of us have worry and trouble in our consciences and in our emotions. Now you know, it’s no use saying, “Oh well, that’s only the very bad sinners that God condemns to death.” You see that the heart of sin is living for yourself. It doesn’t matter what degree of living for yourself is true in your life, it’s living for yourself is sin. You know, sin is the S-I-N, it is the great I, I want to enjoy myself, I want to get, I want to rule, I want to have my way whatever anybody else wants. And do you see that that’s why God says that all of us have sinned and fallen short and death is going to take place in all of us even if we’ve sinned a very little or a great deal because there aren’t really degrees of sin. There are degrees of vices. There are degrees of immorality. There are degrees of crimes, but there is no degree of sin you see. You know, there was a story told and you probably read it before and I’ve shared it with some of you before about the two men. And one of them, you know, is like ourselves, we are very good respectable people and we have sinned very, very little. And this young man has kept his body in good state, and it’s in good physical condition and he’s like us, he’s like us good and noble sinners. And then there’s a very old man, a very old man who has worn himself out by bad habits, has drunk his liver into an unhealthy condition, has destroyed his body and he’s about 75 years of age and he’s standing there. And in front of them is a great gulf, it’s about 50 foot across and it’s 500 foot cliffs on each side, and a great rocky gorge with pointed jagged rocks underneath. And the old man says, “Well, I’m going to try and jump that gulf,” and many of us are like that. Many of us know, “Well, I want to be with God, I want to live for him, I want to be where he is, I want to get to the other side. I don’t want to have that uncertainty that Hamlet had. I don’t want to feel that there’s an unknown country on the other side, I want to get over there.” So we’re like the young man and he wants to jump to the other side, and the old man decides he’ll go first and he totters back a few steps and he takes a run, and of course he only jumps about four feet and he goes down to the rocks below and he’s killed. And we tend to say, “You see, well that’s those great sinners that’s what should happen to them. I can see God has to wipe out Hitler, he can’t have a Hitler in heaven without destroying heaven. I can see how a Hitler must die, I can see how a [Mussolini 16:15] must die. I can see how Manson must die. I can see how these people who have sinned greatly must die.” And then the young man comes and he is in good physical condition, has looked after himself, has not sinned much and so he takes a massive leap. He takes a great run and he leaps, and it’s a mighty leap, it’s 39 feet and it’s a world record, and he falls short. And do you see, that it doesn’t matter dear ones? It doesn’t matter that it was a world record, it doesn’t matter that you’re so much better than the person down the road, it doesn’t matter that you’re so much better than you ever thought you could be? Do you see that God says, “You’ve fallen short. You were made to be like my Son Jesus. I made you to be like Jesus and that’s why I created you and you’ve fallen short of that and nobody less than Jesus can continue to live for eternity in my universe without destroying my universe.” And that’s why dear ones, all of us are under condemnation to death and that’s where the gospel comes in you know. I think a lot of us say, “Well, what can we do about it? We can try harder.” Well, do you see there’s no point in the poor fella trying harder when he hits those rocks. There’s no point trying harder to be done, there’s a penalty that has come about and it’s been exercised upon him and he has to face it. There is no trying harder. I came here ’63 and we drive on the left hand side of the road which is the correct side of the road for any sensible person to drive. And when I came over here I had to learn to drive on the right hand side and so I tried it my own way for two weeks [inaudible 18:00]. So I drove on the right hand side of the road, and I was just learning your signs you know on the street corners, and I was learning to read those signs do not turn left between four and six o’clock which is obviously a sacred time of some kind. So, I concentrated on that and I came along at one time between four and six o’clock and I turned left and one of your gallant police officers came up and asked me what I thought I was doing. And I explained to him, “Well I turned left.” And he said, “Yeah, but it’s between four and six o’clock,” and I said, “Ah yeah, I’m sorry I’m just new in the country. I’ve just come here and I’m just getting to know your signs.” And he said, “Well, that’s good. You better try harder because it will save you $10 next time.” And I said, “Well, listen officer I haven’t even taken this driving test here, I’m driving on my British license so would you consider that? I’m going to take the test, I’m going to learn your laws, and I’ll be careful every time I come to this corner.” And he said, “Well, that’s good it will save you another $10.” And I could make all kinds of substitute penalties and could suggest all other answers to the problem, but do you see that either I had to pay the $10 or somebody had to pay it for me? Now, do you see that’s our situation loved ones? You know, the psychologists try to psychoanalyze out of a sense of impending disaster. The psychologists try to persuade us that this guilt comes because our pet dog rejected us when we were children. We try in all kinds of ways to deal with the guilt and to psych ourselves out of it. But do you see dear ones, there is no way to deal with the guilt because it is God’s penalty. God has said, “Listen, if you sin you’re guilty death. That’s the only way I can remain the just authority in the universe, and you have to die or somebody has to die for you because I cannot revoke the penalty. If I revoke the penalty you’d laugh at me. You wouldn’t accept that I was credible as a just God. My mercy would not be possible because I would have no moral authority.” And do you see that that’s the gospel? That God has commanded his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for you. And loved ones, you should have died for every dirty thought that you’ve ever had, you see? But Jesus took that thought into his own conscience and he allowed God’s wrath to burn up that thought inside him. See you and I should have died for every time we’ve coveted anything, every time we’ve tried to do some one down in order to get what we wanted, but Jesus took that into his own conscience and he died for that. In other words, Jesus knows everything that you’ve ever had in your heart that has been wrong but he not only knows it but he knows the pain that came upon him for that. And God has died in Jesus for you and that’s why you don’t need to die. And there’s no reason for any of us to be under guilt this morning. There’s no reason for any of us to fear an impending disaster because Jesus has died and has met that impending disaster for us and we’re free. Now many of us say, “Well, I understand that intellectually but I tell you I still have worry and apprehension in my own heart. I’d tell you I still do feel the mushroom cloud, I still am afraid of death.” Do you see dear ones, that though Jesus has died for us you have to enter into this yourself personally? In other words, you don’t get it by being a snow bunny, you don’t get it by being a spectator, and seeing it, and believing it. Satan believed it, the devils in hell believed that Jesus died for our sins, but do you see that you do not experience reconciliation with God, you do not receive the Spirit of God’s life into yourself, you do not know freedom from fear until you personally move into this. How do you move into it? Jesus made it very plain, he said the first thing you do is you confess the things that you know are wrong in your life. You stop trying to argue that you’ve never sinned. The first step is you confess your sins. And brothers and sisters, you know many of us have got all caught up in this business of confession. We’ve thought that it meant just confessing to a priest, or confessing out loud. The Greek word for confession means I raise up my hand and I agree with God that what he says is wrong, is wrong. Brothers and sisters, if God has continued to say, you know, sexual sin, promiscuity, masturbation, envy, jealousy, anger, greed, if he has continued to say to your heart, “Look, these things are wrong,” then confession is saying, “I’m not going to argue any longer God. I confess that is a sin, I agree it’s wrong. I’m not going to try to justify myself any further.” And you see it’s the first step, and honest confession dear ones of the things that you’re arguing with God about. You see, many of you say, “Oh but why couldn’t I experience God the way some of those other people have?” Do you see it’s because you won’t deal with God about the things he’s been pointing out to you for years. You’re still trying to prove that it’s right for you to do it. Brothers, I did it in my own life in personal things. I tried to prove that I was in a certain set of circumstances which justified this, or I was the certain kind of personality that needed this kind of outlet or fulfillment. Do you see that confession is agreeing with God that these things are wrong? That’s the first break in the whole game you know. Many of us are under constant strain and stress because we won’t make that first break. We won’t start agreeing with God that those things are wrong. The second step is just repentance, you know. Jesus said, “Listen, unless you repent every one of you will perish.” And the second step is just an honest repentance, and repentance is not only saying to God, “I’m sorry for causing your son to die for my sins.” It’s not only crying over the mess you’ve made of your life, it’s not only being sorry for the people you’ve hurt, but it’s really stopping sinning. You know? I think a lot of us enter into pseudo experiences of Christ because we come up at a grey meeting, or some other kind of meeting, or we pray through in our rooms, or we deal with God in our minds and we confess all the things and we say we’re sorry and we feel a real sorrow in our hearts, but we don’t stop doing the sins and repentance is you stop doing those things. You don’t do them any longer. You just stop doing them. And I think a number of us, you know, probably need to realize it and I think I’ve shared this with you before so it’s not really new to all of you at all, but it’s possible you know for Kent who sang this morning, it’s possible for him to say to me, “Now pastor, this is a picture. This is a picture of my girlfriend,” and I don’t know if you have a girlfriend, “This is a picture of my girlfriend and me and it’s very precious to us both and we’d like you to have it but we’d like you to take care of it.” And I take it from him and I say, “Oh, yeah thanks kid,” but I’ve torn it. And I say, “Kent, I’m really sorry I’ve torn that. I really am sorry. Kent, I’m really sorry I’m tearing up this picture because I really respect what you say and I really don’t want to tear it up and I tell you I’m really, really sorry and I’m repenting.” Well loved ones, you know, but do you see that’s what we do? We say, “Lord God, I know my uncleanness, I know my dirty thoughts crucified your son. I know my greed was a spear in his side, but Lord, I’m really sorry, I’m really sorry.” And loved ones, God recognizes not what we say but what we do and that’s why repentance needs to be something definite and real. Many of us have entered into pseudo emotional experiences of Jesus because we have not had done with our sins. We haven’t stopped doing them, not for a minute. We’ve asked Jesus to come in on top of them all and you see, he won’t do it. The last step is really just receiving him. If you are honest in your confession and your repentance God will put the Spirit of his Son Jesus into your life and that’s what has enabled many of us to be changed people, because there’s a super natural spirit of Jesus that has all the goodness of Jesus inside him. And he transmits all that to us miraculously. And that’s why, you know, at times we think of ourselves as new creations because we’re different people entirely because we’ve received the Spirit of Jesus inside us. Now if you don’t honestly confess, and honestly repent then what you enter into is an emotional osmosis, or an intellectual assent or appropriation of truth and intellectual concept. And many of use, you see, are in that position. We have given assent to these things, but we know in our own lives we aren’t really Christians because we haven’t been honest in our confession and repentance. Well dear ones, that is really the way to become a Christian, you know, and if you’re really concerned about it then I do ask you to just deal with God this morning. I’d rather not spend time because we are a little over time, and I’d rather not spend time having a long prayer time here this morning, but I would ask you if you know you should make a definite step with Jesus, then as we sing that last hymn you can go round and we can pray in there on the stage afterwards. I think that’s the best place, it’s the only place we have where we can pray. But if you want to take a definite step and you’ve fiddled along for years and you’ve never taken a definite stand of faith, then you should do it you know. Now it’s not vital to come forward, no you can do it in your seat, you can do it at home when you go home, but it is a definite step that you take, you see. And so I ask you to consider it, you know, as we sing the last hymn and it does demand just those three steps and God will put the Spirit of his Son into your life. You will become a different person.

A New Start – 1975 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill I think we all thank God for the gifts that he’s given to the whole body, but Colleen really has a gift that Jesus has given her of writing songs, you know, and it’s just a blessing and I think you feel the same. And I think we should trust Jesus to multiply that creative life among us. And he respects us really, to produce a creativity that will bring to the world life. So, we need to trust Jesus for that, for all of us, whatever our particular abilities are. Loved ones, trust Jesus to do something new through you, you know, really do. Many of us have come here Sunday-after-Sunday now for some years and probably most of us here believe there is a God. And perhaps most of us believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. What I would like to do this morning, very simply, is to tell you what Jesus’ ideas are about your life so that you may know what he thinks you should do. And then I would ask you just to do it at the end of the service, really. So that’s it. First of all, Jesus says you aren’t going to last long. You just aren’t made to last long. There are millions of cells dying in your body during this present minute and there’ll be millions more dying the next minute. So in a real sense, most of us here are at least at that stage in our lives where there are more millions of cells dying than are being renewed, so in a real way loved ones, all of us here in this auditorium, probably maybe the youngest might be what 15, 16, 17? All of us in this auditorium are really dying me and women in that sense, you know. The physical and mental life that we have will certainly not last much longer than at least our grandparents, 70 or 80 years. And Jesus says that to us this morning. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. The physical and the mental life that you have is just not going to last very long and so in a real way your days are numbered. And secondly Jesus says you won’t believe that. You won’t believe that. That’s the way he put it to some people who refused to believe him. He said, “They will not believe. They don’t want to believe and therefore they will not believe.” He says, you think you were made for more than that, for better things than that. You think you were made to do more than to go out like a light after 70 years here on earth.” And he says, “That’s why you keep trying to parlay the attributes of physical and mental life you have into the qualities of infinity that you would like to have, because there’s something inside you that keeps saying, ‘All this surely was not created just to end like that after 70 years in nothingness.’” And so you keep trying to avoid the limitations of the created life that you have, and you keep trying to escape from the bonds of this earthbound existence at catching at some of the equalities of infinity. And you will not believe that what you’ve got at the moment is not going to take you beyond this finite world. So really what you do is you feel you were made for stability and safety, and security. And isn’t that true? There’s something inside all of us that makes us feel we were made for stability, we ought to have stability. That’s why we’re so much in trouble at a time of depression or at a time of war, we feel we were made for a secure, stable, safe life. And so what most of us are doing is trying to use the cleverness, and the shrewdness of our minds to ensure that kind of life, and to catch at that stability that is only possible in infinity. So we educate in order to survive, and we get the education that will help us to survive, because that’s our first battle. Then we trade in the degree for the best kind of financial reward we can get, and so we continue to live our finite lives trying to produce the security and stability that we again, and again feel isn’t possible. So we keep trading up the cars, and trading up the houses with the thought in the back of our minds that we can probably never trade them into absolute certainty but at least we should keep trying, we should keep using the old mind to try and make ourselves secure and stable. And so we use our mind at work to try to edge ourselves into a position of security in relationship to our colleagues or in relationship to our rivals. And we keep trying to improve our investments to the point where we somehow will get that security or stability. And we keep trying to build as cast iron life insurance and medical insurance package as we possibly can. And yet all the time a fella like Howard Hughes haunts us because there we see a fella that has built up more than we could possibly ever hope to build up and yet he keeps himself in seclusion so that he can avoid the possibility of any kind of disease or bacteria that would kill him. And so we sense in the midst of all this using our minds to try and ensure the security, and stability of infinite life, we still kind of feel like we can’t get it. And we kind of sense that we were made for the serene peace and yet the overwhelming interest that you would be able to have, in we always think of it as some fancy island which would be a combination of Walden Pond and the Arabian Knights. And we kind of think, “Yeah, somewhere in this life we’re supposed to experience not only complete serenity and peace because that in itself will be boring, but it’s supposed to be combined with a tremendous exhilaration and excitement that would keep our lives continually satisfying.” And we kind of feel yeah, we were made for that, and so of course we try to produce it and we try to use every experience, and every relationship we possibly can to produce this combination of serene peace and overwhelming excitement. And yet somehow, however many people we use and however many circumstances we try to manipulate for our own purposes we find that we don’t have that serene peace, or that overwhelming excitement. In fact, in some ways we find that we’re utterly frustrated about those things. And again, and again we experience not serene peace and overwhelming excitement but even times like Thanksgiving day when we find ourselves with the dear ones that we want to be with most, we find often that there comes a sense of loneliness or a sense of desolation, a sense of not all that conviviality and excitement of that relationship you felt you should have throughout your life. And it’s the same loved ones you know with really what Milton used to talk about. Milton used to say, “I am born for some great purpose,” and I don’t know that there’s any of us here however ambitionless we are that hasn’t felt at some time, “Yeah, we were born for something special. We were put here for some special purpose. We weren’t put here just to have our name on a gravestone. We weren’t put here just to pass like a ship in the night through this world and nobody noticed that we were ever here. We weren’t put here just to be a number, we were put here to be significant in some way. Somebody, some way, somewhere, somehow must know we’re here, must see that we’re achieving something. We’re not just one of a mass of billions and billions of people.” And so you know we work ourselves to death trying to will ourselves into some position of importance and so we throw our weight around in the office, and we throw our weight around at home, and we throw our weight around in school hoping that somehow we’ll will ourselves into a place where people can’t just ignore us, they have to recognize us and appreciate us.” And yet at the end of the day we’re just startled by the few people that remember Jack Benney, and he died just this past year. And if it weren’t for the commission that keeps on bringing up the morbid business of how he died, really how many think of John F. Kennedy? And we’re amazed at how the Picassos and the Roosevelt’s, and the Jack Benney’s of this world can pass off the face of the earth and it’s amazing how few people think of them afterwards. And loved ones, Jesus says to us, “That’s because what is born of the flesh is flesh,” and what you’re trying to do is take the finite, limited attributes of your created physical and mental life and you’re trying to produce all the liberty of eternity, all the freedom of an infinite life even though all that you’ve got is a limited finite life. A physical and mental life that can never imitate anything but that life. And so Jesus says, “Really, you can never be anything different from what you are because the life that you possess is what ties you down to that and all that you’re becoming with all your efforts is a little monster because you’re trying to bring everything and everybody to the place where you somehow can experience the infinite happiness, and serenity, and peace, and exhilaration, the tremendous since of significance, the great sense of security and stability, that you could only experience if you had an infinite life inside you. And you’re really using everybody to try and create this and so you’re becoming a massive, hedonistic, manipulating, domineering, ruling monster and that’s really what you’ve become. An egotistical monster that is trying to manipulate all this created life around you so that somehow you will experience some of the qualities of an infinite life and Jesus says it cannot be and yet he really does bring us good news loved ones because he says those yearnings that you have inside you for serenity and peace, for exhilaration and excitement, those yearnings that you have inside you to have some eternal significance, those yearnings you have inside you to have at last a security, and a stability that you don’t have to continually fight for. Those yearnings that you have to be something other than a little wild animal in the forest looking around to see who’s going to attack him next. Those yearnings that you have were put in you by your Creator because he actually made you for that kind of life. But this is not it. And loved ones, Jesus is just so strong in that. He just emphasizes repeatedly, “No, this life that you have at the present time is not that life.” And he says, “The life that you’re trying to use is that physical life there.” And at times when you try to manipulate your time by chemicals, or you try to manipulate your emotions by stimulations, at times you even use a mental life in there. But Jesus says, “There is within you another part that is deeper,” and it’s the part that will satisfy all those yearnings, and it’s the part that is made for infinity.” But he says really to us, with almost all of you, it’s absolutely dead. That part of you is dead. And until that part comes alive, you’re going to experience continual frustration trying to do on this level and this level what alone can be done in here by this infinite part of you. And he says that part of you can only come alive if the maker who made you brings it to life through the power of his own spirit life. Through the power of his own infinite eternal life that runs through his own being. Only he can bring this part alive. That’s why Jesus said those words. You’ve all been born once. You’ve all been born of the flesh and you got from your mum and dad physical and a mental life. But you have to be born anew. You have to be born all over again. The maker of the world never meant you to make do with that life. He intends you to be born again. And that’s why Jesus said to that teacher Nicodemus, “Look, you have to be born anew all over again.” You have to start all over again. You have to be born from above. And the only way you will be born from above inside in your spirit is by God’s Holy Spirit coming in and regenerating, activating your own spirit and making it alive. Then when that happens, that spirit of life from your maker will begin to work out through every part of your personality and it will impart to your mind here, a right perspective and a sense of where you fit into God’s plan for developing the world. That spirit will pour out through your emotions and will impart to you all the excitement, and the serenity, and the peace of an infinite intercourse and friendship with the eternal being behind the universe, and will be utterly satisfying to your emotions. The Holy Spirit will pour out through your will and will begin to direct you as to what you should do in this life so that at last you’ll have a real sense of significance because you can see where you fit into the Maker’s plan. And loved ones, that was his plan, that you would allow his Spirit to bring you alive in your spirit and then his lights would begin to pour out through you to the rest of the world. And the one great obstacle to that is that this physical and mental personality of yours has become utterly unfitted for that. This physical and mental personality has become a domineering, manipulating, egotistical, self-gratifying, self-deifying monster. And all it does and all its been able to do for years is to take in from the world, to take in from the world trying to create a sense of eternity within by sponging from other people on the outside. And of course, while that personality remains like that God dare not give you such an infinite power as the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is the person he used to make the ocean and the mountains. It’s this Holy Spirit that holds all the protons and neutrons together here in our universe. It’s this Holy Spirit that makes the whole universe work at this present time. It’s this Holy Spirit that keeps the pressure right here on the surface of the earth so that we don’t cave in and we don’t blow up. It’s this Holy Spirit that keeps the sun in the right position. God dare not give the power of that infinite Holy Spirit to you with a personality that would use it only to gratify and deify itself, and to dominate the rest of the universe. And so loved ones, unless that personality of yours with all its selfishness, and all its self-deification can be destroyed, God cannot give you the Holy Spirit. And yet, that’s what you and I most need. We need this infinite spirit of life. It doesn’t matter how many drugs we take, it doesn’t matter how much alcohol we take, it doesn’t matter how much money we amass in the bank account, it doesn’t matter how fast a car we get, it doesn’t matter if we go on vacation every other week, it doesn’t matter what we do, we are never going to satisfy the infinite yearnings that have been planted inside of us. Loved ones, you’re demanding too much from your husband. You’re demanding too much from your wife. You’re demanding too much from your employees or your employer, they cannot produce in you these things that only the infinite spirit of God can produce and that can only come into you if that personality is destroyed and that’s what happened in Jesus on Calvary. That’s what it means when the Bible says, “You’re old self, your whole personality was crucified with Christ.” All that mess with all its domineering selfishness was destroyed in Jesus on Calvary in a supra spacial supra temporal miracle. And the fact is because God is eternal and could destroy you 1900 years ago even though you’re alive today, because he is infinite he is able to do this today. That’s really what it means you see. Maybe you’d look loved ones, at just some of the things that happened on Calvary. It’s Psalms 22:16. Psalm 22:16, this is one of those Psalms you know, that in an amazing prophetic way tell what Jesus was saying in his own heart on the cross, “Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet—I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots.” “They have pierced my hands and feet.” Loved ones, your hands have been used so often to gratify yourself that God could not entrust the Holy Spirit to such hands. Your hands have been used so often to get your own way that those hands cannot be used by this Spirit of God that is used only to express love and to give. That’s why your hands were miraculously destroyed in Jesus. Loved ones, that’s the only reason God is able to even consider giving you the Holy Spirit because your hands were pierced in Jesus’ hands. Those feet of yours that have so often gone to the wrong place, those feet that have so often been used to get what you wanted for you. Those feet could not be used by the Spirit of God. That’s why when Jesus died you died. That’s why the Bible says, “We judge that if he died for all then all died.” Your feet were destroyed in Jesus on Calvary. That’s what it means loved ones, when the Bible says, “God made him to be sin who knew no sin.” God actually put all your independence, and all your desire for self into Jesus and destroyed it there. And because of that, he’s able to give the Holy Spirit to anyone who will receive that Holy Spirit. And so loved ones, that’s really it. God offers you, this morning, the Spirit of his own infinite life and if you want it you have to do two things: you have to accept by faith the destruction of that inturned personality of yours, that personality that has cared for itself for so long, that personality that wants its own way whatever it costs anybody else, you need to accept the death of that old personality with Jesus; and you have to be willing for that. In other words, you have to stop living for yourself. You have to stop turning in on yourself. You have to stop referring every event, and every situation, and every job opportunity, and everything anybody asks you to do to yourself and whether it’s going to benefit you, whether it’s going to make you happy, you have to once and for all say, “I’m finished with that. It’ll leave me nowhere anyway, but above all God it’s against your will for me. So today I’m accepting that you destroyed that inturned personality of mine on Jesus on Calvary and I accept that and I’m willing for that.” Loved ones, you have to turn from self. You have to take self off the throne of your own life and you have to give yourself to God and say, “Lord God, I’ve lived for myself these years and it’s a mess. I’m prepared now to live for the purpose for which you made me, for you.” And secondly, you have to receive the Holy Spirit by faith. You have to say, “Lord, you promised that you’d give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Jesus said that, ‘How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who asked.’ Lord you promised that. I receive you Holy Spirit to be all that I need in my present life, all that my Father wants me to have.” Loved ones, that’s it, that’s what Jesus said and that’s what it is to be born of God if you do that, or to be born again. It’s a lesser thing to call it becoming a Christian. Really, that’s our name for it these days. Jesus would have said, “It’s entering into reality. It’s coming free at last. It’s being liberated from yourself. It’s at last entering into all the aspirations that my Father planted inside your heart. So loved ones, really it’s up to you, you know. I would ask you from my own experience, I would ask you not to wait for some emotional experience, really. I didn’t have it. My wife didn’t have it. Many of us here hadn’t a great emotional experience, if you understand what I’ve explained to you about Jesus’ ideas for your life, then you should just take the step now. Just in a minute or two I’ll say let us pray and you should just take the step. But you can see what it means, it means turning from living for yourself and it means depending on this Holy Spirit to produce in you the kind of life that your Maker wants you to have. And of course, anybody it doesn’t matter whether you’re a skeptic or not, anybody here knows the one that knows how to run the factory is the one that made the factory. It’s just common sense that the God who made you knows the kind of life that will be fulfilling for you. So loved ones you’ve got what I said now, if you’re not what people call a Christian, that name can mean a lot of things but, if you’re not what people call a Christian but the big thing is you know. You know because some of you have talked with me and you know where you are, if you haven’t taken this step I say you should take it this morning. If you say to me, “Well pastor, why take a definite step?” Loved ones, God answers only faith. Really. I tried to get into it by osmosis, I tried to drift into it. You can’t. You have to take a definite step, truly, truly. I think – I don’t know quite why it is, with me I think the old mind was so much king that I think God wanted me to declare I’m going out on a limb here, it’s a reasonable limb, but I’m going out on a limb expecting somebody else to do something. I felt so much it was all in my own control in the past. Lord, as an expression of my trust in you I’m going to trust you to do this thing I don’t even know what it is. I don’t even know if I’ll feel any different. I don’t know what it is, but I know these things that you’ve spoken about this morning are what I know in my life and I need and I’m going to take the step. So loved ones, I’d really encourage you just to take a step today, this morning. I’ll help you in the prayer if that’s of any use, but really if you’re real with God this morning yourself that’s all you need it doesn’t matter what words you use. Let us pray. Lord God, some of us here hardly know how to talk to you, or how to express this, but all of us Lord, know what your son has said and it does ring in our own hearts because our own lives have not been very satisfying, and we have tried to somehow wind these attributes that we have here on earth, wind them up to the nth degree to try and produce some kind of satisfaction, or sense of infinity. But Lord, we know that it has not worked. And Lord God, what your son Jesus has said makes sense to us, that we were made for something other than our names to be put on a gravestone. We were made for something other than few to remember us for a few years. And Lord God, we want to get into the main stream of the plan that you have for our lives. So Lord, we bring before you now our own selfish life. Lord, we bring before you all the things that we have done to try and get satisfaction. We bring before you Lord, all the people that we have used. We bring before you all the circumstances that we’ve tried to manipulate for our own good. Lord, we see how we are like frightened little foxes in the forest, always on the lookout, always filled with flight or fright. Lord God, we bring this selfish egotistical hedonistic life before you and Lord, we don’t know how you bring about its death but we believe that Jesus did rise from the dead and we believe that what he says did happen, that we were somehow in the infinity of eternity, crucified with him. Now Lord, we accept that and we’re willing to be made real now in us today. Lord, we ask you now to make this real in us, to make real in us this death to self once and for all so that we’re finished with this living for ourselves, so that it is as if we’re no longer alive. We’ve no longer ourselves to look after. Lord, we want to let this self and all its parasitism be buried in the tomb with Jesus, and Lord we want that stoned rolled over it today for good. Lord, we trust you now, we know that you will roll that stone over if we will let you. So Lord, we confess to you all the sin that fills our life. One-by-one we name them to you and we tell you that we’re finished with them, we’re turning from that kind of existence. With or without the Holy Spirit Lord, we’re determined to get finished with this kind of life that we’re living. Lord, we’re putting the bank account into your hands, all these other things that we’ve held onto and tried to multiply into some kind of goldmine, we’re putting it all into your hands Lord. We’re letting this old self die. And now Father, you have promised that you’ll give the Holy Spirit to them that ask. Father, it’s your life that we need so we ask you now for the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, will you come in now and make us alive inside? There’s been a great hole in the center of our lives that has been emptied for years, will you come in and make it alive? We don’t even need to know that it’s alive Holy Spirit, we don’t even demand that we be conscious of it, we are willing to trust you. Will you energize our spirits and make us alive with God’s life? And will you live out through us God’s love, and God’s direction, and God’s rule? Holy Spirit, we would take a step now and thank you for coming in. Thank you that you are faithful and that tomorrow and Monday morning we can bank on you for direction as to what we should do at each moment. We thank you.

The Word Became Flesh Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill One of the situation comedies on television this season that has not bombed yet, but is just on the edge is Sanford & Son , you know it, Sanford & Son. And the two littlest guys several weeks ago were talking to the neighbor who was kind of a traditional God fearing red blooded American. And the little guys of course, were very skeptical about the existence of God. And this poor neighbor was doing his best to give all the best answers, and at last of course, the little guy said, “Okay, okay, if he exists what does he look like?” And the neighbor kind of thought for a while and he said, “Well, he’s very old and he has a long white beard, dressed in a long white gown.” And they kind of sensed that this was an opportunity to get some inside information and they therefore went on and said, “What kind of car does he drive?” And the poor old neighbor thinks for a while and says, “Well, I don’t know but if I was him I’d drive a white Lincoln Continental.” And you know, when we are driven into thinking, “I wonder what God is really like?” You do find your mind turning into that kind of thinking, don’t you? And yet, you know it’s silly, but you kind of think a wee bit in those terms. And down through the centuries that’s what has happened loved ones. Man has varied from one extreme of God as a kind of old, indulgent, nodding, distant, man looking down from them from a great distance, varied from that kind of picture of God to the other kind of cruel, tyrannical, unforgiving being that is pictured in the Hindu God Shiva. And down through history man has varied from one in extreme to the other in trying to picture God. Man has always had the sense to know that there must be somebody as personable as himself to have created the universe with all the order ad design that is in it. But when it came to picturing what that God was like, he’s varied from making the God too transcendent, that is somebody that was too distant, too separated, too much apart from us to somebody who was too imminent, too much part of us, too much in the middle of us. In other words, at times man has pictured God in the way the neighbor did picture him, an old gentlemen living in heaven, looking at us from a great distance, and not absolutely sure what’s happening to us. But at other times man has tried to worship even nature itself as the bringer of rain, and the bringer of crops, and the bringer of heat, and light, even worshipped nature in the form of conscience as the bringer of morals, and the one who decides what is the difference between right and wrong. But whatever way we have pictured him there has always been great mystery about it. All of our ideas have been shrouded in uncertainty. One religious leader would say this, another philosopher would say that, one dad would explain it this way to his son, another mum would explain it this way. One myth would describe God this way, another myth would describe him another way, and it all has been shrouded with mystery and uncertainty so that countless millions of us have gone into death not really sure what the person would be like that we’d face on the other side. Now loved ones, 1981 years ago all that mystery disappeared. 1981 years ago the Son of the Maker of the world, the Son of our God came into our earth as a human being and suddenly all the mystery was cleared away. Suddenly all the questions, “What would God do if he was in this situation,” were answered. Suddenly, all the vague philosophical concepts to explain the existence of the one true God were wiped away and settled. Suddenly all the opinions, all the vague generalizations disappeared in the body of a little baby in Bethlehem. Suddenly no man or no woman had to be in doubt about the kind of person they would meet, and the kind of person they would have to give account to at the end of their lives. Suddenly all the questions were settled about what our God was like, 1981 years ago when God became one of us and we saw in absolute detail the way he would talk to certain people, the way he would walk, the way he would act, the way he thought. That’s really the heart of Christmas. That’s the meaning of it. That now we know what God is like. Now none of us need be in any doubt what the person who made us is really like. I think a lot of us respond at that point by saying, “Well, how can you be sure?” We admit Confucius was a great philosopher, we admit Mohammad was a great religious teacher, we’ll admit that Buddha was a great leader, but we’ve never called them God. Now why do you think it’s reasonable to call Jesus God? To regard Jesus as the special unique only begotten Son of our Creator in a way that we are not his sons? Why is it reasonable to call Jesus God, or to believe that obscure pheasant who was born in Bethlehem, and spent all of his life in such a very small area of the world’s surface, and talked to so few people, why should we believe that that obscure little pheasant who was a carpenter was really the Son of the Maker of the universe? Well loved ones, there are all kinds of reasons. He really did talk like God. If you think of it, you know, he really did talk like God. When he was 12 year old, and his parents found that he was no longer with him on the way home from Jerusalem, they went back to the city and they found him in the temple, and they asked him what he was doing, and he said, “Didn’t you know I’d be about my Father’s business?” Now his Father’s business was carpentry, but he was discussing theological issues with the doctors in the temple. And Mary did not strangely immediately say, “You’re a fool.” But she just pondered those things in her heart, because obviously this little boy was sufficiently different from other little guys to make her sense there was something different about him besides what she had observed at the birth. And it went on like that. He didn’t teach like the Pharisees, “Well I think this, Josepheus taught this, Moses taught this, but I think that.” He taught with authority. He taught with a sense, “This is the way it is.” So he talked with the kind of authority that you would expect the maker of the universe to have. Oh, there are other things, you know, if you’d like to look at them. Look at Matthew 16 loved ones, because that’s something that makes this man very different from all others. If you just open up that chapter I’ll explain it to you before we look at the verse. It’s Matthew 16, every other philosopher or religious teacher sets his teaching up here, says, “Don’t look at me look at the teaching.” I think every one of us, we do it ourselves, don’t we? We say, “Look, don’t look at me I’m not the important thing. It’s the truth that’s important.” That’s the way every human being act. Now, this man pointed out that his teaching is not the important thing, it’s him that’s important. I mean, that is hideous. Either he is an absolute megalomaniac, or this is really true. But, he did treat himself differently loved ones, to the way ordinary human beings treat themselves as authorities. Now, you have it in Matthew 16:15, “He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” And he pressed on that, you see. Another person would have said, “Ah, it doesn’t matter who I am it’s the teaching that’s important.” But he said, “Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’” He obviously talked, you know, as if the Creator of the universe was his special Father and he obviously encouraged other people to feel that way about him, and he put himself above his teaching. And you know, he claimed attributes for himself that only God has. He claimed attributes of eternity for himself that only God has. He talked about seeing himself as seeing God. He said, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen my Father.” He said, “If you’ve received me you’ve received my Father.” Now loved ones, this obscure pheasant was born in Bethlehem 1981 years ago, claimed that he was the Son of the Creator of the universe and he talked as if he were. Now that’s the first reason I think why you have to consider the possibility that he was. Because I think the next step is that many of us say, “Well, the psych wards are full of such people.” The psych wards are full of people who are making all kinds of claims like that and the world has been full of gurus down through the centuries who have tried to draw everybody’s attention to them so there’s nothing different about that. That’s why loved ones, I think you have to examine the claims and you have to determine, “Alright, was this man a liar? Did he know that he was not divine? Did he know that he was not the only begotten Son of the Maker of the universe, but he deliberately deceived all of us in order to lend authority to his teaching?” You have to decide, you know, is that it? Was he a con man who lied to the whole world about himself? Now, do you see the logical difficulty you get into? Do you see the irrational approach you get into if you believe that? There is not one philosopher in the world who does not say that this Jesus was not the greatest ethical teacher in the world. There’s not one person. Huxley – British cynic that he is, he admitted, “Yes, this was the greatest ethical teacher in the world.” Mohammad, other great teachers will say, “Yes, Jesus is the greatest ethical teacher in the world.” Loved ones, how can he be the greatest ethical teacher in the world if on the central point of his teaching his own identity he lied? You cannot respect his ethical teaching at all points and then say, “Yeah, but he lied about the central most important point that he taught us.” You cannot do it. It’s an illogical impossibility. You either have to say, “If he lied about that then all the rest is untrue and does not work in this life,” or you have to say, “All the rest is higher than any other man who ever taught us.” And therefore, we have to believe if he had such wisdom as that, as produced that kind of ethical teaching, then he must be honest on the central point of his teaching his own identity as the Son of the Maker of the universe. In other words, it’s very hard to believe that he is a liar. Was he a lunatic? Was he a megalomaniac? Was he another Hitler, or another Moon with that unification church? Was he another man who wanted to make himself better than everybody else? Was he in fact, insane? And it’s really hard to believe it, isn’t it? His life is a pattern of sanity. His life has none of the abnormality or imbalance that schizophrenics would have, or that megalomaniacs would have. In fact, C. S. Lewis you remember, points out that no one has been able to explain how a megalomaniac could produce teaching that is so sublime, and so true, and so profound. His life just isn’t that of a lunatics. And really loved ones, if he is not a lunatic, and he is not a liar, you really have very little left. You have to determine is this man really the Son of God? He is really what he says he is? I think some people will say, “Oh, well he’s a legend.” But for a legend to have developed you need time. Some people will say, “Ah yeah, what we have in the New Testament is not really Jesus as he existed. That’s Jesus touched up with a lot of exaggerations that his leaders added in order to lend authority to their position.” But loved ones, for a legend to develop you need time. Time for all the people to die who were alive during that man’s lifetime. Otherwise, if you begin to write exaggerations about him they just begin to contradict those exaggerations and say, “It’s not true. We were alive then.” Now of course, the time was not available. There is not a great gap of time between the time that Jesus lived and the first writings we have about him. Galatians was written in 48 AD. That’s 18 years after Jesus died. There must have been many eyewitnesses alive who knew Jesus who read these accounts of his life and could simply say they’re true or they’re untrue. Loved ones, really all you’re left with is that this man really was the Son of the Maker of the universe, that that’s really who he was. And you know, even his claims, and his talk, you can get away with claims or talk even though we examine them this way analytically. But what you can’t get away from is his acts. He really did have power over nature, and over sickness, and disease. He fed 5,000 people with a few loaves and fishes. He stilled a raging storm. He made water into wine. He raised the widow’s son. He raised the centurion’s daughter. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He obviously had the kind of powers over the world that you would expect the one who had made the world to have. So, his power of sickness, and over nature and disease is consistent with his claims that he is in fact, the one by whom all these things were made. It certainly dealt with the things around us as if he had made them. And then you know, if you examine his own character, there is just no life that has been lived like his. Ah, somebody puts it this way, a man called Muggeridge tries to summarize it and points out that there has been no human being who has ever been as perfect as this man Jesus. He just is above everybody. Mohammad’s life was torn with acts of vengeance, and fights, and strife. Old Confucius admitted that he had many faults. This man Jesus actually stood in front of a group of people and said, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” And nobody pointed sin out in his life, nobody said anything. The great saints, and sages, and mystics will all admit that the deeper we have gone the more conscious we are of our own sin, the more conscious we are of moral failure. Loved ones, he had no sense of moral failure. But not only that but the people that lived closest to him agreed with that. People like Peter and John said, “Listen, there is no sin in him.” Even the centurion who was his enemy who crucified him said, “This surely was the Son of God.” Even Pontus Pilate whose job was to find out something wrong in order to get rid of him said, “Behold I find no fault in this man.” So loved ones, his own life and his claims to sinlessness were backed up and reinforced by other people. And here is the way Muggeridge has described it. “His zeal never degenerated into passion nor his consistency into obstinacy, nor his benevolence into weakness, nor his tenderness into sentimentality. His unworldliness was free from indifference and unsocialability or undue familiarity. His self-denial from moroseness. His temperance was free from austerity. He combined childlike innocence with manly strength absorbing devotion to God with untiring interest in the welfare of man. Tender love to the sinner with uncompromising severity against sin commanding dignity with winning humility. Fearless courage with wise caution. Unyielding firmness with sweet gentleness.” It’s the kind of human character you would try to imagine if you were trying to create a perfect being, and that’s what this man Jesus, this obscure pheasant who was born in Bethlehem was like. Finally, maybe the most powerful thing is of course that many through controlled breathing while apparently being buried alive have claimed to come alive again after being dead. There have been many con men who have done that kind of thing. There are gurus and mystics in India today who can give an appearance of having been dead and having come to life. Their fame of course never gets far beyond the boundaries of their own village and if it ever comes to light in the world as a whole, their claims are very quickly exposed by just a little bit of analysis and a little bit of confirmation from eye witnesses. But loved ones, this man continually repeated that he would be crucified and that on the third day he would rise from the dead, and he did it. And there is no historic incident that is so reliably documented as this resurrection of this man Jesus. No historical incident has been so analyzed from a literary, and historical, and legal point of view as has his resurrection from the dead. No two facts have been so often questioned and so often subjected to detailed criticism, and discussion, and debate as have the twin facts of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances. And after all that, over 1900 years the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is still the most solid historical incident that we have available to us from first 500 years, 1000 years of our era. Loved ones, it doesn’t matter what way you turn on that one, you cannot get any other answer except the resurrection is a far easier explanation of the whole event then all the explanations we can suggest or substitute for it. You try to go that swoon theory, it falls to the ground. It’s ridiculous to believe that he could have swooned and then could have come alive so tremendously and powerfully alive after bleeding in a dang cold tomb for several nights, and then come so alive that he convinced his followers and 500 people at one time that he was more alive than he had ever been before. And was able not only to come alive but to appear in different places at great distances from one another. It’s just foolishness when you start arguing the Romans stole the body. If they stole the body all they had to do was produce it to kill the Christian witness once and for all. If the disciples stole the body then you had to have them dying for something they knew to be a lie which is an ethical impossibility. People will die for what they think is true but they will not die for what they know to be a lie. They will not lead their children into crucifixion for what they know to be a lie. It doesn’t matter which way you go loved ones, you have to accept finally that the only explanation of the resurrection is the resurrection. You can’t argue they went to the wrong tomb, how did they all keep going to the wrong tomb day, after day, after day. You go to the resurrection appearances and you try to apply the psychological laws of hallucinations to them and it doesn’t work. A hallucination must be subjective. He was seen by about 500 brethren at one time and by groups of people in the upper room. Hallucinations have to be seen by people who want to see them. On the road to Emmaus you remember, the two men said, “And we thought that this was he who should have redeemed Israel.” They had given up hope of him coming alive again. They had no hope of him coming alive. They felt that bit doesn’t come true. Hallucinations have to appear over a long, long period of time. His appearances took place over 40 days and then they disappeared completely. You just cannot explain away the appearances on the ground of hallucinations. The psychological laws are not similar. Loved ones, it doesn’t matter how you go on this little pheasant who was born in Bethlehem 1981 years ago, you’re driven to the conclusion that this was really our God come here in a human body and that if we want to know what our God is like you just look at this man Jesus and he is God. And loved ones, that’s it really. The final proof of the existence of God is this little baby that was born 1981 years ago in Bethlehem and that’s really what it means that the word became flesh, and that’s how we come to believe in God. And the amazing thing is that your friends and relatives, and your colleagues at work, and my colleagues and friends will only come to believe that there is a God if the word again becomes flesh in your life. That’s it. Unless God sends the Spirit of his Son into your heart so that your life reflects the beauty of this life, your friends and colleagues are hearing words, words, words, and talk they know is cheap and they listen to it day in and day out. Loved ones, unless the word becomes flesh in you all you give to your friends and your relatives is talk. And of course, what God wants this Christmas is for his Son to be born in you in a fuller way. There isn’t one of us loved ones, there isn’t one of us here who does not need Jesus more alive in us this coming year than he was last year. You cannot live on the degree to which he was alive in you last year this next year. God requires that you allow his Son to be fully formed in you in a fuller and more complete way. The only way it can happen is if the Holy Spirit conceives this Jesus in you as he conceived him in Mary. And if you say to me, “Well, what do we do?” Loved ones, there’s just one condition, you say what Mary said, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” You say to God this morning, “Lord God, I do want my relatives, I do want my friends, I do want my colleagues to have the same opportunity of seeing that there is a God like you as I have had. So Lord, look at my life, will you change it as you want and I’m willing for you to change it, and I’m willing to change it myself as you want so that Jesus can be born in me.” Now loved ones, look the problem is they see you. That’s it. They see you and me with all our inconsistencies, and all our bluff, and all our hypocrisy, and all our dishonesty, they see us and they hear us talking this big talk about God and how we’re Christians, and how we believe in God and love ones, they are no more fools than we are. They just say, “Haw-hum,” and they’re polite to you, you know they’re nice to you and you’re their friend and they don’t want to break up a friendship so they’re polite to you. but loved ones, they will not believe until they see your life like Jesus’ life. And the only way that will take place is if you say to him, “Be it unto me Lord, according to your word. Whatever you want to do with my life Lord, here it is do it. However you want to change it, you want me to stop being dishonest in business Lord, that’s it I’ve finished with that. Jesus come in and be your own honest self in my business life. You want me to stop being dishonest and lying at school in order to establish my reputation? Lord, I’m finished with it. You come in and be your own honest pure self so that they can see God. You want me to stop sidestepping on income tax? Alright Lord, I’ll stop it. You come in and be your own honest self.” Loved ones, the world is dying for a side of Jesus and each one of us here in this auditorium is able to give them that side. But it does mean that you have to be willing for Jesus to come in and be himself in you and let him change your life. I really just pray – I really – well, the words aren’t strong enough you know. I cannot tell you how strongly I pray and wish that you would let Jesus be formed in you. Really. And just let your life be run and ruled by God the way he wants so that Jesus could appear in you. That’s what the miserable old word needs, you know. Let’s pray. Dear Father, we know this in our hearts but Lord, somehow Satan or somebody has deceived us into thinking that well, we can never be a carrier of Jesus. So Lord, many of us have settled for less, settled for doing our best. Lord, we recognize that doing our best has given us an escape, we’ve been able just to do as much as we wanted, but Lord, we see that it’s just a hypocritical mess and our friends, and our colleagues at work and at school have failed to believe in God because they can’t believe in us because they know our Father, that if we really believed that Jesus was you we would let him live in our lives and take over our lives. We’d change our ways. Father, we would ask you as we come to the end of this year to show us what it means for us to say, “Be it unto me according to your word.” And Lord, we would ask that during this Christmas week you would show us what it means or us to have Jesus born in us. Lord, we want our friends, and our colleagues, and our relatives to be able to see him clearly, no longer shrouded with our miserable halfhearted lives but see him clear, and clean, and pure, and plain. So Lord Jesus, we want to deal with you this week and we want to ask you on Christmas morning to be born in us and Lord, we are willing on that day to let all the miserable coating of dishonesty, and lying, and hypocrisy, and selfishness fall away from us so that you can be seen as you really are in all your beauty. And a word may become flesh in our lives for your Glory. Amen.

Is Jesus Your Personal Savior? Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill The most important thing we can do for each other this morning is to help each other to get into heaven. Really, that’s it. Everything else we do for each other is kind of temporary but the most important thing is that you yourself would get to heaven and so I’d like to spend the half hour trying to help you get to heaven. You might say, “Well, that’s silly the way you describe God it’s pretty obvious that he’s loving and he wants us all to get to heaven, and we’re all going to go to heaven. It seems to me that there’s no reason why any of us would go anywhere else. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that that old hellfire and brimstone stuff is old fashion religion of yesteryear and so we’re all going to go to heaven anyway so really you have no great problem this morning.” Well loved ones, there is a problem because the most perfect purist man that ever lived, the one who has given us the most detailed information about our Creator that we human beings possess, he said some things that just blow away that lovey dovey universalist idea that we’re all going to end up in heaven any way, whatever we do in this life. And it’s very important for us to see that. The dear man who gave us the best information that we have about the beyond because he, in fact, went into the beyond and came back and told us, “It’s what I say. It’s all that I told you about my Father.” He made it very plain that there is a place other than heaven and it’s important for us to see it, you know, just to be honest and intellectually consistent this morning. So, would you look at Matthew 5:22? Matthew 5:22, they’re words of course of Jesus because he is the man that I mentioned. Matthew 5:22, “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.” And I know we have a tendency to say, “But that was Jesus speaking to the Jews, you know, accommodating himself to the ideas that were then prevalent among them, but he himself always spoke of love and kindness and he did not normally use that kind of language. Well loved ones, look at what Mark reported in his ninth chapter. Just if you flick over a few pages to Mark 9:43 Mark 9:43, “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell.” Now, I don’t know if you’re like me but it was popular in our seminary to say, “Well, hell you know, it’s the word Johanna, it really means a garbage dumb of some kind, and really it kind of means a kind of purgatory maybe at the worst, you know. A place where you’ll go and you’ll be purged of the sin that’s in you and then it will come to an end and then we’ll all end up in heaven. And some of us go through our purgatory here on earth and some of us have to go through it then.” Well brothers and sisters, it’s just hard you know. Greek scholar, Hebrew scholar, it doesn’t matter what you are, you can’t get around those words in Mark 9:48. Mark 9:48, “Where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” Hell, “Where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” Actually, we did our best, we modern scholars to get rid of that because you could look at the footnote N at the bottom of the RSV, and do you see it’s the third footnote down there N, “Verses 44 and 46 which are identical with Verse 48 are omitted by the best ancient authorities.” So actually, King James Version still has 44 and 46, but we got rid of two of them, but you couldn’t get rid of 48 because 44 and 46 are exactly the same as 48, “Where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” So brothers and sisters, you know, let’s keep away from the old general philosophizing, “Well, that isn’t my God, you know. That isn’t a God I know.” Forget it, the God you know is the God that’s presented here. There’s nowhere else to get a God except from the Bible and from Jesus. And the fact is, that our dear Savior who showed such love to the woman caught in adultery said, “Listen, it’s better to cut your hands off than to have two hands to go into hell where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” And loved ones, we need to see that, you know. We need to see that hell is not really something that God has created, it’s something that we have created. And this may all sound very strange to us modernists, but do you know that the existentialists John Paul Sartre, one of the most modern thinkers that we have had, he says exactly the same thing. Would you believe it? From his virtually agnostic atheistic position he says exactly the same thing. He says that there is a hell that goes on forever, and ever. You know the existentialists philosophy that Sartre espoused. He said, “What you do day-by-day declares what you are.” He put it this way, he said, “You authentic yourself by your experience.” In other words, every time you say a word, every time you do an act, you declare who you are. Moreover, you become more what you are. So every time you do something the existentialists say you become more what you really are. And of course Sartre said that the more you do those things and the more you say those things, the more you become a character out of whom there is no exit. And so he wrote a play which he called no exit where he described what he thought eternity was going to be. And he put in one room, those of you who know the play will remember it, he put in one room a lesbian, a card, and a murderer. And they talked for a while and wondered where the torturers were and laughed and joked and then as they began to bicker, and argue, and criticize one another, and tease one another, and joke with one another, and kept on and on, and began to fornicate, and began to criticizes, they gradually realized that they were each other’s torturers. And then they looked up at the electric light bulb, one light bulb in the room and they suddenly realized that it would never go off. It would never go out. And they were stuck in that room with these other two people forever and there was no relief. They would continue being what they had become in this life. There’s an almost nightmarish lines in it you know, the man says, he’s speaking to the person who brought them here, “He says, your eyelids, we move ours up and down, blinking we call it. It’s like a small black shutter that clicks down and makes a break. Everything goes black, one’s eyes are moistened. You can’t imagine how restful refreshing it is 4,000 little rests per hour, 4,000 little respites, just think. So that’s the idea and to live without eyelids. “Don’t act a fool, you know what I mean, no eyelids no sleep. It follows doesn’t it? I shall never sleep again. But then how shall I endure my own company? Try to understand, you see, I’m fond of teasing, it’s a second nature with me and I’m used to teasing myself, plaguing myself if you prefer. I don’t tease nicely but I can’t go on doing that without a break. Down there I had my nights, I slept, I always had good nights by way of compensation I suppose, and happy little dreams. There was a green field, just an ordinary field, I used to stroll in it. Is it daytime now?” “Can’t you see the lights are on?” “Ah yes, I’ve got it it’s your daytime. And outside?” “Outside?” “Damn it you know what I mean beyond that wall there’s a passage, and at the end of the passage there’s more rooms, more passages and stairs.” “And what lays beyond them?” “That’s all.” But it is interesting isn’t it that an agnostic existentialist would actually present the same picture of hell as something that goes on forever, and ever as Jesus has presented to us in this book. And loved ones, that’s it hell is not something created by some terrible cruel God. Hell is simply a dear Father giving us free will and allowing us to choose what we want, and giving us even breath, and heartbeat, and blood circulation, and food to eat, and continuing to reign his reign upon us and give us the sunshine even as we exercise our free wills to curse him, and to oppose him, and to destroy him. And hell is a dear Father giving us the free will to continue to choose this, to decide that, until we gradually become the kind of character and person we want to become. And then, at that point the Bible says, “Then comes the judgment. Death and after that the judgment.” Then God does take it as his right to separate those of us who have lived for ourselves and not for him throughout our lives from those of us who have chosen to live for him and not for ourselves. Only at that point does God separate the one from the other. But we determine what we are day-by-day. And so it’s happening with us, you know, here. It’s happening with you. Every day you’re making decisions, decision-by-decision, choice-by-choice, word-by-word, thought-by-thought, act-by-act, you’re becoming a certain kind of person out of whom there is no exit. And you will live with that person forever, and ever, and ever. And you may say, “Well, it’s unthinkable. It’s nightmarish. But I know human nature well enough to realize that we’re a self-deceiving crew ad I may think I’m alright and yet I may be doing the very thing you say. I may becoming a monster and I don’t realize it because we are a self-deceiving group and how do I know? How can I know which way I am going?” Well loved ones, Jesus did give us the right story on that. He did tell us, he told us what way we were going, and he explained it to his disciples and Paul who was one of his disciples or his apostles you remember, wrote it in a letter to people at Rome and he said this, “All of us, every one of us, all of us, have sinned. Every one of us so stop philosophizing, stop rationalizing, stop wondering whether you’re going the right way or not. At this point in such a relativistic business as judging where you are in regard to God, what you need is an object of judgment of some kind.” And Jesus said that. Every one of us here in this room have sinned. Not every one of us are criminals. Many of us haven’t committed any crimes. Not every one of us are immoral. Many of us are not immoral. Not every one of us have filled our lives with vices. Many of us have few vices, no crimes, very few immoralities. But what Jesus is saying is every one of us have sinned. That is in the normal sense of the word sinned. James 4:17 says, “Whosoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it for him it is sin.” That is sin. And Jesus says every one of us in this room has known what was right to do at some point in our lives and has not done it. And you see the first time you or I ever did that we were setting ourselves up against God. See, I know the way you think, you think the way I think. I think, “Wait a minute, one little thing, doing one little thing wrong, that’s not bad. Why if I do one little thing that I know is wrong, that’s not a biggie. All of us are like that, we’re all in the same boat. We all do lots of things that are wrong.” But do you see that’s the blindness of sin? These three dear people ended up in this room with the electric light bulb in it and they couldn’t understand why they got there. They’d never done anything wrong they thought. And that’s the subtlety of sin, it is a blinding thing loved ones. It makes us feel, “It’s no big thing to do once what you know is wrong. It’s no big thing.” But that sin comes in and it blinds you, and it prevents you from seeing that when you choose that one little thing that you knew God didn’t want you to do, you actually elevated your will above his. You did loved ones, you know. There’s no way around that. I mean you and I can play it down and make it a small thing, but you know that’s what we did. We actually said, “My will is more important to me at this time than the will of the maker of the whole universe.” We elevated our judgment above his. We did. I mean, actually isn’t it true to say we said we are going to be God in this situation. We’re going to decide this is right for us. And at that moment, a whole vast ocean of greyness and mist came between you and your God. That’s it. You husbands and wives, or you know mums and dads, or sons and daughter, you know how at home you suddenly discover after weeks, and months, that you don’t even know the other person, you know that? You know how it starts off with a little niggle things and you just get a little distant, a little more distant, a little more distant, and whether it’s your dad, or your mum, or your husband, or your wife, or your son, or your daughter, suddenly you get down the line about six months or a year and you realize, “I’m miles from this person. I don’t even know the way they think. I don’t know the way they think. I don’t even feel what they are feeling.” And the other person is saying to you, “But you don’t understand me. You don’t know what I am thinking. You don’t feel the way I feel.” And suddenly you realize, “Yeah, that’s right I don’t. Yeah, we are we’re miles apart. I don’t know what’s happened but we are.” Now that’s what it is loved ones. That’s the little sin, the little doing something wrong, that begins the huge separation that begins to open between you and God. That’s why Jesus said through Paul, “The wages of sin is death,” you see. Not kind of something, you do something and the great God clunks you and kills you. Not that. But as you disagree with him, as you do what you think again, and again, little decision by little decision, little choice by little choice, gradually death comes about and great separation opens up between you and your God until you no longer feel with his heart. You no longer sense the pain that you’re inflicting on him by your running your own life whatever way you want. Until you get more and more insensitive to him to the point where you can no longer sense his presence in your life at all and that’s the beginning of hell. That’s the beginning of hell in your life. And whether it’s Sartre or whether it’s Jesus Christ, what you are is what you will be. You will continue to be that forever, and ever, and ever. So loved ones, it applies, you know, if you have an unclean mind you’ll live in that garbage for the rest of eternity. If you have a resentful heart that resents people, and criticizes people, you’ll live in that for the rest of eternity. You’ll live in that. If you are one who is always looking out for yourself, whatever it costs anybody else, that’s what you will be for the rest of eternity. And so will all the other people around you be doing the same thing. Now that’s our situation, you see. The worse thing about sins are not the sins, the outward acts, and the words, and the thoughts, the worse thing about the sins is the sin inside. That’s the plague. That’s the plague. That emptiness in your heart, that feeling I can’t quite get through to God, I can’t quite know where he is, I can’t sense what he wants. That’s the plague, that’s the tragedy. The sins, you can sometimes stop them, you can sometimes avoid them but the sin is the personality that you are becoming day-by-day that cannot change. Now the gospel is that God took your personality as it is with all those unchangeable traits of yours and asked his Son to take it through the experience of hell and the destruction of hell. And when he came out the other side, because of his own righteousness, God asked him to recreate you fresh and new. And that’s what was done and that’s the only way to be changed, and that’s the only way to heaven. And it’s all meaningless to you if you have never thanked Jesus for that. He is your personal Savior, in that you contributed something to the pain and agony of hell in his heart that none of the rest of us did. Some of that agony that he bore was for you, wasn’t for me, wasn’t for any the rest of us in the room. There’s something of his death that you contributed pain to that none of the rest of us did. There’s a piece of his sin that you bore that he didn’t bear for any of the rest of us. He is your personal Savior but it’s meaningless and you’ll be untouched by it, and you’ll go to hell unless you thank him personally for what he has done for you. That’s it. Unless you go to him this morning and say, “Jesus, I have things in my life that will take me into hell in this life and hell hereafter. Lord, thank you that you bore these things for me. I confess them, I want rid of them Lord.” And you confess those sins whatever they are. And then you turn to him and well, I needn’t tell you, what do you tell you don’t need instruction you either believe this, if you believe it you know what to do. You know there’s only one thing you can say to him, “Jesus that’s what I would have had to go through except I wouldn’t have come out the other side. I’d be living forever in a hell burning against myself, and selfishness, and resentment. Lord Jesus, thank you. I turn from this mess. I turn from it this day and I turn to you and Jesus, I ask you to come in and now live your life again inside me.” That’s how you make him your personal Savior, you see. Because the moment you acknowledge that he has done what he has done then there’s a bridge built between you and he begins to be able to get through to you, and you begin to receive words from beyond, and messages from your God. And you begin slowly to build again a sensitive relationship between you and your dear Creator that was his intention for you from the beginning. So I’d just ask you, is Jesus your personal Savior? Is Jesus your personal Savior? Have you acknowledged him personally? He already knows you intimately because he has born every one of your sins in his own heart and born the pain for them. Have you acknowledged him. Have you made a friendship with Jesus? That’s what it means loved ones, to be a Christian. It’s a personal relationship with Jesus who has born the unbearable for you. Let us pray. Dear Jesus, we would thank you for going to hell for us. And Jesus, we see it goes beyond us here if we don’t thank you and confess to you the things that we know you died for in our lives. Savior, we’d confess them to you personally and we’d repent of them personally to you. Jesus, we’re sorry that we caused your death. We’re sorry that the dirt, and the monstrosity that we have created within ourselves brought about your agony and pain. Jesus, we apologize and we repent. And Jesus Christ, we ask you now to acknowledge us as we acknowledge you and Jesus, will you take over our lives now? Give us your spirit, and enable us now to live free from this personality that we have been forming down through the years. Jesus, we believe that it was changed, we believe that you destroyed it in yourself, and Savior, we ask you now to come into our hearts and to take over our lives, and to live your life in us from this day forward so that we may live no longer for ourselves, but for you and for our dear Father in heaven. And oh Lord God, we ask you to save us from the hell that we have created and that we have made necessary by all of our self deification. Savior, we thank you, thank you, thank you that there is heaven and thank you that we can be there today with you and we can live there forever. Thank you Lord. 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.

Helps and Hindrances to the Spirit’s Witness Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Loved ones, would you turn in the Bible to Revelation 3:20? Most of us know these words they’ve been repeated often since we were children to us. Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” And most of us know that verse from at least Billy Graham evangelistic crusades and probably most of us from hearing it at some of evangelistic service in our home church. We all know that it’s the verse that’s quoted to indicate that God is willing to come into your heart, and to take over your life, and to give you a sense of his favor and his love in your own personal heart. And you probably, like me, have felt, “That’s what I need. That’s what I need. Religion, I believe in it, I believe in Christianity, I believe in the sense of going to church, and I believe in this Bible, but it isn’t real to me inside. It isn’t warm and real in my own heart, and I don’t know how to get it real.” And maybe you’ve often come up Evangelistic Crusades or Evangelistic services and you’ve repeated those words even to yourself, “Lord I know that you’re saying to me, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him, and eat with him, and him with me.’” And then you have gone through all kinds of contortions, to try to open the door of your heart. And I don’t know what you’ve gone through, but I know I myself went through all kinds of, what I thought were mystical experiences. And I tried to imagine in my own mind, “The Lord Jesus, is here in this room, he’s at this altar rail, he’s in this room were I’m speaking him and he’s right here and he’s willing to come into my heart and all I have to do is ask him.” And I tried to imagine him coming into my heart, and I was unable. Or, you tried singing the verses of the hymn, because you thought, “If I can get the atmosphere of that meeting that I was at where I felt God stirring me, if I can recapture that feeling that I had then I’ll know the warmth of God in my heart.” And yet it has never come real for you. It has never really taken place. And you may have actually come to this body for years and yet still it isn’t real to you. And I would appeal to two groups of you actually, one of you who might be very intellectual and might have to work out everything in the mind. And you might be in the position where saying, “It’s just not for me, that kind of closeness that other people talk about. I happen to be more cold blooded than other people. I’m just coldly intellectual, I think things through so I can expect the reality of Jesus in my life that other people have, who aren’t quit as intellectual.” Indeed, if you’re like some of us you might think actually it’s rather embarrassing to have anything to emotional or warm inside and you might have decided, “I am an intellectual Christian. That’s what I am. No, I don’t feel God particularly close to me, I don’t feel very great warmth of his presence in my life, I don’t feel he is personally showing his favor to me, but I believe all of the things that this book says, and I believe that he is not against me.” And you might be in that position of many of us who are intellectuals, where we feel, “Well what we have is enough. Admittedly it doesn’t seem to be exactly what other people have, who are real with God but it seems to be enough.” I speak also to those of you who are emotional, and you think to yourself, “Well, if I can only get an emotional experience of Jesus in my heart that’s what I need.” And so you go from church, to church, to church, to atmosphere, to atmosphere, trying to get that emotional experience that will convince you that God is in your heart, that the Savior has come in to take over your life, and to dwell there. Brothers and sisters, none of that is right. None of that is right. None of those things are right. That’s not where Jesus coming into your heart is at, at all. It has nothing to do with that stuff, it has nothing to do with your emotionalism, nothing to do with your intellectualism. It has nothing to do with mystical experience, it’s nothing to do with kind of a momentary experience, it isn’t loved ones. It’s on a far more down to earth level than that, and the reality that loved ones feel of Jesus in there heart, does not come from an emotional experience, or from an intellectual experience, or from a mystical experience, it comes from a spiritual experience. And a spiritual experience is real and down to earth, and plan, and simple. And it’s the one that the dear old Jew, old [Wayne Swartz 5:50], he’s a dear fella, you’d love him, you know, it was so enjoyable meeting him in Mexico. He’s a New Yorker, and just a happy old New York Jew, and just so outgoing, and so happy, and so wears his heart on his sleeve. And he is the dearest guy, and I hope he’ll come up someday and spend some time with us here. It where Wayne Schwartz’s experience is, that’s it. That’s it. My wife is very different from Wayne Schwartz, and yet she came through the same experience. I’m very different from Wayne Schwartz, I came through the same experience. Anybody who comes to the point where they’re asking Jesus in their heart, finally finds out that the reason they can’t experience the witness of the spirit, and it’s the witness of the spirit that counts, it’s not emotionalism that counts, it’s not intellectualism that counts, it’s the witness of the spirit, the reason they don’t experience the witness of the spirit, that Jesus has come in, is because Jesus hasn’t come in, because there’s something in there heart that won’t let him in. And that something is very plan, loved ones. Now I’d just ask you to look at it in that newsletter it’s on page four and old Wayne puts it so plainly and so straight that I couldn’t put it any better, and I don’t think any of us could. It’s page four, it’s on the right hand column, about half way up the right hand column on page four, you see where he says, “So Jews could and should believe in Jesus”, that page. “So Jews could and should believe in Jesus. The only thing I needed to see then was another Jewish Christian, to really see that everything was true. I was then convicted as far I could be. One night it finally happened, I met a girl from the states who was Jewish, as I was, and she taught me about how 11 years ago she gave her life to Jesus. That was all I needed. That night, I asked the Lord to come into my life. I’m not exactly sure what I thought would happen, but I knew that nothing did happen.” And that’s what’s happened with a lot of us. “I’m not sure what would happen but I knew that nothing did happen. I was sleeping at about five or six AM and heard a voice telling me that if I would stop sinning I would have what I wanted.” That’s it. “If I would stop sinning I would have what I wanted. It was so loud, so clear that it woke me up.” Finally it became clear as to why nothing happened that first time I invited him in, I was still planning on sinning.” Wayne used to cruise the beaches and pick up the girls, so he was trying to continue the old life and yet ask Jesus in. “It happened the first time I invited him in I was still planning on sinning. You can’t fool God so what I was going to do was sin. What I wanted was Jesus. Before I had repented but not with a heart ready to leave sin behind and God knew it. Very shortly after I made my decision to leave sin behind and I prayed once again and this time boom, I received the Lord with the Spirit and all his benefits and fruits: joy; peace; patience; love; and everything else that goes with it, Galatians 5:22. For the first time in my life I had real peace. Praise the Lord, I was now a reborn Christian Jew. This happened on June 12, 1982 and now three years later I’m still amazed at the storehouse of blessings and promises I’ve inherited, along with how many people are in need of Jesus to free them.” That’s it loved ones. That’s it. It’s not complex at all, it isn’t. It’s not a complicated thing at all. If you’ve asked Jesus to come into your heart and nothing has happened, it’s only for one reason. It’s not because you’re not emotional enough, it’s not because you’re not intellectual enough, it’s not because you’re not mystical enough. It’s because you still plan on sinning. That is it. God has convicted your heart about something that you should stop doing or something that you should start doing and you are planning on going on doing what he has forbidden, or you’re planning on going on doing what he has told you not to do. That’s it, you know. I know it sounds hideous and I was offended by the whole thing. I felt I was a kind of intellectual sophisticate in the university and I could not believe that God would be so ridiculous as to tie his presence in my life to something as practical and down to earth as stopping being impatient with my mother, or stopping being irritable, or stopping swearing. But God is. God is disgustingly down to earth. God simply says to you, “Your sins made my Son’s death necessary. Your sins killed my Son. I cannot give you my Son in your heart if you are still involved in putting names in his hands and a spear in his side. That you have to stop. You cannot please the blood of Jesus and shed the blood of Jesus at the same time.” That’s it loved ones. In other words, you see what you’re doing you’re involved in a spiritual impossibility. It’s a spiritual impossibility. You can’t ask the Savior from sin to come into your life and you continue to practice sin. That’s it. So if you want Jesus in your heart, and you want God to be real in your life, stop the sins that God has told you are in your life. That’s it. That’s it really. I mean, you must have been – that hits anybody, it’s so simple and plain and the dear guy puts it in such an unsophisticated way. He says, “I’m not sure what I thought would happen but I know nothing did happen.” He was a Jew, he knew nothing about all the stuff we had been brought up with for years, but he did what we said he should do and nothing happened. God is faithful. God is faithful. God won’t let anyone be deceived. And then God spoke to him and told him he had to stop sinning and when he stopped sinning – he only had to plan to stop sinning. He only had to determine not to sin and the whole thing became real in a moment. That’s it. You know, he didn’t – Wayne Swartz hasn’t been at any evangelistic campaigns, he doesn’t know anything about all the stuff we go through. He just knows that God is faithful, if you stop sinning Jesus really does come into your heart. If you don’t stop sinning, you can ask him into your heart but you don’t experience anything real, you just experience an emotional thing, or a reaffirmation of your life. Now brothers and sisters, I’d just make no apology for sharing that again. I mean, it doesn’t seem to matter how long we are on the journey it always gets back to that. It doesn’t matter how long we are or how saintly we all think we are, it gets back to the matter of stop sinning, and immediately boom there comes a presence of God into your life that you could not believe. And it’s the same with the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes in and fills you when you get rid of the things that God has shown you are there. So brothers and sisters I’d encourage you on this Father’s day, this first Sunday on campus in ’85, if you have tried it before and it’s been kind of disappointing, or you’ve tried it before and it doesn’t seem to have worked, would you examine your own life and I’d ask you is there any sin there that you’re planning on continuing? And I’m saying to you will you stop it now? Will you just plan not ever more to sin that sin. And if you’ll be real with your God he’ll be real with you. Now, sooner or later you’ll have to be real with him. Sooner or later you will meet him and he will expose those sins to you and to the whole world but then there will be no forgiveness possible. So, you have to do it sooner or later. It’s just now you can do it to salvation. Then you will do it to eternal damnation. So loved ones, will you do it now, will you stop it now whatever it is? Or, whatever it is he’s been asking you to start, will you start it now? Will you correct the thing now, will you change your life to align it with God’s will for you and he will immediately give the witness of your spirit in his heart and you’re spirit and you’ll know God is there. You’ll know he’s there. You will, you’ll know he’s there. You know, it’s not organized at all I didn’t know I was going to say these things I thought I was going to preach to you an ordinary sermon and so there’s no communion and there’s no place for you to kneel. You should come, you should do whatever needs to be done. You should come up and you should kneel here, you can kneel here you know, and you should make your commitment to God. You should. If you have tried before and it hasn’t worked and you see now the very sin that you know you’ve to forsake, or you see the very thing that you’ve to do, you should come up now and just repent of it to God and then just go back to your seat and trust him for the witness of the Spirit which he will give to you just when he decides is best for you. But we should do it, you know. Let’s just bow in prayer and we can just keep singing that Search me – Oh God…. and then we’ll sing it maybe four or five times and then we’ll just close.

The Simple Gospel Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill For about five years we’ve been studying God’s explanation of reality in Romans and we really do it in great detail because we do about a verse, and sometimes just half a verse every Sunday. And as with all large jobs like that, that are being covered in such detail, it’s good at times to kind of stand back and look at it from a distance. And you know, when you’re painting the old house it’s good to stand back and just see how it all looks, and to see the thing again in perspective. And so loved ones, every three, four months, just as Jesus guides me I feel it’s important for us to stand back and just break for a while from the detailed study and look at the whole truth just once. And just look at the plain simple gospel from a distance. It’s good I think, for those of us who are Christians because it just enables us to see the wood and not look at all the trees. And it enables us to realize again why we have any relationship with the Creator of the universe at all. And it’s good for those of you who are not Christians yet, or who don’t have a real alive relationship with God because it enables you to know what to do. So that’s what I’d just like to do this morning, just preach a simple gospel. And you all know the verses, I just want to comment on them and let Jesus make them real to us. The first step in the gospel is bad news. Gospel is two Anglo-Saxon words god and spell and that’s where they got the title of that musical Godspell. It means good news. But the first part of the gospel is bad news. Unless you, as you sit there, are willing to identify yourself with the bad news you’ll never enter into any relationship with God. Now loved ones, the bad news is this, it’s Romans 3:23, all of us here in this auditorium, all of us have sinned. It’s just so easy for you to sit there, and me to stand here and say, “Yeah, that’s right. That is right for that. Oh, I hope there’s somebody here this morning that needs to hear that. I just hope there is. That girl beside me, she looks as if she needs to hear it.” And then if we’re over 50, “That guy there with all that hair in front of me, he looks as if he needs to hear it.” And isn’t it – loved ones, it is wild but we are just the worse at that, aren’t we? And you know, even as we’re all laughing, we’re kind of tending to do it ourselves too inside. But all of us have sinned, and I think we keep getting into the mess because we think it means, all are guilty of vices. That is a society concept, a vice. You know, gambling is vice. I’m sure it’s almost also a sin but it’s primarily a vice. Even drunkenness, it’s regarded in our society as a vice. Certainly, it’s a sin too. But we tend to sit here this morning and say, “Well all those who have committed vices, they have sinned.” We can see that but it’s not that. Sin is a narrower term in a sense and a broader term in another sense than vice. It does not mean a vice. Some of us tend to say, “Well, Patty Hearst, or the guy who shot his mum and dad, and his sister in Anoka, anybody who commits a crime they have committed sins. They have sinned.” Loved ones, it’s not a crime. A crime is a legal concept, sin is a deeper thing than crime, it’s a deeper thing than vice. And God says, as a matter of fact and truth all of us here have sinned. All of us. He doesn’t need to prove it, he just says, “That’s a fact. I know it is. All of you have sinned.” What is sin? Sin is transgression of the law. Sin is disobeying God’s law. So all of us have disobeyed his law in some way. That’s it. All of us have either committed adultery, or we have hated someone with a murderous hate, or we have committed adultery in our hearts by lusting after someone without expressing it in outward act. All of us have stolen, “Thou shall not steal,” if we haven’t stolen money, or if we haven’t stolen something from someone, we’ve stolen someone’s reputation by criticizing them and tearing them part. All of us have sinned in some way. We have disobeyed God’s law in some way. Now loved ones, here’s an important verse in scripture that I think you need to look at. It’s James 2:10, because a lot of us have a tendency to say, “Well, yeah I’ve sinned but not nearly as much as other people.” Or, “I haven’t sinned as great a sin as somebody else,” and this kind of puts it very straight, you know. James 2:10, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ said also, ‘Do not kill.’ If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.” So whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it and that’s what God means when he says we’ve all sinned. We’ve all sinned as badly as Adolph Hitler. We’ve all sinned as badly as Mao Tse Tung. We’ve all sinned as badly as the fellow that shot the Kennedys. We’ve all sinned as badly as someone who has just murdered someone in New York City today. We have all sinned as badly as that, because loved ones, once you sin one little sin, one little thought of envy against someone, that’s as bad as if you’d done everything. And the reason is that sin is not so much something that you do as an attitude that lies behind the action. You commit adultery because you really don’t trust that the Father has everything for you that you need and will give it to you when you need it, or you’re not willing to believe that. You steal because you’re not willing to trust that the Father who made you is actually going to provide all that you need in this life. So the attitude behind sinning is one of, “I’ll make it on my own. I’ll do it my own way, I’ll do it without his aid, and I don’t need his help, and I don’t need his life.” So loved ones, sin is most of all a declaration of independence against the dear person who made us and that’s the heart of sin. All of us have sinned in that way. Now loved ones, once we did that certain things followed. First of all, we felt a real sense of being on our own in the world. We realized that we’re on our own. We had a real sense of not knowing where we were going in the world, a real sense of purposelessness because we couldn’t figure out who put us here or why we were put here because we’d rejected anything from him. And, we had a tremendous sense of desolation and loneliness. And all this came because the Creator withheld from us at that moment all that he wanted to give us: the life of his Holy Spirit; his own love; his own favor; his own friendship; his own kindly reassurance; his own recognition of us; and his own guidance of us in our lives, he withheld all of that and that’s why we have such a sense of desolation. Moreover, God at that moment determined that he would have to destroy us and the reason for that was that once we started to live on our own we became absolute perversions of what he intended us to be. He intended us to be loving, kind, relaxed, trusting people who received all they needed from him and therefore could give everything that everybody else needed to them. But instead of that, we became very needy people, very empty people. People who hadn’t enough of anything. We became parasites who wanted to live off everybody else, who wanted to get all we needed from everybody else. We turned into self dependent monsters, world dependent monsters, people dependent monsters. We turned into people who would destroy his universe and at that moment he determined that he had to destroy us. And loved ones, that’s what that Bible verse means, “The wages of sin is death.” We keep thinking that we haven’t done too much harm to ourselves, and so we keep thinking, “Okay, so we sinned a little, so we’ve lived a little independent of God. Alright, we can get back to him. We can just determine now to get back to him and start trusting him.” But loved ones, you’re not facing the fact that your personality has become permanently damaged. Instead of a personality that would give love to others, it’s become a carnal personality that demands love from each other. Loved ones, I’d ask you yourselves, is it not true? Do you yourself not feel again, and again, “I wish people would love me more. I wish my wife would love me more. I wish my children would love me more. I wish my friend would love me more.” Everybody needs love, aren’t we all crying that? And loved ones, that’s proof positive that we have been permanently damaged in our personalities. If you say to me, “Ah, you mean we weren’t meant to?” No, we weren’t. We were meant to be people who did not constantly need to grab love from other people, who did not constantly need to worry about whether the money was coming in next week or not, who did not need to worry about whether somebody was giving us recognition or acknowledgment. No, we were meant to be free people but we have become permanently damaged because we have rejected our Creator, and rejected the life of his Holy Spirit and his Holy Spirit does the same for us as blood does for a brain, it keeps it operating perfectly. But stop the blood flowing to the brain and the person, that’s the whole discussion with Karen Quinlin, stop the blood flowing to the brain for too long and the brain sustains permanent damage and the only answer is some kind of transplant, some kind of complete change. You have to send the thing back and get it completely renovated. Now loved ones, that’s what they wages of sin is death. God knows that we have sustained permanent damage in our personalities and those personalities have to be destroyed and recreated again. That’s another reason why he says, “The wages of sin is death.” Not just to protect his heaven, not just to protect the rest of us from each other, but because that’s the only way to change the permanently damaged and perverted personality that all of us now have because we’ve sinned. Now loved ones, that I think is the problem with many of us. It was certainly my problem. I listened to Billy Graham and all the other fellas preaching the gospel but I could not get that bit that something else had to be done outside me. I thought, “Okay, I now see what I have done wrong now let me start moving back towards God. Let me will myself to obey him.” I did not realize that the problem is by rejecting the Holy Spirit, by not having the Holy Spirit flow through us for so many years, our personalities have become inturned, selfish, perverted, seeking significance, security, happiness, from everybody else but God so that even our emotions are strained and are upturned. Even our mind works in perverted ways, you know it yourself. Two people can be talking in an office and they’re not talking about you at all, but your whole mind can work out, “They’re talking about me. They’re talking about me.” And the mind continually finds itself going off in wrong directions. Loved ones, all of us here this morning have a thousand examples of minds, and emotions that are perverted, of bodies that have become habituated to wrong actions for so long that we cannot do anything with them it seems. Now loved ones, that’s why the wages of sin is death. I was trying to put some sheetrock up on the ceiling of a room that we just built, and decided to put Styrofoam for extra insulation in, and you use a stapling gun to put Styrofoam on the two by fours. And I got the old staple gun out and every fourth time I triggered it I got a staple, you know. And as the day went on, every 25th time I triggered it, and I decided obviously the thing is wrong and so I looked up the instruction, but I am a born fiddler. Yeah, I love to fix things. My wife says, “Yeah, you really fix them good.” So I started to take the thing apart, you know, and those brothers who know a staple gun know what I was into. So I took the thing apart. Three weeks later it was still lying on the desk, apart. I should have obeyed the guarantee, you know, that said, “Send it back. Send it back and we’ll repair it.” But, I decided I’d fix it myself. Loved ones, I think that’s what a lot of us are doing. I think a lot of us think we can fix it ourselves. The wages of sin is not death, it can’t be death, there’s no need for it to be death. The wages of sin is going to church, go to church, go to church and we’ll kind of overcome the sin, and we’ll heap in a lot of goodness and a lot of nice thoughts, and somehow the sin will get drowned in all the good thoughts that come. Or some of us say, “The wages of sin – bible study, bible study. I’ll study the bible, that’ll make me right with God. I’ll study the bible.” Or some of us say, “The wages of sin is new resolutions. I’m going to resolve more. I’m going to exercise my will more. That’s the wages of sin, that’s what sin is due.” Loved ones, sin is due death. That’s the only thing that will deal with sin. That’s the only thing that will deal with our poor old broken perverted personalities. The wages of sin is death. And really, if you’d just grasp that loved ones, it would give you such deliverance. If you’d just see that something has to be done to your personality that you cannot do yourself. And each time you tamper with it and tinker with it you just make it worse because the problem is independence, self-deliverance, self-righteousness, that’s the problem and every time you try to fix that you’re fixing it with self effort, self will, self-trying so you’re not fixing it you’re just compounding the whole mess. So the more you try to save yourself the more of a mess you become and the more self-righteous you are. And the truth is the wages of sin is death, you know. That’s it. Let’s just accept that the wages of sin is death. And then the gospel is that God has commanded his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. God has put all of us in Jesus and destroyed us there. That’s a cosmic truth. God has taken our perverted, selfish, inturned personalities that we can do nothing with, with all our books, and all our psychology, and he has destroyed that in Jesus, and he is able to recreate a new personality through the power of his Holy Spirit. Now that’s what the gospel is loved ones. That what you need most is to be destroyed but instead of God sending another flood to destroy all of us, he sent a supra spacial, supra temporal flood in Calvary on the cross and he destroyed your miserable perverted personality in Jesus. That’s what it means in Hebrews when it says, “Jesus tasted death for every man.” Instead of you and I being actually destroyed by another flood such as that in Noah’s time, God has put us into Jesus and destroyed us there. Loved ones, the truth of the gospel is God has done everything that is needed to make you and me right with him. He has done everything that is needed, you don’t need to try and do things yourselves. You don’t need to try to beat yourselves into being the kind of person God wants you to be. You’d never do it because you’re working on a personality that can never be patched into rightness. You don’t need patching, you don’t need a little bit of repair work, you need to be smashed completely by the maker and recreated again. You need to be sent back to the manufacturer. You don’t need a little tampering, or a little tinkering, or a little fixing. You need complete renewal and loved ones, that’s what God has done in Jesus on Calvary. That’s the beginning of the gospel. Now, how do you enter into it? Well John 1:12 goes like this, “To as many as received him,” Jesus, “To them gave him the right to become the children of God.” That’s how you become a Christian. That’s how that complete renovation is made real in your life, you receive Jesus. Not accept Jesus, not accept Jesus. Oh, I could accept Carter as president but I don’t think I could accept Harris as president. Accept, you know, accept the intellectual concept, no. No. It means receive Jesus. It means if this dear person is prepared to suffer the death of his own brain so that I can have his mind transplanted into mine, then it is not just a matter of, “Well, I’ll accept that. Yeah, yeah.” It’s not. It’s a throwing your arms around him and saying, “Thank you. Lord, thank you. Lord, I want to receive all of you into myself. I want to take you complete. I want my life to be yours. If you’ve done this for me, Lord Jesus, here I want everything.” It’s that receiving loved ones, it’s not accepting, it’s not a proud intellectual acceptance of the concept that Jesus has died for you therefore God will forgive your sins. No, it’s a whole human real red blooded receiving of this dear Jesus because he has allowed his emotions to be destroyed and he has given them up so that they could be transplanted into you. He has allowed his whole being to be destroyed so that you could receive his whole being into yourselves. So it’s as too many who have received Jesus, to them gave he the right to become children of God and that’s how you become a Christian. If you’re sitting here this morning and you’re not sure, that’s how loved ones. You look to this Jesus and you say, “Lord Jesus, if you died for me like that, to allow me to be utterly destroyed and recreated then Lord, here I give my life to you. What do you want to change in me? Do you see anything you want to change? Lord, I grasp you, I receive you into myself. I turn from everything that is my own way and my own desires. I turn from the way I want to live this life. Lord, it’s as good as dead anyway. Lord Jesus, I give it to you.” Now loved ones, I’d have to be honest with you this morning and tell you that it is true that those of us who do not receive the son of the Creator as the Creator intended him to be received, we will die eternally. That is right, you just can’t get around it, you know. It’s right through all of Jesus’ words, those of us who don’t receive Jesus in that way, we will die forever. Sartre I suppose, expressed it the best way, you know, those three people you remember, one was a homosexual and the other one was a constant burning critic, and the three of them were in a room with one electric light bulb, and you remember about half way through the play they suddenly realized, “This is hell. This is forever. We are going to be tearing each other apart, and criticizing each other, and burning against each other forever.” And you remember, they tried to get the light out, tried to put the electric light out and they couldn’t get it out. And they tried to get out of the room and there was no exit from the room. And Sartre, you remember, called the play No Exit because loved ones, there will be no exit from hell, and there is a hell, you know. However sophisticated we try to be, we had better just be honest and see that there is a hell and it is not a crude physical experience, it is a burning against each other forever. A continual destroying of each other with our selfishness. And loved ones, there is that simply because the Father has to preserve a place where people who want to live like him can live like him. And you know in our present society is it pretty obvious in order to do that you have to keep others out. And so there will be a place where God is not. There will be a place where people burn against each other forever. But loved ones, the gospel is that God has destroyed us in Jesus already and that if we are willing to believe that and receive this Jesus into our own lives, then we will live forever with our Father. So loved ones, if you haven’t ever entered into that I would say just take the step now. I’d pray maybe for just about a minute, and you should just take the step yourself. And if you see it all, and you say, “Well pastor yeah, I see it all and I’ve seen it for many weeks but I’ve never taken a step.” Loved ones, you do have to take a step. This Jesus took a vital step for you – you owe it to him to take a step towards him. So you do need to take the step. You do need to speak to him and say, “Lord Jesus, I believe that that has happened for me and as far as I’m concerned I give you my life to make it real here in this present time.” So loved ones, I’d encourage you to take the step if you haven’t. And those of us who are children of God, let’s see that wonder of it, that God has done it all and God has done what we ourselves could never do and will never be able to do. And that’s the relief and the peace, you know. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, those of us who have never received you as our Savior would now look to you this morning. And Lord Jesus, we thank you for dying and we have hardly ever realized what we could do in response to this but Lord, we know that an intellectual accent to it is not appropriate. Lord, we see that if you gave your whole life for us, we have nothing that we can do but give our whole lives to you now. And thank you Lord Jesus, thank you Lord, that you allowed us to be destroyed in you. And Lord, we now want that new personality. Lord Jesus, we want to go back to our maker now and be destroyed and completely recreated, and born all over again. So Lord Jesus, will you come down here now into our lives and will you make all that real in us Lord Jesus. Lord, we ask you now to come in and we know that your words are that you stand at the door and knock and that if any man hear your voice and open the door you will come in and will supp with him and he with you. Lord Jesus, we believe you that if we invite you to take over our lives you will do it. So Lord Jesus, we would do that now, ask you to come in Savior, those of us even who know you will rejoice to ask you to come in again more fully than before and fill us with yourself Lord. Wherever you see anything in us that needs to go to that dear cross Lord Jesus, will you point that out and we’ll let it go gladly and Lord, will you recreate us in your image and make us like yourself. Lord Jesus, we receive you now as our Savior, and as our Lord and we give you the right to live in our lives whatever kind of life you want to live Lord, even if it’s Calvary all over again, we want to go your way because of the sacrifice you have made for us. We thank you Lord. Thank you.

A Complete Birth Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill During the past few weeks we’ve been talking about what a real Christian is, what it means to be a child of God, what it means to be born of the Spirit and we’ve tried to distinguish between that kind of a person and a normally moral person who abides by Benjamin Franklin’s list of moral principles. And we said that a Christian is more than that and a Christian is more than just a virtuous person who has the four classic cardinal virtues in his life. And we’ve said that a Christian is just more than a church attender, even a church attender who believes God’s word. We’ve pointed out even the demons believe God’s word and that it is possible to accept the Christian world view of life and yet still not be a Christian. And then you remember, we said that it doesn’t mean that if you perform miracles you’re a Christian, and it doesn’t mean if you have many gifts spiritually that you’re a Christian. We’ve said that a Christian is something different from all those things. And you remember, we tied it down with that Verse in John 1:12, that a Christian was not one who believed but one who received, and it says, you know, “To as many as received him to them gave he the right to become children of God.” And the Christian is not one who believes, who feels sorry and believes, but a Christian is one who repents and receives the Spirit of Jesus into him. Then you remember, we talked a little bit about how you distinguish a real Christian from those other people. How you distinguish a real Christian from a moral person. How you distinguish a real Christian from a virtuous person. How you distinguish a real Christian from somebody that just has an experience of many spiritual revelations and gifts. And you remember, we went back to that hard verse that determined who were Christians in the first century and maybe you should look at it, it’s just a short verse. And maybe you should make sure that it’s in your Bible as well as mine and it’s 1 John 3:9 and in the first century they had no question who the Christians were. The plagues hit them you remember, in the time of Maximinus Daza and the Christians were the ones who stayed behind to lift up their dead despite the danger to their own lives. The whole heathen world saw that the Christians were the people who lived like Christians and it’s 1 John 3:9, “No one born of God commits sin.” And that’s how you know a Christian, a Christian doesn’t sin. That’s it. You know a Christian because a Christian doesn’t sin and you know that we tried to distinguish between this and sinless perfection. A lot of people say, “Oh, that sinless perfection. That means that a Christian never makes a mistake.” No, a mistake is not sin. Sin is what you remember, James 4:17 says sin is, sin is knowing what is right to do and failing to do it. For that person that is sin. And so sin is not just making mistakes. Many people say, “Ah yes, a Christian is one who never makes mistakes, never unintentionally deviates from absolute light, never does anything wrong whether he knows it or not, never has excessive emotion at times, never falls back through weariness of the body.” Now loved ones, do you see that we cannot be perfect in those ways. We have imperfect minds, we have unbalanced emotions, we have weakened bodies, we are bound to make mistakes. We are bound to offend people without really intending to offend them. We are bound, at times, to do things that God in his infinite wisdom would not do if he were in our place. But do you see that that is not sin, that is a sense of our own creaturliness, that there is a great deal of God’s perfection to enter into that he has not revealed to us yet. So a sin is not a matter of absolute perfection. A Christian is perfectly obedient, he is not perfect. He is not free from mistakes or ignorance. He is not free from bodily weakness or emotional excesses, but he is perfectly obedient and that’s that great difference you see. There’s no such thing as sinless perfection taught in the Bible, but there is perfect obedience taught. Now, what do we mean? Well, James 4:17 if you’d like to look at it because it is an important verse for clear understanding about our position as children of God. James 4:17, “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” And sin is knowing that God wants you to do something and not doing it. It’s refusing to obey the light that God has given you. Now do you see brothers and sisters, that many of us here do things that the other would not do and there’s no harm in that if God has not given you light on that subject yet. Some of us have already learned that even to talk too loud at times pushes ourselves forward instead of Jesus. Some of us have not realized that yet. God only asks you to act up to what he has revealed to you. In other words, if you say, “Ah but brother, then is sin relative?” No it’s not. Sin is disobedience to God’s will revealed to you by the Holy Spirit. But sin is what the Holy Spirit reveals to you as sin in light of the 10 Commandments, the moral law of the Sophists, the Sermon on the Mount, Christ’s own life, the Beatitudes, and the Epistles of Paul. In the light of those commandments that are given to us by God, in the light of the Holy Spirit’s revelation of those commandments to us, we are expected to be obedient you see. Now, you can see that that is not a fearful walk. All you have to do be responsible to is to what God shows you at that time and so it’s a conscience deliberate disobedience to God’s will. That is what sin is. Now, some of us say, “Oh well then a Christian never sins, is that it? In that sense, in that limited sense, a Christian never sins?” Loved ones, Jesus I think would answer, “Hardly ever.” Hardly ever. A Christian hardly ever sins. It seems that is the spirit of the Bible you know. If you look at 1 John 2:1, that spirit I believe is shown in beautiful balance to us. It’s 1 John 2:1, “My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin.” Now, that is the position of a Christian, his normal everyday life is one of not sinning. He ought to walk free of sin. He ought to walk in such a way that sin is alien to him and unnatural to him. Now, do you see the second half of the verse, “But if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” Now loved ones, do you see that many of us live on the second half of that verse? We live on the basis, “Yeah, I’ve sinned today again but I have an advocate with the Father.” Well loved ones, do you see that isn’t the spirit of the statement of scripture? The spirit of the statement of scripture is, “My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin.” That’s the normal everyday life of a Christian, he doesn’t sin. If in an emergency situation you fall into sin, it is an emergency and you need to cleave to Jesus, and get back to God, and make a total surrender again of your life to him. In other words, it’ an emergency situation. No, you don’t lose your salvation by one sin. You don’t walk in fear. You don’t walk fearful, “Ah, a Christian doesn’t sin. I’m not going to sin.” No, you walk in joyful love. You say, “Father, I thank you that you have given me the spirit of your Son and I am able to walk in open obedience to you. I thank you for that and I thank you Father, that if I ever do sin Jesus is my advocate and I cleave to him in love. But I thank you that you will enable me to walk above sin.” Now dear ones, do you see that’s the spirit of scripture? The spirit of scripture is not that a Christian sins habitually you see, or even that a Christian sins once a month. The spirit of scripture is a Christina doesn’t sin, if he does sin the advocate is there but the normal state is that he doesn’t sin. Now, can you see the importance of getting to that point? Bertrand Russell could walk in a fair degree of obedience, you see? Socrates, you read the life of Socrates, read the story of his death, you know, what a glorious death that was and he knew nothing of Christ. Do you see brothers and sisters, that many dear ones can live fairly virtuous moral lives, and many dear ones can live to a great degree under the commandments of God, but the only person who can live obedient to God perfectly, above sin, is one who has received the Spirit of Jesus into himself. Now that’s the importance of seeing the level on which God wants us to walk, because any Tom, Dick, or Harry with a fair degree of will power can walk in a certain degree of obedience. But do you see that God’s word to us is, “If Christ is not Lord of all he is not Lord at all.” I teach English literature during the week, no not for my sins, but I teach during the week and if I said to the class, “Okay now, I want you to obey me,” and one little fella said, “Well sir, I’ll obey you most times but when I want to do what I want to do I won’t obey you.” Well, I am not master of that class, not in any sense. If he says to me, “I’ll obey you when it suits me but the times I don’t want to obey you, there will just be odd times, there’ll just be few and far between, then I won’t obey you I’ll do what I want then.” Then do you see dear ones, I’m in no sense master of the class? Now, do you see that it’s the same way with Jesus? If we say to him, “Lord, I’ll obey you on most occasions. On most occasions I’ll walk in obedience to you, but when it comes up against my own preferences I will not obey you.” Do you see it’s a mockery to call Jesus Lord? You can call him counselor, or servant, or helper, or even Savior, but he is not Lord of your life unless it is absolute obedience to him. Now, it’s at this point that many Christians have problems because many dear brothers and sisters have really received the Spirit of Jesus into their own lives, and they are walking in victory over sin. But there are certain times in their lives when they find another spirit manifesting itself within them. For instance, some of them come into their room some night, and they had all the books set out on the desk, and the roommate has just swept them all to one side and she’s at her work. Or, you left everything organized in the room, you come back and the roommate has a whole lot of people in the room and it’s chaos. And you know that well, the Bible itself says – you might like to look at it just to make sure, Ephesians 4:25. Ephesians 4:25, and this person is aware that this is necessary. Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” And the Christian is very aware that that kind of anger in the sense of being angry is a controlled unselfish reaction against wrong for God’s sake such as Jesus manifested in the temple. But that other anger, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” is an uncontrolled selfish anger and that Christian knows, “Yes, I haven’t to be angry.” So she is about to bite caustically at her roommate and she controls herself and says, “Ah, thank goodness I didn’t say it.” But inside there was that strong desire to cut that person apart and criticize her for throwing your books aside. And inside in other words, there’s that feeling of discontent, and a wee bit of feeling of guilt. You feel, “Well, I avoided outward anger but boy I felt the thing rising up inside.” Or, you come to a place you know, where you’ve missed an assignment at school, or you’ve missed a commitment to meet someone and you meet them the next day and you know – well, you look at Ephesians 4:25 there, “Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” And you come to the professor and you say, “Well listen, I didn’t do it. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.” Or, you make the apology to the person and you suffer the damage to your reputation. But underneath you find this almost irresistible desire to lie your way out of the difficulty. There’s this tremendous desire inside to rationalize your way into believing, “Well, it’s right for me to tell a little white lie in this situation.” Now dear ones, many brothers and sisters who have received the Spirit of Jesus into themselves have become aware that at the moment of obedience there has been another spirit within them that has made it at times almost impossible to obey and they have obeyed only at the payment, and the cost of an immense struggle inside. And many brothers and sisters walk continually in that struggle. Many of them believe that’s the fight of faith, that every time you come to a time when you have to obey God you find that it seems natural for a bit but then it seems unnatural to obey it and there seems something natural inside that wants to rebel and put yourself first and have your own way. Now dear ones, do you see that that’s the thing that was referred to by Paul in Romans 7:21. You might like to look at it, and really it shouldn’t be but many children of God experience that in these days. Romans 7:21, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.” And you want to do what’s right but evil lies right there. Brothers, you know it in the other sphere that is bound to cause us trouble in this day when were so unbalanced about the subject, Leviticus 20:10 there. 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.” And brothers, you know how often we’ve come up to that point and we know that is sin and we hold back from it because we know our salvation goes immediately. But yet underneath there is that strong tendency to want to commit adultery in your heart. And you remember, that Jesus tied it down to that? He said, “Listen, of old time in Leviticus he said, ‘If you commit adultery you are guilty of the judgment,’ but I say unto you if you look unto a woman to lust after her in your heart you have already committed adultery.’” Now brothers and sisters, many of us who have honestly received the Spirit of Jesus find that within us there is a strong inward desire to disobey God. It seems to be based in our attitudes, in our motives, in our reactions. It seems to be based in our desires. Outwardly we manage to keep up an appearance of children of God and we manage not to commit outward sin, but inwardly there seems to be a desire tending and falling it seems into sin as far as Jesus’ definition is concerned. Now loved ones, do you see that that’s what’s referred to in Galatians 5:17? So obviously, the Father knew that many would enter into such a partial surrender that they would experience this kind of thing. Galatians 5:17, “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.” And many of us you see, would testify to that. We would say, “That’s right pastor, we agree with you about obedience but boy it is really hard at times. There is such a strong desire in us to disobey God.” Now brothers and sisters, do you see the tragedy is that this takes a further step in many of our lives? You remember, Hebrews 12:1 where the writer is asking us you remember, to give everything to God and there’s a phrase there that means a lot to many of us because of our personal experiences. Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore , since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” Now the phrase or the clause, “Sin which clings so closely,” is I think in the King James’ Version, “The sin that so easily besets us.” Now brothers and sisters, the tragedy is that this desire inside us often fixes on some besetting sin and many of us walk in that situation. We walk in obedience in every area but in this particular area and this seems we call it our besetting sin. And every time we come into this situation we fall again, and again, and again. Now do you see that that in itself is not the cause of loss of salvation because Jesus will forgive you until 70 times seven? The blood of Jesus will cleanse you from all sin in so far as you walk in the light. Walking in the light is coming up to a sin, seeing that you’re falling into it, saying to the Father, “Father, I hate sin, I detest it, it is alien to me I am going to fight against it until you give me victory. I’m opposing it, I’m resisting it and I treat this as a major emergency in my life and I come before you now and ask you to forgive me.” Every time brothers and sisters you can do that the Father can forgive you. Do you see the real danger is that you come into a position of hardening of heart in that area? That’s the tragedy, that you come into a place where you cease to fall down in repentance at his feet and you become as detached from the pain you’re causing Jesus as a surgeon is detached from the pain he appears to be causing the person he’s operating on. Now that’s where the real danger comes in. That is where you’re beginning to verge into hardness of heart, into resistance against God’s will. In other words, as long as you can walk with a soft penitent heart, the Father will continually forgive you. He will never refuse to forgive a person who truly repents. But do you see that with these besetting sins the tragedy is we come to a place where we get so beaten down, and so demoralized, and so fed up that we begin to rationalize it and we say, “That is just a personality trait with us. We are particularly artistic people and so we do happen to have difficulty with our emotions.” Now that’s where we cease to be in fellowship with the Father. Now dear ones, do you see that many of us walk in that kind of life? We walk in outward victory but inwardly there’s the strong desire to disobey God and at times this bursts out in repeating besetting sins. I think it’s important to see that the personal experience of a Christian does not finish on that defeatist verse in Romans 7. Now, would you look at that defeatist verse first? You can probably quote it off by heart. Romans 7:14-19, “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 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. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Brothers and sisters, the chapter does not end there. Now, please see that the chapter doesn’t end there and the Christian life is not that life of defeat. The chapter ends in 25, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” But thanks be to God that there is deliverance and, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” and then further down Verse 5, “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.” Dear ones, there is deliverance from that. There’s victory over that situation. Now why does the situation exist at all? Well, do you see that in the book of Romans there’s a distinction between sin and sins? There’s a clear distinction. If you read the first four and a half chapters of the book of Romans you find the emphasis is continually on sins. Now, there’s a verse I could point you to, I think it’s Romans 3:25. Romans 3:25, those first four and a half chapters deal with sins, that’s the plural word sins. Romans 3:25, “Whom,” Christ Jesus, “Whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” Now sins are acts, and thoughts, and words. That’s what the Bible means by sins, acts, and thoughts, and words that are deliberately disobedient to God’s will for you. Now do you see the second three and a half chapters of the book of Romans talks not about sins, it talks about sin in the singular. It talks about sin. Now, you look in Romans 7:20 for instance and you’ll see the change. Romans 7:20, “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin,” in the singular, “Which dwells within me.” Now sin is the attitude that produces sins. Sin is the inward attitude that makes you want to disobey, that makes it hard for you to obey. It’s the attitude of your whole self inside that wants to remain God in your life. You want to keep having your own way. Yes, you want a ticket into heaven, and you want the sins forgiven, and you want the blood of Jesus shed for your sins, but inward sin so many of us want to hold onto and we retain that inward nature. Now brothers and sisters, that’s what the New Testament means by sin. It is that desire that Eve had, you remember, Satan said, “Surely, when you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall be as God.” Now it’s that desire inside us to be God over our own life. Loved ones, I say this is sympathy for the ACT test and the SAT test, but it’s that attitude that dominates our attitude to our futures so often. We see, “Yes, I’m capable of this. I’m mechanically minded, I should be an engineer.” Or, “I like poetry, I like literature I should be an artist.” And we decide what we’re going to do with our future. That is sin. An attitude whereby you decide what you’re going to do with your life, and that is inward sin. It expresses itself you know, in wanting your own way. You have an argument at home, it’s not really because your way is the best way at all. No, her way is as good a way, your mum’s way is as good a way, your dad’s way is as good a way, but you want your way and they want their way, and that’s sin. You see? It’s just a aspiration, it’s just a desire to do what you want to do, whatever God wants you to do. Now loved ones, if that remains unchanged there can be no victory in your life. Now that’s the thing that’s described in Romans 8:7 and put very plainly, you know, by Paul. Romans 8:7, “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot.” And you see again, and again many of us have found this. We’ve wanted to do what was right but there’s something inside us that seems to want to do what is wrong. Now loved ones, unless God can do something for that you are destined to walk in continual defeat, and strain, and misery all your Christian life. And therefore, every profession of joy, and peace, and continual love is just hypocritical. And you know that many of us have come to that place, we know that we’re just blatant hypocrites. Inside we’re different from what we are on the outside. Now what has God done? Well, let’s see what he’s done for our sins, Romans 3:25. Romans 3:25, “Whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he has passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.” God said, “Anyone who sins I will destroy.” In order to avoid destroying us and remain a just God, someone had to be destroyed in our place. Jesus was that someone. Jesus shed his blood and died for us so that God could retain his justice and yet show mercy to us. Allow us to live and yet retain his own sense of Justice. In a real sense, Jesus died for God. Can you see that? In a real sense, Jesus shed his blood for the sake of his Father so that his Father would be free to forgive us for our sins. Now, do you see that the reason we say, “Jesus died for us,” is not really because his blood enabled his Father to forgive us, but for another reason? Look at it in Romans 6:3-4, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” God knew that he had not only to forgive us our sins, he knew that he had to deal radically with that attitude within us of rebellion that produces the sins. And what did he do? He put us all into Jesus and crucified us. That’s right dear ones, and it’s in that sense that Jesus really died for us. It doesn’t say, “Jesus died instead of us.” It doesn’t say, “Jesus died so that we wouldn’t have to die.” It says, “Jesus died for us so that we could die with him by faith and allow God to destroy and render inoperative that desire to be our own God, that desire to have our own way, that great self that rises up and wants to do what it wants to do.” Now dear ones, do you see that God has done something with that? And if you say, “Well, brother if he has done something with it, why is it so alive inside me?” Well brothers and sisters, God had borne your sins in Jesus on Calvary but you had no freedom from the guilt of those sins until you were willing to do two things: let go of the sin; and have faith that those sins had been born. Now it’s the same with that old self inside you. That old self was destroyed 1900 years ago, your funeral took place in Jesus 1900 years ago, but you can experience no freedom from that until you are willing to die to self in your own life and until you’re willing to believe that all that has been crucified with Christ. And that’s it loved ones, and that’s what we call the sanctification side of becoming a Christian. The justification side is where God is justified in forgiving us our sins because Jesus has paid the death penalty for us and where we are justified in coming before God because our sins have been paid for. The sanctification side is where we realize that we have been crucified with Christ, that we have no rights to our own lives, we have no rights to do what we want with this life, we are dead and buried with him and now only the Holy Spirit has the right to rule our lives and we are willing to be crucified with him, and we believe that the Holy Spirit is in our lives and telling us what to do. Now loved ones, unless you experience a complete birth and a complete death, you cannot be in the position of a normal Christian whosoever is born off God does not commit sin. And wouldn’t it be true to say that as we sense the Holy Spirit speaking to us this morning, most of us probably here this morning are in that second position? You’re dear brothers and sisters and you have received Jesus as your Savior, but do you see that God has crucified you with Christ and what you are doing is refusing to be crucified. There are many things inside you that you want to hold onto. The big thing is yourself, you love yourself more than you love Jesus because you’ve never really accepted that you were crucified with him. Now brothers and sisters, if you say, “Well, brother it witnesses with my spirit and it seems to be true, but how do I enter in? Do I crucify myself?” No. Dear ones, you have been crucified. God states clearly, “Listen, all of you who belong to Christ Jesus have been crucified with him. Do not go back and question my word, I know what happened 2000 years ago. I was there in Christ reconciling the world until I fell. I know I destroyed that miserable thing inside you that wants its own way. I know I destroyed that attitude in Jesus. When he bent his great will over to me he bent your will over to me. I know that has been done, you don’t need to crucify yourselves. Will you believe you’ve been crucified with my son? Will you begin to accept that you have no rights to your own life? You don’t have the right to tell the wife what to do. You don’t have the right to decide what your own future is going to be. You don’t have the right to get irritable with people or have people do the things you want to do. You have been crucified with Christ, you don’t exist any longer, you’ve given your body, and mind over to the Holy Spirit and now you’re going to experience the resurrection that Christ experienced when the Holy Spirit comes into you and fills your life completely and begins to live in you freely the life of obedience.” Now that’s it dear ones. It’s just those two things, you see. Faith, that you have been crucified with Christ. Romans 6:6, “Our old self was crucified.” Satan comes down and says, “You’re irritable this morning, you weren’t crucified.” You say Satan, “I’m not believing my feelings, I’m believing God’s word. I was crucified I’m not arguing with that.” And then you look to the Holy Spirit and you say, “Holy Spirit, will you reveal to me where I’m not really willing to enter into all the benefits of my death with Christ? Where I’m wanting to live this old death life instead of resurrection life? Will you reveal to me where my self is still ruling in my life, where I have not allowed the victory that God wrought in Christ to extend to me?” And the Holy Spirit will begin to give you light, you see and then all it is, is instance obedience. So it’s faith that you were crucified with Christ and it’s faith in the Holy Spirit to rule your life today. Brothers and sisters, it changed my life. Seven years ago it changed my life and I had been a Methodist minister for eight or nine miserable years with hypocrisy, and outward appearance of obedience and inward rebellion. Loved ones, this is the full experience that God wants us to enter into. Now, if you sit there and say, “Ah now brother, are you talking about a second work of grace?” No, we’re not talking about a second work of grace or a 54th work of grace, we’re talking about what a full experience of becoming a child of God is and it means that you’re born of the Spirit and you allow that old attitude to die with Jesus. And the victory is not in repressing or suppressing that attitude by will power, but in allowing God to deal with it in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s why there’s no strain in the Christian life. There is no strain dear ones, and there is no defeat. There is constant victory and constant peace and love, and you can see it’s only when we’re living above sin in that way that the Holy Spirit is able to use us at all. Up till then we’re so preoccupied with our own defeats that we have no time to be used by him. So dear ones, as God guides I’ll share further about this. I think if you want help yourselves I’ve tried to write a little book Free to Live, a little booklet. There are lots of books out in the bookcase and the bookshop is full of books on how to enter into this victory. Not only a complete birth but a complete death and then resurrection life. Dear ones, I think we should just close in prayer without the hymn, it’s close to time. Let us pray. Holy Spirit, we ask you to vindicate your truth to us through your word. As we read Romans 6, Holy Spirit, will you reveal to us that this is an experience into which we ourselves can enter? That we can leave self at last behind nailed on that cross and be freed from ourselves, and become lost in Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit. We thank you that such an experience is possible and we trust you to lead us into it that there may grow up a new generation of Christians who will walk as they talk, and who love as they say they love, and who obey as they say they ought to obey. And, we trust you Father, to being that about among us here in this place. 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.

A Complete Death Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Consider the 2nd century believers in Jesus who displayed that belief, during the plague in the most brilliant light, for the Christians were the only people, who in the midst of so much and so great tribulation proved by deeds their sympathy and love of their kind. Some busied themselves day-after-day with the care and burial of dead bodies. They were without number and nobody else bothered about them. Others gathered together into one place all who were tortured by hunger and supplied them with food. When this became known, people glorified the God of the Christians and confessed that they alone were the truly pious and God fearing people because they gave proof of it by their deeds. And brothers and sisters, right throughout the centuries that is always the way that others have recognized Christians and it’s the way you see, that the New Testament emphasized. You might like to look at one of those verses, they’re right through the New Testament and Old Testament, but one very clear one is there in Matthew 7:16-20. And it states this truth of the importance of Christian’s lives as a witness to unbelievers. Matthew 7:16, and Jesus is speaking and he’s talking about false prophets you see, people who say they are God’s servants but aren’t really, they’re dressed in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. And then in 16, “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” A Christian can’t behave in an non-Christian way. A non-Christian can’t behave in a Christian way. “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.” And you remember, we shared last Sunday that it doesn’t mean that you just exhibit the four classical virtues of temperance, and courage, and wisdom. It doesn’t mean that you just exhibit the virtues that Benjamin Franklin ( one of the American founding fathers) listed: integrity; industry; and loyalty. But it means that your life is filled with the beauty of Jesus’ own life and the fruits of his life are present in your life and by your fruits people know that you’re a Christian. And you know that the verse that it’s very hard to get rid of in the New Testament that we studied last Sunday, puts this in very stark terms and it’s that verse, and you probably want to look at it to make sure such a heretical verse actually got into the New Testament. And it’s 1 John 3:9 and it is a verse that really sticks in our throats. 1 John 3:9, and you would like to feel that it’s a verse that John wrote in a moment of sleep, or in a moment when he was falling from grace, except that he keeps on writing it right throughout this letter. 1 John 3:9, “No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.” And you recognize a Christian because a Christian doesn’t sin. That’s it, a Christian doesn’t sin, that’s how you know a Christian. Now loved ones, you know that Satan has got in with us on this verse and that’s why I dare to spend one more Sunday on it, because Satan has persuaded us all that that is heretical. That it’s in the Bible, but it’s a bit of the Bible that ought really to be examined, we don’t think that it’s absolutely true because we say, “Listen, I’ve been a Christian for years and I’ve found it impossible not to sin. So, I set up myself with my 60 years of life against this Bible that has existed for well, 1900 years,” anyway the New Testament. And so it’s very hard. And brothers and sisters, do you see I sympathize with you with all my heart but do you see that we need to see what God believes and what God wants for us? Especially, in these days when so many look down on what is called the Christian church, we must try to see if there’s some reason for this and I believe we will find it in this verse. There are two extremes that Christians take towards this verse. One extreme is to over interpret it. One extreme is to proclaim an unscriptural perfection that is not God’s will in this life. That’s one extreme and some people do that. Some people take that verse and they proclaim an unscriptural perfection. A perfection of mind, emotions, and body, a perfection for mistakes from ignorance, from any unintentional deviation from absolute right that is just impossible with God’s help or without God’s help. And many proclaim an unscriptural perfection that just drives us into the ground. On the other hand, many others under interpret the verse and they proclaim such an unscriptural mediocre definition of sin that even a good humanist could live up to it, or a half surrendered Christian could live up to it, or a half born Christian. Now dear ones, it’s important that we keep away from either of those, what Francis Schaffer ( Swiss theologian) would call the cliffs. You see, Christian truth lies down the middle and if you go far too over far to the left you fall off that cliff into unscriptural perfection and if you go far too far over to the right you fall off that cliff into a mediocre unscriptural standard that is too low. Now, we need to trust the Holy Spirit to keep us in the middle of the path so that we don’t fall off either cliff because if you call off either cliff it not only has intellectual difficulties and problems for you, but it also has spiritual problems. Now you see how important it is not to have too mediocre a standard. The reason for that is that we have for years had such a mediocre standard for Christians, that Christians have been largely speaking undistinguishable from other people. And so in order to distinguish themselves they have invented cardinal sins, that they by their upbringing, never had anything to do with anyway. And so many Christians are so undistinguishable from people who aren’t Christians that they invent the sins. “Well, I don’t like the theater too much anyway, so it’s a sin to go to the theater and if I go to the theater I’m not a Christian. But I’m glad to say I don’t go to the theater so I’m a Christian. And, don’t drink. And I don’t drink anyway but it’s obviously a sin to drink and I don’t drink so I’m glad I’m a child of God. And, don’t smoke. And I’m glad I don’t smoke so I’m obviously a child of God. And don’t drink, and don’t dance, and don’t smoke, and don’t go to the theater.” And dear ones, you know that many of us have invented lots of other cardinal artificial sins in order to try to prove to ourselves that we are Christians because our lives has been undistinguishable from others by virtue of the fact that we have not lived as Christians. Now the other thing is true, that one of the reasons we have so much evangelistic activity in the nation and so little revival, is that we have had a low mediocre standard of the Christian life. You remember, the promise that God gave us for the revival, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will forgive their sin and heal their land… ( 2 Chronicles 7:14) Now dear ones, we have great evangelistic activity in our nation but it is incredible that we have no deep revival. In other words, the courts are as full as they ever were, the jails are too full. The mental wards in our hospitals are overflowing. There has been no deep seated revival of ethical life and of emotional life in our nation, because really, we have proclaimed an unscriptural mediocre standard of the Christian life and we have slid around the whole business of sin. Dear ones, it doesn’t matter which movement of God’s Spirit in our world’s history that you go to, it has always come from a new realization of what sin was. Really, it has always come from a new realization of sin. Now, would you just share with me a little this morning? Let’s just look at it once again and trust the Holy Spirit to clarify it in all our minds. Let’s take the group that say that sin is anything that is not absolute perfection. That’s these people who say, “What that verse means is anyone who is not absolutely perfect as God is perfect, that person sins.” Or, “Anyone who deviates from absolute right at all, whether he knows it or not, that person is sinning.” Now do you see that that means every one of us who makes a mistake has sinned. Every one of us who makes an honest mistake has sinned according to that definition. Let’s imagine that you’re in a group and I’m in that room with you and you don’t know that I’m from Ireland. And the conversation is going on and you make some sarcastic crack about those mad men in Ireland who are shooting each other. And you don’t mean to hurt me and you don’t mean to insult the place I come from, you didn’t know. You haven’t the perfect mind, you don’t know everything. You didn’t know that I was from that country and you didn’t intend to cause me any hurt or criticize me in any way. Now, do you see that that’s a simple mistake and that’s not sin? Or say you, as an honest Christian tries to witness to someone on the University campus, and you end up putting them off Christianity, you end up causing an offense in them. Now, you did it with a pure intention and a pure heart and it resulted because you had not a perfect mind in saying something that put them off. Now, do you see that that’s a mistake loved ones? That’s not a sin and God does not hold us guilty for mistakes. Do you see also that if you held to the fact that sin was anything that was not absolute perfection, our emotions are unbalanced on many occasions, we do not have the perfect emotions of God. A times at a funeral we will indulge in excessive grief. Yes, we will grieve because of ourselves rather than for the sake of the dear one or another. At times we will indulge in excessive grief. Now, when our emotions are unbalanced the Father does not regard that as a sin. It’s the same with our bodies. At times our bodies are set by weakness, and sickness, or colds and it prevents us doing what God would want us to do. That is not a sin. You see, God does not hold any lack of perfection in our minds, or our emotions, or our bodies as sins. He just does not. Dear ones, he defines sin very clearly for us and you remember, it’s in that verse James 4:17, and it has nothing to do with those mistakes, or ignorance, or involuntary unintentional deviations from absolute right. James 4:17 states plainly that sin is something that you do and you know you’re doing it, and you know that it’s rebellion against God at that moment you do it. James 4:17, “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” That is sin. Sin is conscious deliberate disobedience to God’s will (to God’s will as you know it). Now loved ones, it’s not enough for you to say, “Oh, I know that is wrong and that person is doing it so he must be committing sin.” No. That brother or sister may not have had that revealed to him in the way that you have. They are responsible to God for their obedience, you’re responsible for yours. You can never guarantee that everyone has had the light that you have had. But sin then is any disobedience to God’s will as it’s revealed in the 10 Commandments, in the moral law of Sophists, in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes ( Matthew 5-8) , and in Christ’s own life, and in Paul’s Epistles. Sin is any refusal to enter into obedience to God’s will as it is revealed there. So, for instance, let’s look at just one or two of them. If you look at Exodus 20:12-17. Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.” So, if you deliberately dishonor your father and mother, and you know it at that time, that’s a sin. “You shall not kill,” and Jesus’s elaboration of that, “If you’re angry with your brother you’re guilty of the judgment.” If you are angry, you know you’re angry, you persist in your anger, then that’s a sin. The Father is gracious to you before you’re baptized with the Holy Spirit when anger rises up in your heart, as long as you resist it the Father recognizes that. Now after baptism with the Holy Spirit it is possible even to get rid of that rising up of anger, but before that Jesus’ blood applies to your heart as long as you resist what is rising up. Brothers, it applies the same way you remember, to that next one in 14, “You shall not commit adultery.” And Jesus said, “But I say unto you if you look unto a woman to lust after her in your heart, you are guilty of adultery.” It applies to that. Before the baptism of the Holy Spirit you’ll find your heart rising up and answering Satan’s temptation. As long as you resist that rising up, and you deliberately turn from it, God regards you as not sinning. Now after the baptism of the Holy Spirit it is possible to be delivered even from that rising up. But do you see that God is gracious to us? He asks us to deal with what we know is wrong at that time and to resist it and stand against it. Now so it goes on, “You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.” Now, if you do those they’re sins. And so it goes on you see, right through if you look at Leviticus 19:15-18 you’ll find that God states clearly there what is his will for us. Some of us think, you know, these things are wonderful discoveries of the social activist. Really, they were given by God 2500 years ago to a people. Leviticus 19:15-18, “You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand forth against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of it. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” Now, if you deliberately disobey that and you know you’re disobeying it, there comes a shadow into your heart. That’s why when you have a grudge against someone, or you hold a resentment against someone, there’s a shadow comes into your heart you see. God is faithful. We may not believe that he rejects us but he witnesses his rejection at that moment and his condemnation by a shadow in our heart, a sense of guilt. A shadow comes between ourselves and another person in that relationship. But sin is something knowing. Now dear ones, some of us say, “Oh no pastor, sin is sin whether you know it or not.” No loved ones, sin is only a knowing, conscious, deliberate disobedience to God. Now you have that taught clearly for us in Leviticus 5. Leviticus 5:3-6, and these are concerned here with the laws of hygiene that God gave but they do indicate his attitude to conscious sin. Leviticus 5:3, “Or if he touches human uncleanness, of whatever sort the uncleanness may be with which one becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it he shall be guilty.” So, in other words, there comes times when you do something, you don’t know it’s wrong at that time, but later on it comes to your heart, “That was wrong.” Then it’s up to us to turn immediately to Jesus and say, “Father, I didn’t know that was wrong at that time. Will you forgive me? I confess it now.” But you see, you aren’t guilty until you know it. “Or if any one utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that men swear, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it he shall in any of these be guilty.” But you can see yourselves, that God does not regard us as guilty unless we know we’ve disobeyed him. In other words, sin is a conscious deliberate disobedience to God. Now, some brothers and sisters say, “Alright pastor, then I can see that sin is not ignorance, it is not an unintentional or involuntary deviation from an absolute right. It is not a mistake. I can see it isn’t any of those things, it’s something a conscious disobedience to God. Okay, now is it true that if you sin then God immediately rejects you, shows you that you aren’t his child and you have to start all over again?” No, loved ones. If you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous. Otherwise you see, you’d lapse into legalism and we’d all be walking in fear. See, if I was walking along and wondering, “Boy, if I sin once I’m finished. If I sin once I’m finished.” Then soon I’m walking in fear all the time. I’m wondering, “Where is sin? Where is sin?” No loved ones, you see children of God do not walk that way. Children of God walk in conscious joy and in absolute confidence that as Christians it is unnatural, it is alien to our nature to sin, it is something that we do not do, it is something that we don’t want to do. If we ever do it we thank God that we have an advocate with the Father and the proof of our childlikeness is the penitent heart. Immediately we make a quick adjustment, we go to the Father and we say, “Lord, we have sinned. We confess it to you, we trust you to forgive us.” In other words, even after you’ve tied sin down to deliberate disobedience, do you see that we walk not in constant fear of sinning, we walk confident and joyful, and knowing all the time that if we do, in an emergency sin, then we have an advocate with the Father. Now loved ones, it’s important maybe to define emergency. Emergency is not just when we come into emergency situations, God is able to keep us peaceful and calm in those situations, and free from panic. But do you see that sin is an emergency? If you sin, that’s an emergency situation for a Christian. It’s something that is not natural for the Christian to do. It’s alien to him. He’s come into something that is against his whole nature and that is an emergency situation and he ought to treat it as such. Now, let me show you the verse where God teaches that plainly. It’s that verse 1 John 2. 1 John 2:1 A and B, and many of us live on the basis of B and you should live on the basis of A and B. 1 John 2:1 A and B, that’s both parts of the verse, “My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin,” that’s why I’m writing it to you, “But if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” In other words, it’s like me saying to you, “Look, when you’re driving that oil light should never light. It’s not a natural thing for that red light to be on when you’re driving, it’s an unnatural thing. So, if that red light ever does go on it doesn’t mean you’re engine is ruined, but stop. Stop the car and get oil in it.” Now, do you see that it is madness to live on the basis of the emergency? It’s madness to say, “Oh well, he said the engine wasn’t ruined if the light when on. Well, I’ll drive for 20 or 30 miles and when I have time I’ll put oil in the car.” You can see that it’s an emergency when we sin and we ought to treat it as such. Now, that’s what that verse means, that many of us have difficulty interpreting about mortal sin, you remember. Would you look at it in 1 John 5:17-18 and I’m sure you’ve had the difficulty that I’ve often had with it. 1 John 5:17, “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.” In other words, you see, there is an emergency situation that arises at times in a Christian’s life when he sins, but as long as the whole bent of his life is against it, as long as his whole nature rejects that and treats it as an emergency, then that is not a mortal sin. But if a sin – if a Christian is walking in a sin weekly, or monthly, or periodically over the year, then do you see that he’s beginning to walk into a sin that will bring death? In other words, the attitude of a Christian is, “Once I’ve received Jesus I’ve stopped sinning, and I have no intention of sinning from now on, and sin is something that I reject and resist as unnatural to me.” And this is the attitude dear ones, of a Christian. That’s why brothers and sisters, I know you do it in a moment of extravagance, but do you see that we should not say that Jesus’ blood covers all pass sins and all future sins. That’s madness you know. That’s like saying to the Lord Jesus, “Lord Jesus, I know you will take the thrust of my sword into you at this moment, and I know you’re borne it and now I’ve stopped, you’ve forgiven them, but I know you’re going to continue to take every thrust that I put into your body from this day forward.” Now that is not right, you see. A Christian has no intention of sinning when he receives Jesus. As far as he’s concerned he is finished with sin and if he ever does sin it’s an emergency situation. Otherwise you see, he’s involved in mortal sin, or sin which brings death by willing repetitive volition. Now, could we look just for a moment or two at the other extreme, the other attitude? Some people you see, take that ridiculous over exaggeration that sin is anything that is not absolute perfection, and that obviously is not what sin is. Some go to the other extreme and they say, “You’re dead right, sin is something that we can’t avoid, because after all let’s face it I know we’re children of God and all that, but we’re only human. We’re only human beings, and we cannot avoid sin. So, sin I something that occurs from time-to-time in the Christian’s life and the only difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the non-Christian’s guilt gets him down because he can’t do anything with it, it demoralizes him whereas we Christians, we can sin with impunity. We can sin and Jesus’ blood covers our sins, we get rid of the guilt.” In other words, we can sin without any guilt. Now dear ones, do you see that that’s terrible? That is heresy and yet you know that many of us have come close to that, we’ve said sin is the normal part of a Christian’s life. Some of us have pleaded you see, 1 John 1:10, maybe you want to check it. 1 John 1:10, and some of us take that verse, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” And some people say, “Now there, if you’re a Christian and you say you’re happy you don’t sin, you’re a liar.” Now, do you see that it says, “If we say we have not sinned,” and John is obviously talking about fellowship between life in darkness and he’s talking about our previous pre- new birth experience. If we, when we were pagans, we said we didn’t sin in those days, then we make God a liar. All of us have sinned. Now, some of us of course say, “Oh, but doesn’t Paul say, ‘I’m the greatest of sinners,’ doesn’t that prove that even he sinned?” No dear ones, you remember, Paul among other thing says, “The imitators of me, even as I am of Christ,” in Philippians he says, “Let’s as many of us therefore as be perfect.” In other words, he believes that you can enter into a perfect obedience, not a perfection of mind, or emotions, where you never make mistakes but a perfect obedience and we know that one of the marks of great saints is that the closer they get to Jesus the more they feel their own ugliness. And this is what Paul was saying, “I’m the greatest of sinners. Not only was I the greatest of sinners when I persecuted the church of God, but Lord Jesus, as I see your beauty, I feel more and more my own ugliness.” But Paul wasn’t saying, you see, “Oh I continue to sin night and day.” Now, many of us say, “Oh well, 1 John 3:9 does not mean what the RSV ( Revised Standard Bible) says it means.” In other words, it doesn’t really mean does not sin. It really means what the Amplified Version ( A V – Bible) says it means. And the Amplified Version, you remember, says, “Anybody born of God does not habitually sin.” Now loved ones, let me read from Christianity Today first of all, and let me share with you I am not a Greek scholar and I can read the New Testament in Greek and let me share with you that the Amplified Version is not a translation, you see. If you notice, the Amplified Version is based on a linguistic principle that is actually invalid. That linguistic principle is that you pile synonym, upon synonym, upon synonym to get to the real meaning of the original. That is not linguistically valid. Now, this fellow, who wrote in Christianity Today say this, “The Amplified Version is a blessing at times,” you see I’m not saying don’t stop reading the Amplified Version but don’t decide doctrine and truth on the basis of the Amplified Version because it is like Kenneth Taylor’s work, it is not a translation – it’s a paraphrase.” They say this, “The student should be aware that the Amplified Bible,” ( this is in 1965), “Which is based on an erroneous linguistic foundation,” in parenthesis, “The incorporation of synonyms and alternative renderings into the text in order to bring out the full sense of the original and Kenneth Taylor’s ‘Living Bible’ series, completed 1970, are not among the better English translations.” Well, dear ones, I don’t say it – just because they say it – but I know that it does not fairly treat the original or translate the original. Now some of you may say, “Oh, but isn’t the original the imperfect tense?” The imperfect tense, doesn’t it mean the same as for instance in Latin,” any of you who know Latin, ‘amabam’ would be I was loving in Latin and I was loving can mean I was accustomed to love, or I used to love. And some dear ones say, “Ah, this is the imperfect tense here, it means I was accustomed to sinning.” Any one born of God is not accustomed to sin. He is not used to it, he does not do it habitually. But dear ones, the tense is not the imperfect. Now brothers and sisters, I share with you in love again, it is not the imperfect tense, it is present tense, it is the ordinary present tense and it just means what it says. A ‘teetotaler’ doesn’t drink, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t drink habitually it means he doesn’t drink. A Christian doesn’t sin, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t sin habitually, he doesn’t sin. Now some dear ones say, “Ah but brother, doesn’t habitually translate the sense of the passage more. I mean, you yourself have said that if we do sin in an emergency we have an advocate with the Father. Now, are you not saying habitually?” Well loved ones, I think semantically habitually in the English language does not mean that. For instance, if you say to me, “I sleep in one morning,” and you say to me, “Do you sleep in habitually?” Well, I answer you, “No, no I don’t do it habitually I just do it from time-to-time.” Now, that’s normally what habitually means, isn’t it? Now, do you see that isn’t the sense of that verse? The sense of the verse is that there’s absence of sin in the Christian’s life. A Christian doesn’t sin. The purpose of the Greek is to exclude sin from the Christian’s life, not to limit the extent of the Christian’s sin. Not to say, “Well, a Christian, I mean, he doesn’t sin every day but he sins maybe weekly, or two weekly, or three weekly, or monthly.” Now loved ones, it doesn’t mean habitually it just means the Christian doesn’t sin and oh brothers and sisters, if we will rise to God’s standards for us, we’ll find more than sufficient grace in his Holy Spirit, to enable us to live in that standard. Do you see, any humanist – Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Socrates, could live up to the low mediocre standard that many of us have interpreted God as wishing for our lives? Do you see that only a person who has received the Spirit of Jesus into himself can live at the level that God describes in the Bible, and that’s the need for the new birth loved ones. If you’re having trouble with sin in your life, what you need is to allow God to send the Spirit of his Son into your life and that alone will enable you to live above sin, and to live in perfect obedience to God. Not to live above mistakes, not to live fearful of ever falling, but to live above sin in your own life. Some of us say, you know, “But ah brother, that is a ridiculous standard. It is beyond human ability. It drives man to despair.” Praise God it does just that. Yes, it does. It does. Dear ones, if you can ever come to the Bible and say, “Well, that describes me I don’t need Jesus.” Then you’re in trouble. You see, you’re not reading it right. The whole purpose of God’s law is to drive us to the end of ourselves, to drive us to that place where Paul described in Romans 7:18, “I know that no good thing dwells in me. I know I cannot live this way by myself.” That is the purpose of God’s love, to drive us into the depths of despair until there is only one thing to do, that is to receive the spirit of this person Jesus into our lives. Now loved ones, that is what the new birth is and what we need is a complete birth. We need a complete birth. We need not a believing in Christ, and a feeling sorry. That’s what many of us do, we feel sorry for our sins and we believe. We haven’t to do that, we have to repent and receive, not feel sorry and believe, but repent and receive. Stop doing the sins and receive the Spirit of Jesus. So brothers and sisters, if you’re in that position, you know, where you’re really having trouble do you see that it could be that you have not had a complete birth? You have not really dealt in honest repentance with the sins that were in your life, turned from them, and asked Jesus to come in. And so what you’ve entered into is an emotional osmosis of Christianity and not a real regeneration. You’ve entered into a moral reaffirmation plus a set of doctrines and principles instead of a real repentance and an actual regeneration. Now it is God’s will for us to experience a complete rebirth and next Sunday I’ll share with you a complete death because it is that sin that rises up that needs to be dealt with and can only be dealt with by complete death. But oh I urge you to experience a complete birth as a Christian and find yourself walking in this way without resistance and without criticism. Can I share one last thing? If you’re heart reacts against this truth, that’s an indication a wee bit of the state of your heart you see. A child of God, when he hears God’s truth responds to it even though he isn’t living to it. He says, “Ah, but I want that. I want that.” But the person’s who heart is not right reacts against it and wants to tear Isaiah out of the Bible, 1 John out of the Bible! But a child of God says, “Father, if that’s your will I want to be that and I want to be a lot more as well,” and you know that, that’s the spirit of your own heart if you loved your father and your mother, it’s the spirit of the child of God really. Well I pray the Father, you know, that’ll he’ll keep us from error and from misunderstanding and that he’ll bring you into a complete rebirth that makes supernatural living possible. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the peace and quietness of this morning time together. And we thank you our Father, for your word that it does not bow to our human weakness, but it raises us into supernatural strength. Father, we thank you for that. We thank you above all that you are a loving Father, ever stooping down to lift us up. That you are more anxious to forgive us that we are even to repent. And oh Father, that you will at the end of the day forgive us until 70 times seven as long as our hearts are penitent and soft enough to repent. And so Father, we would trust you to keep us well clear of sin, enable us to see it as alien and unnatural, as the reason for the atonement, as the reason for all that you have done in this earth, and Father enable us to hate it as much as you do, and to love purity and obedience as much as Jesus does. Now Father, we trust you to give us a good day, each one of us. We trust you to guide us this day and to make us a blessing to each other in our homes and our dormitories. 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.

The Purpose for Living Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Dear Father, in the name of Jesus, we plead the over powering influence of thy Holy Spirit tonight. Lord Jesus, we know you are able to overcome the physical discomfort, we know you are able to so preoccupy us with yourself that we will be unaware of any discomfort and we trust you therefore to so pour your Spirit out among us that we will be so bent on seeing you that we will have time for nothing else, least of all ourselves. We ask this in your precious name, amen. Perhaps dear ones, it seems to some of us that there has never been so much bewilderment about the purpose of life. You know, with King’s death, and Kennedy’s death, and with the riots, I think more and more people are saying, “What is it all in aid of anyway? What’s the meaning of life now? There doesn’t seem any.” And yet people in all generations have felt this way. It was about 50 years ago a professor of Latin at Cambridge University wrote a poem expressing this kind of bewilderment. He said, “Yonder see the morning blink, the sun is up and up must I to wash, and dress, and eat, and drink, and look at things, and talk, and think, and work, and God knows why.” And the tragedy is dear ones that many times Christians are as bewildered about the purpose of life as those who are not in Jesus. What would you say is the purpose of life? I think a lot of us tend to talk about it in the same way as this professor did when he wrote the last stanza of the poem. He said, “Oh often have I washed and dressed and what’s to show for all my pain? Let me lie abed and rest 10,000 times I’ve done my best and alls to do again.” And so often when you ask people today what the purpose of life is, they talk about it in terms of 10,000 times I’ve done my best. They talk about it in terms of oh well to be the best that you can be, to live the best life that you’re able, and to live the good life. To leave the world a better place than you found it. And so often dear ones, Christians talk in the same terms of the good life as opposed to the bad life. Now, do you see tonight that when we talk about good and bad like that, we’re eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil of which we were forbidden to eat? But so often we talk about it in terms of living the good life in Christ even, and the moment we mention good and bad we’re immediately taking part in the very act that the devil tempted us to at the very beginning. Or, perhaps some Christians say, “Well, the purpose of life is to save souls.” But dear ones, you see that means that God must have made us just so that he could save us? Now surely God did not cast us into a sea that was stormy and wild just in order to have the privilege of lifting us out of it. And yet so often you and I tend to talk in terms of saving souls as the purpose of life. The controversy that the devil has with God is not between good and bad. Do you know that? The controversy that the devil has with God is not between good and bad, it’s between life and death. The devil is not too concerned if you think you are good, and the devil is not too concerned if you try to be good as long as it’s death, as long as it’s the life of death. But he is concerned if we ever enter into the life that God prepared for us. Now would you turn those thoughts over in your mind as we go back to the original question, what is the purpose of life? First of all dear ones, it wasn’t because God needed our company. You see that? It wasn’t because God needed our company that he made us because, you remember, in John 1:1 it says, “In the beginning was the word,” that’s Jesus, “And the word was with God.” So God and Jesus had their own company. And you remember, I think it’s in Genesis 1:2 we read that the Spirit brooded upon the face of the waters and so obviously, God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit had each other’s company so they did not need to make us for the sake of our company. You remember too, I think it’s in Genesis 1:26 the Bible says, “Let us make man in our own image.” Not, “Let me make man in my own image.” So again obviously, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were speaking. You know it was a little like a husband and a wife, when they love each other and share a great love between them, they feel a need to create other dear ones who will share that love. And God created us to share the love that his trinity family already enjoyed. That’s why he made us at the very beginning so that we would share the love that he and the Son, and the Holy Spirit already rejoiced in among them. And so it was out of the sheer generosity of his love that he made us at all. And oh dear ones, it’s so bad when some of us say, “You know, I didn’t ask to be born.” God wanted us born so that we could share the joy and the love that he had with the Son and with the Holy Spirit. He didn’t make us then just to save us, but to share his love. I think it’s necessary to see then that God wanted dear ones who were like himself. That’s why you see, the Bible says, “He made us in his own image.” He made us a trinity. He made us, you remember, all the words occur in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, he made us with a spirit. He made us with a spirit that could rule, and he made us with a soul that could express that rule through our mind, and emotions, and our wills, and he made us with a body that could reveal this spirit to other dear ones of the same type. Just as he himself was a trinity, he made us body, soul, and spirit in the same kind of trinity. He made us too, you remember, in the very image of Jesus. You remember way at the beginning it says, I think it’s Romans 8:29 says, God predestined us at the very beginning before there was ever a fall, before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was ever there, God predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son Jesus. And this was so that we would fit well into the family of the trinity. Another way in which he made us in his image was to give us a free will like his own. He didn’t want robots who belonged to the family because they could not refuse, but he wanted dear ones who would opt into the family. He wanted dear ones who would willingly choose to become part of the family. This was his purpose in creating us at the very beginning. You may say, “Well, what was the choice?” Well, the choice at the very beginning was twofold. You remember, it says in the Bible that God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. God made our bodies of the dust of the earth and he breathed into our nostrils the breath of life and we became living souls. That was created life. See, the Bible says, “Let us make man in our own image.” Not, “Let us beget him,” but, “Let us make him in our own image.” And so God gave us created life and then it was his desire that his Son Jesus, whom you remember from John 3:16, you remember the words, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only manufactured son.” No, “That he gave his only created son?” No, “That he gave his only begotten son,” and it was his will that Jesus should come and walk among us, and live among us, and that we with our created life, would receive from him his begotten life and would therefore be able to be adopted into the family of the trinity. I think there was another choice in that too. You remember there was a choice there. Jesus is signified by the tree of life and I think you remember, in Genesis 2, obviously a choice is implied in Verse 9, and Verse 16-17. Verse 9 if you’d like to look at it, “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 that there would be an option required to opt into the family. And then in Verse 16-17, “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.’” In other words, there was a choice otherwise God wouldn’t have told us that. And the choice was to begin to receive the begotten life of God from his Son Jesus as he walked among us. There was another part of the choice too it was his desire that when this spirit of God’s begotten life would come into our life it would begin to pervade our souls, and our bodies. You see your soul and your body started off neutral. They started off neutral. Your mind is a neutral thing, really. Your emotions are neutral. Your will is neutral and it was God’s will that we would receive this begotten life into ourselves and then allow it to pervade our souls, and eventually our bodies and this was his plan so that we ourselves would become a trinity in which the spirit was present everywhere. One of the early fathers said, “Wherever one person of the trinity is present the other two persons are present as well,” and that was God’s will for us. That wherever a soul was there would be the fullness of God’s begotten life in his spirit. Wherever a body was there would be the fullness of his begotten life in the body. You see that when Jesus was transfigured on the mount, when you saw the spirit life breaking out through his physical life. It was God’s will that the body, and the soul, and the spirit would all be pervaded with the begotten life of God. This then dear ones, was his will for us and really as long as we abided by God’s decisions, and God’s judgment about life, we were able to receive through our spirits, all that we needed from the tree of life. So, you had – we’re not feeling very energetic. You receive from the tree of life you receive from the begotten Jesus energy. Your mind was blunt and wearied you received from the begotten tree of life the acuteness and the sharpness of Jesus. Even had we cut our hands we would go and we would take of the leaves of the tree of life and the hands would be healed by the begotten life of Jesus that flowed through the tree of life to us. And as long as we abided by God’s judgments, and as long as we took his word on what we should do in life, that tree of life was continually available to us and that tree of life would pour the spirit into us, and our souls would receive our approval from God, and we would walk with a sense of approval on our conscience knowing that we were approved by God. And that was the way we were meant to walk, not needing approval from any man, but receiving the approval from God in our own conscience and our bodies then were meant to express the life of God throughout the world. You can see this when you think of that verse you remember, Genesis 1:28, where God explains the process by which our spirits, souls, and bodies would become one together in his begotten life. He gave each of those parts of our personality a function. He said, “Be fruitful and multiple.” It was his desire that our bodies would pass on his created life and would beget others in his own image, and that we would multiply. It was his desire that our souls, our minds, and our wills and emotions would express in deductive detail, in deductive detail all the life that the Spirit gave to us so that we would fill the whole earth with the glory of God. It was his desire that our spirits would be ruled by God’s Spirit and that Jesus’ begotten life would flow through us so that he through us was able to subdue the whole world. You remember Genesis 1:28 says, “Your job is to subdue the world.” Well, it was meant to be Jesus subduing the world through us in his begotten life so that glory, and pleasure, and satisfaction came to God. That was the plan dear ones. That was God’s glorious plan for us and we were to find our full fulfillment in the exercise of that begotten life that we receive from Jesus. Well what happened? Once God gave us free wills man always had the prerogative that God had given him, to choose to live his own life independent of God. Not accepting God’s advice, not accepting God’s provisions because you see, he had created life and you remember Satan had already exercised this authority, and this prerogative. He had already rebelled against God and decided to live his life on his own terms independent of God and it was Satan that was allowed by God to tempt us to do the same thing. You may say, “Terrible, terrible,” but you see, God wanted us free. God wanted us members of his family because we wanted to be and so you remember, in Job we read how God allowed Satan to approach Job and tempt him. So, God allowed Satan to come into that world of ours and you remember how Satan set about it. You find it in Genesis 3:1. He said, “Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?”” Satan is a deceiver and the father of lies and the first suggestion he made to man was, “Do you really think this is the only way to live? Do you really? Do you think this is the only way to live? Hath God said, ‘You can eat of every tree of the garden?’ You have the right to eat of any tree of the garden surely now you’re in it.’” And then you remember the second thing that Satan tried to deceive Eve on in Verse 4, “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die. You’re alive now.’” He didn’t tell her that this was only created life. He didn’t tell her that she would need operations, and bandages, and that you would need armies of policemen to protect her in this created life. But he said, “You shall not surely die you’ve got created life.” And dear ones, a great deal of Satan’s power over us through the years has been the suggestion that this created life is what God intended us to have. So many dear ones are burdened under that. They think, “Well, this is the life that God planned us to have.” It’s the second best. And you remember lastly, he deceived Eve about the advantages of this independent life. He said in Verse 5, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. Isn’t that the very purpose that God sent you here for, to become like him? To be conformed to his own image? Surely, you will be like God knowing the difference between good and evil.” You remember, that whenever man decided to accept Satan’s lies and deception, whenever he decided to try and live on his own without trusting God, whenever he once got the idea into his mind, “Lighten up, this is life. This created life is good enough.” Once he did that every part of his personality became perverted. The Bible describes the kind of perversion that spread throughout his whole life, and dear ones, some of us tonight will recognize this in ourselves. And I want you to say if you recognize it not, “I’m bad,” because then you’re eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Not, “I am bad,” but, “I need the begotten life of Jesus. I need the begotten life of Jesus tonight.” Not, “I need a reformation.” Not, “I need more determination,” but, “I need the begotten life of Jesus.” Well here are some of the things that happened, that perverted man’s whole personality when he began to live this death life. It’s all in Genesis 3:6, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,” and our bodies began to desire enjoyment for its own sake. The death life, the created life was so unsatisfactory that our bodies tried to enjoy things for their own sake and so dear ones, the world is filled with dear people who are trying to enjoy themselves, enjoy themselves as much as they possibly can trying futilely and vainly to make this created life look like the begotten life of Jesus. And so you get many of us running around really trying to work up excitement to make this life as exciting as the begotten life. You know there’s a great desire for excitement. We buy fast cars, we buy fast motor launches today to go as fast as we can to try and get some life into life and it’s all this desire to try to make the created life what the begotten life was really meant to be because there’s something inside each one of us dear ones, that yearns for begotten life. Do you know that? Even if you’ve never been in church for years, there’s something in you that wants this begotten life, there’s something that is bigger than what we’re experiencing at the present time. So, the body began to enjoy itself for its own sake. And then you see the second part in Verse 6, “And that it was a delight to the eyes,” and the soul which was made to give out the life of the spirit to the whole world and to fill it, and to replenish it, the soul turned back in on itself and instead of replenishing it wanted to get, get, get, get and it didn’t matter how many charge accounts it had in Dayton’s, it couldn’t get enough. And dear ones, you know that. You keep trying to transform the created life into the begotten life by allowing this perverted function to take place in your soul, and you try to get, and you try to get, and get, and you can’t get enough and you never will get enough because that’s not the way the soul was meant to work. And the spirit is talked of in the last part of Verse 6, “And that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,” and our spirits became perverted too. They were meant to be ruled by God. They were meant to receive from him his own life. The spirit instead began to rule over itself and over others. Our spirits dear ones, were meant to be ruled by the Father but our spirits became perverted and began to rule themselves and so we’re all concerned over the future because that’s our job, we have to take care of that precious future because God no longer can because he doesn’t rule us, and so our spirits have great yearnings to make the future what we want it to be. Our spirits have not the rule of God’s Spirit in them and so they want to rule not only our lives but the husband’s as well, and not just to discipline the children but to get them to do it exactly as we want them to do it. And when somebody begins to act in a way that we don’t agree with we burst out in temper because our spirit wants to rule over them. It’s perverted it was made to be ruled by God. It was made so that God’s life would flow through it and rule others and the spirit instead of feeding on the Spirit of God and the tree of life, has to start feeding on itself. So dear ones, really drugs and alcohol are part of the way that we supply the exhilaration that would normally come from the begotten life of Jesus. Do you know that that the begotten life of Jesus provides exhilaration and excitement? This is why Paul said, “Don’t be drunk with wine because that’s one way of doing it, but be filled with the Spirit and there’s no hangover and it’s a better way.” You see? And it is true dear ones, when the spirit feeds on the tree of life that is in Jesus, when the spirit feeds on the begotten life that is in Christ then the spirit doesn’t need that false exhilaration. The body doesn’t need the kind of enjoyment that it gets from its own action but it receives the enjoyment of the spirit through it. The soul doesn’t need to be constantly seeking after men’s approval. Dear ones, that’s why we go for status, do you see it? You know, we want them to know that we’re actually doing quite well and so we buy not a Volkswagen, and a radio, and a TV set but we’re like the Jones’ next door and we buy the big car, and we want status, and we want approval because the soul lacks the approval of God. Lacks the sweet favor of God upon it and so it’s constantly trying to gain approval from others. That’s why we’re always trying to prove to everybody else that we have really quite good abilities, you know, we’re quite good at our job. And that’s why when somebody catches us out on the job we’re really very anxious to prove to them that well, we can explain this, we can explain it because we want to justify ourselves in their eyes, and justify ourselves in everybody’s eyes because we have failed to be justified in the eyes of the only one who counts. And so dear ones, our spirits, and our souls, and our bodies entered into this death life and that’s what I’m anxious for you to see. It’s not that you’re bad, do you see that? It’s not that you don’t know how to manage your emotions. It’s not that you don’t know how to manage your domestic life and you have to try harder. It’s not that you’re not doing a good job at work. It’s dear ones, that you’re living the death life, you’re believing the lie of the devil who has persuaded you that this created life is the begotten life of God. Well, what did God do? Dear ones, he is the author of truth and honesty. Where Satan is the author of lies God is the author of truth and honesty and he had to keep his word. In Genesis 3:3 he said, “Listen, if you eat of that tree you will die.” And in order to hold the world together in justice God had to exert that death penalty upon us and so you remember, in Genesis 3:24 he withdrew the tree of life from us by driving us out of the Garden of Eden lest we might eat of that tree and live forever. And if we’d live forever with the perversions we had already in our personality we would have created many hells and would have become many Satans and God had to withdraw from us the eternal life that was his plan for us. And he could do nothing else, he had stated so often the righteous live forever and the sinful will die and he had to keep his promise and there was no way out. Indeed, he could never replace that tree of life until you and I were all utterly persuaded that he detested sin and that it always brought death. And you remember the precious way he did that? The one who was to be the father of the new race, the one who was to walk among us in peace and harmony and bestow upon us his own begotten life in love, he was the one that God allowed to listen to his commandments about the tree of life and about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and to abide by those commandments so that he himself did not incur the penalty of death. And yet that dear one tasted death for all of us. That dear one who was to come here in peace among us came here to the agony of the death that we deserved to die. Until one man died plainly for all of us to see we would really never have believed that God detested sin. We always have said, you know, “Well he’s changed his mind. He’s just replaced the tree of life for us because he decided it won’t work.” And God had to show us that above all he was just and it was because he loved us so much that there was anything like wrath because he didn’t want us to endure created life all our lives. And so he allowed this dear one who was originally to come and give us begotten life to come and die that death for us. When Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” he was experiencing the pangs of hell and outer darkness that the created life will always experience. You see dear ones the created life will not last. The created life only has the appearance of life. It has a temporary appearance for 70 years and then at the end of that there’s a second death and outer darkness. And Jesus faced that outer darkness and that second death. He endured even the pangs of hell so that God could replace the tree of life. And how did he replace the tree of life? Well, because Jesus obeyed God perfectly, when the devil tempted Jesus to enjoy himself by eating the bread, Jesus refused continually through his life. When the devil tempted Jesus in his soul to get the kingdoms of this world, Jesus throughout his lifetime obeyed God, when the devil tempted Jesus to rule over in his spirit the very laws of gravity and the very laws of God, Jesus refused to use his spirit in that way and throughout his life he walked perfectly before God. And so the Bible says, “The righteous deserve to live,” and so he deserved to live by his own obedience and he himself possesses begotten life. He has deserved alone of all of us this begotten life. And dear ones, the message is that he is able to give it to you. That he really is able to give it to you. That this Jesus now has never died. That he’s alive tonight and he’s able to give you the begotten life of God. Are you living that created life and pretending that it is begotten life? Are you? You know is your body constantly seeking its own enjoyment, whatever the cost is to anyone else? “I must be satisfied and I know what I need and I know what I want.” Is your body always anxious for its own enjoyment, and its own comfort, and its own convenience? Do you see what I’m saying? It’s not you’re bad. Do you see that? It’s not that you’re bad it’s that you lack the precious begotten life that God is able to give you. And I’m saying to you, turn from that old death life that you think is life. You have no control over your body. You cannot change it, only God can pour into it his begotten life. What about your soul? Is your soul always trying to justify itself? You know, are you always trying to prove your Christian righteousness? Are you always in discussions about the victorious life trying to say, “Well yeah, but man has weaknesses you know and I suppose this is my weakness.” Are you always trying to get round the message of the pure life? Are you always trying to persuade others that you’re actually better than you really are? Are you always trying to justify yourself or seek other men’s approval? Dear ones, I know tonight that there are men and women here that are burdened under this desire for status. I just know that there are some of you here that are burdened under this desire for status. You laugh at keeping up with the Joneses but you know that that’s the reason why you keep buying new carpets, and new furniture, and why you keep getting the other jobs, because it’s all this desire for men’s approval because you lack the approval that comes upon God with the begotten life of Jesus. Is your spirit filled with the desire to rule over others? Do you always want your own way? Is your spirit always anxious to have its own way and to make everybody do what it wants? Is there some dissatisfaction still in your own spirit? Is there some feeling in you that surely there’s more to it than this? Well dear ones, there is. When the begotten life of Jesus comes into you, the whole life begins to work right. Do you know that? It all begins to work right. You receive resources through the spirit. You receive resources from God through the Holy Spirit. You receive a sense of restfulness in your spirit and contentment and this begins to pervade your mind, and your will, and your emotions so that they are integrated and they begin to express this life of Jesus through them and you’re conscious is at last ready to depend on the blood of Jesus and to say to the Father, “I present the blood of Jesus to you and I know you’re pleased with that. I know my life is miserable but I trust you to look at the blood of Jesus,” and the conscience rests in the approval that God gives you when you do that. And the body at last becomes the servant of your life and not the master and begins to be used by the Holy Spirit, and by your soul instead of using them. In other words, your whole life turns the right way up, or the apostles turned it the upside down because at the moment our lives are upside down if we’re experiencing only that old created life. Well, how do you receive Jesus’ begotten life? Turn from the death life. That’s it. You must turn from the death life. You must acknowledge that what you’re living is the death life and dear ones, this applies not only to those of us who aren’t Christians tonight but to many of us who are half Christians, if there’s such a thing. To many of us who have not gone all the way with God. Turn from that death life. Say to God tonight, “Father I know that there’s some of the death life in me. Some of those qualities that were present in the Garden of Eden are present in me. Some of those characteristics that the Spirit has described tonight, I have them in my life.” Now it’s the death life dear ones. I can work on that for two or three hours and it’ll never get up and walk away because it’s inanimate. And you can sit it there and leave it there for a million years and some little animals they walk away with it, but it itself will never walk away. In other words, you cannot get life out of something that is dead. Now, if you’re experiencing the death life with all your eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with all your attempt to put cosmetics on this dead corpse and make it look as if it’s alive, you cannot produce life. You cannot produce life because life is received from the one who has life and that is Jesus. In other words, you need to turn from the death life. You need to admit, “This is the death life that I have,” and whatever way it expresses itself in you, you have to resolve tonight to turn from that. If it’s your body, if it wants constant enjoyment and that’s all it seeks either in food, or in sexual pleasure, or in satisfaction, or in comfort, or in convenience then you must say, “Tonight Father I’ll turn from that. I’ll turn from that death life in my body.” If your soul is constantly seeking after other people’s approval and trying to justify itself then you must turn from that and you must say, “Father, if they look upon me as a complete failure I don’t care. I’m turning from that desire to justify myself. I’m turning from that desire to get possessions and to try to prove I’m worth something with the amount of money that I’ve earned, or by the job that I hold down.” You need to turn from that death life. If it’s your spirit and it wants to dominate your home, and you’re a dictator in your home and you want everything to go your way, and you cannot abide anybody else having their way, then you need to turn from that tonight and say, “Father, that’s the death life in me. I need the begotten life of Jesus tonight to fill me there in that place and make me alive.” And then you need to turn to Jesus. He that hath the Son hath life. If you have Jesus tonight dear ones, you have God’s begotten life inside you and you know it. And similarly if you’re pretending that the old created life is the begotten life you know that too. Dear ones, Jesus is alive. Jesus is alive tonight and is willing, because this is why he was sent, he is willing to give you this begotten life. Well I pray that if the Spirit has spoken to you, you will come and receive that life. It’s important dear ones, to come only if God’s Spirit has spoken, you see. But you know if he has spoken. You know if you’re pretending that this old death life is begotten life or not and if that’s the case will you just come tonight and receive from Jesus what he is able to give you.

The Holy Spirit Destroys the Works of the Devil Exodus 2:10-15 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Let us pray. Dear Father, we trust you to explain this clearly to each one of our hearts in such a way that we will submit to the victory of Jesus and of the dear Holy Spirit, and that we will become sons of God in spirit and in truth. We ask this for Jesus’ glory this morning. Amen. You remember, we said that the reason the Son of God appears was to destroy the works of the devil. In other words dear ones, the Son of God appeared to takeaway sins. I think a lot of us feel he came maybe to save us in the midst of our sins, but we saw that even at the very point of conversion Jesus comes to take away our sins. So a man or a woman is burdened with an angry word that he speaks in his life and in his home, and God’s Spirit comes down and shows that those are the same angry words that destroyed the Son of God on the cross of Calvary. Or, a man begins to sense that there is dishonesty and deception in his business and he sees that that same deception of Jacob was what made it necessary for Jesus to die on the cross. Had there been no deception in the world Jesus would never had to die. So that in a real sense his deception kills the Son of God. He sees the sarcasm, and the cynicism in his language in his own home, and he sees that that same sarcasm, cynicism, and jibes was what helped to destroy the Son of God as the priest looked at him and said, “Save yourself and come down from the cross.” And even a dear one at the very moment of conversion sees that the sins that fill his life or her life have destroyed the Son of God. And so they see that if they are to be related to the Father again in forgiveness, and that is what real forgiveness is, the Father says, “Come and I will treat you as you were with me before the fall.” And before the Father is able to relate you to himself like that, the dear one sees that he must turn from those sins. So he must turn from the sarcasm, he must turn from the deception, he must turn from the anger and in that way Jesus saves them even at the point of conversion from his sins, from his outward acts and words that disobey God. So dear ones, it’s impossible to have the assurance, the witness of the Spirit in your heart that you are a child of God while you still continue acts and words that destroy Jesus. It’s just impossible. The Father cannot have you in his own heart. He cannot show you his favor. You cannot expect the Father to be pleased with those who continue to hurt his Son. So even at conversion dear ones, it is necessary to turn from the acts and words that destroyed the Son of God. And of course, God comes down in grace and forgives you, and you have a sense of freedom from guilt in your conscious because you know that from now on the blood of Jesus can be offered for your sins. Do you see that you cannot offer blood that you spill yourselves? Do you see that? You can’t thrust the sword of your angry word into the side of the Lord Jesus and take the blood that comes out and offer it to God and say, “Be pleased with that Father, do not look at my sinful life.” You can’t dear ones. The only time the blood can be offered to Jesus on your behalf in place of your death is when you stop spilling his blood. And so it’s necessary, even at the point of conversion to have an experience of Jesus destroying the works of the devil in your life, in your outward life. And you remember how we went on to say that soon after that you began to sense that all sin was not gone. You began to sense that – well, to take the example of the dear one with the new dress, she came home and she said, “Look at the new dress I bought,” and you know what the bank account is like and you hold back the word, you don’t say, “Love, that was stupid. That was stupid you know the state of the account. You know we couldn’t afford it.” You hold back that but within you there rises up the desire to say that and you feel, “Does she know what she’s doing? Has she no sense? Has she no sense or responsibility?” Dear ones that is sin. Now, that is sin. There’s no point in saying, “Ah brother, no you’re mistaken it’s only sin when it comes out,” or, “It’s only sin when it begins to get a grip.” Dear ones, if there’s a rising within that’s sin and the glory of the gospel is that through the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit you’re able to be free from the rising. Ah dear ones, I would that I could say that to you more plainly, but do you see even when the dear one says, “Look at the dress and you rise up within and you want to tell her,” that is sin because salvation at its lowest is salvation from sin and salvation at its highest is salvation from the inclination to sin. Even the bent to be unchristlike, God can save you from that and so it’s not long we said, until the Holy Spirit begins to convict a Christian of that. It’s not because of the inward sin that is in his heart, because it eventually breaks out into open sin and he starts this long train of confessions and repentances day, after day, after day. So soon he begins to realize that this sin has to go too and there he sees that it’s not a question of forgiving it, it’s a case of destroying it. And the Bible of course says that sin, or our old self, or our old man, or that desire for our own way and our own rights that was crucified with Jesus. And there comes a blessed time in a Christian’s life when he begins to see that sin within him that anger, and irritability, and anger, and jealousy. That desire to have his own way. That desire to rule over other people’s life as enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can it be and he cries out, “The good that I would I cannot do and the evil I do not want is what I do.” And then he sees that that self was crucified with Jesus and that the Holy Spirit is asking him, “Are you ready to be crucified with Jesus yourself? Are you ready to die to self from this day forward and live only to what Jesus wants in your heart?” And there comes a great day when it’s like a dear one whose lungs have given up and they’re put on the artificial lung machine, and they give up their own lungs and they’re utterly dependent on the artificial machine. And if it stops they stop living. If it doesn’t give them resources they have no resources to live by and the dear one changes the source of his motivation and he turns from that old self and he puts it on the cross once and for all. Allows the Holy Spirit to make that crucifixion real in his heart and then he begins to live on the basis of the Holy Spirit and he begins to depend desperately, and trust and obey the Holy Spirit like an artificial lung machine that he cannot do without. And the dear one begins to walk in victory within. And then you remember, we said yesterday that the Holy Spirit gives then power for service and he gives gifts. So you can see in a way that the Holy Spirit sanctifies you first in your outward life in the body in the acts and words, secondly, in the spirit inside in your spirit where you want to rule over your own life and over others and thirdly, he sanctifies you in your soul by supplying the resources that your soul once supplied. He supplies them by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now dear ones, after you’ve entered into conversion, the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit, and the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit you’re ready to begin the deeper life. Now, do you see that? The deeper life doesn’t begin until then. While you’re still struggling with sin dear one, while you’re still fighting that battle within you’re not ready to begin the deeper life. The deeper life begins after a dear one has died to self, been cleansed by the Holy Spirit and been baptized with the Holy Spirit with the gifts of the Spirit. Then the dear one is ready to begin the deeper life and so really in a way the conference begins when we have entered into that. So in a sense dear ones, if you have not experienced those steps well all of what we’re going to say is so much mental wisdom to you, you see, because you cannot enter into it until you’re at that point. Now dear ones, I council you to pray about that today so that you will seek to come to that point. I’d like to just in the next three sessions, if possible, to deal with three aspects of the deeper life. First of all, the ministry, the Christian’s ministry in the spirit and then this evening, the Christian’s witness in the spirit, and then tomorrow morning the Christian’s fellowship in the spirit. And I think it is a very different kind of life and an exciting one. The one that God originally meant us to engage in, in the Garden of Eden. You remember, he said, “I want you now to allow my Holy Spirit from the tree of life, to pervade your mind, and your intellect, and your body, and to fill you completely, and to express himself through you freely.” Well, that’s the life we’re engaged on when we move into the deeper life, to allow the Holy Spirit to integrate all of us. Now, would you like then dear ones, with the ministry and the spirit in mind, to look at Romans 1:9, and it’s only part of Verse 9. There’s so much in it I don’t think we could deal with it all but we can deal with that middle piece. Romans 1:9 and I’m sorry I just have the RSV here but I think you’ll be able to find the same clause in the King James. Romans 1:9, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers.” Now dear ones, there’s too much and really all we can take is, “Whom I serve with my spirit.” “Whom I serve with my spirit.” What is the ministry of the Christian? Well the ministry of the Christian is to serve God with his Spirit. I think it’s necessary first of all to see that the ministry of the Christian is not to do God’s work. The ministry of the Christian is not to do God’s work. Now, you cannot do God’s work. Only God can do God’s work. Your ministry depends on God’s work but it is not to do God’s work. Now you see the distinction? You may say to me, “Now pastor, that’s only a matter of speaking? It’s only a manner of speaking we have when we say, ‘We’re doing God’s work.’” But dear ones, so often it tends to be a manner of thinking also, you see. Our Christian ministry depends on God’s work but does not consist of doing God’s work. Only God can do his work. Now you can see this more clearly if you look at what God’s work is and Brother Elmer has been telling that to you plainly. John 16:8-11, this is God’s work and this is why no Christian ministry consists of doing God’s work, though all Christian ministries depend on God’s work. John 16:8-11, here is God’s work and this is specifically his work not ours, “And when he comes,” (when the Holy Spirit comes) “he will convince the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” That is God’s work, to convict the world of sin of righteousness, and of judgment. Now, if you ever go in to minister as a Christian and no work of God has taken place in the dear one’s heart, you waste your time and deify yourself. So it’s vital dear ones, you see for a work to take place in a person’s heart before you actually speak to them. I remember that dear old white haired man that I told you of with the hole in the wall you remember, and the Holy Spirit making the hole if you jumped. He said, “You know you can do no witnessing unless a work of God has already taken place in the dear one’s heart.” And that’s true you see, right from before conversion, unless God has awakened them in some sense there’s no point in you saying anything. So that’s why the Christian’s ministry depends on the work of God. But where the Christian goes in without a work of God taking place then all the attention is drawn to the Christian. So you know dear ones, there are many churches where all the attention is drawn to the building, or the preacher, or the choir, or the great preaching, or the power of the place. And that happens when the work of God is not central. But when the work of God is central and the Christian’s ministry depends on that, then this happens as it happened in Romans 1:8 if you look there. They don’t thank God for the preacher, or for the choir, or the beautiful building, or for the many good people in the church but in Verse 8, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you.” Why? “Because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.” In other words, where God’s work is taking place among people and the Christian’s ministry depends on that. The people’s faith is talked about. They’re expectancy for God to do mighty things and their trust that he will do mighty things. Those are the things that other people talk about. They talk about the people’s faith because faith of course is the gift of God and is not stirred up by great preaching, but is the gift that God gives to the people who are willing to submit to him. So where God’s work is really taking place and the Christian’s ministry depends on that, then people’s faith is talked about. But where there is no work of God and Christian’s are trying to minister without a work of God, the people begin to talk about the preacher, or the great church, or the great choir, or all the wealth they have, or the possessions they have. So there is a real difference dear ones, one work will not last and the other work will last forever. You can see that’s true in 1 Corinthians 3:12-13. 1 Corinthians 3:12-13, there are two very definite kinds of work that are done under the ministry of Christians so-called. 1 Corinthians 3:12-13, “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble – each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.” And you can see that Christians can minister in two ways, you see without the work of God and trying to do the work of God, or with the work of God and depending on the work of God. And the one does not last and will be temporary, and the other lasts forever. And we want to build with precious stones not wood, hay, or stubble. So it’s important even with our sons and our daughters not to go in and do our own works in their hearts you see, but to be sure that God has done a work before we speak and then the work remains. Dear ones, the second thing I think we should look at in the ministry of the Christian is there in Romans 1:9. First of all, the ministry of a Christian depends on God’s work but is not God’s work and then in Verse 9 that we read, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.” A Christian in his ministry serves God, he does not serve men. A Christian in his ministry does not serve men, he serves God. Now we have a danger in these days of saying, “Well again, that’s only a manner of speaking brother. We mean we’re serving God I mean, if you give a glass of water in my name you give it to the Lord Jesus.” But dear ones, the tendency seems to be in these days that we emphasis that we’re serving man and God fades from the picture. And the Bible puts it very bluntly that a Christian’s job in his ministry is to serve God and God must be foremost. Now you can see another verse where that is present in Ephesians 6:7. Ephesians 6:7, this emphasis is present again, “Rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to men.” “Rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to men.” So we are called to serve God and not serve men. Do you see that there is a great danger that many of us who have had our sins forgiven and have been cleansed from inward sin, and have been baptized with the Holy Spirit will move out into self again in our ministry? Can you see that? That many of us are tempted by the devil after we have had our sins forgiven and been cleansed from inward sin and self and been baptized with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There’s a great danger that in our ministry we will move back into self. And if we’re conscious first of serving men dear ones, that’s what happens. So there are many churches today, and you know it, which are bent on serving men and then end up men pleasers. The preachers end up men pleasers because they have to please the men that they’re serving. And they become preoccupied with the affect their preaching is having on the men that they’re preaching to. Or, they become preoccupied with the amelioration of social evils, and they say, “Our job is to serve men,” and I think it’s Fromke says, you know, “The liberals have a tendency to say what can be done by men to improve the world.” And there’s a tendency in many of us to go that way. We say, “Well right enough we should be doing something about the Negro problem. We should be doing something about the race issue. We should be doing something about the gun law.” And suddenly we begin to change over to serving men and to trying to ameliorate a society that God has promised us is going to be destroyed. And so many dear ones in their Christian ministry are led into frustration and futility because they begin to serve men, and they begin to try to renew this world that only God can renew instead of turning to God and serving him through the saving of individual souls and the leading them into the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit and into the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Instead of that, they begin to concentrate on serving society. Now dear ones, the Bible says, “We are called to serve God and not to serve men.” Now you may say, and this is just the third part of what I would like to say this morning, “How do you know how you should serve God? And, how do you serve God? How can you serve God?” Well, you find the statement of how we serve God in 1 Corinthians 3, and maybe you would like to turn to it since it will be basic to what God can say to us this morning. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are equal, and each shall receive his wages according to his labor. For we are fellow workers of God; you are God’s field, God’s building.” I don’t know how the King James translates that dear ones. Can someone read the King James Version? I think it’s that word “with” that the sister read, the Greek is really “theou” which means of God. And the Bible emphasis is that not are we so much fellow workers with God, you know, equals walking along and Father you do a bit and I’ll do a bit, but we are fellow workers of God. We work together as fellow workers that belong to God. God does his work and then he calls in workers to work together for him. So not so much you see, we are fellow workers with God but we are fellow works of God. God does his work and then we are called to work together on the basis of the work that he has done already. So it’s like a surgeon who is doing a heart transplant, he’s the one that does the heart transplant and he renews the dear heart in the person and he has nurses and other doctors and assistants around him. And as he does the work he requires assistants and each one must know what God wants them to do so he needs forceps at this time, so he needs a needle at this time, so he needs tissues at this time. And he calls from each one what he needs. Now it’s in that sense that we are fellow workers of God. So God sees a dear one who is struggling under bondage of sin and he convicts that person of his sin and that dear one needs someone to explain to him what conviction is. And God calls one of his fellow workers and tells them, “Will you explain to him what conviction of sin is?” And you maybe meet that dear one and explain it. Then that dear one needs to go on from the forgiveness of sins to sanctification and God calls another of his fellow workers and says, “Would you go and reveal the message of inward victory to that dear one?” And maybe it’s you that are called this time. And so God is the great surgeon and he does the work and we are fellow workers of God. We do what he tells us. You can see how vital it is to know when God tells you what to do. It’s vital dear ones to know what God tells you he wants you to do and when he wants you to do it. Now, how do you know that? Well let’s look to the verse of scripture that shows us. And you see it just over the page from that 1 Corinthians 3, it’s 1 Corinthians 2:11b and then Verse 9b-10. 1 Corinthians 2, how do you as a fellow worker, how do you as one who is to minister as minster of Christ, how do you know when you ought to minister and what you ought to minister? 1 Corinthians 2:11b, “So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” In other words it’s the Spirit of God that’s the only one that knows. Now look at Verse 9b-10, 10 especially, “God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” Now, you know what God is thinking because God’s Spirit knows what God is thinking and is able to tell you. Now it’s important dear ones to see that this is part of the ministry in the Spirit, that your ministry is determined, and commanded, and directed by God’s Spirit. Now you may say, “Why all this mystic stuff? Why not just use your own mind that God has given you, and your feelings, and your good common sense, and do what you think ought to be done for God’s cause to forward the world?” Well dear ones, let’s look at Moses who did that and let’s look at Exodus 2:10-15, and he did just what some of us think of suggesting and what I’m afraid many of us do in our Christian ministry. Exodus 2:10-15, he used his own native wit. He was committed to God and he wanted to do what God wanted but he decided to work it out for himself. Exodus 2:10-15, “And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son; and she named him Moses, for she said, ‘Because I drew him out of the water.’ One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people,” the Israelites, “And looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together; and he said to the man that did the wrong, ‘Why do you strike your fellow?’ He answered, ‘Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid, and thought, ‘Surely the thing is known.’ When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh, and stayed in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well.” And there is old Moses using his own native judgment and his own native abilities, and you see what a glorious success he made of the task. He fled and ended up sitting down by a well. Now dear ones, if you carry out your Christian ministry on the basis of your own native wit and common sense, you will end up fleeing from the situation and sitting down by a well and being of no use to God. Now, look at Moses when God’s own Spirit directed him. Exodus 3:1, “Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.” And then in Verse 7, “Then the LORD said, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings.” The Spirit of God spoke to Moses and told him. Then in Verse 10, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people, the sons of Israel out of Egypt? But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?’” And his own native wit rose again, “He said, ‘But I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain.” And then in Verse 20 you see the achievements of God continuing through Moses, “So I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all the wonders which I will do in it; and then he will let you go.” And so the message goes on into 30 and 31 of the next chapter where eventually the people are freed. And God’s mission is accomplished through God’s Spirit telling the co-worker of God what he ought to do. In other words dear ones, there’s a difference between your ministry being directed by God’s Spirit who alone knows God’s thoughts and your ministry being directed by your own soulish powers. You see, just as there is a clear distinction between God’s Spirit and our spirit, you remember, we talked about the Garden of Eden and the tree of light through which God was going to pour the spirit of the begotten life into our spirits so that it would pervade all of our lives, our minds, and emotions. Now as there is a difference between God’s Spirit and our spirit, Romans 8:16, “The Spirit of God witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” There’s a distinction between them. So there is a distinction dear ones between the spirit and the soul that we have. You see, there is a distinction between our spirit and our souls. Now, you may question that and you may want to look at it more carefully so would you like to turn just to some of these passages? First of all the most obvious one is 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and most of you perhaps know it by heart and don’t need to turn to it. 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.” Now many of us read that and say, “Well that just means your body, you know, and all the spiritual part of you.” Now dear ones the word of God is precious and was inspired by the maker of the world so that the right words were given to us to convey the right meaning. Now when the Bible makes the distinction between body, and soul, and spirit that distinction is there because we are loose in our use of language it does not mean that God is loose in the use of language. And God says “Body, soul, and spirit,” because he means that there is a distinction not only between body and soul but there is a distinction between soul and spirit. In fact, you’ll see by the next reference that we take that it is vital for a Christian in his ministry not only to know that there is a distinction between soul and spirit but actually to allow his soul and his spirit to be distinguished in his own life. It is essential for him to be able to see the difference in his own life and to know when he is listening to his spirit and when he is listening to his soul. Now you can see that in Hebrews 4 dear ones. Hebrews 4:12-13, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit.” “Piercing to the division of soul and spirit.” In other words, not only can you know that you have a soul and you have a spirit but the word of God is able, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the revelation of God’s word to distinguish for you between your soul and your spirit. And the Bible calls us to serve God with our spirits. Now, do you see the importance of it dear ones? We are called to serve God with our spirits not with our souls. And many of us are having failure in our own Christian ministry because we’re trying to serve God with the power of our own souls. And you know again, and again the Bible emphasizes this, worship with your spirit, pray with your spirit, serve with your spirit. The Bible emphasizes that we must pray, and worship, and serve with our spirits not with our souls. Now you may say, “Well, what are our souls? What does our soul consist of?” Well, would you just be patient then and we’ll follow just a few references through and see it from the scripture and then we can apply it to our own hearts. 2 Peter 2:7-8, first of all our soul consists of these things. 2 Peter 2:7-8, “And if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the wicked (for by what that righteous man saw and heard as he lived among them, he was vexed in his righteous soul day after day with their lawless deeds).” Now he was distressed, he was vexed. You feel distressed and vexed when your emotions feel distressed and vexed. But the New Testament there says, “He was vexed in his righteous soul.” Now the soul consists first of all of our emotions. That’s one of the parts of the soul and that’s one of the things that we’re not called to serve God with first and foremost, with our emotions. Now at times we do serve God with our emotions, you see. At times we go up to this old dear one and we think, “If we can only get over to them the joy of life in Jesus, then they’ll want him for themselves.” And so we pray it up, and we work it up, and we feel really joyful and we hit that deck with a smile on our faces, and with the emotions bursting out and we say, “Life in Jesus is great.” And the emotions pour out to them and we minister with our souls and we minister death dear ones. You minister death. You do not minister the Spirit of Jesus. The Spirit of Jesus has a precious joy that no one can imitate but we turn on this human joy for the best motives. I know dear ones, for the best motives but it is not of Jesus. It is not of the Spirit of Jesus, it is the emotions of our soul. And so often we witness in the strength of our soul. You see, that was the very temptation in the Garden of Eden. You remember we said it was not choose good and avoid evil but it was choose the knowledge of good and evil. It was a rising up of the soul in the Garden of Eden. You remember we said that all our functions were perverted of every part of our personality by the fall. Our bodies instead of giving out people in the image of God began to enjoy themselves and concentrate on their own enjoyment. You remember we said that our spirits that were meant to rule over the world and God through them to rule over the world began to rule over themselves and rule over other people. And then the soul, which was meant to receive directions from the spirit, it began to work itself, it began to operate itself. It began to substitute its power for the resources from the tree of life. Dear ones, when you pour out your own emotions to someone to whom you’re supposed to witness and those emotions do not come from the Spirit of Jesus, because of course the Spirit of Jesus can use your emotions, I don’t mean you go without emotion, but there’s an emotion that is soulish and there’s an emotion that comes because the Spirit of Jesus has provoked it. Now one gives life and the other gives death. One can be used by God, the other draws attention to self and they say, “What a happy person that fellow is.” Well, what good does that do? That’s of no good to God. So the emotions dear ones are one part of the soul. Now Psalms 119, this will seem strange to you, I just never realized there was a Psalm with 167 verses in it but Psalms 119 has more than that. Psalms 119:167, and this is dear ones, another part of our souls. Psalms 119:167, “My soul keeps thy testimonies; I love them exceedingly.” “My soul keeps thy testimonies,” it means commandments and it’s your will obviously that keeps commandments. Part of the soul is the will. The soul consists of your emotions and your will. And the Bible calls us to serve God with our spirits not primarily with our wills. The Holy Spirit will use your wills. He will guide your wills. You need to allow the Spirit to use your wills but you yourself must not use your will. So there comes a moment when God asks you to do some work for him and you don’t feel like it at all and you say, “Well, I’ll do it,” and your will determines to do it and you go in that spirit and you go and you minister to the dear one but you do not minister the Spirit of Jesus, you minister your strong will to them. And many of us, when dear ones come to us and say, “I cannot, I cannot keep the commandments. I cannot do it. I don’t know what’s wrong, there’s something within me that rises up.” We minister the power of the will to them and say, “You must will it. You must will it.” Now you must will obedience over outward acts and words but you know that you cannot will down the risings up within a converted man or woman. That’s something that only the Holy Spirit can deal with. And so we are not called to minister by our wills or in our wills, but through our spirits to minister with our spirits. Well dear ones, another part of the soul is found in different parts of the Bible but I think that maybe we have only time to look at the mind and you can see it there in Deuteronomy 11:18. Deuteronomy 11:18, “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul.” Now if you lay up words for an examination you obviously lay them up in your memory and that’s part of your mind. And the soul consists of the emotions, and the will, and the mind. So do you see that the soul consists of the mind, the emotions, and the will? I believe also there’s reason for saying it consists of the conscience but the vital things in the ministry of a Christian are the mind, the emotions, and the will. And dear ones, God calls us not to minister with our minds but to allow the Holy Spirit to use our minds. Now I think Philip could have ministered with his mind. God came down to him and said, “Will you go to the desert road that leads to Gaza?” Philip, if had been ministering with his mind would have said, “Thinks, the desert road that leads to Gaza? A desert road has no one on it. No Father, because there’s a revival going on here and I’m needed here to lead other dear ones into conversion. No, I will not go to the desert road that leads to Gaza because my mind tells me that’s a desert road.” Now often if we minister in the power of our minds, we will go astray in our own Christian ministries because that’s ministering with the soulish powers. Now dear ones, we cannot, we cannot do any work for God by ministering with our minds. So often in an argument we minister with our minds. We’re determined that they’ll see the doctrine as we see it and we’re determined they’ll understand the infinite minds definition of sin just as we understand it. Dear ones, that isn’t the vital thing at all but that they see the beauty of Jesus and they see that sin is any falling short of that beauty. But many of us minister in the power of our minds and not in the power of the spirit. We do not serve God with our spirits we serve him with our minds. So I did this, you know, at my first church in Minneapolis I decided, “What they need to do is read the Bible so I’ll get Bible study groups going.” And right enough we did it and I had a good Bible study book, and I duplicated sheets, and I had six groups going, and there were 10 or 12 people in each group and that was magnificent. In a Methodist church any way, it was magnificent. And there were 70 of us meeting every week for an hour. And I led every group so that I led six groups a week just to make sure that they saw the word of God as it really was. And I had thought this whole thing up with this great clever thing here. And then it went for six months and six months passed by and I looked around for the fruit and there was no fruit. They all knew the Bible and they were enjoying the groups and, “Reverend O’Neill we really think the groups are good.” But there was no life pouring through the groups because this mind had thought the idea up and I had organized them as I would organize an army. And dear ones, if you serve God with your mind like that instead of with your spirit there will be no fruit. The Christian’s ministry depends on serving God with the spirit. Now, you say why? Well, God wants this to be the situation in your life, the spirit receives directions from his Spirit. Then the spirit wears the soul. You see, wears the soul as I wear this coat. The spirit wears the soul and expresses the directions that God has given it through the mind, and emotions, and the will of the soul and then the soul wears the body and the soul expresses what it has received from the spirit out through the body. And the will of God is that the life that he gives to your spirit should come out untinged and untainted through your body. And that’s why the body, the soul, and the spirit must not only be completely sanctified but they must work in that order dear ones. If it works from the soul then it is not of God, it is of the soul. It is still of the old independence of men. And you know, you’ll often see a person who has claimed to be sanctified and claimed to be baptized with the Spirit and that dear one pours forth their soul and all you meet is their soul and the power of their soul and you do not meet the Spirit of Jesus and you know that. There’s something that grinds inside you and you know that’s soulish power pouring out. Now dear ones, that is not God’s will. You can see this is also why psychology has little place, psychiatric counseling as little place in the life of a Christian because the spirit is the one that’s wrong or right. The soul only expresses what is in the spirit. Now psychology is “psuche” and “logos” it’s the knowledge of the “psuche”, or the mind, or the soul. And when psychologists work with you they work on that second level and they’re working all the time with symptoms. So you deal with the dear one who is neurotic at home and you decide, “The only way I can do it is give her electric shock treatment.” And you try and shock a soul. I don’t know what you’re trying to do you’re just trying to shock it. You know it shouldn’t be as it is, you know, you try to shock it out of the syndrome that it’s in, in that moment. But you see dear ones who are Christians know that the soul is only expressing what the spirit has felt and it’s at the spirit level that the problem is. And that’s why it’s so precious that the best psychiatrist of all is the Bible which is the word of God which can divide even the soul from the spirit and can reveal to us the intentions of our hearts. So it’s vital to see the distinction. Dear ones, we could go on for days on this, it’s so precious. Could I just point out one more thing to you, that it’s vital for us, you see, to begin to deal at the level of our spirits in our own lives. If you deal at the level of the soul, and many churches do, many churches try to educate the soul. Many churches who even believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, are all the time trying to educate the soul. Well, it’s like me taking my car and driving it back and forward between Bethany and my home. Driving it back and forward two or three times and then saying, “Okay, you can go on your own.” That’s what you’re doing when you’re dealing with the soul you see, because the soul’s driver is the spirit. And however often you run the soul back and forward over that line it won’t get used to it because the soul itself is strictly speaking neutral, strictly speaking neutral. And if it is predisposed one way it’s predisposed because the spirit is predisposed this way. You can see that that’s why the Bible is so wise, isn’t it, when Isaiah cries, “I am a man of uncleanness.” Not, “I spoke with my lips unclean words,” not, “My mind thought unclean words,” but, “They all did what they did because the spirit was unclean.” And so it’s the spirit that guides the soul and the soul guides the body. A Christian needs to receive his directions directly from the spirit. Now many of us have gone astray because we’ve come into all the experience of the spirit and we have not lived by the spirit. We have not ministered in the spirit we’ve looked at the books, the psychology books, and we’ve read all the other books. And I’m sure it’s good to read them, but it’s good to realize that your direction day-by-day moment-by-moment must come from your spirit. Now last of all dear ones, and there isn’t really much time to talk about it but God wants to show you the distinction between your soul and your spirit. So again and again dear ones who are about to enter into the deeper life find they’re meeting defeat

Controlled Surrender Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill For those of you who are here maybe for the first time and have been put off by previous experiences of an emotional and irrational presentation of Christianity because really we don’t present the intellectual basis this morning for the Christianity that we believe in and I can only point you to the house of Dunamis and the bookshop in the House of Dunamis we have maybe a library of 50 cassettes which deal with the intellectual basis of Christianity and we in past Sundays have talked about this. I point you to the Fish bookshop which has a good selection of Christian books on those subjects, and point you to the seminars, and just ask you to be patient and realize that we’re following out a study that we have been considering together for several months, and so you in a way come in in the middle of it. It’s not because we don’t deal with the intellectual basis but we believe we need to get beyond that also. We, since Christmas have been talking about what the real Christian is. We’ve done that because people have so many varied concepts of what a Christian is. Some of them think that we’re a Christian nation because we put, “In God we trust,” on our coins. And so a lot of people say, “Oh, that’s what you mean by being a Christian.” And a lot of people say, “Oh well a Christian man is a very moral man or a very virtuous man,” or, “A Christian person is a church goer or someone who believes the truths of Christianity.” Now dear ones, it’s because of those varied concepts that we have been talking about what a real Christian is on these Sundays. You remember, we said that a real Christian was one who had experienced the two effects of Christ’s death. He had experienced a spiritual birth whereby God’s Holy Spirit came into his spirit and brought new life and sensitivity to God into him and that came through real repentance. And the second effect of Jesus’ death is a real spiritual death to that old self life caused by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in displacing that self and made possible by the fact that we were really crucified with Christ 1900 years ago. Now both of those probably sound wild to anybody who has never considered Christianity seriously before, but what it really means is first a miraculous implanting of a God centered set of motivations and sensitivities inside us. And secondly, a miraculous displacing of the old self-centered set of sensitivities and motivations within us. And a real Christian is one how has experienced both of those – a spiritual birth and a real spiritual death to self. Now is it possible for a person to enter into just one of those? Yes, last Sunday we talked, you remember, about a person who is half alive spiritually. A person who has allowed the Holy Spirit to make the new birth real in them so that they want to do God’s will, and they want to do things that please Jesus, but the self inside them and the miserable self-centered desires that they have, prevent them from obeying God’s will. That’s a person who is half alive spiritually. A person who has entered into the new birth but has not entered into a real experience of their death to self with Christ and so they are in a sense like the man described, you remember, in Romans 7:19. And we did look at it before but if you want to check it there are a couple of references there in Romans that it would be good to look at. And Romans 7:19, describes the state of a person who is half alive spiritually. Romans 7:19, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” And many people have entered into half a Christian experience and are in that position. They know what they ought to do but they have not the power to do it and they live constantly defeated experiences failing to do what they know they should do. Now really, their position is much like a Jew. You could say almost that they are living under the old covenant. They’re living under the old covenant which enabled people to have their sins forgiven but did not give them power to live in obedience. They’re living a bit like the person, you remember, that Paul describes there in 7:24, he says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And some people would say that isn’t a defeated Christian talking, that’s Paul talking as a Jew under the law, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” What was a body of death? Well, you remember, they had several methods of execution in the first century, one was crucifixion. Another was putting a stake right through the heart of the person. Another was taking the victim that the criminal had murdered and hanging that victim’s dead body around the criminal and making that criminal walk for months and months with that dead body decomposing around him and the stench constantly destroying any freshness of the air, and eventually overcoming the man. Now, that is what Paul means, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death, this dead body hanging around me that prevents me living the full life that I could live if it wasn’t there, and it’s continually hindering me when I get into situations that require extra effort?” Now loved ones, you see, that’s what many of us find ourselves in. We find that there’s a kind of body of death that hangs around us and we want to love the person, we want to love them wholly and completely but there is within us a self-righteous desire to judge them and that body of death hangs around us. And we want to love the person but that self-righteous desire to judge them comes up and we say, “No, we can’t love them because they’re like this.” Many of us want to have a pure relationship with our dear ones. We want to have a pure love relationship but there is a self-pleasing lustful desire to satisfy ourselves that is constantly creeping up inside and this old body of death seems to swing around us at times when we want to have a pure experience with the dear one. Now, that’s what it means to be half alive. There are many of us who really want to live for God totally and we really do want to follow Jesus and make any sacrifice that is necessary but inside us there is this self glorifying desire that wants to live our lives for our own sakes and for our own benefits. Now that’s the body of death dear ones. It’s not this flesh body, there’s nothing evil about the body itself. It’s the body of death, the body of sin inside us that is constantly trying to pull us back into self. Now that’s what a half alive Christian is, you see. Now what you need to decide this morning is where you stand in regard to that, really. The first time the gospel was ever preached was the day of Pentecost and both these experiences, a real birth and a real death, are implied in the instruction that is given to those converts or to those non-Christians before they were converted. Maybe you’d look at it, it’s Acts 2:38, and you remember it was the first time that any man ever presented in the world that God was willing to accept men as his own children because of Jesus and was able to restore his image in their own lives. And then you remember, some people came up to Peter and they said, “In the light of this what shall we do?” And Acts 2:38, Peter answered like this, “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” And there were three steps dear ones. The first step was repent, and you had to stop doing the things that were wrong, and ask Jesus’ Spirit to come into your life. And that’s the first step in becoming a Christian. And then you see you had to be baptized in the name of Jesus. And you know, they were wiser than us, they didn’t spend hours arguing about whether they ought to go right under the water, or whether it was enough to sprinkle, or whether it was enough to pour on, and all that. They really got to the basis of what baptism was. And you remember how Paul explained it in Romans he explained what baptism was before the people ever went under the water in Romans 6:3-4, you remember. And this was the second necessary step, you see, to be a totally alive Christian. Romans 6:3, “Do you not know,” and you see probably Paul would do this, the dear ones would be waiting there on the side of the river or the lake and he would explain to them, “Now, I’m going to explain to you what baptism means,” and bless our hearts we think, “Well, if we haven’t been baptized in the right way, this won’t take place in us.” Dear ones, it will. You’re only baptized again if Jesus tells you to be baptized. Do you see how silly we are brothers and sisters? We love to see the visible things, you know. If somebody tells us by being baptized upside down you can be converted, you know, we’ll go for that. Now loved ones, do you see, and I share this with you because I’m willing to baptize anyone believers baptism that believes Jesus is really guiding them. But do you see there’s a difference between that and the fad of being baptized because you think it’s an easy way into the death of Christ? There is no easy way. You’re baptized into what you are already. Do you see that? The New Testament always baptizes you into something that you’re in already. The baptism does not cause the thing. The baptism is an outward sacramental proclamation that the thing has taken place. Now, that does not mean that we should not follow the New Testament directions as clearly as possible we should do that, but we should steer away from any faddish preoccupation with second baptisms. If Jesus guides you to a second baptism then that’s good but be sure that it’s that. Be sure that it’s not going for some visible mechanical thing that you think will create the experience because it won’t. But probably you see, as the dear ones came to the lake or river Paul explained to them, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Now many of us do not walk in newness of life because we have never been identified with Christ in his death and his resurrection. And you see, even on the first day that the gospel was ever preached it was shared that that was necessary. You repented, you were born of the spirit and then you were baptized into the death of Jesus. You were identified with him in his death and resurrection. Loved ones, sharing with you the application of it to physical lust, you are baptized into Jesus’ lack of having a woman and you agree with the Holy Spirit, “I agree Holy Spirit, I am willing only to experience what you want me to experience in that area of my life. I am willing to be baptized into Jesus completely. If he had no wife, if he had no girlfriend, if he had no woman I am willing for that. If you want to give me a wife, a girlfriend, then I am willing for that.” But do you see that it is an identification with Jesus in every aspect of his life, in every way in which he died to self you are willing to die to self. And then as you’re baptized into that the Holy Spirit is completely filling your life and taking your life over and that is the full Christian experience. Now you may say, “Well, pastor is it possible for people to enter into half an experience?” Well dear ones, let’s look to Acts 8 and see it there. In Acts 8:4-6, “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to a city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ.” Now you see in Verse 6, “And the multitudes with one accord gave heed to what was said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs which he did.” Now that means they heard his word there in Samaria. Now they took another step in Verse 12-13, “But when they believed Philip,” they not only heard it but they believed him, “As he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ”. So they knew what they were believing, they were believing the name of Jesus. “They were baptized, both men and women.” So these people really became Christians, they were really born of the Spirit. “Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.” So there was in every sense a new birth experience in the city there in Samaria. Now, do you see how the story goes on in Verse 14, “Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God,” you would think they would have immediately said, “Send them out, give them the four laws and send them out and get them out witnessing, and get them out serving God, and get them out playing the organ in church and have them sing in church, and have them run Sunday school classes,” and all that kind of thing. Now do you see that immediately they heard what had happened in Samaria, Peter and John new that only half an experience had taken place? Presumably Philip had told them some of what he had done and do you see what they had did in Verse 14? They sent to them their two best men, Peter and John, “Who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.” Now it is important dear ones, to see that when you’re baptized in the name of Jesus what often takes place is a new birth experience. You’re born of the Spirit, you receive the Spirit, but you are not filled with the Spirit and you need to go into the full experience of Christ’s death. Now if you say to me, “Do you not think pastor that some people experience both the New Testament times?” Maybe they did dear ones, I’m sure they experienced it almost the next day. I’m sure there was no difficulty in them realizing what a full surrender was in those days. I’ve shared with you before, I’m sure they heard the word one day and then Peter or Paul would explain to them what baptism into Christ the next day, they would realize that Peter and Paul were as good as dead men, and that baptism for them meant dying to any future that they might have. Dying to their own wishes, dying to their own concerns, and they were baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit. But brothers and sisters you know it’s different today. We are born of the Spirit, then we look around and instead of seeing examples everywhere of men sacrificing their financial accounts, sacrificing their bank balances, sacrificing their plans for marriage, their homes, their two car garages, sacrificing everything for Jesus, instead of that we see many dear ones who are children of God but they are living lives of controlled surrender. And so we ourselves, you see, we wander into that controlled surrender and that’s why many of us have little experience of the filling with the Holy Spirit. Now it would be good, because I see some older brothers and sisters among us in these mornings, it would be good to say, dear ones, I’m not saying that we all ought to become missionaries, or we all ought to leave the States, but we ought to be full time servants for Jesus. Do you see what I mean? Not full time paid servants, but living for Him first and foremost, everything else subordinate. And when we begin to get a new group of Christians entering into both parts of Christ’s death then we’ll begin to have less defeated Christians around us, and we’ll have less people entering into half an experience. So I think it is important to see it dear ones. Now you may say, “Oh but brother how could you enter into half an experience?” Well, I’ll show you why. There’s a principle explained in Matthew 9 if you’d look at it, and I think it will help you to see why many people do enter into only half of what Christ as done for them on the cross. Matthew 9 and it’s the story of a healing you remember, Matthew 9:27-30, “And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David.’ When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then he touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened.” Now do you see the principle is according to your faith be it done unto you, or be it unto you according to your faith? Brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit can only do in you what you believe him to do. If you believe the Holy Spirit to take your sins and lay them on Jesus, and to bring to you the witness of God’s Spirit that you’re forgiven and that you’re a child of God, if you believe the Holy Spirit to come into the door of your heart, and dwell in your life, he will do that. But he cannot do more than you believe him to do. If you do not believe that you were crucified with Christ and are willing to be crucified with Christ, and believe the Holy Spirit to fill every part of that miserable inward self that has envy, and jealous, and pride, and anger in it, then the Holy Spirit cannot do it. The Holy Spirit you see can apply to you all that God has done for you in Christ, but only if you have faith that he will do it. And you can see therefore among many of us, it’s a sheer lack of light. In our generation we have preached a soft gospel haven’t we? We’ve preached if you come to God he will forgive you your sins and it doesn’t matter what you do. You can keep on doing what you want but God will continually forgive you. Now you see that isn’t the gospel in the New Testament. The New Testament gospel is you are crucified with Christ. God isn’t just going to have a heaven full of people that he has to forgive, and forgive, and forgive again. He wants a heaven full of people who have allowed that miserable old rebellious self to be destroyed with Jesus on Calvary so that it is heaven. So that it is heaven. And many of us you see have not heard that or have not shared it. Now there is another reason for us not entering it. Faith is belief plus obedience. Now, if you enter into an experience of forgiveness of sins without belief that Christ bore your sins, then you enter into legalism. That’s why many conservative churches really have vied into legalism because their children and their brothers and sisters have not entered into a real belief that their sins were born by Jesus. Now, if you enter into the forgiveness of sins without any real obedience then you’ll enter into a life of doubts and many people you see, enter into an experience of forgiveness without any real obedience following, and before they know it they’re beginning to doubt everything. They doubt whether there’s a God, they doubt whether Jesus ever lived, they doubt everything that they ever knew before. Now it’s same with the experience of crucifixion with Christ. If you try to enter into an experience of crucifixion with Christ without believing that you were crucified with Christ 1900 years ago, then you enter into suppression, a life of suppression where you try to suppress something that has not been dealt with by God. And it’s the same if you enter into an experience of deliverance from sin or crucifixion with Christ without any real obedience. Then you enter into a life of auto suggestion where you keep saying, “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead.” But you’re not really dead, you’re alive and kicking and every time anybody criticizes you, you know it that great self rises up and reacts against them. So do you see that in order to enter into the two great works that Christ achieves for us on the cross you need to enter into both by a complete faith. That is, a complete belief and complete obedience. Now how does this in fact work in our lives? Well, at the beginning of our Christian life Jesus comes to the front door of our house and knocks. And the porch there is a guilty conscious and Jesus explains to us, “Look, I was crucified for your sins. My Father has nothing against you, you should have died for your sins but I’ve died for them. My Father doesn’t hate you, my Father doesn’t dislike you. He has withdrawn his wrath from you. I tell you, you just look up and believe that my Father’s face is smiling upon you and receive me into your spirit.” Now that’s the experience of conversion and the Spirit of Jesus comes into us at conversion and then he begins to look around at the rest of our house, and he begins to look into the bedroom, and he begins to point out, “Now listen, there’s laziness in your life.” And the old self inside you rises up and says, “Yeah, but I have a right to lay in it if I want to. I have a right to laze around if I want to, it’s my life.” The Holy Spirit says, “No, I have come into your life, it is my life. Now are you willing to die to your right to be lazy?” And then he deals with other things in the bedroom of our house. He comes to self-indulgence and he says, “Now listen, you think you have the right to indulge yourself whenever you want but you are not your own, you were bought with a price. This body doesn’t belong to you it belongs to me. Now, will you let me take it over?” And the Holy Spirit deals with us in that regard. Or he deals with us so often in the bedroom of our lives. Really that’s where worry resides. At night we worry and worry over what has happened during the day and what will happen the next day and the Holy Spirit says, “Now listen, if you don’t hand that over to me you’re beginning to control your life yourself. You worry because you think things aren’t going to turn out the way you want them to. Now, will you die to your right to control things?” And the Holy Spirit goes through the rooms of our house and he cleans them out. And he comes to the study and he deals there with the pride and he says, “Now listen; you have pride in your grades. Now your grades were granted to you by my grace and my power. They’re my grades they’re not yours.” And he begins to deal with us on pride. Or, he begins to deal with us on envy. He says, “Now, why do you think you have a right to be envious of someone else? You have been crucified with Christ. You are nothing as far as Jesus is concerned, but the Father thinks the world of you so why be envious of other people?” And the Holy Spirit dear ones, begins to go around the other rooms of our house. Comes into the family room there where we get touchy with the family and we’re touchy because they don’t seem to understand all the things we understand and the Holy Spirit says, “You’re setting yourself up as God. Because they don’t understand things the way you do, you think they’re wrong.” And he deals with our impatience and says, “You think you know the perfect time to get things done? Maybe their time is the perfect time. Impatience is a sign that you want everybody to do things the way you want them to do it.” And you see the Holy Spirit moves through all the rooms of our house. And he moves into the chapel there into the prayer room and he deals with the deadness and the coldness that we experience in there and he shows us, “Listen, you’re in charge of your own spiritual life. You have it under control you don’t feel I’m in control of it at all.” And the Holy Spirit begins, you see, to search through all of the rooms of our house. Now if we at any point resist him, that’s what, causes deadness in the Christian life. That’s what calls a sense of defeat. If in any room of our life we resist him, that’s what causes the deadness. If we respond to him and say, “Yes Holy Spirit, clean up that room, clean up that room, clean up that room.” Then eventually he takes us to the very back of the house. There there is a closet where we put all the stuff that we cleared out of the other rooms into and that closet is full to the ceiling of all the dirt, and all of the things that the Holy Spirit said we should move out of all the other areas of our lives. Now dear ones, in that closet there exists three attitudes. One is I have really the right to this house whatever he thinks. I’ll withdraw the bits of it that he tells me to when it’s convenient for me, but I’m going to keep all this stuff back here and I’ll move it back in whenever I want. Now, it’s that right to self loved ones that the Holy Spirit eventually begins to deal with. The second thing is that desire for our own way and back there in that closet we want our own way, we don’t actually want him to fill the whole house. We want to fill the whole house ourselves, that’s why we’re keeping all the stuff back here. We feel we have the right to have our own way in regard to our future, our finances, and okay we go along with him as long as it suits us. But when we want to we’ll pull it out of his hands. And the third attitude is the desire to assert ourselves, and defend ourselves. And you see we feel we have the right to assert ourselves over this house because this is our life. Now, when the Holy Spirit gets to that closet we’ve come to the question of whether we’re willing to die with Christ or in fact, to live a half alive self-controlled half surrendered life and that’s the closet that you need to deal with dear ones. And the Holy Spirit asks you “Are you willing to die to your right to yourself? Are you willing to die to your right to have your own way? Are you willing to die to the right to assert yourself and defend yourself?” Dear ones, when you come to that place, you burn all your bridges behind you and you say, “Holy Spirit I am willing.” And he knows whether you’re really willing or not and as a result of that he fills you with himself and you enter into the fully surrendered victorious Christian life. Now brothers and sisters, that’s a real moment, you can bluff all kinds of people that you’re willing to die to that self, but the Holy Spirit knows if you’re willing. Now if you say to me, “What happens if I’m not willing?” Well loved ones, I suppose you are a child of God and you live that up and down Christian life in and out of defeat, in and out of victory. I suppose you remain a child of God as long as you’re able to repent of your sins, but it’s not the Father’s will for you. The Father’s will is that you enter into both parts of the cross of Christ and you enter in by belief and obedience to the Holy Spirit. Now brothers and sisters, it’s vital to come into that before you can know any ministry of the Holy Spirit. So will you begin to pray about that, and think about it, and I’ll gladly talk with you or pray with you at any time, or if you want to stay behind today and pray you should do it. But really the way is to deal with the Holy Spirit. Let him into the rooms of your life until he takes you back to the closet and then deal openly and honestly with him about that. I pray that God will give you the grace to come into a full Christian experience. Now let us pray. Holy Spirit, we know that only you can bring us there because this involves parts of our life over which we exercise unconscious control. So Holy Spirit we need your light, and we need your revelation to see where we need to come into a full experience of Christ’s death, and to be identified with him in his death and then in his resurrection. So Holy Spirit, we commit ourselves to you now and ask you whatever the cost, to come into every room in our life and to deal with that closet at the back, to deal with that old self, and to bring us into the resurrection victory life that is waiting for us. We trust you to do that Holy Spirit, that Jesus may be glorified in us and not ourselves, that we may live not unto ourselves but unto Jesus. Amen.

Half Alive Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Imagine this that you see that your roommate while you were out has been in and has been looking for some things of their own and they have just mowed through all your stuff and it’s chaotic. And so, the old anger gets up and you move and you say, “Who do you think you are? You think you can just throw everybody’s stuff all over the place whenever you want to?” And then the old cold war settles in and you hold it like that for a day, or if you’re two girls for two days. That’s just the Irish girls, I’m sure. And then you begin to make it up and eventually you ask forgiveness and the thing comes out alright. Now in that situation, even those of us with very hardened consciences, are very conscious that there are two factors involved. One, we do have a real sense of guilt because we’ve lost our temper. You know, our consciences are programmed by the same spirit that prompted Jesus to say, “If you’re angry with your brother, you’re guilty of the judgment.” And so our consciences, because they’re programmed by that spirit, our consciences witness guilt and we feel somehow, “Yeah, yeah, I know it was wrong.” We might feel it’s wrong for different reasons according to how much light we’ve had about God, but we do feel, “Yeah, there’s some guilt. We shouldn’t have done it.” And yet we’re conscious of another attitude inside us and that’s the attitude that feels, “Well yeah, but I had a right to do it. I mean, he or she shouldn’t have treated my stuff that way. I have a right to defend my own possessions.” Now do you see dear ones, that those two factors are present every time we disobey the Father in some way in our lives? There’s that wee bit of feeling of guilt and there’s also that feeling that seems deeper than the guilt that says, “Yeah, but I mean I had a right to do it.” And there’s that bit of us that wants to justify what we did. Now, how does the ordinary man in the street deal with that? Well, usually he looks at the guilt and he rationalizes it, and he attributes it to some Victorian inhibition that has been passed on by his parents. And he just rejects the whole idea of death following upon anger. He rejects the authority of Jesus, he says, “No, it doesn’t matter if you’re angry, you’re not guilty of the judgment.” He just rationalizes away the whole idea of guilt. And how does he deal with the inside feeling, the sense of self-assertion? Well, usually he looks at it and he says, “Well, I’m a human being. Every human being has a right to defend his own possessions. No, I’m right to feel that way. I ought to stand up for myself and look out for myself, and if I don’t who will?” And that’s normally the way the man in the street deals with an active disobedience. Now, how does a person who comes to believe in Jesus deal with that act? Well, he sees that Jesus is God’s son. He sees that what Jesus says about the anger is true and that if you’re angry with your brother you’re guilty of the judgment. And he sees, “Yes, that is anger. That’s a sin. I am guilty of the judgment. I deserve to be condemned for that sin of anger.” And then he looks at Jesus and he sees what it says there in Romans 5:8 that God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And he sees that Jesus died for that sin of anger, and he sees that there’s no reason under heaven why God cannot forgive him for that. And so he repents and turns from his anger and says, “By your grace Lord, I’ll never get angry again. I’ll never lose my temper again. Now Jesus, I’ll receive your spirit into my life to rule it.” Now how does he deal with the second feeling inside him, the attitude inside that makes him feel that he had a right to get angry, and a right to defend himself and assert himself? He looks again to Jesus on the cross and he sees that that man did not defend himself, and he sees that that person did not call down millions of angels to wreak havoc among the Roman army. He sees that that man Jesus had the power to assert all his rights, and defend all his rights, and to get his own way in a flash of a second and he sees that this man Jesus died to his rights. He did not assert himself. He did not defend himself. He went into a tomb and lost consciousness and was willing for God to bring him back to life when he chose and the Christian sees that he was baptized into that death and that he has no right to those precious possessions, and he has not right to keep them all in order, and he has no right to keep them away from other people interfering. That he has no rights and that he was crucified with Christ on Calvary and that the Holy Spirit alone has the right to defend his possessions, or his clothes, or preserve his future. And he sees that Romans 6:6 is true, that our old self was crucified with Christ. Now dear ones, those are the two vital factors in the crisis experience that brings us into this new life in God. First of all, a realization that Jesus has died for our sins so that God can forgive us; and secondly, a realization that we have died with Christ so that the Holy Spirit could free us from that power of sin. Now do you see it’s those two parts of the Christian experience that lead us into a life that can be described by 1 John 3:9, “Anybody born of God does not commit sin.” Now if you’ve entered into only one part of what Christ has done for you on the cross, then you’re going to have constant trouble with that old statement, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.” Because you’re going to find this rising up within you, this attitude within you, this old nature that is still there. You remember that verse states, “Anybody born of God does not commit sin. Indeed, he cannot sin because God’s nature abides in him.” Now many of us have entered into an experience of the forgiveness of our sins but that old nature of children of wrath is still what operates in our life. In other words, we walk asking God to forgive us our sins for the sake of Jesus’ death but inside we have a nature and an attitude that wants to have its own way, that wants to be independent of God, that wants to rebel against God. Now brothers and sisters, unless you come into a total Christian experience you’re going to have constant trouble with this whole business of just ordinary sin, and losing your temper, and getting irritable, and getting selfish. Now do you see what I’m saying? It’s not an extra experience you need. It’s a full experience of all that God has done for us in Christ on the cross. Now is this written into scripture? Yes, these two parts of the work that God needs to do in us is written into scripture again, and again, and again. First of all, it’s written into the promises so maybe you’d like to look at one of the promises that plainly show it. It’s 1 John 1:9. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins.” That’s the first part. God forgives us our sins because we believe that Jesus died for them. The second part, “And cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” In other words, God will not only forgive us but he will cleanse out the rebellion. He will not only get rid of the guilt but he’ll get rid of the rebellion inside us. But God will do it. You see the problem with most of us, we allow him to do the first part but we decide we’ll grit our teeth and we’ll do the second part by the power of positive thinking. And we come into just a defeated Christian life. Now do you see that God has done it all? Somebody this week said to me, and that person will excuse me using it because I think it’s helpful and is true of most of our experiences, “I find inside myself at times a resistance to God’s will. I want to do it. You know, there’s a part of me that wants to do what he wants me to do but there’s a bit inside me that I cannot change.” Now that’s the bit that God dealt with on the cross in Christ. And the secret is you believe that on to the cross. You don’t destroy it by will power or by the power of positive thinking; you believe it on to the cross. And the reason you’re not experiencing complete victory is that you haven’t entered into all that God has done for you on that cross. Now you get the promise again you see, not only the promises, but you get the statement in relationship to Christ’s death if you’d like to look there, because, Christ’s death is really the only event that enables us to enter into this at all. If God has not done this on the cross dear ones, then the Holy Spirit cannot do it in us you see. If God has not borne our sins in Jesus on the cross, then the Holy Spirit cannot give us a forgiveness of sins. If God has not borne that old rebellious will on the cross in Jesus and destroyed it there, then the Holy Spirit cannot give us victory over it. So it depends on what God has done in Christ. But you find that he has done this in Christ 2 Corinthians 5:14. 2 Corinthians 5:14, and it’s again this truth that God has not only dealt with our sins in forgiving them but he has dealt with our sin in rendering it inoperative in our lives. 2 Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all.” Jesus has died for our sins to enable God to forgive us. “Therefore all have died.” But we have died with Christ and do you see it’s the second part that we with our tendency to sell a soft gospel have missed? Because everybody wants forgiveness but it’s a different story, do you want to be delivered from that old self will that keeps asserting itself? And you can see that the only way to enter into a total Christian experience is to come into that realization that we’ve died with Christ. In other words, that God will deal not only with the outward disobedience but with that inward attitude of disobedience. That God will not only forgive us for our acts, and thoughts, and words, but by the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ death he is able to deal with that inward motive, and reaction, and attitude, and intention. Dear ones, what gives you the trouble? It’s not because you murder people every day. No, you get angry with people every day. With most of us it’s not that we’re doing many acts, and thoughts, and words that are wrong but we have feelings inside us that are tearing us apart. We call them our hang ups and they’re really the things that prevent us walking inside as we walk outside. They’re those things that make us feel we’re hypocrites. We walk outwardly as a Christian but inwardly we’re not a Christian. We come into one of those famous tea groups and we’re supposed to love the person. Everybody is saying, “Well love everybody else,” so we all say we love each other but really inside no, there isn’t that flow of love. And it’s that inside thing that with many of us needs to be dealt with. Now the promise is in the Holy Spirit too because the cross you see is what makes it possible, the Holy Spirit is what makes it real in us. Many of you are saying, “Well alright pastor, but how? How does this come about?” Well you remember, Mary asked this, you remember God gave her a promise, “You are going to conceive and you will bear a son.” She said, “How will this be?” The answer to every how in the Bible is the Holy Spirit, “The Holy Spirit will conceive and will bear a son in your womb.” It’s the same with this, how do you enter into what God has done for you in Christ in the cross, the Holy Spirit brings you into it and his double work is found there John 3:6. The work first of all of the new birth. John 3:6 and you remember when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus and again it is concern with the forgiveness of sins. John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” And the Holy Spirit first of all regenerates us. When we come to God and ask him to forgive us our sins he regenerates us and then the other work that he does is Acts 15:9. Acts 15:9, and it’s you remember, what Peter said about the day of Pentecost as he looked back to that day when they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. Acts 15:9, and here he points to one of the works of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Acts 15:9, “And he made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith.” In other words, you see, written right through scripture into the message of the cross, into the truth of the Holy Spirit are these two works that need to be done in our hearts. Now, could we deal with some of Satan’s objections? The first one is this 1 John 3:9, “Anyone born of God does not commit sin.” Sin is knowing disobedience to God’s law. Now, I’ve entered into an experience of forgiveness of sins but I haven’t entered into a crucifixion with Christ so I get angry. I know it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong to be angry, I’ve made resolutions again and again not to be angry, I still get angry. Now surely I’m doing something that I know to be wrong, surely that means I’m not a child of God. Now do you see the spirit of 1 John 3:9 is this, sin is alien to the Christian life. It is unnatural to the Christian life. If you ever do sin, we have an advocate with the Father but it is an emergency. But it’s alien to the Christian life. But the promise of God is if we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus continues to cleanse you from all sin. In other words brothers and sisters, if you’re walking in every desire to walk free of anger, if every time anger comes you treat it as an emergency situation and you get before the Father with a penitent heart and you say, “Lord, I know I shouldn’t be angry, I know it’s a sin. I ask you to receive me again to yourself and to give me the Spirit of Jesus.” Then, if you’re walking in that light the blood of Jesus will continue to cleanse you from all sin. In other words, that’s the way you walk when you’re walking between two worlds, between the world of forgiveness of sins and the world of victory over sin. You don’t come to this place where you say, you see, “Oh, well I’m not really a Christian. If I’m not filled with the Spirit I’m not really a Christian.” Loved ones, you’re born of the Spirit. You have a desire to love Jesus. You have a desire to obey God. That is walking in the light. It’s when you cease to walk in the light that you begin to come into the danger of hardening your heart you see. It’s when you begin to treat anger as a normal part of your life. It’s when you begin to believe the psychologist that anger is a healthy expression of any normal individual. It’s when you begin to rationalize sin that you begin to sink back into a hardened heart. But do you see the Father is gracious to us? Loved ones, the Father is not up there ready to whack us down every time we fall. The Father will forgive us until 70 times seven as long as we have penitent and soft hearts. Now that’s the way to answer Satan’s objection you see, because I know some of you are concerned about that. “Well pastor, what happens before we enter into victory? What happens while we’re walking in some defeat?” The Father is gracious to us. He says, “If you walk in the light, if you’re walking after me with all of your heart, if you’re doing your best to follow me and obey me, then the blood of my Son will be available to cleanse you from all sin. But, I want you to hunger after the full victory that I have provided for you on the cross.” In other words dear ones, we don’t want to be a body of people who walk in fear you see. We want to be a body of people walking out after Jesus in full joy and in as much obedience as we are able and yearning after that full victory that is possible, and that’s full deliverance and hungering after righteousness and goodness. Now that’s the way to, I think, to deal with that. I’d love to ask you if you’ve any questions but will you ask me afterwards if you have any questions in how to walk between two worlds? The Father judges us by our response to the light not at all by our perfect walk. At the end of the day we’re justified not by our perfect walk but by the blood of Jesus. But nevertheless we need to see that we want to enter into all. Now the other objection is this, “I received it all when I was born of the spirit. I entered into both works when I was converted.” Then praise God. Great, that’s great. There’s no argument. If you’ve entered into a victory over anger, and selfishness, and envy when you are born of the spirit, that’s great. That was probably very close to what the New Testament experience was. Probably if you read the story on the day of Pentecost they believed in Jesus and were born of the Spirit on that day they were preached to and then the next day they were baptized in the water and Peter said to them, “Do you know if you’re baptized into Christ Jesus you’re baptized into his death.” And so they went under that water in full consecration, in full death to self and they came up and were filled and baptized with the Holy Spirit. Probably that was the New Testament experience. Nevertheless, even in the New Testament you can find that some were born of the Spirit and not filled with the Spirit. Some knew forgiveness of sins and did not know victory over sin. Some other dear ones say, “I received it when I was baptized. I had an experience of tongues and I received it all then.” Or, “If don’t have victory over anger and envy does it mean I wasn’t baptized with the Spirit?” Well dear ones, do you see that some of us enter into a baptism with the Holy Spirit in relationship to the gifts: tongues; healing; miracles; and discernment of spirits.” But do you see that many of us at that time did not have light on the victory that God had worked for us in the cross? And you see that the Holy Spirit can only lead you into what you have faith for. Be it unto you according to your faith. So unless you believe for that, the Holy Spirit is not able to bring you into it. Now say you have experienced the baptism with the Spirit and some experience of tongues or of gifts of the Spirit, and yet you get angry at home, you get envious, you get jealous, and you lose your temper. Then you ought to say to the Holy Spirit, “Holy Spirit I’m not casting away my confidence. I thank you that you baptized me with yourself but I thank you that you can reveal to me the victory that I have on the cross of Christ and I trust you to lead me into that. I trust you not only to anoint me with power, but to cleanse my heart from these things.” And dear ones, this I believe is the way we should walk in relation to the objections that Satan levels at this. I think another thing Satan tries to do is he tries to get us introspect. And it isn’t long before you have a group of people who are saying, “Yeah, I’m looking in, I’m looking in to see where I’m not crucified with Christ.” And they have long sessions of self-analysis where they go in introspection deep, deep down, they think, and they go as deep as doesn’t matter, because that’s the only depth you can go with your mind. But they use introspection and they’re introspecting day, after day. Now loved ones that is not the Father’s promise. Jesus promised us, “Listen, the Holy Spirit when he comes will lead you into all truth.” Now it’s his job to lead you into all truth. Now what you do as a child of God is you walk in knowing forgiveness of sins saying, “Holy Spirit lead me into all truth about myself. If you see anything in me that is not in that place on the cross, then Holy Spirit will you reveal it to me?” But brothers and sisters do not introspect. It’s a sin to introspect because introspection is an independent activity of our own mighty minds. And our own mighty minds can see only as deep as our own minds, they cannot see into our spirits. Only the Holy Spirit can reveal these things so don’t let’s all become introspective. Let’s walk in the forgiveness of our sins saying, “Holy Spirit, will you lead me into all that Christ has done for me on the cross and show me if there’s some way in which I need to come more into that death.” So don’t introspect. I think a lot of us go into suppression. A lot of us go into suppression, we say, “Yeah, I was crucified with Christ. I was crucified with Christ. I was crucified with Christ, now I’m going to hold this self down inside me.” And we walk in suppression and repression. Now dear ones, the answer is you believe that you were crucified with Christ and you obey the Holy Spirit and he makes real in you the victory. You don’t make real the victory. You believe that you were crucified with Christ and you obey and submit to the Holy Spirit and he makes real the victory in you. And that’s the way you walk in this. Some of you may say, “Well how do I enter in?” Well first of all never question that you were crucified with Christ. A lot of us say, “Pastor if you saw me this morning trying to get into these new shoes, and I lost my patience and I got utterly irritable and threw them into the corner, you would know I wasn’t crucified with Christ.” Then I would say to you brother you are disobeying and contradicting God’s word. His word says you were crucified with Christ. And you better believe his word rather than believe your feelings. Now brothers and sisters you start with faith that the fact has already taken place, that all of us have been crucified with Christ, that all our futures ended 1900 years ago in Jesus. You accept that, you start by setting your faith on that and you never question that. You believe God’s word that our old self was crucified with Christ. You believe that all who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions. You believe that. You start at that level, never go below that level. Satan would love you to go below it and say, “Yeah, you ought to crucify yourself.” No, you can’t crucify yourself. Old Luther tried it, you know, beating his body. You can’t do it. It’s been done already. You were crucified with Jesus. All that is evil in you was destroyed in Jesus on Calvary. Then look to the Holy Spirit and trust him to make that real in your life. Just say, “Holy Spirit, I trust you to lead me into all of this victory.” But dear ones, that is the way, faith in your death with Christ on the cross and present faith in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit will then lead us beautifully into this. But loved ones, if you try to do it yourselves soon we’ll all have to go and do basket work in the psyche wards, really. Because it’ll drive you crazy, you’ll just go wild trying to introspect, and suppress, and repress. And don’t start looking at each other and saying, “Oh, am I walking in victory?” No, that’s the Holy Spirit’s job to bring you into victory. And at the end of the day we’re justified before the Father not because of our victory but because of the blood of Jesus. At the end of the day all the glorious saints will go before him and say, “Father, I ask you to accept me because of the blood of Jesus not because I’ve lived this kind of victorious life, or this kind of defeated life but because of the blood of Jesus.” Well dear ones, do you see that the whole experience is there for us and it’s something that we should begin to move into as the Holy Spirit guides us. On Sunday evenings we try to deal a little more with this subject so if you find that God’s Spirit is making you yearn for more victory in your life then you should probably consider coming to those. And the bookshop has lots of books on this very subject and so you should go there and God can lead you into it yourself. But really it is for you. It is true that not only did Jesus die for us, but we died with Jesus. All our miserable selves were crucified there and we don’t need to try to suppress them or destroy them ourselves it’s been done already. Let us pray. Holy Spirit, we would commit ourselves into your control. We cannot bring this about ourselves but we believe you are able to bring it about. So Holy Spirit, we as a body of brothers and sisters will never again question God’s word that our old selves were crucified with Christ. That when Jesus died we died. And we trust you Holy Spirit to work out all the implications of that in our lives by revelation and make it real in our lives by experience. We trust you to bring us into this place so that we can live as we preach and so that the world may begin to see Jesus walking again in our bodies, and our minds, and our emotions, and our spirits. For his glory, amen.

The Real Christian Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Do you realize that you don’t need to be able to make yourself holy but you need to be able, and be prepared to set yourself apart from the outward acts and words in your life that are disobedient to God’s will. Then God regenerates you by his Spirit and fills your life with acts and words that are pleasing to him. He does that miraculously, lifts you in the rocket of His own Holy Spirit. Similarly when you are a Christian, you don’t need to then go in and start cleansing the motives and the attitudes that you have within, but you need to be ready, as God gives you light to set yourself apart from jealousy, apart from pride, apart from anything when God reveals these things in your heart. And then he, by his Holy Spirit, will cleanse you and fill you with the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace. But we emphasized, you remember, that there were two sides of saintliness, the human side where we were ready to set ourselves apart from these things and the divine side where God was able to fill us miraculously with the beauty of Jesus. We added I think last Sunday to the third part mentioned in that the God of peace himself sanctify you holy and keep you blameless in body, soul, and spirit. We had dealt with the body, the outward actions and words. We had dealt with the spirit, the inward attitudes and motives. And we have now come to the soul or the mind and we said, you remember, that it is vital for a saint to have his mind renewed. This is the area of our personality that deals with our service to God and it’s essential dear ones, for us to be renewed in our minds. Our minds were the first part of our personality to be perverted by Satan and they are usually the last to be renewed by the Spirit of God. Now you can find that in Genesis 3:4 for instance, when Satan persuaded the woman to think something other than God had said to her. In other words, he perverted her mind in Genesis 3:4, “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die.’” And then goes on in Verse 5 to blind a man with his own lies, “For God knows that when you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So it is essential dear ones, is that the image of God is to be reformed in each one of us that our minds should be renewed. It’s essential for our minds to be renewed if we’re ever to perform the service for which God created us. We remember he created us and he said, “Be fruitful, and multiple, and subdue the earth.” And if we’re to subdue the earth in the way God wants to and not the way we’re doing in Vietnam, if we’re to subdue the earth in the way God plans us to subdue it then we need to have our minds renewed. We need to be renewed in our minds and begin to see the way God works. You see, so often many of us allow our outward lives to be cleansed, we become Christians. And we go a step further and we see that there are attitudes within us that never show themselves on the surface and we allow the Holy Spirit to come and cleanse those attitudes too. But our mind keeps on going in the same old rut. It keeps thinking the same way as it always did. It keeps appreciating the same set of values as it always did. And so instead of going on with God, and being used by God, we become crippled Christians who try to do God’s work in the way that we used to do the work of the devil. Now the mind has to be renewed as well as the heart, and the life. And I think you have to realize if we’re going to be any use to God that has to happen. I think too many of us, you see, have been renewed in our hearts, and renewed in our lives and we want to do God’s work but we start trying to do it with the old methods that we used before to do our own work, or to do the devil’s work. Now, I think some of you realize that many churches do teach that you should have your mind renewed. Indeed, most churches today are concerned with the renewing of people’s minds. But they talk about the renewing of the mind in two ways that are unbiblical. First of all, they talk about the renewing of the mind without ever mentioning the renewal of the life or the renewal of the heart. So you know most churches today produce ethical homilies, don’t they? I mean, most of us here in these robes are preaching, “Be good. Be good love your neighbor. Be good in your home. Be good in your job,” and we’re just moralizing continually. So many churches today are concerned with the renewal of the mind but then teach as if the heart does not need to be renewed. They teach it as if we’re all Christians already and there’s nothing to do but just show people beauty and they go for it. Well dear ones, you know your own hearts, our own hearts do not love the truth when we see it and so though many churches are concerned with the renewal of the mind in these days, it’s unbiblical because they do not talk about the need for the renewal of fellowship with God first and then the renewal of the heart. In other words, it’s what Goldwater said, and I’m sure he said many foolish things, but he did say some wise things, and you remember he said, is that sufficiently Irish and straddling both side so the fence, you remember Goldwater said, “You cannot legislate heart.” And that’s right, you can pass legislation for civil rights but you can’t legislate people’s hearts. Now you can see dear ones, there’s no point in talking about the renewal of the mind unless the heart has been changed by God’s Spirit. This is another reason why I try to avoid all these topical event series, what I think of Vietnam, and what I think of the civil rights movements. That’s not what you want to know. We need our hearts changed so that we can obey what we already know is right. So it’s wise I think to see that there is a difference between talking about the renewal of the mind without the renewal of the heart and life, and talking about the renewal of the mind as a consequence step after the life and the heart has been renewed. I think similarly on the other side many Christians fail to go onto a renewal of the mind at all. I think some Christians renew the mind in the way some of the churches do. We’ll renew our minds in the best thoughts that our philosophers have given to us. We’ll renew our mind by thinking over again the power of positive thinking. We’ll renew our minds in the kind of auto suggestion and psychological persuasion that we should act this way. Now the renewal of the mind that is talked about in the Bible is different from than that. The renewal of the mind that the Bible talks about does not advise you to attend the discussion groups, to read more books, to seek more knowledge, to find better methods. The Bible says, “You renew your mind by having that mind in you which was in Christ Jesus.” So you see you don’t renew the mind in the Biblical sense by receiving more knowledge, or studying the problem of crimes in our streets. You renew the mind in the biblical sense by allowing the Holy Spirit to show you the ways in which your mind is not like the mind of Jesus. To show you things that you treasure that the mind of Jesus does not treasure. And then by filling you with the very scale and set of values that Jesus himself had. It’s another miraculous implanting of the mind of Jesus in you. You see, we are renewed in our life by having Jesus’ life given to us. We are renewed in our heart by having Jesus’ heart displace our hearts. We are renewed in our mind by having Jesus’ mind displace our minds. But unless we go into this renewal of the mind we’ll fall back into being conformed to the image of this world instead of being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Can I give just one more instance to try to clench it? Many of us become Christians, and then we graduate with our good professions. We do not have the mind renewed as far as what we ought to do as far as our own comfort so we automatically accept the values of the world as far as the number of cars we have, the kind of carpet we have, the kind of TV set we have, the lake cottage that we have. And before we know it because we haven’t allowed our minds to be renewed in the image of Jesus, we’ve fallen out of the spiritual life that we once experienced. That’s why it’s essential to go on to the renewal of the mind. Now dear ones, would you just look with me at the mind of Jesus and will you turn then to Philippians 2:5-11. Philippians 2:5-11, this was the mind of Jesus and let’s look there at just verse 8 first of all, this is the mind of Jesus, “And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” And then the very last verse, verse 11 there, “And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Now the mind of Jesus was one that was anxious to humble him and have him wiped out if necessary for the glory of God. That was the mind of Jesus. Would you look at Verse 9, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.” In other words, the exaltation of Jesus was done by God not by Jesus himself. Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He did not count equality with God a thing to be held onto. Now we are the opposite. From the very first moment when Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil we have been trying to show that we are equal with God. We’ve been trying to grasp enough knowledge to ourselves so that we could be equal with God. And we’ve constantly been overdeveloped in our minds. You know that dear ones, your mind is full of half a dozen different things. It’s full of knowledge. You have more knowledge in your mind and I have more knowledge in my mind than people 50 years ago. Then people 100 years ago even dreamed there was. We have plenty of knowledge, but all our knowledge only makes us more and more scheming and contriving to succeed without God. We’re constantly trying to hold on to all that we’ve got and to contrive in such a way that we will eventually be exalted. Now, dear ones, the mind of Jesus is the very opposite. He has more knowledge in one corner of his mind than all of us have. He has more knowledge in his mind than the whole universe of philosophers will ever have. And yet he was prepared not to clench that equality with God a thing to be grasped but was ready to empty himself of all that so that he might be exalted by God. In other words, to have our minds renewed in the image of Jesus, is to stop grasping all these things for ourselves. To stop contriving and scheming how we are going to help the world and help ourselves at the same time. To stop trying to manage our own careers for our own benefit and for God’s glory. To stop that kind of attitude and to really allow the mind of Jesus to be implanted in us where we’re willing to give up all that we have if necessary that he might be exalted. Where we’re willing to empty ourselves of all the stuff that we think gives us power and we’re ready to be humble and to become nothing for His sake. Now dear ones, I think the best way to tell it to you is by repeating part of the story anyway of one man who did this. And I’d pray that even in these last five minutes God will make it real to your heart. At the turn of the century there was a man called C.T Studd. He was one of the privileged among the English nobility at that time. His father was very wealthy; he himself and his brothers went to Cambridge. This is book dear ones and I don’t think there are many left at the bookstall but if you do want it and put your name back there we’ll order it for you. Here are some of the comments, C.T.Studd returned to captain Cambridge in his last year 1883. His Cambridge career has been described as one long blade of cricketing glory. In his last year he topped both batting and bowling averages. Indeed, through the previous past century of university cricket, only four bat men had had a better batting average and only four a better bowling. A truly amazing record of all around brilliancy and one which ranks him as one of the greatest all-around players that the game has produced. He also won the Cambridge single racket match and represented Cambridge against Oxford. He was beaten by Sir Henry Slesser. He took his degree and came down from Cambridge in 1884. Then an event took place in his life that made him stop and think. But as he rose to prominence in the cricket world, and especially while touring with test team in Australia there were two old ladies that set themselves to pray that you would be brought back to God. The answer came suddenly his brother to who he was especially attached was thought to be dying. C.T. Studd was constantly at his bedside and while sitting there watching as he hovered between life and death these thoughts came welling up in his mind. Now what is all the popularity of the world worth to George? What is all the fame and flattery worth? What is it worth to possess all the riches in the world when a man comes face-to-face with eternity? And a voice seemed to answer vanity of vanity, all is vanity. All those things he said have become as nothing to my brother. He only cared about the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ and God taught me the same message. In his love and goodness he restored my brother to health and as soon as I could get away I went to hear Moody. Moody was in England at that time. There the Lord met me again and restored to me the joy of salvation. Then later on he began to realize, as many of us have, that our life was not fully given to God. And by three days afterwards a great friend of mine came back to town and asked me to go to a Bible meeting with him. I went and after we had read the bible for some time and spoken about it among ourselves he said, “I you heard of the extraordinary blessing Mrs. So & So has received?” No. Well you know she had been an earnest Christian worker nearly her whole life and she has had a good deal of sorrow and trouble which naturally influenced and weighed upon her. But lately somehow God has given her such a blessing that it does not affect her at all. Nothing in fact seems to trouble her. She lives a life of perfect peace. Her life is like one of heaven on earth. We began at once he says looking into the Bible to see if God had promised such a blessing as this and it was not long before we found that God had promised it to believers, a peace which passes all understanding and a joy that is unspeakable. We then began to examine ourselves earnestly and we found that we had not got there but we wanted the best thing that God could give us so we knelt down and asked him to give us this blessing. Then we separated. I was very much in earnest about it so when I went up to my old room I again asked God to give me this peace and joy. That very day I met with the book The Christian Secret of a Happy Life, that green one at the back of the bookstore and you can read it there and some other books on this subject dear ones. In it was stated that this blessing is exactly what God gives to everyone who is ready and willing to receive it. And I found the reason I had not received it was just this, that I had not made room for it. And I found as I sat there alone thinking that I had been keeping back from God what belonged to him and I found that I had been bought with the price of the precious Lord Jesus and that I had kept back myself from him and had not fully yielded. As soon as I found this out I went down on my knees and gave myself up to God. I found the next step was to have simple childlike faith to believe that what I had committed to God he was willing to take and keep. It was not very long before God led me to go to China. I never thought of going out of the country before. I had felt that England was big enough for me but now my mind seemed constantly to run in the direction of the Lord’s work abroad. Well, the people gathered around him and said you’re mad. He and another group of men had toured the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and told about what God had done in their hearts and lives and the students of the universities in Britain were rising up and coming to God. And all his friends gathered around him and said, “No, you’ll waste yourself in China. You’re mad. You can be used here.” Many said that he was making a huge mistake to go and bury himself in the interior of China. They pointed out that the influence which he would have the young men of England. The devil must have used a very similar argument to Moses but C.T. Studd prayed and said that he would go to China. What happened? Well he began to humble himself as a servant. May the 26th he wrote this letter to his brother who was at Eton which is one of public schools in England. We were overrun with rats, during the night they would take away our socks, nibbling off our legging tapes, taking away our blotting paper and putting them at the bottom of the boat in their nest. They caused us a good deal of annoyance so we thought of setting traps for them but we decided not to do so but simply to ask the Lord to rid us of the grievance. Since that time we’ve had no further trouble with them. I do not say don’t play games, or cricket, and so forth but I’m saying enjoy them giving thanks to Jesus for them. Only take care that games or your career do not become an idol to you as they did to me. What good would it do to anybody in the next world to be even the best player that ever has been and then think of the difference between that and winning souls for Jesus. Or if you have never tasted the joy of winning one soul for Jesus, go and ask our Father to enable you to do so. And then you’ll know what real true joy is. He inherited his fortune from his father, $300,000. One day when I was reading the harmony of the gospel I came to where Christ talked with the rich young man, then God seemed to bring back to me all the vows I had made. Three days later the post, which only came every half month, brought letters from the solicitor and the banker to tell me what I had inherited. Then God made me just ordinarily honest and told me what to do. Then I learned why I had been sent to Chunking and it was to draw up papers granting the power of attorney and for that I had to have the signature of one of the majesty’s officers. I went to the council but when he saw the paper he said, “I won’t sign it.” Finally he said he would give me two weeks to think it over and then if I still wished to do it he would sign it. At the end of the two weeks I took it back and he signed and off the stuff went. God has promised to give hundredfold for everything we give to him. A hundredfold is a wonderful percentage, it’s 10,000% so as far as he could judge his inheritance was 30,000 pounds. That’s about $100,000. What happened? When he died 850 missionaries were on the field. There were missionaries in the Belgium Congo, in Senegal, in Portuguese Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Canary Islands, and Latin America, and India, and Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, and 20 other countries. Now dear ones, when you are ready to stop pleasing all your talents and all your abilities and are ready to see that the mind of Jesus is a mind that is ready to give up all that you think you have so that God can exalt you by his own power, you’ll find that coming true in your own life. You know, you’re going to work what are you going to get? Okay, some of us here make it. Do we ever make $20,000 a year? Well at the most some of us will. We’ll make $30,000 maybe at the most. Some of us will struggle and strangle ourselves in business and make $50,000 a year and die of a heart attack at 55. But dear ones, what’s the point of it? What is the point of it? Can you tell me? So that you can have three little images of yourself who can go through the same regiment? Do you see it’s meaningless dear ones? If you really begin to sit back you see that the success that we think we have is not success at all. You see, the truth is this, God cannot use your abilities to extend his own kingdom because you would take the glory for yourself. Now would you stop working out how to split up the five loaves and two fishes so that you can give a little of each to 5,000. Would you stop doing that? Would you stop looking at the walls that surround the crime city of Jericho, that is in all our streets in America, would you stop looking at those walls and plan how you’re going to get dynamite and explosive charges into those walls. In other words, would you stop trying to find out how you’re going to use your own meager abilities to affect the life of this nation? Would you stop doing that? Would you stop trying to work out how you’re going to sell the precious ointments of your talents and abilities and how much money you’re going to be able to give to God to help the poor. And instead of that, would you come with your five loaves and your two fishes and would you give them to Jesus. And say “Lord, I don’t know what you’re going to do with me but here do it.” And if you can feed 5,000 will you feed them and would you come to the walls of Jericho and do whatever God tells you? If he tells you to leave college, leave college. If he tells you to walk around the walls seven times, do it. And God himself will bring the bible to this nation and the world, but he’ll do it through your obedience not through all our clever gifts and abilities. Would you come with that precious ointment and would you waste it on Jesus? Would you waste it on Jesus? Would you lay it at his feet, really? Not, “Lord use me,” but, “Lord, here it is you can take it all and keep it all if you want.” And if you do that he’ll provide money to dress the poor. But do you see dear ones there are 2,000 million souls who do not know Jesus. There are 2,000 million souls. One has died since I said that and another one has gone now into eternal darkness, and another has now died since I said that last sentence. Another one has now died not know that God was ready to forgive them. And another has died without any knowledge of the life of freedom that Jesus is able to give. And another has now died, and another and a thousand more will have passed into the eternal darkness by the time you get home today. Dear ones, you can do nothing with your loaves and fishes. Do you see that? You can’t get them distributed fast enough. What God wants us to do is have the mind of Jesus. See that we of ourselves can do nothing and lay all these things at the feet of Jesus and say, “Lord, will you do with me whatever you want?” Maybe it will mean like Studd, going and putting on Chinese clothes and giving away all your money. Maybe it will mean giving up all your plans for lovely houses. But whatever it means, God will be able to do something with your life. That’s what it means to have your mind renewed in the image of Jesus and you see that’s where the rock is because we all want salvation, and we all want admission into heaven, but it’s hard to change the life to that extent. Well, I ask you dear ones, will you begin to allow the mind of Jesus to renew your mind and see that truth then is to be known by God and true riches is to receive the grace of God in your life. And that what the world calls poverty is riches in God’s eyes. Someone has put it this way, “Will you give away what you cannot keep so that you can receive what you cannot lose?” Would you do that? Let us pray. Oh mighty God, will you interpret this to each one of us individually and wherever we need to lay some of our talents at your feet and admit that they are not talents at all, where we need to lay at your feet some of these great abilities we think we have, will you point that out to us? That we may not be confirmed to the image of this world, that we may be transformed by the renewing of our lives. We ask this in Jesus name amen.

Luke-Warmness Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Loved ones, I spent the whole afternoon working on the Sermon about the mind for tonight, but I know I shouldn’t preach it. I know Jesus knows what he wants to say, so loved ones, turn to Revelation 3, and I am so sure of this loved ones, that I don’t care whether it benefits anyone or not, I have to get it out of my heart because I’m so sure God wants me to say this. Revelation 3:14-22, “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation. I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” And I think that last verse means that not everybody here is to receive this, but some of you here are to receive this and you who have ears are to listen to it. Now loved ones, one of the things that came home to me so clearly during the past few Sundays when I tried to make the first step of the new birth so clear to loved ones who are not Christians is absolutely simple; you’re either a Christian or you’re not a Christian. Loved ones, it is so clear and with my miserable little mind, I’ve tried all kinds of ways of ministering it gently and softly and diplomatically and strategically to all kinds of people, but loved ones, the more you get into this dear word, the more you see you’re either a Christian or you’re not a Christian. You’re either born of God or you’re born of the devil and it’s either one or the other. And one of the things that Jesus said to me as I was coming in the car, I said to him, “But Lord, a lot of the brothers and sisters have problems.” He said, “Did I spend much of my time talking with people about their problems?” And I said to him, “Well Lord, you did talk to the woman who was married to several different men and the disciples asked who she would be married to and you dealt with some issues like that.” And Jesus said, “Yeah, but you notice those were just problems, they were little intellectual questions, they didn’t refer to a person’s failure to live the abundant life, or a person’s failure to be living in complete joy and fellowship with me day-by-day.” And then I saw it loved ones, because I had to say to him, “You’re right Lord, when many of my brothers and sisters come to me they say, ‘I’ve got this problem,’ they mean they have a problem with their anger, or they have a problem with their prayer life, or they have a problem with their Bible study life, or they have a problem with their business life.” And Jesus said to me, “Yes, you see, there aren’t any problems that keep people from me, there is only rebellion and resistance that keep people from me. People may call the rebellion all kinds of things, they may say, ‘I’m going alright with Jesus but I have a problem with this.’” But Jesus said, “You be very clear in your own mind; if a person is not living in joy with an open heaven above them and with a great sense of my fellowship in their lives, and a sense of my pleasure in them then it is not a problem they have difficulty with, its rebellion or resistance against me.” And then loved ones, I saw other verses that made it so clear that you’re either a Christian or you’re not a Christian. And it’s amazing how much conversation you can get into in a ride from home to here, but when the Holy Spirit is moving, you can cover a lot of ground and that’s what Jesus did. I said, “But Lord, some loved ones have difficulty giving up some things and some of them kind of are holding onto some things. They’re trying to grab you with one hand and hold onto these things with the other.” And he of course pointed me to these parables. Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” And I saw that that’s right; the guy gives up everything to get the field that has the precious treasure in it. And then verse 45, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” And Jesus said, “Many of the loved ones, even in the body here have pearls and they’re treasuring those pearls more than me and they will not sell those pearls. They’re trying to make out that it’s some kind of big problem to them, but it’s just that they will not let go of those pearls.” And then loved ones, it came to me so clearly this morning when I was sharing that there are two ways to live life here on earth. You can live by what we’re getting from each other, by the approval you know that you would give to me if you laugh at my jokes, or the recognition that you give to me by not criticizing me, or the approval you’d get from each other. You can live by that or you can live by the things that we get, we possess. The little jackets that we have, the coats, the new shoes that we have, the car that we have, or you can live for the experience. And you know, it is so stupid if you think of it, the strawberry ice cream that you might get tonight, or you just multiply it a wee bit more, the girl you might go out with next week, or the guy you might marry, or the vacation that you might go on. You can live for those little excitements, for the little happinesses that you can get from people, or the security you can get from things, or the significance you can get from other people, or you can live by what God your Father gives you and actually, it’s either or. In order to be born into his relationship, you have to die to all those other relationships. And it came so clear to me this morning when Jesus gave me this phrase; that some of you are sipping poison. Some of you are sipping poison. That’s why you get upset if somebody criticizes you. You who are in Fish, that’s why you get upset when somebody is a little harsh. Sure, they’re not right for being a little harsh with you, but you get upset because you are still living off their approval and their recognition, and you’re not willing to die with Jesus to man’s approval. All these big problems that we’re talking about having just resolve into simple unwillingness to die with Jesus to getting from everybody here and everything here the significance, and the security, and happiness we want. Many of you are not really Christians, truly. God stated it clearly to me and I’m not going to fiddle around it; many of you are believers. You believe all this that I say, I know you do, I’ve talked with some of you, and I know you believe it. Some of you can outline this better than I can. You know it, you believe it with all your hearts but do you see you keep thinking that you’re a Christian even though you haven’t done it. And you’ll come and say to me, “But Pastor I have done it in some ways. In some ways I’ve entered into Jesus’ death, it’s just I’m having a little trouble with this.” Well loved ones, do you see the fact that you’re conscious of it and are still tolerating it shows that you’re not willing to sell all the pearls that you have. Now, if you say to me, “But Pastor, aren’t there some ways in which some of us depend on the outside world and not on God and we don’t know it yet?” Sure there are, and me too. We don’t know it yet and we’re doing the thing in ignorance, God doesn’t hold us responsible for that at this moment. That’s not what brings us spiritual death. That’s not what prevents us being crucified with Christ. What prevents us being crucified with Christ are the things we know about. The things you know that annoy you when people cut you down, or put you down. That’s it loved ones. The little things you’re living for in this body; the little things that you’re trying to get for yourself from it. The little things you’re still trying to get from even tonight, because some of you are still thinking, “Well, what little excitement might I get tonight? Maybe we’ll do something after the service which will somehow make the evening worthwhile.” Loved ones, do you see it’s not that God wants you never to enjoy those things, but it’s that you get your main kick from those things. If you don’t get that you get disappointed, or you think it’s been a bad evening. In other words, you’re not prepared to get your full kick from just God your Father and from his love for you and from your kneeling down and praying to him. You’re not prepared to live for that alone. In other words, you’re not prepared to die to those other things. Loved ones, I know that many of you are not real living Christians because you’re still sipping poison. You are. You still live for – maybe it’s me, poor creature that I am, maybe it’s living for a little approval that I’ll give you, or a kind word that I’d say to you, or that somebody here will say to you, but above all it’s that nobody will criticize you, that nobody will be hard on you, that nobody will be harsh to you. And even in Fish many of you are looking for something for yourself in the thing. That’s why it’s hard at times, that’s why serving in the restaurant is hard because you’re still looking for something for yourself; you’re not prepared to die to getting anything more from this world and dying with Jesus to anything that anybody could give you. The first step in becoming a Christian is “metanoia”, its repentance, it’s turning from the world and it’s turning to God alone. Now the weakness is that that phrase has been destroyed for many of us who were brought up in fundamentalist churches because we think turning from the world is putting way behind us all the “don’ts”; you don’t drink, don’t dance, don’t go to the theatre, don’t have anything to do with non-Christians. Now loved ones, I don’t mean that, I mean the world in the real sense. It’s turning from getting from the world the happiness and the significance and the sense of security that the rest of the human race gets from the world. Dying to that is the first essential to being born of God. There will be no new creation unless that old creation is dead. Now here’s the truth; Jesus is saying to each one of you tonight, “I have allowed you to die in me and it was not easy, and it was not painless. And when I died to what everybody thought of me, when I died to getting anything more from this world, I allowed you to die with me. Are you going to reject what I have done for you?” Now loved ones, that’s it, that’s what Jesus says tonight to you. And you may plead with me and say, “But brother that’s a radical kind of Christianity that says I’m no longer to look to people for my sense of worth, and my sense of value. You mean, I’m not to be annoyed when somebody cuts me down, or somebody is harsh to me?” That’s right. That’s what dying with Jesus means and when you continue to say, “But that’s a further stage in the Christian life. That’s a stage of saintliness that I’ll come into later on.” I say Jesus says, “That’s why I died for you. I died so that you could be clear of those things. Won’t you enter in?” And loved ones, I think too many of us are saying, “I want to sip more poison. I want to have Jesus’ approval but I want my peers’ approval, after all it’s only human. Loved ones, don’t you see that all you’re doing is confusing the issue? You’re talking about problems when there is no problem. You’re trying to confuse the issue and say, “But isn’t it just human to be disappointed when a vacation doesn’t come off the way it’s meant to be?” Loved ones, it’s carnal, that’s what it is, it’s not human, it’s carnal. It’s just because the greater part of the human race reacts that way that we call it human but it’s not truly human. Truly human are those who get their joy from the one who stands behind the vacation and behind the flowers and behind the beaches that you would experience. True humans see behind all that stuff and see the dear one who gives all that to them and true humanity is receiving from God all that you need. Loved ones, that’s the first step in being a Christian; repenting. I think some of you have just not repented, I really do. I think some of you have repented of little things you’re doing wrong, little things you’re saying wrong, and you keep on repenting day after day after day. But it’s not repentance in the sense of “metanoia.” It’s not “I’m going this way and I change and I turn around and I go the other way.” It’s not that. It’s just “I’m going this way and I go a little bit more slowly this way” with regret in my heart all the time, “I’m sorry Lord, I’m sorry.” But you’re still going that way and the proof of it is that you continually are having problems. You’re continually having problems with “This one said this to me,” or, “My roommate says this to me,” or, “I have trouble with this one or that one.” Ah loved ones, I’ll tell you one thing that helps me to know that this is right, what I’m preaching tonight; every time I say it my own spirit responds and says, “Yes, that’s the way it was for me. That’s the way it was.” It was a whole immersion in Jesus. It is a full death to what the world and what others can give you. It’s a total death to what others think of you. And then loved ones, I have to say to you I don’t care if you all think this is the rottenest sermon that I have ever preached. I don’t care if you think I’m miserable. I don’t care what anybody thinks, I really don’t because that was part of what I died to with Jesus and I have to say to you that it is a complete work. You either go into it or you don’t. Now loved ones, don’t you see there are other things that all of us here are ignorant of and God understands that. But once you become aware of them then he expects you to enter into Jesus on them. But the problem is with the things that you know about. Now, you know them, you know when you get hurt, you know when you get offended because somebody criticizes you. You know when you feel put down, and reproved, and rebuked and you have a wee bout of self-pity. Now loved ones, you can’t be in that dear one who died on the cross and still be having that kind of self-pity. You’re either baptized into Jesus’ death or you’re not and if you’re not, if the old creation is not wiped out how can you get a new creation? And you know how you get it: you have a kind of syncretism in your life, a kind of “both/and” kind of experience. Those of you who have troubles, you know that’s the problem, you have a wee bit of God’s Spirit that somehow comes from all the other people you know, but you have this other thing rising up inside you and the battle is on. Now that’s not God’s will for us. God’s will is a complete death and then a complete new birth. Now, can I just share a wee bit on that, which God showed me so plainly? Loved ones, there are other good verses. John 12:24-26, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honor him.” And Jesus says “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Now loved ones, you have to die to begin to bear fruit in Jesus and some of you have fruitless lives because you haven’t died to all those things. Now, I speak just as directly to you sisters and brothers who aren’t married; some of you are keeping yourselves out of a full new birth because you’re hankering too much after getting the man or the woman that you think you ought to have. Now loved ones, you’re either going to die to what you get or don’t get from a husband or wife, or you’re going to live in eternity in hell. Now that’s right, because those of us who are husbands and wives know fine well that you can’t live off each other anyway, so you’re being led by the nose by Satan if you’re thinking, “If I only had a wife. If I only had a husband, I’d be okay and I’d be whole and complete.” Loved ones, you’re striving after a pearl that you should be cashing in for the pearl of great price and you love the creature more than the Creator. Unless you’re willing to die you’ll bear no fruit. Jesus makes it very plain and I think some of you in this regard have been like Lot’s wife in its Genesis 19:24-26. “Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife behind him looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” I think some of you started off right, but you’ve started to look back to some of the things that you took an attitude of death to and some of you are hankering after just a little pleasure, just a little excitement, just a little satisfaction, just a little thrill, just a little approval from other people, just a little more money, just a little more security, and you looked back and you’ve become a pillar of salt. And the only way to allow God to melt you is to come again into a death to those things. Loved ones, you have to die to the security and the significance and the happiness that you get from other people. You have to. You know the older ones of us here would say just from a commonsensical angle that it’s unreliable. You can never rely, finally, on those people to keep giving you significance. You can never finally rely on the job to keep giving you security. They’re soap bubbles. But do you see, we don’t always love the truth when we see it and even though that’s the truth, you still want those things rather than God, and loved ones, you’re just spiting in God’s face. Now, you better be clear on that, you’re just spitting in God’s face and saying, “You are not enough for me I must have these other things.” And I’d press you on that; why would you otherwise get upset if somebody is hard with you, or criticizes you, or rebukes you? If you don’t actually care what they think of you, why would you get upset? And the truth is that too many of us here are still dependent on other people for our significance, our security, and our happiness. Now loved ones, before going onto the second part I’d like to point you to Romans 6:8 because the Bible is so clear — it’s only after we mess it all up with rationalization that it becomes complex, but the Bible gives forth a clear sound all the time and the wayfaring man will be able to find his way. Of course, it has to be a wayfaring man; it has to be a man that is faring, that is going on his way. It’s us creatures that stop and sit down that get in trouble with it. Romans 6:8, “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” And if you haven’t died with him you won’t live with him. That’s it. Now in the new birth, God can only bring his Spirit into you if you’ve turned away from everything else. God will not give you his most precious gift unless you turn away from all other substitutes and so it’s just foolishness; I don’t see how you think you’re going to persuade God to do that. How you think you’re going to hold onto all these substitutes that you have and he is going to give you his most precious gift? It just doesn’t make sense, nobody else would do it, so how you think the mighty God is going to allow himself to be bluffed like that, I don’t know. God will not give you his most precious gift unless you turn from all others. You will not live unless you die. Unless you die to what other people give you, you won’t come alive to God. Now that’s why many of you have no reality in your own spiritual life. That’s why the prayer life is miserable, because you’re still trying to get from others some of what you should get from God alone. Now, what is the new birth? You remember this morning I shared with you that I think a lot of us get into all kinds of little juggling contortions in our own minds and you remember how I mentioned that verse about the promise of the word of God, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask, and we kneel down and say, “You made a promise Lord, now won’t you make that promise real to me? There’s no reason why you shouldn’t.” And we try and persuade ourselves. Now loved ones, let’s not be stupid any longer. What God is calling us to is a relationship with him. Now, a relationship is a personal encounter with a person. It involves conversation and sharing with each other. That’s what the new birth is, it’s coming alive to God and that’s something that happens day-by-day. In other words, God gives you more and more of his Spirit as you enter into companionship with him. Any of us here who are husbands and wives know that we could have entered into that agreement at the altar but if we didn’t live with each other and grow closer to each other, we wouldn’t even call that a marriage. Indeed, the law doesn’t. The law says if you don’t consummate what is done at the altar it is no marriage. So it doesn’t matter what kind of big ceremony you’ve had, it doesn’t matter what kind of decision you’ve made at an altar at a church; you’re not born of God unless you’re day-by-day in a living relationship with him; in other words, unless you’re walking in prayerful communion with him and receiving from his word more information about him. Now loved ones I think that’s the second step and I think many of you have given up that step long ago. I think many of you have no Bible study or the prayer life that we’re talking about. I think a lot of you are still on the old thing that you’re good when I preach about it but then after two or three weeks of enthusiastic application it goes to pieces and then it’s the old business of trying to remember when you last read a chapter. Now loved ones, it doesn’t matter what you say about your being a Christian. Jesus showed me this clearly, “Would you stop listening to them as if you’re some dumb kind of idiot? If they’re not walking in day-by-day communion with me and Bible study, how can they say they have my Spirit flowing through them when the only way to receive my Spirit is by talking with me and getting to know me.” And loved ones, I saw it suddenly, “Yes Lord, that is true. They can say they believe it all, they can say they believe everything in this Bible, but if they’re not receiving your Spirit from you day-by-day then not only can others tell that but Lord, it’s obvious that they are no longer living in your Spirit. They’re just playing theological games if they start planning on eternal security because if they were truly born of God, if they were truly alive Lord, they would love you. They have either committed apostasy and have turned on you completely or they have never known you and therefore are not in a relationship with you. But if they really know you, they’ll be carrying on a day-to-day relationship with you.” And loved ones, God showed me that so plainly; that the new birth is a living with God day-by-day. And of course the truth is this loved ones; why do you not pray — because you don’t need to pray. Why do you not need to pray –because you’re really getting your strength from other people and other situations, and other things. That’s it, and you should stop all the fiddling around. Why you don’t pray is because you don’t need to pray, and you don’t need to pray because you have never really died to getting security, significance, and happiness from other people. Loved ones, when you die to all that, when you put that behind you, you grab at God in prayer. You grab at him. You can’t do without him and that’s what enables you then to go into the world of men and women and to give love rather to be always draining it from others. That’s what enables us to come to a service like tonight filled with God rather than dying for another drink from him. Now loved ones, Jesus just showed me that’s what I’ve to share. There is only one other verse and its 2 Timothy 3:4-5 and I thank God for giving me the words because I knew that even if I just read these verses that’s what I should do. God is talking about the last times and then he describes the people who will be alive in the last days. Verses 4-5, “Treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people.” And I think that’s what some of us are who have turned back, we are actually just downright lovers of pleasure. I think some of us actually belong to this body because we just like pleasure and we like the enjoyment of having nice people as friends. God obviously knew what he wanted to say to us and much is wrong with saying “We’ve got used to Campus Church and it’s quite a nice place — we’re not moving on with God and we think we’re not moving back.” Actually, we’re dead, we’re nowhere near them, but we like the situation and we maybe enjoy all the business things, and all that, and it’s an alive place, and it’s nice to be around, but actually we just love pleasure, we’re just pleasure lovers. It’s just we’re dumb because we’re satisfied with less exciting pleasures it seems to me. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be around a church if I didn’t know God. If that’s all the excitement you’re going to get — dear help you. But I think that for some of us that’s the stage we’re at. We love that, it’s a pleasure that kind of keeps us jumping along, but we’re just lovers of pleasure. We have the form of religion but we deny the power of it, so we can repeat all the words, all the verses of scripture, we know it all, but we deny the power of it and we deny it in the most potent way we possibly could; by lacking the power of it in our own lives. So we make nonsense of the idea that Jesus is a power in your life because we have no power in our lives, and actually of course we’re doing more harm to God than any good because we’re going around in our businesses and our schools claiming to be Christians but we don’t have the power of Christ in our lives. So we’re actually doing harm because we’re giving a false picture of what a Christian is. Now loved ones, I suppose that’s heavy stuff, but Jesus, I know, wanted to say that and I don’t care if you take it or not. I know he wanted to say it and now there’s no mystery so just don’t go away and cry and say you have another problem. You have no problem; it’s plain what you should do — you should die to what you’re living off of instead of God. You should. Whatever it is; a vague hope that you’ll get a better job, or a vague hope that you’ll get the right husband, or a vague hope that you’ll somehow arrange your social circle a little more enjoyably. Something there that you’re living off, something that you’re not prepared to do without, you have to die to that and then tomorrow morning you have to work out what half an hour is before your normal rising time, and you have to get up and get the Bible out and start reading it and start seeking God and start allowing his Spirit to come through your life. Now loved ones, I think God has made us a body that prefers to be straight with each other, so I think you know what to do and I think you should just do it. Don’t go through a whole lot of contortions, just do that and come alive in God and begin to live as he meant you to do, and be a Christian, because it’s a black and white thing. You either are a Christian or you’re not a Christian. Really. Shall we pray? Lord, I pray for the loved ones who have the ears to hear this and who needed to hear this. And Lord, I remember your words that there are people who hear your word but do not do it. They are like men who build their house upon sand and when the storms of life come, and when the final storm comes on judgment day, the house will be swept away. And then there are those who hear and who do what your word tells them, and they are like people who build their house and their life on a rock. Lord, I pray now for the loved ones who need to act this very evening. I ask you now to make it absolutely clear to them what is the secret idol in their hearts that they have to die to, what approval of men, what recognition of their peers, what security they’re trying to get out of, something that they’re not willing to give up if you should ask them to give it up, what little happinesses and excitements they’re living for thinking that something is more exciting than you. Lord, I pray that you will enable them to see that and simply die to it this evening and accept what you have done for them. And then I pray that tomorrow morning you will see your children proving that they’re born of you by talking with their Father and receiving life from you, Lord, as people who cannot do without you. Father, we would die if we did without food for our physical bodies as long as some of us have done without food for our spiritual bodies. Thank you for making it plain to us that we must be dead by now and that it’s time to come alive and look to you who all the time says, “Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow and though they be like crimson they shall be like wool. Come let us reason together, serve the Lord.” Lord, thank you that your arms are always open and that you ask us to come to you tonight and make things right once and for all this night and be what we claim to be, children of God. I ask this Lord Jesus, in your name and for your glory. 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 forever more. Amen.

Called to be Saints 1 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Dear ones, for the next three sessions that I have to speak, I would like to talk about what is a saint and I think it can be divided very clearly up into three parts, according to the three parts of our own personality. So perhaps you’d bring your Bibles with you at each session and really do some hard work. I’ll be using the Revised Standard Version, and every time we come to those Bible words, I’ll defend it with the Greek and Hebrew. Really dear ones, I think it is very trustworthy and I think you know the story of the dear old saint, I’m sure brother (Ted) Hegre knows his name, who went to the committee and brought up the issues where they had mistranslated “sanctify” and “consecrate.” And you know now the story of how they accepted his suggestions, and they incorporated them in the book. And so I believe this version is reliable, where I’m going to quote it today anyway. So that will be the one difference, but you’ll be able to follow it in your King James. So will you use your Bibles please? Some people say and especially the dear ones that I work with during school time, “A saint is one who is dead and by whom miracles have since been performed.” And I think it’s important to get rid of that by referring to Romans 15:25, and to look there at Paul’s and therefore God’s opinion that a saint was one who was very much alive whether actual miracles were being performed or not. Romans 15:25, “At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem with aid for the saints.” And we take it that even Paul could not bring aid to those who were with God in heaven, so the saints were obviously pretty much present. In other words dear ones, it’s inadequate to accept what tends to be the Catholic emphasis on saintliness, though not the only emphasis as we realize when we meet some dear Catholics who are in Jesus and shinning with his light, but there tends to be an ecclesiastical emphasis on the fact that the saint is one who is dead and by whom miracles have been performed. Well this is not the Bible view of the saint. Some people feel that a saint is one who is holy in Christ. And they say, “It doesn’t matter if I commit adultery, to God that is not a sin because I am in Christ and I cannot sin.” That tends to be an emphasis, in some branches perhaps, of Calvinism, the idea that we are holy in Christ whatever our lives are like. Now I don’t think the Bible accepts that as a fit or adequate view of a saint. You can see that in James 2:17, which I think explodes that idea of a saint as one who is simply holy in Christ, whatever his life is like. In James 2:17, “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” So you can, for all you want, believe that God looks upon you as holy in Jesus but that is only so if the life of Jesus is taking over and expressing itself through your life. In other words we are called not only to be holy in Christ with his imputed righteousness, but we are called to be holy in our own lives with his communicated righteousness and communicated holiness. I think some people also today; especially in our liberal churches, perhaps feel saintliness is doing good deeds. Saintliness is having a Christian influence in the social sphere; it is social and political activism. It is reformation of life. And dear ones, we must note that at least the liberals have seen beyond the point that some of us have reached. Many of us in the fundamentalist camp have failed to see that Christianity must produce some results in the life, and at least the liberals see this; they see it must produce some results in the life otherwise it isn’t real. Now on the other hand they have gone to the other extreme and they have said, “If you have results that’s enough. If you’re marching to Selma in Alabama that proves that you’re a saint and you’re producing Christian influence in your outward life.” Now I think the Bible emphasizes that that kind of action is not enough. In other words saintliness is not just being Christian in your acts and your words. I think there are many dear ones who are brought up in Christian homes and are Christian, it seems, in their acts and words, and yet they themselves have never dealt with Jesus personally. I think you find this emphasis by Jesus in Matthew 7:22. and I will wait dear ones, for you to find the place because I suppose the teacher always feels the eye gate and ear gate is better, and it is precious to look at God’s own word ourselves. Matthew 7:22-23 is where Jesus talks about social and political activists “On that day many will say to me ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.” I think Jesus implies that social and political activism without the motivating love of Jesus and the constraining love of the crucified Lord behind it is not in itself saintliness. I think some of us need to allow God to examine us on that in our own church and see that it’s not just the outward life conforming to the vague outline of the Christian life that make us saints. There is just one last thing I’d like to deal with; the other side of the coin, those of us who are saying, “Ah, well saintliness is abstaining from all the things that saints are not supposed to do.” So saintliness is not dancing — I’m not saying saintliness is dancing, but they’re saying saintliness is a not dancing, not smoking, not going to the theatre – so saintliness is six don’ts,(or five don’ts, depending on what denomination you’re in,) and these don’ts you have got used to avoiding, so it’s not too much of a burden. So we tend to placard these as sins and say, “Saintliness is avoiding these sins.” Well dear ones saintliness is more than that as Paul pointed out in Colossians 2:20-22. Saintliness is more than just abstaining from the things that saints are not supposed to do and though I know we must give guidance to our young people, I do feel we need God’s Spirit to really show us where legalism begins and where saintliness ends. Colossians 2:20-22, “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, ‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ (referring to things which all perish as they are used), according to human precepts and doctrines? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh.” And so though Jesus may lead you to stop many of these things or all of them, yet you stop them because of Jesus’ love within you, and you don’t stop them and regard yourself a saint just because you’ve successfully abstained from them. In other words, I don’t think saintliness is any of these things, dear ones. Saintliness is not enthusiastical saintliness that proclaims that a saint is one who has died and miracles are performed by him. Saintliness is not just an outward impression of saintliness. Saintliness is not just being holy in Christ with his imputed righteousness. Saintliness is not just abstaining from all the don’ts that Christians have listed. Then what is saintliness? I think it’s most important to see that saintliness begins even with the converted man. Saintliness in the New Testament does not refer to those old mature Christians who have reached that place where they know him who is from the beginning. Saintliness does not only refer to those who have been sanctified or filled with the Spirit. Again, and again the New Testament refers to ordinary Christians as saints. And this morning dear ones, I’d like to try to talk about that first step, if you like to call it, in being a saint. An ordinary Christian, a converted man or women, one who has been just justified last night, one who has only been born of God this morning is called in the New Testament — a saint. And he is called to be a saint and you can see it in Romans 1:7. Paul addresses his letter in Romans 1:7, “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.” Dear ones, you all are called to be saints. Now don’t you sit there and say, “Ah, but I haven’t been sanctified. Ah, but I am just born of the Spirit last night. Ah, I have not been filled with the Spirit. I have not been cleansed with the Spirit. I have not been baptized with the Spirit, so you can’t expect me to be a saint.” God calls you to be a saint. God calls you to be a saint in your converted life. Would you look with me at the two factors in saintliness and I think you can see it best perhaps in Leviticus 20:7. I think I’m right in saying that King James says in verse 7, “Sanctify.”? Is that right? Verse 7 in the Revised Standard Version reads, “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am the Lord your God.” And the Hebrew verb in verse 7 is the same as the Hebrew verb in verse 8. You see verse 8 reads, “Keep my statutes, and do them; I am the Lord who sanctify you.” The Hebrew verb is the same. You know Hebrew has no vowels, it is only consonants, and the Hebrew word for holy is q?dosim. And so you take the S and the D and well, it’s like a K at the end, and you put different vowels in there to make different parts of the verb. Now the part of the verb that is used in verse 7 is the reflexive part, and it really means make yourselves holy. Holy means to separate yourself or to be separate and the verb there means make yourselves holy in the sense of making yourselves separate. And then where it’s translated “sanctify” in verse 8, it’s a different part of the verb and it means for God himself will cause you to be holy. So verse 7 says separate yourselves, make yourselves holy in the sense of make yourselves separate from and then in verse 8 the Hebrew means for God himself will make you holy, will separate you to. So there are two parts in being a saint; the first part is in verse 7 where the Hebrew means sanctify yourself and that means make yourself separate. You’re a prostitute; make yourself separate from your prostitution. You’re sarcastic with your dear ones at home; make yourself separate from your sarcasm — that’s verse 7, it’s the human part in sanctification. But dear ones, if you do that alone, then you are left with humanism or you’re left with a strong morality and you’re left with those burdened Christians who are defeated in the back of their eyes because they say, “Yeah, I’m a Christian. It’s a hard way, but I’m a Christian.” And they have to grip themselves to be victorious Christians even in the converted life because they have done nothing but separate themselves with their own strong will power from the things that they know to be wrong in their life. But they have not experienced the second part, by which God himself touches you and separates you to himself and pours into you his own life. So do you see dear ones, that there are the two vital parts in being a saint, even at the converted stage. There’s a sense in which you have to separate yourself from the things that are wrong in your life, you have to be holy, you have to make yourselves holy and there’s a sense in which then God comes in and separates you to himself. Only he can do the second part. If you don’t experience the second part then the first part leaves you with a burdened, defeated Christianity, even at the converted stage. I think many of us come to that; many of us come to the place where we’re born of the will of flesh, or of the will of the man. Jesus said in John 1:13, “Who are born not of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man.” I think many of us think we’re born when we’re only born of the will of man. We know that we’re not converted, we know we ought to get converted and we decide conversion is simply separating yourself from the things that are wrong in your life. It’s not. It’s separating yourself from those things, and then laying yourself before God so that he can regenerate you with his Holy Spirit and separate you to himself with his own Spirit. Now I think it’s important to see that the two sides of being a saint are there and you can see them even more clearly if you look at Numbers 6:3. “He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink, and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried.” “He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink,” and that’s the human side in being a saint. At any stage of the Christian life, we need to separate ourselves from the things that God has revealed to us as wrong in our lives. And then the divine side is there in verse 2, “Say to the people of Israel, When either a man or women makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord.” In other words, we can separate ourselves from the things that are wrong in our life, but only the Lord, by the power of his Spirit, can separate us to himself. So there are the two sides. Now it’s in that sense dear ones, that you as a converted man or women are called to be a saint. You’re called to be a saint in those two senses, even if you’re just converted. I think it’s pointed out by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17. He points out that even the new Christian is changed. Even the new Christian is different, after he is born of God. 2 Corinthians 5:17, does it say “Therefore, if anyone is sanctified, if anyone is filled with his spirit, if anyone is baptized”, no, no. “Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” So even if you are just converted that means you’re different, there’s a sense in which you’re a saint. In what sense are you a saint? Well John Wesley lays the emphasis in the converted life on saintliness in the outward life, first of all. And that’s why I’m taking the three stages in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 where the Bible says, “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 the Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, a person is a saint first, at the level of the body, at the level of this outward life; everyone who is born of God is called to be a saint. He is called to separate himself from the things that God has revealed are wrong in his outward life. So Wesley says, “Whosoever is born of God,” not, “Whosoever is filled the spirit,” not, “Whosoever is sanctified,” not, “Whosoever is baptized with the Holy Spirit,” not, “Whosoever has been on the Christian life for forty years,” not, “Whosoever has received the second blessing,” but, “Whosoever is born of God.” 1 John 3:9 says, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.” And Wesley says, “What do we mean by sin? We accept the common meaning of the term; any disobedience to God’s revealed written law, either in act or in word.” And every Christian is called to be a saint in his outward acts and words. Dear ones, the message of the death to self and the cross we’ll deal with, as God gives us grace, tomorrow, and that deals with inner things. But outwardly, every Christian is called to be a saint. He is called to be a saint in his acts and words. Now, you may wonder about this so I’d ask you to turn to 1 John 3:9, because I think a lot of us live in another favorite verse in John instead of 1 John 3:9, so let’s look at that one before we deal with the emergency verse. I think a lot of us live on the emergency verse. 1 John 3:9, in the Revised Standard Version says, “No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother.” He says in verse 4 of that same chapter, “Every one who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.” And then dear ones, as if he knew what you were thinking, or he knew what I used to try to think in verse 7, “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous. He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. In other words, every one of us who is born of God this morning is called to be free from committing sin in act or word in our lives. Now dear ones, I think many of us are playing fast and loose with God’s statement here. I think many of us are living in that emergency verse in 1 John 2 and it’s surrounded by all the Bibles commitment and commission to us to avoid sin, but still we pick out that emergency verse. 1 John 2:1 goes, “My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin.” Paul is saying “That’s the very purpose I have in writing this letter to you, so that you may not sin.” And then the emergency verse and you notice only half of a verse and its right next door to the one where he says he doesn’t want us to sin, but it runs, “but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Now if I say to you, “If the red light goes on in your car you better stop and fill it up with oil,” then you don’t drive day-after-day with the red light on — you don’t drive in a state of emergency. Now I am not expert enough to tie everything together, but I do know that we’re not meant to live in that emergency state, and I think many dear ones who claim to be born of God are living on that verse, “But if anyone does sin, we have advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Dear ones you cannot be born of God and continue to live on that emergency verse day-after-day. John Wesley and some of the old holiness preachers would go further and would say you can’t afford to sin even once, and one is almost driven to that. There’s the verse in James 2:10 that says, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” There’s a real sense in which a man who is born of God cannot afford to sin once. I preached this in a church recently and a dear brother came up and said, “You don’t mean you lose your state of grace if you sin once,” and I didn’t want to disagree doctrinally, but at least he agreed that maybe you lose your fellowship with God. Well alright; you lose your fellowship. But dear ones, I don’t know that the Bible allows us to sin even once and remain in God’s favor, you see. The Bible says, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.” Some of us say, “Oh it means does not commit sin habitually. It means we change, we don’t commit sin habitually.” Well you’re up against a logical problem, aren’t you, what is habitual sin? Is it once a week, twice a week, three times a week, once a month, twice a month? It’s a mathematical problem and it seems, not God’s way of dealing with us, doesn’t it? It doesn’t seem God’s way. It seems the Greek makes no distinction between committing sin habitually, or committing it once, it just uses the straight present tense, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.” And dear ones, we who are born of God are called to victory over sin in our acts and our words. Now, you may say, “Well what’s the basis of all this?” It’s the same basis as this little illustration: there are many homes where tension is produced by the mother and by the children and the father, perhaps, bears all of that tension. He comes home at night tired from work, and there’s this battle going on in the home, and there’s this emotional strain, and it works on him and produces strain in him and eventually produces hypertension, and eventually the children and the mother have to watch him dying with the results of their life and the kind of tension they have produced in the home. Eventually they’re with him as he dies in pain of hypertension. And they go back to the home, and if they’ve seen the father die, it’s very hard for them to go back to the same things that produced that death. Now dear ones, every sin that you and I ever committed produced the death of our Lord Jesus. And this is why once we come to a knowledge of that, once we know we are born of God and realize that Jesus has died for every sin we have committed, do you see that you have to be very ruthless, you have to be very like the Roman soldiers to continue to sin knowingly — to continue to sin in such a way, that you’re crucifying Jesus afresh in your life, and yet that’s what’s really happening. And this is really the inner theory if you like, by which we should feel a constraint of love in our hearts to avoid any sin in act or word in the converted life — any sin at all. Whosoever is born of God, does not crucify the Son of God afresh and every time we sin in our outward lives it’s another nail into his hands and it’s another sword into his side. This is why anyone that is born of God does not commit sin, does not knowingly disobey God. It is important to see that it’s the knowing, it’s conscious. You remember there’s a verse in James 4:17 that’s says, “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” I think that’s a clear definition of sin: if you know what is right to do and you don’t do it that’s sin. Now anyone who knows they are putting a nail into Jesus hands, and does it, they cannot love him, and they cannot have him as their Savior. I think a great many of us feel that God has changed the condition of entrance into his kingdom. I think a lot of us feel God used to say, “You must obey all my commandments, and if you obey them all I will be your God and you will be my people.” And we think “Now, thank goodness that old covenant has passed and we’re on to the new covenant, and it’s easier because God is saying, “You simply have to believe in my son Jesus, and trust him as your Savior, and you’ll be my child.” But do you see dear ones that the very reason Jesus had to die was because God refused to change his antagonism to sin? It was because God refused to withdraw his hostility to sin that Jesus had to die. That’s why Jesus died; because God would not change his mind. God would not say, “Now you don’t have to obey.” Otherwise Jesus need not have died, God could simply have said, “Well you disobeyed, but I forget you’re disobedience, I want you as my children anyway. So I’ve changed the covenant and you don’t need to obey me now.” It was because he could not do that, that he said, “No. You have disobeyed and you must die, or someone must die for that disobedience. I cannot accept disobedience because it would make hell of my heaven, and it would destroy what I want for your lives.” And for that very reason Jesus died. So dear ones, God has not changed his covenant, he has provided a dear Savior to die for the sins that we have committed. But for the sins that are in our life at present and that we’re prepared to continue to commit, there is no hope until we really and truly abandon those sins, and turn from them completely. In other words, there is no place dear ones, for a Christian night-after-night going back to God with the same sins saying, “Father I confess this sin to you. I ask Jesus to pour his blood across that sin and cover it.” After you’ve done that twenty times, five times, three times, twice, how long does it take you to become as immune to the pain of the Savior as a surgeon becomes to his patient? How long can you come with this continual list of confessions? This is why the Bible teaches, “Whosoever is born of God, does not commit sin.” You’re taught to separate yourself from all known acts and words that are wrong in your life, and until you do that, the blood of Jesus does not apply to you. You can say it does, but it doesn’t apply to you, and this is why many of us who say we’re born of God are really defeated Christians carrying a moral burden on our shoulders, but we have not the life of Jesus within us. And it’s only the life of Jesus within you that makes it a joy to obey God’s law, and makes you able to obey him in act and word. Do you see again that the problem is the same as it was last night? If you have not victory over the acts and words in your life that you know are sinful, then don’t say, “I have to try harder,” but say, “I have to be born of God.” Dear ones break the devils hold over you. Break Satan’s hold over you in pride. I know in my spirit that there are dear ones here who are looked upon by everybody else as Christians. Outwardly and when they’re on their guard they are Christians, but there are acts and words in their lives that they know they have not victory over. And yet Satan has a hold on them and says, “Listen you’re supposed to born of God, everybody thinks you’re born of God, of course you’re born of God.” Dear ones, if you have not victory over some act or word in your life that is sinful, you’re not born of God. Take the Bibles word; no one born of God commits sin. And then see that what you need is to be humble enough to seek the new birth again. Dear ones, even if you are forty years on the road, because the Bible says, “Not whosoever has been of born of God,” not, “Whosoever was born of God forty years ago,” but, “Whosoever is born of God today.” Wesley says, “As long as we breathe in the Spirit of God, and breathe it out to him in prayer, a man cannot sin.” So if you have some act or word in your life that is sinful and you have not victory over it, the need is the new birth. Jacob, you remember, was a deceiver. Jacob deceived to further his own future. You remember how he did it. He created a wrong impression of himself to get his own advantage, for his own advantage. He made a different impression of himself than was strictly true, and in that way he sinned. Now, God could not forgive him until Jacob died. And of course if Jacob had had to die, then he would never have gone through hell successfully because he had no obedience of his own to raise him from the dead and so he’d have been lost eternally. So for Jacob, God allowed Jesus to die, but Jacob still had to obey God. Jesus’ death covered the sin that Jacob had been guilty of, but now Jacob had to turn and obey God. He had to turn from his deception, and turn from this desire to make a better impression of himself than was strictly true, and turn from this desire to trample on other people’s rights to get what he wanted. He had to turn from those things before God’s Holy Spirit could come into him and bring about the new birth of Jesus’ life in him. But he had to turn from those things, and so it is with us. Do you lie? Do you? I mean just white lies, because none of us tell black lies, but just white lies? Do you subtly created a slightly better impression of yourself then is really true by something you say? Or, when you get into an awkward spot and you know it’s going to be embarrassing and uncomfortable for everybody concerned, and you know the other person is going to be really unduly concerned about your state of grace, do you get around this just by a slight bit of deceptiveness? Well that’s sin, that’s telling a lie. And if you tell a lie, dear ones, that’s a commitment of sin in word, and that means you’re not born of God. And you see the hold Satan has on many of us because he’ll say “Don’t admit it, don’t admit it and you’re alright.” So you continue to live the death life pretending that you’re enjoying the begotten life and yet knowing that you have the symptoms of the death life in your acts and words. Well you see you’re outside where God can’t do any good for you. Do you see that the essential thing that God needs is honesty? The essential thing that he needs for us to do is be honest. If you’ll only admit that you’re sinning. You remember that the Greek word for “confess” is to raise your hand and agree with God, “I agree with you Father that this is a sin.” But Satan has a hold of many born again Christians today who say they are born again because they will not admit that that’s a sin, because they feel, “If I admit that’s a sin it means I’m not born of God.” And dear ones, they’re in an impossible grip of Satan and the way to break it is to at last admit, “That is a sin. It’s an outward act or word that is sin and I know that one who is born of God does not commit sin.” Judas was in the same situation. He was greedy for money at all costs and he was prepared to do anything for money. And the only way God could ever forgive Judas was if Judas died for that sin or if someone died for that sin for him. But Judas himself, to be reborn, had to turn from the sin and he did not do it. So many of us find ourselves in the same position as Judas; we believe it all, but we do not turn from the sin. We will not admit it’s a sin; we keep trying to justify ourselves and prove that it isn’t disobedience. And so God’s Spirit cannot come in and sanctify us by making us holy in the sense of regeneration through the Spirit. And so it is all along the line. Dear ones, here’s a sin: I come down to breakfast in the morning and he’s sitting on the other side of the table and I say, “There’s your breakfast.” And that’s an angry, irritable act, do you see? That’s an angry, irritable act and Jesus in us does not do that kind of thing. Jesus does not do that whatever the provocation, and immediately we’ve done that we’ve committed sin and we’ve begotten the life of the Devil inside us. And we need to treat that not just as, “Lord, help me to overcome my irritability.” Ah dear ones, God doesn’t help us to overcome a disease like that. God wants to rip the disease right out and he wants us to admit that’s a sin. She’s late, you’ve given her all the time in the world to get ready but she’s late. And you go out the door and sit in the car and at last she comes out and you fling the car door open and say, “Get in.” That’s an angry word and an angry act, you see. You see the way Satan has lied to us. Satan has lied to us and said, “Ah well an odd act or words, you can’t avoid it.” But dear ones, a good tree produces good fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit. And those things are acts and words that are wrong and that are sinful. A Christian, even a born again Christian, has victory over sinful acts or words. You remember the people that passed by Jesus on the cross, shouted up to him, “Save yourself, come down from the cross and save yourself.” And even at that sacred moment, they threw out sarcasm and cynicism at him. Now dear ones, a born again Christian is not sarcastic. Do you see that? We’re called to be children, aren’t we. We’re called to be children. None of us will enter the kingdom of heaven unless we become a little child and a little child has great trouble being sarcastic, it’s really very difficult. Children can do many other things, but it’s very hard for them to be sarcastic. Maybe they’re too dumb to be sarcastic, isn’t that good? And when a born again Christian is sarcastic he is breaking God’s word. He is speaking a word that lacks love. He is speaking a word that depends on deception, on double meaning. He is speaking a word that depends on the double think that the devil has brought into the world. Whenever a Christian speaks a sarcastic word, he is committing a sin. Now dear ones, if you’re sarcastic you’re not born of God. Now I’m not telling you I don’t know whether you’re born of God or not, but I say to you that on the basis of the Bible, a Christian, a born again Christian is one who does not commit sin in acts or words and if you’re sarcastic Jesus’ life is not in you. And I’m saying to you, “You’ve got a disease, would you get healed.” I’m not saying to you, “Would you be as good as me?” Do you see that? I’m not saying to you, “Would you be as good as all the rest of us think we are?” I’m not saying that. I’m saying, honestly dear ones, if you have the symptom in you, you have a disease in you, you have the created life of God that Satan has deceived you into thinking is the begotten life of God. And will you this morning, admit finally that that is a sin, and that you’re not born of God, or you have been born of God and you are no longer born of God and you need to receive Jesus in a new way into yourself? Oh dear ones the great out pouring of God’s Spirit, if we would be honest, about the acts and words in our lives today, you see, just the acts and words, don’t let’s go any deeper this morning, but would you just allow the Holy Spirit to examine the acts and words in your life. And dear ones, in a sense your only defense against Satan’s deception in these days is your own readiness to be honest, and the result in graciousness of God in giving you his Spirit for the new birth. Well, are you a saint, in the sense that you have victory over your outward acts and words? Are you a saint like that? You’re called to be a saint. That’s something God can see today. God can see your acts and he can see your words. I wish I could take each one of you individually and with you talk over my own life and your life. But dear ones I pray that you’ll do it this morning, and break Satan’s hold, if he has a hold on you, and be really honest and open and humble. Jesus is more humble than you, and he will welcome you with open arms. Are you born of God? Are you a saint? Let us pray.

Called to be Saints 2 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Now one word we didn’t mention is the Greek word “hagios”. And it comes out in that English word hagiography which would be, I suppose, the study of the saint’s lives. And “hagios” mean just holy. And that’s the same word that we mean when we use the word ‘saint’, only ours comes from that Latin word “sanctus”. And that gives us “sanctify”. And you remember, “holy” brings out, in a way, the human and divine factors in being a saint. Just as the word sanctify brings them out. You remember, in the phrase, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” That means first of all to set it apart ‘from’ ordinary use. So the preposition ‘from’ is the important one there. Set the Sabbath day apart ‘from’ ordinary use. And then, “Remember, the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” means to set it apart ‘to’ God for his use. And ‘to’ is the important preposition there. So even that word “hagios” brings out that there is a human and divine factor in being a saint. At whatever stage in the Christian life you’re called to be a saint, there is both the human and divine factor. You remember in the Old Testament they set the sacrifice ‘on the altar’, but that was only part of it, that was the human side. They set the sacrifice on the altar, and then the fire of God’s Spirit burned up that sacrifice and made it holy. So you can see that there’s a sense in which we make ourselves holy, we set ourselves apart from certain things that are wrong in our lives, but there’s a real sense in which God is the one who alone can make us holy. And we saw that, you remember, in the word ‘sanctify’ in Leviticus 20. And you might not want to bother, but I’d just remind you of Leviticus 20:7-8 where the human and the divine side is really talked about. In Leviticus 20:7, it says, “Consecrate yourselves therefore,” and that is the human part. “Con” is Latin and “Secro” is a Latin verb, “to separate.” And ‘consecrate’ means to separate yourselves ‘from’ the things that are wrong in your life. And then in Leviticus 20:8, “Keep my statutes, and do them; I am the LORD who sanctify you.” “I am the one alone who can make you holy. But you yourselves are responsible for separating yourselves, or being willing to be separated from the things that are unholy in your own life.” In practical terms then, we talked about a new born Christian as being one who believed that Jesus, who lived in the first century AD, was really the Son of God, the Son of the Maker of the world. A new born Christian believes that in his head first of all. Then he believes that the Creator allowed this Son of his to experience physical and spiritual death so that he himself could maintain his own just declaration that he would punish sin wherever he found it, and yet was able to forgive us sinners. A Christian believes therefore, that God allowed his own Son to die in our place for our sins, and that God is able to forgive us for that ‘if’ we really believe. And it’s strange dear ones, that you can’t get away from this combination of belief and action. Even in the very words that the Bible uses, “believe” is ‘be’ in Anglo-Saxton, and “Liefan”. And it means to ‘be in accordance with’. So if a Christian really believes that Jesus has died as a result of his sins, then he must be in accordance with that. And he must himself, stop thrusting the sword into Christ’s side any longer. He must stop putting nails into Christ’s hands any longer. And dear ones, whatever words you look at in the New Testament it always holds this idea of “being in accordance with what you believe.” And it’s not just a head belief, you see, but it’s a life action. “I believe that this is hurting the Son of God, therefore I stop it.” “Pistis”, the Greek word for faith, is the same, it falls over into obedience. It really topples over into the meaning of obedience. The very word that we use in the New Testament for ‘faith’ has obedience running right through it. In other words, if you trust him, you obey him. If I believe you’re going to roll back the Red Sea, I put my feet into it. If I believe that my sarcasm has killed you, Lord Jesus, I stop the sarcasm. Otherwise, I prove that I don’t believe. If I believe that the deception of Jacob and the deception and lying in my life has crucified you, then I turn from the lies. There’s no point in saying, “Alright, Blondini [Charles Blondin, 1824 – 1897) was a French tightrope walker and acrobat]. Alright, you can take me across the rope over the Niagara Falls in a wheelbarrow; you can take any man over it. But I don’t think I’ll try it just now. I don’t trust you to get me across right now.’” If you believe then you act. Dear ones, if we would only do that we would experience God’s power in making us saints. If you have not entered into the new birth it is because you have not been willing to turn from those things. A dear one, after the service yesterday said, “Well now you do seem to imply that we really do produce this result in ourselves.” Now dear ones, here’s the fact, we turn from the lies; Jesus fills our mouth with truth. We turn from the sarcasm; Jesus fills our mouth with words of love. We turn from the unkindness; Jesus through the Spirit, fills us with kindness. You see, even if we’re a new born Christian we turn from the things that are wrong and God fills us with the positive godliness. So, we are responsible for turning from those things. Maybe I follow Nee [Watchman Nee, 1903 – 1972), a Chinese church leader and Christian teacher] too much but Nee says, “Can a sinner turn from his sins? Of course he can, and he’s responsible to do it.” And dear ones, I think we are. We can put it in lots of terms, “be willing to turn from them.” But one way or another we must be at least as determined as the ‘moral rearmament’ people are. We must be at least as determined as them and say, “We’ll turn from these things. We know you have to fill us with your positive goodness, but we will turn from these things.” And when we do, God is able to work in us. Now you remember, we suggested along the lines of the verse in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that there were, as it were, three ways in which a Christian is called to be a saint. And you remember 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you.” “Sanctify you; make you wholly.” And preserve your body, your soul, and your spirit blameless until the coming of the Lord Jesus.” And I think in a real way dear ones, though I’m sure ever analogy is a little inadequate, I think in a real way God wants to make us saints in our bodies, in our souls, and in our spirits. He wants to set us apart wholly, in our bodies, from the uses of this world. That’s what happens when you become a Christian. When you’re a new born Christian your outward acts and words become wholly set apart to God, because you’re prepared to set apart yourself from the acts and words that are disobedient to his commands, and he himself is prepared to fill you with acts and words that are obedient and pleasing to his will. So in a real way, at the level of the body, at the level of the outward acts and words, a Christian becomes a saint. Now could we look at what I think is the second factor involved? And the second factor that God soon begins to touch in our Christian lives is the spirit. And it is his desire that the spirit should be sanctified wholly. You remember, that old Peter was a real Christian. You remember that, and you can follow it out in your own mind if you just think of the things he did and said. You remember, he was the one who said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” So Peter believed that Jesus was God’s Son. Now Peter also believed that Jesus, eventually — it took him a long time, but he eventually came to the realization that Jesus meant what he said when he said, “I am come to give my life a ransom for many.” And Peter believed that Jesus was going to die for the sins of mankind and for himself. You remember he, therefore, had set himself apart from his material possessions. He believed what Jesus said about those and he set himself apart from the material possessions, and from the outward sins of profane language and from thoughtless impulsive language. He set himself apart from those outward acts and words that were disobedient to God. And you remember, God had owned him as one of his own. He had given him power to cast out demons, and he had owned him by the personal love that Jesus gave to him. And yet dear ones, although outwardly Peter was a Christian, yet inwardly there rankled in his heart a personal rebellion against God. There rankled deep down within Peter a personal rebellion against God which finally broke out and laid waste, even the victory that existed in his outward Christian life, in a courtyard in about 29 AD. Now Peter was a Christian, but there was this rebellion within him which eventually broke out. Dear ones, some would say, “Well, can you remain a Christian without going on to the fullness of the Spirit; without allowing God to make your spirit holy?” I don’t think you can. I don’t think you can hold the stuff down long enough. I don’t think you can hold anger down long enough, dear ones. If there is some rebellion rankling there, I think that has to be dealt with. Otherwise it eventually breaks out in open sin, and you lose even your justification. You lose even your salvation state. Now Peter was in this kind of position, and I think many Christians are like him. Many of us are outwardly Christians, but inwardly we feel a periodic desire to return to our old ways. We feel a propensity for sinning. We feel an inclination at times to disobey God. Now dear ones, here is the glorious message. One of the old holiness preachers said it, “Salvation at its lowest is salvation from sin. Salvation at its highest is salvation from the inclination to sin.” Now dear ones, that’s why you can be a victorious Christian, not because you’re holding all this stuff down better than everybody else, or because you’ve a stronger will than everybody else, but because the Holy Spirit has dealt with all that stuff. In other words, God can save us from even this propensity to sin. Yes, we need to continue to be under the Holy Spirit. We need to continue to be trusting him. There is no place for that self assurance that says, “I cannot sin.” But “there is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God,” where you can be cleansed from even that inclination to sin. Now you can see it if you look at Peter. Like Peter, many of us find it easy to follow Jesus at the beginning. It’s such a message of life to us that we desire to go out after him, and we’re anxious to obey his words as Peter was. But gradually like Peter, we sense a little inner resistance, growing inside us, to God’s will, or to the way Jesus is leading us, just a little inner desire to control our surrender to God. We look around at everybody else and we say, “Well, they aren’t surrendering everything. They’re getting on with their lives and their jobs. Well why don’t I? Why should I go into this full surrender? Why should I lay myself flat out to be walked over?” And there grows within many Christians a little of this inner resistance to God’s will, a slight desire just to control our own surrender to his will, and especially, when we see that the way he’s leading us is going to lead us to defeat in the world’s eyes; to failure in the word’s eyes; to failure in our careers, our professional lives, our financial success, or our family lives: apparent failure. And we tend to stop back at that moment and hesitate. And then eventually like old Peter, God allows us to come into some pressure situation. And you know that when an orange is squeezed what is in it comes out, or when you squeeze a sponge that is damp, the water that is in it comes out. And God allows us to come into some pressure situation which calls for an immediate response, or an unpremeditated reaction, and before we know it what is in there of inner resistance to God’s will, what is in there of our assertion of ourselves, comes out in some angry word or some irritable conversation. And God, lest we begin to think this is just a temporary slip, God deals with us like Peter: he allows us to repeat this outward rebellion a second time, and a third time until the cock crows, and then a fourth time, and then a fifth time until, like Peter we say, “I do not know the man.” And then we cry like Paul, “The good that I would I do not do and the evil that I do not want, that’s the very thing I do. Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” And it’s the testimony of Paul in Romans, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” It is possible to be delivered from that inner rebellion against God, dear ones. It is possible to be delivered through the power of the Holy Spirit. God wants us to be holy in our spirits. He doesn’t want you only to look good on the outside, and to look happy, but to ‘be’ happy on the inside. He doesn’t want you only to look patient, he wants you to feel patient. He doesn’t want a surging rebellion inside your heart, because that is half victory and half defeat. And, as with Peter, you can have the complete victory. You remember, it came with him: the wee girl standing in the courtyard? He wouldn’t even confess to her that he was one of the disciples. And yet, would you like to look at Acts 2:23, at the change that was wrought in him? You probably know it already and have heard it often. Peter, who was afraid for his own sake and for his own reputation to confess that he was one of the followers of Jesus to the little maid in the courtyard, this Peter got up in front of the people who had murdered Jesus, and he said, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” And the change that had been wrought in Peter was described later on in Acts 15:9 by him when he said, “On that day, the Holy Spirit cleansed our hearts by faith.” And it is God’s will for us this morning that we should have our spirits cleansed by the Holy Spirit. Not only that we should be holy in outward life, but we should be holy in heart. Not only that we should be holy in our acts and our words, but that we should be holy in our attitudes, and our motives, and our inclinations, and our desires, so that there should be pure, clear water of life, flowing right from the very part of our heart, from the very ground of our heart. And it is God’s plan that we should all experience that. And dear ones we need to go onto it if we’re going to remain even saints. I think the first task for us to do is to allow the Holy Spirit to show us what is down there. And it might help just to look at what was in Peter’s heart in the courtyard. And you, allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to you, dear ones, and to reveal to me, if any of this is in our hearts. And it might be good just to note it down and check it over for yourself in prayer. First of all, I think you can see there was a resistance to God’s will in Peter’s heart. There was something within him that rose up to question God’s wisdom when he saw Jesus refusing to defend himself. He just sensed a resistance to the apparent will of God in this situation. There was just that slight feeling within him, that slight desire to do what Eve did in the Garden of Eden, to question, “Hath God said you shall not eat of all the trees of the garden?” Just a little resistance to God’s will. Dear ones, that’s the way it often starts. The vacation comes and you feel, “Well, a little vacation from all that Bible study would not do too much harm, and a little cutting down of the prayer time would not affect my relationship with God too much.” Just a slight resistance to God’s will. And that’s part of the expression of this old self-centered spirit. You can see too, in Peter, that there was independence within, because he certainly had some independent thought in his mind when he reckoned that there was perhaps a better way for Jesus to bring in the kingdom than this. This was what he was rebelling against. He could not stand the thought of Jesus going in there, allowing himself to be arrested, and allowing himself to be crucified. Obviously because he thought there was an alternative way. And dear ones, in many Christians in these days, there is this feeling within them, “Surely God could do it some other way in my life.” And we want to plane away our cross; we want to just cut it down a little. “Surely Jesus just doesn’t want us to go this way.’ And we feel, “There must be some other way by which we could achieve the same thing for God.” There’s just a slight independence within us of God. You can see in Peter too there was a desire to save himself. There was. Obviously, he was not anxious to confess to this little maid that he was one of the disciples. And again, and again in our Christian lives I think many of us have felt this desire, a slight desire to just save ourselves, to ease up a little, not to pour out ourselves completely and fully, but to save ourselves. Even dear ones, don’t you think we have a desire to save ourselves for the next meeting? We have a desire to save ourselves for the next meeting either as preachers or as people. We have a desire not to give everything out. Dear ones, you find when you give everything out then he fills it all up again. But we have this desire to save ourselves a little, just to pull back. Someone comes to us for personal conversation and we feel, “Well we have all that ahead of us this evening.” Even in personal witness, don’t we feel this? “We have all this work to do and we must save ourselves for it.” That’s the old self saying, “You must save yourself. You must take the responsibility on yourself to provide energy for the future.” Dear ones, this was part of Peter’s trouble. This was part of the rebellion of the Spirit against God. You can see also that he was concerned with the reputation and the status. He really was concerned with what the people in that courtyard thought of him. He didn’t want them to think that he was one of the followers, the stupid followers of this Galilean who was giving himself up without a fight. He was concerned about his reputation and his status. Are you? It seems that we’re so bound up in this. Are you, dear ones? Are you still concerned with what people think of you? Do you see that even if you’re trying to keep up a Christian witness though you don’t feel like a Christian within, that’s exactly the grip that the devil has on you? It’s because you want to keep up that reputation with your dear ones. And Satan twists us around in this. He says, “Ah but it’s for the best reason. You don’t want them to lose their faith just because you confess your present state.” But you see, it’s when we’re honest that God is able to work in their hearts. So, I’d just ask you, “Are you concerned still with your own reputation and your status among people? Are you?” If you are dear ones, it shows that the old self is still very much alive, that your spirit is still not sanctified wholly by God. And do you see again, what I’m saying is not that you’re bad because of that, not that you’re bad, but because, if you don’t allow God to deal with that, it will still break out in open sin, and you’ll lose even your salvation? And so it’s vital to let him deal with that. You see, all these things show like an iceberg, one tenth above the surface of the water and below is nine tenths of brittle, solid ice. And that’s what God has to thaw through his Holy Spirit. It’s not just this little pinnacle up here. We’re looking at the little pinnacles, but underneath every one of these attitudes is a whole self that is antagonistic to God, and really doesn’t want what he wants, even though we think it does. You can see in Peter that there was a concern with his future. He really felt that he had to provide for the future. If this man was going down to the cross, well, he had still his life to live. And there was a concern in him for his future. And I think this is another mark of the old self life, when we’re still concerned about the future. Young men and women, I destroyed anything that God would be able to do in me during the early years of my ministry, because I was so anxious for the future to go a certain way. Really! And you know, it’s very tricky wanting to be like John Wesley, isn’t it? You’re never sure whether it’s really to have the ‘purity’ of John Wesley or whether it’s to have the ‘success’ of John Wesley. And I think we need to be very careful at this stage in our lives what our attitude to the future is. Have we really handed it into God’s hands, or are we saying, “We put it in your hands Father, as long as it turns out this way, and as long as it turns out in a satisfactory way that makes full use of all my ‘great talents’.”? And I think when we put that condition on it, we’re really still concerned with the future. I think that’s a mark of the old self, when we’re still concerned with the future. And that is something that God can cleanse from us. I think you can see from Peter that he felt a concern that his own rights had to be defended and insisted on. I mean, he had to just stand up for himself. Jesus was prepared to be trampled over, he was certainly not. And he felt he had to defend his own rights and to stand up for himself, “No, I’m not one of those men. No, you can’t treat me as you treat him.” And I think there’s a strong feeling in many of us that we’re not prepared to be baptized into Jesus’ death. We’re not prepared to go down an ignominious Calvary road like him. We’re not prepared to be treated as if we were nothing, as if we were the refuse under men’s feet. We’re not prepared — you know how we say it, “We’re not prepared to be a door mat.” Well dear ones, it’s strange, but when you’re ready to ‘be’ a door mat for God, then he stands up in his own dignity inside you, and people see his dignity and not your false self-assertiveness. Well, Peter had a feeling that he ought to defend his own rights. And you can see of course, that he had his own way of doing things. He already showed that when he slashed the ear off the servant, you remember. Peter had his own way of doing things. And so often Christians feel a desire to do things they’re own way. We can always think of a better way to do it than God can. In other words, inside Peter there was this desire to assert himself and defend himself. Now this was Peter, the converted Christian, the saint at the level of the acts and words, but whenever he came into a pressure situation, what was inside in his spirit came out in the acts and words. And he denied his Lord. And it is the same with us, dear ones. Now what does the Bible say? Well the Bible says that all these tendencies of ours come from the ‘old self’. That’s the thing deep down within us, the ‘real us’. And the ‘old self’ is the one that wants to assert itself and defend itself. The ‘old self’ is the spirit that produces envy, and jealousy, and anger. The ‘old self’ is what wants to be praised by other people, and feels let down when we don’t receive the credit that’s due to us. The ‘old self’ is the thing that wants to exhibit its cleverness, or wants to exhibit how well it can pray or how well it can preach. And the Bible says that the ‘old self’, that self-concern — it’s not the metaphysical self, dear ones. It’s not that God wants to whip out your personality, but it’s that self-centeredness. It’s that self-regard. It’s that self-concern. It’s that self-love. It’s that desire to refer everything that happens around us to ourselves and how it affects ‘me’. It’s that ‘old self’ that is the trouble. And really, you can’t train it up. It needs to be sanctified. It needs really to be sanctified. And the conditions for allowing God to sanctify it are the same as in the new birth. You must separate yourself from the ‘old self’, and you must allow God to crucify it on the cross of Jesus. So there are two sides of it you see. You need to come to a place where you’re ‘really’ willing to ‘die to self’, where you’re ‘really’ willing to die to your own rights, to die to your concern for the future, to die for your concern for your reputation and your status, to die to your desire to have your own way, to die to your desire even to question God’s will, to die to your desire to be angry, to die to your desire to assert your own dignity and your own self-assertiveness and to defend yourself. You need to be ready to die to those things. Now you cannot die to them yourself. But you need to be willing to separate yourself from them. And then you need to come to the place where you see that it is true in Romans 6:6, that Jesus did not only bear your sins to the cross, but he bore ‘you’ to the cross. And he bore that ‘old self’ and nailed it there. And just as your sins can be removed from your life in the outward life, so this sin, this independence within, can be cleansed from your spirit by the Holy Spirit. See, the Holy Spirit is able to take of the things of Jesus and give them to us. Now whatever Jesus has wrought on the cross, we are able to experience in our lives. Now Jesus had your old self crucified with him on the cross, so you’re able to experience that by the working of God’s Holy Spirit in you. But the two sides are necessary. You have to be willing to be separated from self and to bear the results of that. And then you have to look to God and trust him through the Holy Spirit to crucify that old self on the cross, and to fill the vacuum left by that with his Holy Spirit. And his Holy Spirit desires only to love him with all its hearts, and soul, and strength, and mind. And that Holy Spirit is able to be yours. Well dear ones, have you experienced saintliness at that level? Or do you still know what anger is? Do you still know what envy is? Do you still know what a niggling jealousy is? Do you still know what irritability is in the home, though you hold it down? Do you still know what proud ambition is, though you keep it covered up with your surface modesty? Do you still know what these things are in your heart? If you do, God wants you to be holy in there as well. He wants you to be set apart utterly from yourself and from self’s desires and be set apart, holy to him. Dear ones, God is able to do this for you. He is able to do this, really. He is able to do this in your heart and your life. He is able to do it in your spirit. The conditions are the same: Are you willing to die to self? Are you willing to set yourself apart? And are you willing to allow him to fill you with his Holy Spirit, which will produce holy desires in you? Well I pray that during these days you’ll enter into this great victory inside. I think this is the second way in which we’re asked to be holy, and asked to be saints in our spirits. Amen.

Called to be Saints 3 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill We’ve been talking about what is meant “to be a saint.” And you remember we took that from the verse in Romans 1:7 where Paul looks at all the members of the church and he addresses his letter to them and says, “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.” And so we’ve been saying that you’re called to be a saint. We then took that verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, where it mentions that God will sanctify you holy and preserve you blameless in soul, spirit, and body until the coming of the Lord Jesus and we said that a person was called to be a saint in those three parts of his life. Someone mentioned to me this morning that really, all those three parts become one in the Spirit. But we are called upon to be holy in each one of those parts of our personalities. You remember that you are holy by two factors in your life. First of all, you’re holy by what God does. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly.” That’s God making you holy, that’s God filling you with his own holiness. And then there’s that sense in Leviticus 20:7 where you consecrate yourselves. There’s a human way in which we make ourselves holy by setting ourselves apart. We turned to a verse like 1 John 1:5-6 and applied this to the body; we’re called to be holy in body. That is, in the outward acts of the body and in the outward words of the lips of the body, we’re called to be holy. 1 John 1:5-6, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth.” And so we said that it is necessary for us to separate ourselves from all darkness in our outward acts and words. And I don’t want to bore you with it, but I do think we’ve become so used to the thing that it’s worth saying it again. We need to separate ourselves from darkness in the sarcastic words we speak, in the lying words we speak. We need to separate ourselves from the angry and irritable actions that are done and performed to hurt other dear ones. We need to separate ourselves from those things and that’s what it means when you come to be converted; you must separate yourselves from the outward things that God shows you are wrong in your life. And then the second part is true, that God himself will do something and it’s in 1 John 1:7-9, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.” When does the blood of Jesus cleanse us from all sin — when we walk in the light as he is in the light. That is, when we have done with these things then the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins. In other words, God cannot make us holy by the application of his own son’s blood until we ourselves have separated ourselves from the things that make us unholy. So you have to get rid of lies before God can fill you with truth. You have to get rid of unkindness before God can fill you with loving words. And I think it’s necessary to see the human and divine even at the level of conversion, and you see it says, “IF we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” But if we confess our sins, if we admit that these things are our sins, “He is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And we said therefore that at the level of conversion a man separates himself from the acts and words that God shows him are wrong, and he walks in the light that God has given him and because of that the blood of Jesus cleanses him from all the condemnation that he’s built on his conscience. Do you see you aren’t cleansed from the sense of guilt by turning from the sin? Do you see that? Because that leads you into real problems if you ever fall into a sin, then you can’t plead the blood of Jesus, you can only plead your own ability to turn from it. So you aren’t cleansed because you turn, you turn and then the blood of Jesus is offered to God on your behalf and it’s the blood, its God being pleased with the blood that enables him to forgive you and to make you holy in your acts and words. You see, that’s different dear ones. You turn from the things but it isn’t the strength of your turning, otherwise you’re still in the same position as a moral rearmament person because your righteousness depends on your turning from those things. But the truth is if you don’t turn from them the blood will not be presented to God on your behalf. But it’s the blood that stands on your behalf. So when Satan attacks you and charges you with falling, then you turn from the falling and say, “Satan, it’s not even my turning from the falling that equips me before my Father, but the blood pleases my Father. My Father looks at the blood and he says, ‘I’ll accept you because of the blood, the outpoured life of my son Jesus.’” And that’s how you answer the accuser of the brethren. You don’t argue with him. You don’t say, “Well, you’re right I did do that.” But you turn immediately from it. I don’t want to press this too far, but that’s why I don’t see any reason for arguing if you’re in fellowship or out of fellowship. Stop arguing. You’re giving the devil a chance when you start trying to justify yourself and prove you’re still in grace. Don’t bother about the technical terms, they’re given to our finite minds by the infinite God to try and give us some truth about himself, but we can’t argue on the basis of intellect. So we turn from those things whether I say it’s a sin or whether God says it’s a sin, we get rid of it. We turn from it and we say, “The blood is presented to you Father.” Don’t argue with Satan, you see, otherwise you end up getting into a position where even the blood cannot deliver you. So dear ones, I think that what we believe makes us a saint at the level of conversion. That’s where the power comes to overcome the acts and words that are wrong in the future in our converted lives. We went further than that yesterday. We said that many of us have walked in this kind of victory in our outward acts and words, but we’ve often felt we’d love to tell that fellow where to get off. We’ve held back on it, we have never spoken the words, but we felt a great desire to speak the words and at times it was very difficult to restrain ourselves from speaking them. We did not speak in angry words, but we felt the anger rising up within and we felt a strong inclination to sin. We were in the same position as Paul described in Galatians 5:17 where we found that even as converted men and women who have victory over our outward acts and words, yet it was still true, as Paul says in verse 17, “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.” And it is necessary to say that the flesh is not “soma” and “sarx” in that context stands for the strong independent spirit of the man, not just the sexual appetites, you see. I think we’re so preoccupied with that subject because of the prince of this world, that we tend to again, and again, interpret “flesh” as some sexual sin. “Sarx” in the New Testament stands for the strong independent spirit of the man that wants to be as religious as he can without giving up his complete independence. The Bible says that even in a converted man he feels the desires of the flesh fighting against the spirit. So, I want to be patient with someone but the anger rises up within, or I want to be kind with someone but the irritability is there. I want to love God with all my heart, and soul, and strength and mind, but the love is not pouring out of that fountain within. It’s a love of self that is aborting that. Somebody says something to me and I want to love them, and I want to return good for evil, and I want to turn the other cheek but I feel something rising up within me that does not seem to be of myself; it is of the flesh. It is of the old self. It is of that old attitude to God of rebellion that we have come to have inside us even though we’re victorious outwardly. And you see what that produces in Galatians 5:19, “Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity,” impurity in your thoughts and I think many of us have had this. It came home to me in a new way in the Old Testament where it says, “Be not a lifter upper of the eyes.” And I think the young men will know what I mean, that there is that tendency to lift up the eyes, and there’s an impurity in the heart. You may even stop the eyes lifting but there is that desire in the heart, there is that impurity in the heart and that’s a work of the flesh. That means that you’re not saintly at the level of your spirit and God has called us to be. You can see it goes on “licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like.” Now the devil wants you to look at idolatry, and immorality, and sorcery and he wants you to avoid looking at strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, party spirit, dissention, and envy. I think we need to face envy and jealousy and those things and see that if you’re like that those are the things that you need to be prepared to turn from. That does not make you sanctified. A lot of people come up to the altar and say, “Father, I’m ready to die to self.” And then they say, “Thank you for sanctifying me.” You have sanctified yourself up to that moment. That is, you have set yourself apart from those things. You’ve said, “Father, I know where anger got me at home, it got me my own way. Now Father, I’m prepared to do without my own way. Father, I know anger prevented me being used as a doormat at work. I know I rose up and stood on my dignity and opposed them and asserted myself. Now Father, I’m ready to be used as a doormat for you.” Now, being ready to die to self is just the human side in sanctification. The divine side is where God through the Holy Spirit applies the cross to you and actually cleanses out the old self by the Holy Spirit. He displaces the old self spirit with the Holy Spirit and that’s the divine side in sanctification. Then when you’re ready to set yourself apart from anger and its consequences he fills you with these Galatians 5:22, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.” In other words, when you come to that blessed place, God pours his love into your heart. Now, you can take love for instance, and you can see that you love your dear ones with a human love. You love them either, if it’s your wife, with an “eros” love, or you might love your brothers or sisters with a “philia” love in Greek. And for both of those, “philia”, as Philadelphia and love of the brothers, it’s the love that you might have for someone who is interested in the same things as you. It’s the love of a man for a man, a real friendship and interest because you like this person and he talks about the same things as you, you have something in common. It’s still a slightly selfish love. Even “eros”, though perhaps in a real marriage it’s a little less selfish, yet it’s still you love the dear one because you need her and because she provides something that you need and it’s still basically a selfish love because when she stops producing what you need then that love tends to die down. Now, when you set yourself aside from those two loves which are both human love, then the Holy Spirit fills you with the divine love, which is “agape,” which loves for nothing, loves for no reason, just loves because it’s pouring out of your heart because it’s put there by the Holy Spirit who sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God. So you can see there’s a real sense in which even in sanctification you have to set yourself apart from the good things in your life, the things that you think are good. You have to set yourself apart and say, “There is no good thing in me Father.” And then when you’re ready for that, then the Holy Spirit is ready to come in and fill you with the things of God within so that you’re safe from the inclination to sin. And as long as you trust and obey the Holy Spirit you can walk in that inner victory without falling as long as you breathe the Holy Spirit in and breathe him back up to God in praise and obedience. Now, we have come up to that point, and we have seen therefore that in the Christian life there are two vital stages. There is the stage described in John 3:3 and this will nail it home to our hearts plainly once more. John 3:3, there is that stage in the Christian life, “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” At conversion you’re born by the Holy Spirit coming in and making you part of the family of God. There’s a real new birth, a birth of the begotten life of God in your spirit. But there’s another spirit warring with that begotten life; there’s the spirit of the old self. So the second stage is described in Romans 6:3-4. So first of all there’s the birth when you’re converted, and then, sanctification. There is this, in many ways, a more real experience for many dear ones. Romans 6:3-4, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” And so in the Christian life at the level of the body, the outward acts and words, there’s a coming to life where God gives you victory over those. Then there’s a real sense in which there’s a coming to the death of self where through the influence of the cross upon you, God gives you victory over even the inclination to sin. He cleanses the attitudes and the motives of your heart. Now, I think you can see it plainly because the Bible makes it plain. So it’s not enough to sing up here (on stage) because you’ve given your life to Jesus, but you must sing up here for his glory, not for your own glory. So you can see that those are two effects of Christ’s death. The blood of Jesus is to be presented to God so that we feel no more guilt upon our conscience for our sins within us. But the cross of Christ is to be applied to our own hearts and spirits so that we are freed from the power of sin, in the singular, within. There is a clear distinction dear ones and God calls us to be holy in our bodies, in our outward acts and words, and in our spirits in our attitudes, and motives, and inclinations. And God takes it further. Thank God that he asks us to go further. Let’s look at the third part of us that needs to be sanctified by God and that needs to be made holy. The third step in saintliness and it really concerns the positive side of saintliness. Some people think you mustn’t preach the gospel like that because if you’re saved from sins, and you’re saved from the inclination of sin, what have you left? What have you left to do? And they say, “We must batter against this old cancer within us day, after day because that’s the fight of faith and if you take that away, if the disease could ever be cleansed by the Holy Spirit then what have we left to do?” And of course that is all concerned with the negative side. That is taking away the image of the old Adam. But there is all the growing into the fullness of the stature of Christ that takes place after that. And there’ll be no growth in health until cancer is removed. So many of us are spending all our time getting rid of sins and sin, and have no time to walk on into the fullness of the stature of Christ. So as there was decay into sinfulness, so there was a development in the Christ-likeness and this third stage refers to this side. You can see it in Hebrews 12:1-2. There the emphasis is that there is no positive moving forward until you have laid aside what is negative in your life, you have laid aside the sins and the sin. In Hebrew 12:1-2, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight,” every one of the sins and acts and words and sin itself, the desire to be independent of God and have our own way which clings so closely. And then when we have laid aside all those, “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” In other words, you can only move forward when you have entered into both the experience of the blood of Jesus for your sins and the cross of Christ for your old self, only then are we able to move into the fullness of the stature of Jesus. How do we do it? You remember; the body sanctified, the spirit sanctified, and then the soul sanctified. And we’ll pursue this tomorrow in more detail, the soul consists of among other things, the mind. Now it does consist of other things besides the mind, but it does consist of the mind and the moving into the fullness of the stature of Christ refers, for one thing, to the sanctification of our own minds. In other words, our minds have to be renewed in the image of Jesus. Even when we’ve had the outward acts and words dealt with, even when we’ve had the inward sin dealt with, our minds need to be renewed in the image of Jesus. Now do be patient with me and listen to God’s Spirit as he explains this to us, because many dear ones have failed at this point. They are sanctified and petrified and they are sealed, and dressed, and ready to go to heaven. They’re waiting for the day when he will come and take them to him and there is no glorious moving on, and there is no yearning for the fullness of Jesus, because they do not see that their minds have not yet been renewed in his image; their mind is still in the old image of Adam. So they have all this power within them to do mighty things for God, but their minds have not been renewed, their minds are running in the old ruts that they once were in. We need to have our minds renewed and you can see the Bible makes this distinction if you look at Colossians 2:20 where we see the emphasis on the death at the level of the spirit, the death of the old self, “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations.” So there it’s the death and it’s emphasized again in the next chapter in 3:3, “For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” But do you see that it doesn’t stop there? It goes on in verse 5, and this is where many of us fail, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.” Not kill it, not strangle it, but put it to the death that God has already wrought in you through the Holy Spirit. It’s not a struggling against immorality, it’s not that old struggle against immorality that you had at the converted stage, but it’s a yielding to the death that God has already wrought in the old self. It’s a yielding to that death of immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. And then see the positive side of the renewing of the mind in verse 12, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you almost must forgive.” In other words, the Bible doesn’t say, “Your old self has died, so then you’re set. You’re ready for a victorious growing in Jesus.” No, the Bible says then your mind has to start being renewed in the image that God wants you to enter into. So he says these are some of the things your mind has to start looking to. It has to start looking to a development in compassion, not just that old ‘hail fellow well met’ kind of love or concern such as “We’re glad to see you brother,” but your mind must begin to see the kind of tender, kindly compassion that Jesus wants you to have in it. In other words, your mind must begin to grasp a whole new set of values. Dear ones, it’s no use us entering into the virtues the Greek’s praised, do you see that? The Greek’s believed in the good life and they praised virtue and temperance and honesty and integrity. But we are not called to enter into the highest virtues that the pagan philosophers have set before us. We’re called to realize the tender Christlike virtues that he wants to form in us and that means our mind has to start being renewed in those virtues. There’s no point in us taking the Carnegie course “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” and say, “Now Lord Jesus, you’ve brought this death in us so that these virtues will become real in us.” Those are no use, nor are the virtues of Socrates or of Plato, nor are the virtues of the power of positive thinking, but the virtues are virtues that Jesus will reveal to you in your mind that you particularly need. That’s one sense in which we need to have our minds renewed. Would you like to look more carefully at several verses that emphasize the renewing of the mind? Colossians 3:2-3, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” But as Brother Murdock said, then your mind has to begin to be used. Now, I’m with you, the liberals preach the renewal of the mind without the renewal of the heart and I agree that most of our churches today are filled with ethical homilies. We’re all trying to renew each other’s minds, aren’t we? We’re all saying love each other, and be kind to each other, and you must be like Jesus. Now I agree with you that there’s no point in renewing a dear one’s mind unless their own heart has been renewed, and their own spirit has been renewed. Until that happens they won’t be able to follow after the renewing of the mind. So renewing of the mind is of no use unless the heart has been renewed, unless God has planted in you a new heart. But after he has, through the death of self, then you have to renew your mind. You have to start setting your mind on things that are above not on things that are on earth. You have to start saying, “Holy Spirit, what is the image of Jesus that you want me to enter into particularly in my life? Show me what you want me to enter into of Jesus.” Now a lot of us get lazy in this, we don’t bother with it. We say we’ll read all the books and we’ll learn what they say we’ve got to enter into. Now, I think you should read the books but then you should ask the Holy Spirit, “Holy Spirit, what is the next step in the beauty of Jesus that you want me to enter into?” And when the mind grasps it, then the spirit can begin to realize it in our hearts, and in our lives, and in our bodies. But the mind has to be renewed. This is emphasized again in Romans 8:5-6; that it’s not enough to have the hearts cleansed and that we end up in a sanctified and petrified state if we only have the heart cleansed. Romans 8:5-6, “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. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” And then in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Now many dear ones have experienced a real cleansing of the heart through the Holy Spirit but they have not begun to allow themselves to be transformed by the renewal of their minds. They have continued to look after the things that everyone else was looking after in this world and they have gone back to their jobs, and they have begun to seek the same things that their friends at work seek. They have never allowed their mind to be renewed, which is a radical renewal, dear ones; the mind of Jesus is utterly different from the mind of this world and we need to live in that mind of Jesus. You see that in Philippians 2:5 and this is really how we have our mind renewed. Philippians 2:5, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” or, “Have this mind in you which you have in Christ Jesus.” In other words, we’re called to receive through the Holy Spirit the mind of Christ. When the Holy Spirit cleanses your heart you’ve only started and you say, “Holy Spirit, the Bible says you will take of the things of Jesus and impart them to us. Impart to me miraculously today the mind of Jesus so that I can know what he wants me to enter into.” We must not then be conformed to the mind of this world and what does that mean? Let’s look at the mind of this world. Among some people it runs this way, you’ve got a good education, you’re sort of middle class, and you’ve had a high school education and you’re graduated, and you could even go to college if you want. You’re certainly a lot better off than your parents were who went through the depression so the mind of this world says; “Now you want to capitalize on this. You start off at a higher level than your parents so you ought to rise much higher than them. Now that certainly means you ought to have a better house than they have, and you certainly ought to be better off as far as life insurance goes. And you certainly ought to be able to send your children to a good school, and to provide money for their education which your parents couldn’t do for you.” And the mind of this world says, “You ought to capitalize on the advantages that you have.” So the mind of this world speaks to those of us even in Bethany (Fellowship) and it says, “Now, look at what God has done in this place. Look at the work we have in Brazil. This is pretty good, all we need to do is to hold this work and maybe extend it slightly. But we ought to capitalize on the advantages we have and we ought to really in a sense, lean on those advantages and depend on them. And there’s no reason why Bethany should not evolve gradually into a mighty mission field, we just keep working on what we’ve got.” In other words, the mind of the flesh is always thinking in terms of what we, with our human ability, can do with what we’ve been given. Now, will you look at the mind of Christ on that in Philippians 2:5, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,” though he had a good education, though he was born in a middle class background, though he was born into Bethany Fellowship with all its advantages, “Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” And that is Jesus’ mind; though he had all things in the universe, he threw them all away and did not try to gain advantage for himself through those things, but he humbled himself and became nothing and said, “God, if you want to exalt me, you exalt me.” Ah dear ones, would you stop saying “I have this talent and that talent.” Would you stop saying “We have this advantage and that advantage and now all we have to do is work on that?” It’s useless, those things are no use. Those things God cannot use. He wants us to have the mind of Jesus, to be prepared to cast away all that mind of the world that says you want to capitalize on what you’ve got. Dear ones, the world is dying because so many of us are sitting in our homes and having our minds conformed to the image of this world. We’re giving money to the missions and you know we’re doing better than everybody else, except we’re doing far below what Jesus himself did. Our mind is being conformed to the members of our church, or our mind is being conformed by the devil to the image of the liberal churches. We’re looking at everybody else and saying, “Look what they give and look what we give. We give so much more.” Jesus wants us to receive his mind, ready to give everything, ready to begin to live on only the essentials. John Wesley lived on 28 pounds the first year. He got 56 pounds the second year so he still lived on 28 pounds. Then the third year he got 120 pounds and he still lived on 28 pounds. And then eventually 1,000 pounds came in through his book publishing and he still lived on 28 pounds and died with four silver spoons and felt he shouldn’t have died with those four. Do you see that the mind of Christ is different from the mind of this world and it’s acquired after we’ve allowed the spirit and the body to be sanctified and made holy? It requires us to walk on and constantly every day ask the Holy Spirit to give us the mind of Jesus in everything, including in Bethany Fellowship. Dear ones, if Bethany – and I love you, you’re great, and I think God is rarely doing any other work in any other place like this, but if we keep going at the speed we’re going, still millions and millions will go to hell. In other words, we need a mighty miracle by God and that miracle only comes when dear ones are renewed in the mind of Christ. Here is the mind of Christ, and I ask you to be patient as I read it and I’ll try to read it as expressively as an English teacher is supposed to read. You know the story far better than I do. C. T. Studd returned to captain Cambridge cricket in his last year, 1883. “Once again he was reckoned the leading all-around player in England. The cricketing annual saying, ‘Mr. C. T. Studd for the second year in succession must be accorded the premier position as all around cricketer and some years have elapsed since the post has been filled by a player so excellent in all the three departments of the game. His batting especially has been at the highest class.’” And then (Norman) Grubb goes on and says, “His Cambridge career has been described as one long blaze of cricketing glory. In his last year he topped both batting and bowling averages. Indeed through the previous half century of university cricket only four batsmen had had a better batting average and only four a better bowler, a truly amazing record of all around brilliancy. He also won the Cambridge single rackets match and represented Cambridge against Oxford. He was beaten by Leslie. He took his BA degree and came down from Cambridge in 1884.” He was not only born middleclass, but really top class in England, and had all that an Englishman born into that class was given. And then the next step, “But as he rose to prominence in the cricket world and especially while serving with the test team in Australia there were two old ladies who set themselves to pray that he would be brought back to God. The answer came suddenly; his brother to whom he was especially attached was thought to be dying. CT was constantly at his bedside and while sitting there watching while he hovered between life and death these thoughts came welling up in his mind, ‘Now what is all the popularity of the world worth to George? What is all the fame and flattery worth? What is it worth to possess all the riches of the world when a man comes face-to-face with eternity?’ And a voice came to answer, ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ All those things he said, had become as nothing to my brother. He only cared about the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ and God taught me the same lesson. In his love and goodness he restored my brother to health and as soon as I could get away I went to hear Mr. Moody. There the Lord met me again and restored to me the joy of salvation. Still further and what was better than all, he set me to work for him and I began to try and persuade my friends to read the gospel and to speak to them individually about their souls. I cannot tell you what joy it gave me to bring the first soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have tasted almost all the pleasures that this world can give. I do not suppose there is one that I have not experienced but I can tell you that those pleasures were as nothing compared to the joy that the saving of that one soul gave me.” And C.T. Studd entered into the sanctification of his body, he was converted and then through God’s grace he went further. He learned of a woman who had had great sorrow and pain in her life and suddenly something happened to transform her so that she was filled with joy even through the most tragic circumstances in her family. And C. T. Studd heard about it and he began to seek this same blessing. He said, “We began looking at the Bible to see if God had promised such a blessing as this.” And then he said, “As soon as I found out that the price of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus was my complete sanctification even in my spirit, as soon as I found this out I went down on my knees and gave myself up to God and the words of the consecration hymn ‘Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.’ I found the next step was to have simple childlike faith to believe what I had committed to God he was also willing to take and keep and knew I had committed in my soul to His keeping and he was able to keep that. How much more was he able to keep me and what belonged to me in this world? I realized my life was to be one of simple childlike faith and that my part was to trust, not to do. I was to trust in him and he would work in me to do his good pleasure. From that time my life has been different and he has given me that peace, that passive understanding and the joy which is unspeakable. It was not very long before God led me to go to China.” He said he had never thought of the missions there, he had never thought of even leaving England and immediately he began to think of this, the battle for the world to conform his mind to their image began. In other words, after he had entered into the holiness of heart experience he began to find that struggle that all of us feel in allowing our minds to be conformed to the image of Jesus instead of to be conformed to the image of this world. “I had never thought of going out of the country before and I had felt that England was big enough for me. But now my mind seemed constantly to run in the direction of the Lord’s work abroad. Then came the big test, and his whole family started to point out to him what good he could do here in England. And they began to tell him, “If you would go through the Universities, if you would go around England all your life with your influence as a cricketer, with your influence as a scholar, you could be a mighty witness for Jesus here in England. You could capitalize on the natural advantages that God has given you.” And it’s strange, but God will not let us do that, will he? He will not let us capitalize on those natural abilities. It’s only when we have really cast those before him and died to those and say, “Father, I don’t care if you ever use them they’re of the flesh,” that God is able really to renew our minds. And of course, he prayed and he found that God was telling him that he was to go to China. He said, “Many said he was making a huge mistake to go and bury himself in the interior of China. They pointed out the influence he would have with the young men of England, but he himself knew that he must go to China.” And then he began to humble himself and to follow out what this mind of Christ told him to do and he took the form of a servant. You can see it in these words, “May 26th he wrote to his brother at Eaton, ‘We were overrun with rats who during the night would take away our socks, nibbling off our legging tapes, taking away our blotting paper and putting them at the bottom of the boat in their nest.” Who –this cricketer — this BA from Cambridge? “They caused us a good deal of annoyance so we thought of setting traps for them but we decided not to do so but simply to ask the Lord to rid us of the grievance. Since that time we have had no further trouble. I do not say don’t play games or cricket,” he says to his brother, “By all means play and enjoy them, giving thanks to Jesus for them. Only take care that games do not become an idol to you as they did to me. What good will it do anybody in the next world to have been even the best player there ever has been? And then think of that and winning souls for Jesus.” And then came the great moment when he looked at his fortune which was $29,000 pounds. He inherited a fortune of $29,000 pounds, that’s about $90,000. One would be tempted to say, “Those are natural resources which God has given me which need to be used for my missionary work here in China.” And do you see how different is the mind of Christ? That’s why dear ones I ask you: call out to the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you and to renew you in it, because then he began signing away all of his $29,000 pounds until he was left in China with his one suit of Chinese clothes and nothing. What did God do with this man who allowed his mind to be renewed according to God’s values? Well it says in the back of the book, “The total staff of fields at this time of the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, the total number of fields and home based numbers is 850. There is work in Africa, the Canary Islands, Portuguese Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Cashmere, Venezuela, Uruguay, Pakistan and so on, twentyfive other countries.” He would have trouble getting to all those countries himself with his natural resources. That’s why God wants you to be renewed in your mind about your natural resources. Dear ones, there are three thousand million in the world and two thousand million have not heard of Jesus. This morning at one o’clock I committed my mother into Jesus’ hands and at three o’clock in Ireland she died. Now, she was ready to die and so that’s why I smile, and that’s why I have joy in my heart. But dear ones, since she died at three o’clock this morning, almost a 100,000 souls have died and another 300,000 that were not ready to face Jesus and that do not know him. Now, if you’re going to depend on your natural resources to get to them, you have no chance. If you’re going to come up to God and say, “My loaves and fishes, I’ll start breaking them up and I’ll distribute them to these 200,000 that are dying every day.” Dear ones, they’ll all be dead before you get the crumbs to them. The abilities of your intellect are not enough. The ability of you even to give money is not enough. But we’re called to give all we have — to get rid of it — so that God can begin to produce those magnificent resources. So if you’ll take those loaves and fishes you have and give them to him, then he makes them enough for the 200,000. The problem with this is not so much that we’re not allowing our mind to be renewed in the distribution of resources, but that we’re not allowing our mind to be renewed in the image of Jesus to see that those natural resources are no good and we need to give them all to God and then trust him to make mighty power available in our own hearts and lives. So there’s no point you singers or we preachers going to God and saying, “Here, here is my great gift. Here is my great ability, you use this.” The devil will use it to exalt you. You need to give it and say, “It’s nothing. It’s able to achieve no spiritual good, will you take it now?” So dear ones, would you stop using that precious ointment that you have saying, “Father, if I use these gifts I have to take up a good career and earn plenty of money, then I’ll sell the ointment and I’ll give the money for your work.” The money won’t do that for the 200,000 that are dying each day. But would you waste the ointment on Jesus? Would you go to Jesus and say this morning, “Lord Jesus, I’m ready to waste myself on you. I’m ready to say all that I have and all that I would ever happen to be, you can have and you can use to make me a failure, or you can use to bring many souls into your kingdom.” But dear ones, is your mind renewed in that image, in the image of Jesus? I pray that you’ll begin to think in these terms. Allow your mind to be renewed and stop looking at your natural abilities and think God can use those. They aren’t enough for him to use. But if you give them to him he’ll perform a miracle through you. Let us pray.

Judgment Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Towards the end of the first century AD, a white haired man knelt down on an island called Patmos in the Mediterranean Ocean and he asked the Creator of the world to reveal to him what was going to happen when the world ended. And the mighty God who made your hair and who made your face, and who made your hands, came down in the power of his Spirit and revealed to this dear man John, who had followed Jesus, what we were going to face in the final days. And this is what he wrote and it’s in Revelation 20:12. I think it’s good to fight the devil with every weapon we possess and the sword in your hand is the most powerful so it’s good to look at. Under the inspiration of the Creator’s Spirit, John wrote this, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done.” The judgment; I think it’s an uncomfortable thought to all of us either for our own sakes or for the sake of some dear one that we love. Now brothers and sisters, the devil is engaged in deceiving us. There is a new family springing up especially in the church world today and it’s called the ostrich family. Like the ostrich, they put their heads in the sand when the lion roars, or when the sand storm blows up they pretend the danger is not there. But when the sun shines and when everything looks good, they take their heads out of the sand and many of us are doing this kind of thing with regard to the judgment. Many of us are pretending that this terrible thing is not there and we’re rarely looking into the word to see whether it is there or not. Now, no one cares about ostriches in business because the ostrich looks at the small time payment and forgets about the five years of monthly payments. He always looks at the good side of a bargain. The ostrich looks at the shining body of the car and doesn’t look underneath to find it’s falling to pieces in rust. He looks always at the side of the issue or the situation that he wants to look at and no one cares about that for the ostrich’s judgment in business. The ostrich looks at our apparent prosperity in America today and forgets to look at the terrorists and forgets to look at the drug addicts, and forgets to look at the riots in our cities, and the discontent among young people. He says, “America is going better than ever.” The ostrich in religion does the same thing. He says, “God has given us everything for our comfort. We have used everything that he has given us to better our lives here. We have used hydroelectric power to produce electricity. We used winds to drive our windmills years ago. We used the sea to produce atomic energy. God loves us. He has given us everything to show us how much he loves us and he’s given his own Son to show us that he’s ready to die for us.” Now, God loves us and wants us to be with him. And to anything that is stern, or just, or righteous in God, the ostrich in the church today puts his head in the sand and pretends that it isn’t there. Now I ask you just tonight not to be an ostrich. I don’t ask you to accept anything that I say, but to look at God’s word and don’t be an ostrich. Take your head out of the sand and look plainly at what God says we’re going to face and if you do that he’ll work in your heart tonight in a way that will please him and will bring you in accordance with his will. The first ostrich that I’d like you to meet, and you may find some of him inside you, thinks of himself as a literary critic and he says to us this evening, “Now, don’t get upset by what this preacher is saying about judgment. They all do that to work up a little fear in you. If you go back to the early Christian preachers you’ll find that they were always inviting people to come and be converted but they never mentioned judgment. The New Testament is full of the preachers offering healing and offering power in Jesus’ name but they never mentioned judgment.” Will you look at what happened in 40 AD, you can see it in Acts 10:42. These are the words that Peter preached when he went to Caesarea and just before he baptized Cornelius in the year 40 AD he preached and said this. Acts 10:42, “And he commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that he is the one ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” A lot of us tend to say today, “We’re sophisticated in America and Britain, we don’t go for that kind of primitive preaching.” Do you remember that Paul, eleven years later in 51 AD went to the center of culture in those days? He went to the city of Athens and began to debate with the philosophers. If he wanted to tone down this primitive message any he would have done it there in Athens. But in 51 AD he said this, “He has fixed a day on which he will judge the world by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given us assurance by raising him from the dead.” In other words, both Peter and Paul, Peter the gruff honest open hearted man, and Paul the shrewd studious debater of Pharisee’s both testified that on the final day there would be a great judgment when we would face this God who made us. Now the literary critic likes to put us back so he says, “That’s Paul’s gospel, but Paul did not originate the gospel. Jesus is the very heart of the gospel and Jesus is continually saying, ‘Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ Jesus never mentions a thing like a judgment. He is always encouraging us to come to him and to love him.” But the word is straight in Matthew 7 and it’s spoken by Jesus himself. It’s in the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus talks about that day very plainly. He says in Matthew 7:22, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many might works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.’” I don’t think it’s necessary to point out to you that Jesus is saying there, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord have we not marched to Alabama in your name? Have we not done many social works in your name? Have we not done many good deeds in your name?’” And I think Jesus is pointing very plainly to the fact that it is not enough to be outwardly like a Christian, or outwardly humanitarian. But he’s stating plainly that on that day he will declare, “I never knew you, you evildoers.” I think a lot of people today try to point out that Jesus was a child of his age. They say the Jews had already accepted this idea of the judgment and he didn’t want to offend them and so he fell in with this to accommodate his mind to theirs. You can see that Jesus was the infinite God, being as like himself as he possibly could in the shape of a finite man. We do violence to God when we try to say that Jesus was accommodating himself so much to the thought of this age that he produced a dishonest revelation of God to us. In fact, Jesus often spoke directly of the judgment in language that was not metaphorical, in language that was not picturesque or symbolic. He said, for instance, in Matthew 25:31, “When the Son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” It’s very hard to say that this is just a primitive opinion of Christianity when it’s Jesus himself that uses these words, that he will separate us as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. I think if we stop being ostriches and really look into his words and examine them, we’ll see that Jesus not only teaches that there will be a judgment, but he says that he himself will be the judge, that it is he that will judge us on that day. You remember he says, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son and has given him the authority to execute the judgment because he is the Son of man.” In other words, on that day we will not face God the Father but we will face Jesus the Son. The one who was despised and rejected of men, the one who is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, he is the one that we will face as our judge on that day. There was a padre in the First World War called G.Studdert Kennedy and he used to visit the men in the trenches over in Europe. He used to minister to them and speak to them of Jesus and he wrote poems. He wrote a poem called “Well?” and it was along this line, “When I die and go on the judgment day to face my God, I don’t fear so much facing a great white throne and a mighty fearful God looking down at me with flashy eyes but what I fear most of all is going up there with the broken bits of my life in my hands and then, looking up, and looking into the eyes of one who has holes in his hands and him looking into my eyes and saying, ‘Well? Well?’” On that day we will face our Jesus who has repeatedly offered his life to us, and I think some of us perhaps accept all that. We believe the Bible is God’s word and we have no trouble with that kind of thing. But I think we have another kind of ostrich inside us and I’ve called him the foreign diplomat because he’s always trying to find holes in the treaties that he’s just made. I’m sure that’s unfair to the foreign diplomats, I’m sure the American ones aren’t like the Irish ones. But dear ones, I think there’s some of this ostrich in all of us when it comes to judgment. We often say, “Well, I know there’s going to be a judgment and you can’t get out of that.” Then we say to ourselves, “Now, when is this judgment going to be? Many of us have in the back of our minds that we’re going to devote the last 10 years of our life to preparing for this judgment. Or we say to ourselves, “Well, we’ll have a little time to enter fully into the victorious life, and to grow in grace, and walk in the Spirit, and then we’ll be all ready for the judgment.” Now when is the judgment going to be? The Bible answers “now.” Now, at this very moment, the judgment is taking place. Listen to Jesus’ words in John 3:18, just two verses after the famous verse John 3:16. In John 3:18 Jesus is saying the judgment on you is taking place now, at this moment tonight, as he says, “He who believes in him is not condemned.” Is not condemned; he who believes in him now is not condemned. “He who does not believe is condemned already.” Not “will be condemned” but is condemned already “Because, he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Dear ones, you are judged up to this moment. And that last thought you had has already been judged, and that next thought. You are already condemned, or you are already justified. This is why I’m concerned, dear brothers and sisters, who are anxious about this business of, can a Christian sin. I don’t see how long you can carry an unconfessed sin in your heart without being out of grace with God, because the moment you commit it, that moment God has judged it. It requires you, the very next moment, to appeal to the advocate. Many of us are treating sin lightly and we’re saying again and again, “Oh well, you can commit one sin. Now, if you commit a number of sins, or if you sin habitually then naturally you’re in trouble.” But it seems to me that God judges you immediately and that’s why some of us talk about losing fellowship. Some of us say, “You don’t fall from grace you just lose fellowship.” How do you know you’ve lost fellowship? You say, “I feel guilt in my heart.” The guilt is the other side of the penny of God’s condemnation. In other words, it’s vital for us to be right up to date tonight with our confession and right up to date tonight with our forgiveness in Jesus’ name. We can’t go on keeping these things in our hearts. He who does not believe, and remember, “believe” in Anglo-Saxon “in accordance with”. If you believe, you live in accordance with. And if you believe that your sarcasm killed Jesus through the scribes and through the priests, and if you believe that your deception killed Jesus, and if you believe that your fear of reputation killed Jesus through Pilot, then you put away those things and you live in accordance with your beliefs, otherwise you don’t believe and the Bible says, “You’re condemned already.” There’s another place where Jesus says this. He’s speaking to the Jews and he says, “Truly, truly I say to you he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal light now at this moment. He does not come into judgment but has already passed from death to life.” And so many of us here are dead and many of us are alive. Many of us have the begotten life of Jesus coursing through our own lives and body and we have the marks of that begotten life in our lives because they’re filled with the beauty of Jesus, while others of us are filled with death and have the marks of the death life upon us. We still have a lie that we have not made restitution for, we still have a little bit of deception that we have never really confessed but we’re going to get around to it. But at the moment we’re dead and we have the marks of death upon us. Dear ones, the judgment is taking place now at this moment. We are all already ready at this moment. If Jesus came at this very moment everything is up to date. All the books are ready and God knows you thoroughly as you are at this moment, that’s why the Bible says, “Today is the day of salvation.” There is no tomorrow, tomorrow never comes. It’s no use saying, “I’ll make the decision on the final night of the conference.” There’s no use saying, “I’ll make it tomorrow.” The death already has a greater grip on you. The cancer patient doesn’t say, “I’ll go and have the operation tomorrow.” He says, “I want rid of it now, immediately, because I see the symptoms.” So if you see one symptom in your life tonight, will you remember that that symptom has been judged and has been set against you? At this very moment be up to date. Some people say, “Didn’t Paul preach that it is appointed for me to die once and then comes the judgment?” I think the meaning of that verse is that the judgment is sealed and ceases at death. It is appointed for men to die once and then come to judgment. In other words, after the moment of death there is no purgatory, there is no chance to add to or subtract from the number of good deeds that you plant before God or the amount of faith or trust or obedience in Jesus that you present before. Judgment ceases at death. And then I think it’s true in the light of the verse that we quoted, that he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world. There will come a day when there would be a great public day of judgment. When the judgment that has ceased at death and that took place during a lifetime will be proclaimed before all people and we will all be gathered before the great white throne and our judgment will be proclaimed to all. And in that sense I think the judgment will take place in those three ways, but do you see that it is being executed at this moment with you? God knows where you stand now, at this moment, and he’s gracious; he witnesses to you where you stand, and I trust you to react to it. Some of us may accept that, and yet we like to try to prove that the judgment will not take place because it is impossible for it to take place fairly. I think the mind gives the devil a great deal of scope in all of us and I think he loves to titillate our minds and we love to try to prove to each other, or prove to him, or prove to ourselves that the judgment won’t take place because it’s impossible for it to take place fairly. Some of us argue this way, “God can see Sirhan Sirhan shooting (Robert) Kennedy and he deserves to die because the Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and he has killed. But I have many, many half second thoughts that I know do not glorify Jesus and they pass through my mind in a moment, in half a second. Now the judgment isn’t going to be fair because God doesn’t know that kind of thing, he knows the big things that we’re doing. He knows the lie that I tell, maybe, but he doesn’t know the feeling that I have that I want to tell a lie. He doesn’t know the slightest inclination of my heart, so how is this judgment going to be fair? He’s going to condemn all those who sin openly, what about those of us who sin secretly?” Jesus spoke to the Pharisees on this when he said, “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the house tops.” My God sees me. God sees your every thought tonight. God sees it as if it’s projected on a great screen in an outdoor theater. God sees all our hearts tonight, he knows you inside out dear one, and he can see all. The judgment will be fair. I think some of us still say, “Well now, it won’t be fair. Look at the opportunities some of us have had. Look at the opportunities those of us have had who have listened to this word tonight and look at the people in Africa, or the people in China and they have not heard. Now that judgment won’t be fair, the Bible can’t be presenting a true record of the judgment. I can’t see how you can have a fair judgment when we’ve all had different kinds of opportunities.” Maybe we should take the milder side of Jesus’ words to us and talk about his words, “You will be judged by the light that is given you.” And maybe we should see that each man and woman will be judged by the light that has been revealed to them. You can quote what Jesus said in the parable of the two servants. In Luke 12:47 he said, “And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required.” So I would remind you that Jesus says you’ll be judged by the light that is given you. In other words, it assumes that some light will be given and one must be very straight, and one must really face the challenge that God gives us to the mission field by seeing that the Bible says, “You’re dead in your sins and you remain dead unless you receive the begotten life of Jesus.” And one has to face the fact that it’s very hard to see how the dear ones in China or Russia or Africa or Brazil or South America are going to receive that begotten life of Jesus unless someone tells him of Jesus. And it’s very hard to see how they are going to be raised on the last day unless they have the begotten life of Jesus within them. At this moment they are dead in their sins. And it seems that the Bible puts the emphasis strongly on the responsibility that all of us have to transmit the life of Jesus to every creature. In other words, we’re arguing, with the exception of a few inferences from a few verses in Romans, we’re arguing very much from silence in this hope that we have that people who have not heard of Jesus will enter into heaven. We’re really arguing from silence, and even the liberal theologian is reluctant to argue from that point, so we should face our responsibilities there. I think some of us are content about those things but maybe the non-Christian comes up and says “You said it’s going to be fair and some of you are going to be judged by faith and some of us are going to be judged by our works. Well, that’s not fair. I would rather go up to Jesus on the final judgment day and say, ‘Lord Jesus, I believe in you, I have faith in you’ and him to accept that rather than for him to go through my whole life and look into all the works and the words that I have done and said. Now that’s not a fair judgment if some of us are going to be judged by faith and some of us by works.” Dear Christians, would you listen to these words carefully, they’re words in our Bible in James 2:24 and we need to allow God’s sword to cut into our hearts. James 2:24, “You see that man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” A man is justified by works and not by faith alone. Some of us say, “I know I’m right with God. I know I have faith in Jesus.” But the Bible tells you how you can know. Not because “I feel I feel a feeling that I felt I felt before.” That’s not how you know. But the Bible says, “Hereby know that we are the children of God by the spirit of obedience that he has given us.” In other words, we know we have faith because we have works. They are the works that are produced by faith as opposed to the works that are produced from fear of God, but they are works that show that we have faith. And on that final day when we say we have faith in Jesus, Jesus will say to us, “Let me see your works and when I see your works I will judge whether you have faith in me.” Can you explain this: when we meet God on the final day, and we’re asked if we have Jesus in our hearts and we say, “Yes.” and then God says, “Well, you were angry with your brother yesterday. You were sarcastic with your dear one at home two weeks ago. You have felt envy in your heart. Now my Son is not like that. My Son Jesus does not feel those things. If he were in you, you would not feel those things.” Do you see that God cannot be bluffed; that a man is justified by his works and those are the things that prove the faith within him. It’s the obedience in our lives. “If a man loves me he will keep my words.” There’s no question of it. “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.” “The Spirit of God witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God” and the witness of our own spirit is the witness of a clean conscience; knowing that we have not committed sin and that if we have it was under the blood and we have turned from it. But a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. Paul says it at greater length in Romans 2:6-10, “For he will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth,” not believe the truth but, “obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.” We’ll need to show our lives to prove that Jesus lives within. It applies to our words, Jesus said, “I tell you that on that day man will render account for every careless word he has uttered.” Now I don’t want to burden the point but cynicism and sarcasm are words that will have to be rendered account for on that day. And the white lie will have to be rendered account for on that day, and the critical conversation will have to be given account for on that day. Some of us may face some of that and yet we think, “Well surely in this complex world, God will draw us all to himself at the end. Surely God loves us more than anything else. Surely it will be a failure in his own purpose if he does not draw us all to himself at the end.” It would be an admission of defeat. Now, you can see that I can love my wife, but unless she loves me there is no true marriage. And God can love us so much that he gave his own Son for us, but unless we love him back, there is no fellowship between us. It doesn’t matter how much God loves us; if we don’t respond to that love, we will not be in heaven. Some people feel, “Our God will keep up this bombardment of love and he will just destroy us, and beat us because he keeps on longer than we can resist.” No, it isn’t so. That’s a mockery of God’s love. God loves us but unless we love him back there will be no place for us in heaven. God cannot draw to himself those who do not want to come; otherwise he’d have prisoners in heaven that would make heaven hell by their own presence. Jesus told a parable, he said, “Then the householder, when he has risen up and shut the door, you will begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ He will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’” And it seems that Jesus made it very plain to us that there will come a day when the door will be no longer open to us. What is hell like? The Bible likens it to a lake of fire. I think we admit that if it’s physical fire then we have known something maybe worse than physical fire. Nevertheless, the Bible finds it so difficult to describe hell to us in sufficient terrible and tragic figures that it likens it to a lake of fire where we’ll burn forever in our own lusts against one another. It’s a place where you’ll have great groups of people who are bound by their own selfishness, bound by their own hatred and their sarcasm and their cynicism; bound by their own desire to consume one another and pull one another apart. Hell will be a place where those spirits burn in their own lusts against one another. The Bible likens it to an outer darkness where there is no light. To a second death which is worse than the physical death we will endure at the end. To a second death which will continue forever, and ever, and ever. And perhaps the worst thing about hell is spoken by Paul in Thessalonians when he says, “They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his mind.” The sunshine is made by God, and smiles are made by God, and understanding, and love, and gentleness are made by God and wherever God is those things exist and wherever God is absent, those things are not known. When we will be excluded from the presence of the Lord, we will be excluded from anyone who understands us. No one will understand us. Everyone will detest each other. They will destroy each other continually forever. What is heaven like? The Bible finds equal difficulty in describing heaven. The Bible likens it to a great marriage feast where people are rejoicing, and likens it to a great supper, or to a beautiful garden where there is peace and calmness and beauty. But perhaps the greatest thing about it is said by Paul again. He says, “We shall always be with the Lord, and Jesus will walk in and out among us as it was planned he should walk in the Garden of Eden in Creation.” And the Bible says, “We shall know him and we shall be like him for we will reflect his glory.” Jesus will see dear ones who reflect his own beauty back into his eyes. Perhaps the best description of it is given by John who says this, “There shall no more be anything accursed but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall worship him. They shall see his face and his name shall be on their forehead and light shall be no more. They need no light of lamp, nor sun, for the Lord God will be their light and they shall reign forever and ever.” And you can know you’re going there tonight — you can know that this very night. On that day, Jesus will look for his own reflection in your life. Does he find it tonight? If he doesn’t find it tonight, how is he ever going to find it on that day? Dear ones, is Jesus reflecting himself in your life? Is your life free from dishonesty? Is your life free from lying and deception? Is your life free from envy and anger? Is your life free from irritability and jealousy? Is your life free from selfishness and covetousness? Is your life free from impurity and unclean thoughts? Is your life filled with a great burden for souls as Jesus’ own heart is? Is your heart filled with a great desire to love God and to do his will in every way you can? If your life is, then you possess the begotten life of God within you and on that day Jesus will look at you and say, “Come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And if your life is not free from those things and not filled with the begotten life of Jesus, and you’re still arguing about sin then Jesus will say to you, “Go to my left hand and depart to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Will you examine your own heart tonight, and here’s what I’d ask you to do; stop arguing with God tonight. Stop trying to prove that you’re right when you’re wrong. That’s what confession means, agree with God. Stop arguing over anger, would you? Would you stop arguing that anger is right? Would you stop arguing that envy is alright if it’s just a flash? Would you stop arguing that a little bit of criticism is good because you have to judge people a little? Would you stop arguing with God and admit, “Father, I have not your begotten life in me because I have the symptoms of the old created death life in me and I am not prepared to face you tonight should you ask me.” Simply admit that and then look to Jesus and Jesus is ready tonight to give you the begotten life of God. The begotten life that will produce a reflection of himself in you so on that day he will reach down his hand and immediately he sees in your face he will say, “John, Gene, Peter, it’s good to receive you. We’ve known each other for years and you’ve obeyed me for years, and you’ve loved me with all your heart. Come, you’re already mine.” Dear ones, do you know you’re his tonight? Do you? If you don’t will you come and receive him? Come and receive him. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a Christian for forty years, if there’s anger or envy in your life; you need the begotten life of Jesus. You need to be able to face him with a fresh breeze blowing through your conscience and an assurance that you’re clean and that you’re ready to be judged this very night. I pray that God will give you grace and that you’ll do just what he tells you tonight so that glory will be brought to him. Let us pray.

Freedom from Bondage to the Will 1 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill What I’d like to do tonight and next Sunday night is share some teachings with you about the victorious life, because we’ll spend all of October listening to the reports from Amsterdam, France, Germany, London, and Puerto Rico and we’ll be seeing slides and hearing the testimonies of the brothers and sisters about the work that God was doing through them during the summer. So these will be the two teachings that we’ll have before November so I think its better not to have a question time during these two evenings, but to begin the question times during November. What I’d like to share is the truth that you find in John 8:32. It is a freeing statement that God gives us in this verse as he says through his son, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Now there’s no reason at all for you at any time in your Christian life to be anything but totally free, really. There is no reason for you to ever be anything but free and the truth always will make you free. It is only the deception of Satan and the lies of Satan that will ever bring you into bondage and yet why I share this tonight is because a number of us, at different stages in our Christian lives, come into bondage and we don’t need to brothers and sisters. It is true that the truth makes you free. And if you look down a few verses to verse 36 you see where the truth is and how it does make you free. Verse 36 runs, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” And every time you deal with the truth that is in Jesus you live free and every time you miss that truth you come into bondage. There are four great stages in our Christian life where you can come into bondage and they correspond to four parts of Jesus’ life. The first one is that whole element of conscience; many of us can come into tremendous bondage over conscience. The second one is our wills, our independent selfish wills; many of us come into bondage over our wills. The third one is the psychological part of us, our mind and emotions and many of us can come into bondage about our mind and emotions. And then the fourth one refers to the inner part of us, our spirits, and many of us can come into bondage in regard to our spirits. Now there is a truth that is in Jesus that delivers us from bondage in each area of our lives and it corresponds to the birth of Jesus, to the death of Jesus, to the resurrection of Jesus, and to the ascension of Jesus. It is God’s will that we would experience the birth, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus completely in regard to each of those areas of our lives, and if we don’t we come into bondage. Now loved ones, there is only one way to experience the birth and death and resurrection and the ascension of Jesus in reality in our own lives and that is through faith. And faith is very simple; it consists of believing and obeying. Each time in regard to this area of our lives, all we have to do is to believe certain things about Jesus and to obey certain things in Jesus and we come into freedom. Let’s take the first one, the whole business of conscience. Most of us start our Christian lives by coming into a real sense of bondage over a verse like Matthew 5:22. We read a verse like this and immediately come into a tremendous bondage, “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.” Many of us come into great bondage in our consciences when we begin to realize that we are doing things that God has told us deserve the penalty of eternal death and separation from him, so we come into a great bondage of guilt. We know that the wages of sin is death, and we know that we have sin in our own lives and the way out of that bondage is very clearly stated in the Bible and it refers to the whole business of the new birth in the spirit. We are asked to believe a certain thing about Jesus and that certain thing is in Romans 4:24-25 where it’s stated plainly by God, “It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” And it’s stated plainly there that if you believe that Jesus has died for that sin in your life, then that faith of yours will be reckoned as righteousness and you’re asked to believe. The second thing you’re asked to do is stated in Matthew 3:2 and you remember it’s that plain statement of Jesus that you’re to believe, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And dear ones, that’s all we’re called to do to be free from the bondage of guilt, but many of us mess the whole thing up. We begin to realize we have to repent, and we begin to come under bondage about repentance. We have an incredible ability to turn God’s freedom into salvation by works, and some of us will do that. We’ll look at the believing, and we’ll look at the obeying and the repenting and we’ll say, “Well the repenting means I have to repent thoroughly.” And we get down to bringing about a thorough repentance and many of us begin to feel, “Unless we feel a desperate sorrow for our sins we have not truly repented.” And I know there’s a dear sister among us in these days who feels she doesn’t repent enough, she feels, “I don’t feel repentance. I have to feel it.” Loved ones, do you see that repentance is just what it says; you turn from your sin and if you keep sinning, you keep turning from your sin. But repentance is “metanoia”; it’s a change of mind. You turn from what you’re doing and you turn to Jesus, it is not a matter of feeling repentance. But many of us have turned from the truth that sets us free and have turned to the error of Satan and we’ve begun to think we must feel this repentance. We think, “I don’t feel it enough. God can’t forgive me because I don’t feel it enough.” Do you see where that’s taking you? That’s taking you into works. You’re saying, “If I don’t do this work thoroughly enough God cannot forgive me.” You’ll never repent deeply enough to justify God forgiving you. God forgives you because you are justified by the blood of Jesus and that is the truth that sets you free and that’s found in Romans 5:9. It isn’t the thoroughness of repentance, though certainly God asks you to repent. He says, “If you repent and believe then the blood of my Son will justify you in my eyes.” But do you see it’s the blood of Jesus that justifies you in God’s eyes because you’ve repented and believed, not because of the thoroughness of your sorrow at your sin. Now it’s very important to see it, otherwise you can begin to punish yourself and many of us have come into that. We’ve sinned and we’ve committed a sin that we committed ten weeks before and we know it’s wrong and we begin to sense inside ourselves, “I deserve to have a period of real contrition before God can possibly accept me into his family again.” Therefore we impose upon ourselves a certain time limit and we say, “Unless we go through this period of contrition, God cannot possibly forgive us.” Now loved ones, can you see that’s the doctrine of penance that brought so many in the Catholic Church into bondage? That’s what penance is. It’s saying, “Unless I punish myself enough, unless I sorrow enough, God will not forgive me.” Repentance is turning from your sin and believing that the blood of Jesus alone will make you right with God, not the thoroughness of you repentance. Nevertheless you have to be thorough and go through all the sins that you have and repent of them. But you don’t have to squeeze yourself dry to get yourself sorrowful enough. Many of us have come into the same problem over confession, which is part of repentance. Many of us fall into the bondage of a sensitivity group. We wonder, “Have I confessed everything? I must confess again. I didn’t make that right with that other brother so I must make it right again.” And many of us come into a place where we think, “Have I confessed everything? Have I confessed enough?” Dear ones have come to me and said week after week, after week, “I have something else to confess.” Now loved ones, do you see that is bondage? You confess all that you know is wrong in your life, you make it straight before God, you make it straight with other people, you turn from it and that’s your confession and repentance. Many of us come into bondage even over the believing. The believing is to believe that the blood of Jesus justifies us before God –to believe simply that Jesus has died for our sins. But many of us come into the old heresy of a corner on truth. We say, “We believe in the substitutionary death of Jesus in a subtly different way than all other churches and that’s what saves us.” That just brings you into bondage. It brings you into a preoccupation with the peccadillos of the atonement. Do you see that God expects you to believe that Jesus has died for you — just to believe that – and that it’s the death of Jesus that makes you right with God? It’s not your exact precise statement of the atonement or of the way Jesus’ death saved you, it’s simply you believing that Jesus has died for you. There’s such a freedom comes into your life when you reduce it all to simply repenting and believing. Just repenting of your sins and believing that Jesus’ death satisfies your Father. Just that, and suddenly there comes into your heart a clear assurance of God’s acceptance of you. But do you see that the truth makes you free? It’s the errors and lies of Satan that bring you into bondage about that. Now maybe we won’t get through the four parts tonight, maybe we’ll get as far as the second part. But many of us, after we’re born of the Spirit, come into this problem of the will that will not obey Jesus and that’s what I shared with you this morning. We come into this area where we find that our wills do not want to submit to God’s law. Indeed, they cannot submit. They just keep acting against God in rebellion; we try to bend them in God’s direction and we cannot do anything about them. God has made provision for that too, you see. It is madness for us to come into that hypocritical double life and almost go insane thinking that God has not made provision for it. Loved ones, God has made clear provision for it and again here, the truth makes you free. The truth is very simple and it’s stated in the Bible and just as Romans 5:9 is the truth that sets you free in the first instance, the truth that sets you free here is Romans 6:6, “That our old self was crucified with Christ.” God has said that that is made real in our lives just as the first one is made real in our lives; if again we believe and obey. This time we believe Romans 6:11, you reckon that you have been crucified with Christ and you submit, in Romans 6:13, you submit your members to the Spirit of God. But again, it’s belief and obey and it’s very simple, but many of us break away from the freedom that is in those words and we come into bondage. We find this will that we can do nothing about and we start to rationalize it and say, “Masturbation isn’t too bad. It’s kind of a human trait that many of us have to face through the early part of our lives and marriage will clear it all up.” Or if we criticize people a bit we say, “Well, you need to use the old critical faculty, otherwise where would you be? You have to judge people to know who to agree with and who not to agree with.” Or we rationalize not getting up in the morning by saying, “We just happen to be people who work better late at night than we do early in the morning and no doubt we’ll be able to work into deep prayer later on in the evenings.” Or we say to ourselves, “Well, witnessing – yeah, but I’m just a different kind of person. I’m not one of these people who can run up with the four spiritual laws and witness like that. I have to go more slowly and subtly about it. I believe in friendship evangelism.” And you know, we believe in friendship evangelism, but it never gets to evangelism it just gets to friendship. Many of us forget the truth that is in these verses and instead we set about delivering ourselves from this problem here again by works, you see. We fall into a salvation by works and the only way we can get rid of it is to rationalize the failings of this will. And many brothers and sisters walk in bondage to that will because they keep on rationalizing and rationalizing. Or many of us just repress it, we just keep repressing it. The anger is coming up inside us and we repress it, we just press it down and try to love people on the outside despite the anger. Or the irritability comes up and we try to repress it and we keep repressing these things and repressing them. Do you see that the truth sets you free? The truth doesn’t bring you into bondage like that. It is not God’s will that you should walk in continual repression that shows like that great defeat in the back of your eyes. It is God’s will that you should walk free of this, not in rationalizing and not in repression but in a real deliverance. Some of us say, “I believe that but I have to see it for myself.” And we start introspecting and looking inside, and we get all worked up with looking inside and working out our motives and our attitudes and our reactions, and our desires, and again we come into tremendous bondage. Now brothers and sisters you know that many of us who have come into an awareness of the problem of our selfish independent will have not walked the way of freedom at all. We have walked, rather, the way of bondage. We have walked either in continual introspection, or in continual repression, or in continual rationalizing. Many of us, for instance, just disagree with God and we come into total despair. Do you see that total despair is a frank rejection of what God has said is true about us in the Bible? You’ll see it in Romans 7:18, “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh.” “For I know that nothing good dwells within me.” Coming into despair is a rejection of that truth. Do you see that you come into despair because you’re still hoping for something good from inside you? There’s a great peace that comes in your heart when you accept, “That’s right — there is nothing good inside me and God sees that clearly and he expects me to accept that. But we come into bondage of despair when we’re still hoping for something good inside us. Or the other reason we come into despair is because we don’t really believe Romans 5:9 which says, “You’re justified by the blood of Jesus.” We come into despair because deep down we really believe that we’re going to be justified by our victorious life or by our good works or by our victory over sin and that’s why we come into despair. But again, do you see it’s the lie of Satan that brings us into bondage? The truth that is in the Son sets us free, and the truth that is in the Son is that there is no good in you at all. The reason you’re having such trouble with yourself is you’re still expecting some good from inside you. Actually, what God wants you to see is that there is no good in you and in fact, to believe and to reckon yourself dead indeed with Jesus on the cross. And the word “reckon” in Greek means to treat yourself as really dead. But many of us keep on rationalizing and repressing so when we come into a situation where somebody attacks us or criticizes us in the office we don’t act as a corpse — no. We are very much alive, we whip right back. The old corpse is lying flat on the ground; suddenly the arm lifts up and strikes the fella back. Now do you see that’s where we’re going astray? We’re rationalizing, we’re repressing, we’re introspecting, we’re coming into despair but we’re not reckoning ourselves into Jesus; dead indeed unto self and alive to Jesus. Do you see that believing is an active thing? Loved ones, a number of us are coming into bondage because we’re thinking this is a game that you play in your thoughts. It isn’t, believing is a very active thing. Believe in Anglo-Saxton means you be in accordance with what the truth is. The truth is you were crucified with Christ so okay, let him tear you apart. What’s he tearing apart — an old dead corpse? What does that matter? But do you see you “be in accordance” with what is the truth in Jesus. Belief is not a juggling with thoughts loved ones. It’s not introspection, it’s not repression, it’s not rationalization, it’s not despair, it’s simply acting as if you’ve been crucified with Christ and there’s no “you” to respond. Obedience in the same thing: a lot of us are coming into this place where we say, “I believe I’m crucified with Christ but I still don’t feel crucified.” It doesn’t matter whether you feel it or not. It doesn’t matter whether other people see it or not. You believe that you’ve been crucified with Christ and you submit yourself to the Holy Spirit at each moment as he tells you things. But brothers and sisters, do you see that the truth is in a way a very external thing. I think a number of us come into bondage because we make it an internal juggling with thought life. No, it isn’t. It’s believing that you’ve been crucified with Christ and acting as if that is true, and it’s submitting to the Holy Spirit the first time he tells you to do something. But both of those are very external things. In fact, faith in the New Testament is a very external thing. It’s believing, treating yourself as if this is true, and as if this is true, and it’s obeying, obeying God when he tells you to repent and obeying his Spirit when he tells you to do things. And loved ones, those truths set you free. I’m sure a number of you are sitting there saying, “Ah, but how does it all become real?” That’s up to the Holy Spirit. It’s up to the Holy Spirit to make the truth of these two facts real in you. It’s not up to you to look in and see, “Is my crucifixion with Christ real? Is my new birth real?” It’s up to the Holy Spirit to make those things real in you as you take care of these things that you can take care of. But brothers and sisters that is the way of freedom. Truth will always set you free. It will never bring you into bondage. When you find a brother or sister coming into bondage over their crucifixion with Christ, it’s not because they’re coming into the truth, it’s because they’re coming into one of these subtle lies or errors of Satan. But the truth itself will always set you free. Now loved ones, do you see tonight that all I can do is present those truths briefly to you and give you the scripture verses? You, yourself, need to go to the Holy Spirit and ask, “Holy Spirit, am I coming into bondage to some deception of Satan in these areas of my life? Is it because I’ve accepted some of Satan’s lies that I’m in bondage about my forgiveness of my sins or about my victory over sin? Am I really dwelling in the truth?” And loved ones, the truth is a joyful thing to live in. And the truth is those two things — actually entering into those in actuality and that sets you free, it really does. Next Sunday evening I’d like to talk a little about these areas that we’ve talked of before at times, the mind and emotions, and how they’re connected with the resurrection of Jesus, and the Spirit and how it’s connected with the ascension of Jesus. Some of you may find that you’ve come as far as the first two and you are having victory there and yet you’re coming into bondage here in these areas. But loved ones, do you see that it’s really a very simple thing, and we should see it as that. It’s an active thing you see, it’s not a feeling thing, it’s not an internal juggling of thoughts thing, it’s an active believing and obeying. So will you go to the Holy Spirit and ask him, “Holy Spirit, have I come into unnecessary bondage in these areas” and really get clear and walk free, walk free each day. It is the Father’s will. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that your way is a way of freedom. Savior, we know that Satan is in among us trying to internalize this whole business until it’s all a psychological game. But Lord Jesus, we know it’s a very sure appropriation of what has happened to us in you on Calvary. Lord Jesus, we know that it is the Holy Spirit that makes these things real in us, it isn’t us by all our emotions, and all our introspection, it is the Holy Spirit. We thank you that if we do our part you will do yours and we thank you that our part is so clear and so obvious. In order to come into a real forgiveness of our sins, and a real freedom from guilt in our consciences, we’ve simply to repent, turn from our sins and believe that you have died for us. And in regard to that old selfish independent will inside us that is making a mess of our Christian lives, we’ve simply to accept that we were crucified with you and to live as if that is really true by submitting to your Holy Spirit each time he speaks. Lord Jesus, we thank you that it is such a joyous way. We thank you that it is such a way of freedom and liberty. Now I trust you Savior, by your Holy Spirit, to apply these to each brother and sister here tonight so that if there is anyone here walking in bondage in regard to their conscience or their wills, they will come into real freedom in you. Lord, we thank you that you have told us that we are to rejoice and again you said to us to rejoice. We thank you that we can walk in continual joy because all of this has been done already in you and we’ve simply to accept it into our own lives. We commit ourselves to you for this purpose. Now Lord Jesus, in the coming week we trust you to find it easy to live freely in us and we commit ourselves to living for you, to put you first. We commit ourselves to turning from our own selves and all our self-concern — wondering what people are thinking of us, wondering how we’re doing, and we commit ourselves to looking to you and being concerned about you this week, not us. Savior, we trust you to give us a Christ centered life as we do this so that you will, in every way, be able to live your life again through us wherever we go these next days. Now we commit ourselves to you and trust you to fill us with your Spirit for this purpose. 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.

Freedom from Bondage to the Will 2 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill You remember, last Sunday evening I was sharing that verse in John 8:32 if you would like to look at it. And it runs like this, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Then further down in 36, you remember, it runs, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” And I shared that if you are really dwelling in truth, that truth will make you free. And that is effective right throughout the Christian life and throughout every stage in the Christian life. But if you’re not believing the truth or dwelling in the truth then you will come into all kinds of bondage. You remember, I suggested that there seemed to be four difference stages or areas in our Christian lives where many of us managed to come into bondage. And they really related to four different events in Christ’s life. And the answer to this bondage was allowing the Holy Spirit to apply each of the four stages of Christ’s life to us. But if we didn’t do that we could come into real bondage. And you remember, I suggested that one of them was conscience. That at the very beginning of our Christian lives we have trouble with a guilty conscience and many of us could come into bondage through trying to work out the guilt. Trying to be good church-goers, or trying to be moral people, or doing our best to work out our own salvation. And really the answer was to come into the meaning of Romans 5:9, that we’re justified by the blood of Jesus. Whatever our lives are like, however miserable they are, God accepts us because Jesus’ blood has been shed for our rebellious lives. And the way to enter into that was through a death, and experiencing the birth of Jesus inside us. And the only way for that to come about is by the action of God. And where the Holy Spirit brings Jesus alive inside us – we become free of that guilty conscience. And the way to come into that is to believe and obey. And the way to come into all of these freedoms, these four freedoms in these four areas of our lives is really to come into belief and obedience about certain facts in Jesus’ life and death. And here you know, it’s Romans 4:24, that we are justified by the blood of Jesus, that because of Jesus’ death, God forgives us. And we’re called to believe that and we’re called to obey, and we’re called to repent. It says, “Unless you repent you will have no place in the kingdom of heaven. Unless you repent you will perish.” And so in coming into the new birth of Jesus you’ve to believe that he died for you and that his blood satisfies God, and you’ve to repent and turn from the things that you’ve been doing wrong. You remember, that many of us thought about a salvation by works. Many of us turned repentance into, “I must feel repentance. Unless I feel it, unless I work out this repentance so that I feel pain and sorrow God will not forgive me.” And so many of us wait days, and days after we’ve sin against God trying to work up enough repentance. In fact, all we’re trying to do is penance. We’re trying to punish ourselves to make us feel that God ought to forgive us now that we have justified him by punishing ourselves. And we do the same, you know, with believing. Many of us say, “Oh, we know you have to believe but you have to believe in a certain way. You have to believe a certain theory of the atonement, or you have to believe a certain corner on truth about Jesus and then God will forgive you.” And we come into bondage and salvation by works instead of doing two simple things, brother and sisters, believing and obeying. Believing that Jesus has died for us and repenting of our sins and stop doing them. And really, becoming a Christian is as easy as that. I know many of us go along in the Christian life and we find we have trouble with this old selfish will. And it’s just a will that wants to go its own way, and it wants to do its own thing at its own time in its own way for its own glory. And many of us find that working inside us, even after we’ve been born of the spirit. And the only answer to that – is really coming into an experience of the fact that we were crucified with Christ. Coming into a place where we’re ready to die to self and be crucified with Jesus. Many of us don’t tackle that answer. We work the old salvation by works business. We try to repress the selfish will. We try to rationalize it away and say, “All Christians get angry.” Or, we try in some way to get rid of this stuff underneath. But we try to get rid of it by works of all kinds. Now the only answer really is to allow the Holy Spirit to make this death of Christ real in us. And the only way we can do it is by believing and obeying. By believing that we were crucified with Christ and then by submitting to his Holy Spirit each moment of the day so that the Holy Spirit is then able to bring this about. Brothers and sisters, what I’m really trying to say is the Holy Spirit works the miracle on the left hand of that line. If we do the things that are on the right hand of the line. Now that’s true. The Holy Spirit makes the new birth real miraculously in us if we will simply believe that Jesus has died for us and repent of our sins. The Holy Spirit makes the death of Jesus real in us and gives us victory over anger, and jealousy, and envy, and pride, and lust if we simply believe that we were crucified with Christ, that we have no right to our own lives, or no right to our own way and we yield moment-by-moment instant obedience to the Holy Spirit. Now it is true loved ones, God works the miracle on the left hand side of that double line if we do the things on the right hand side of the line. And brothers and sisters, every one of us who are coming into bondage about our guilty consciences, or about our selfish wills, are coming into bondage because we won’t do one of these two things. Either we won’t believe that Jesus is risen with God, or we won’t turn from all our sins, or we won’t believe that we’ve been crucified with Christ. We keep on saying, “No, I’m not crucified I get angry every day. I’m obviously not crucified.” But God’s word says you were crucified. Either you don’t believe that, you won’t accept it, you keep looking to your experience to disprove what God’s word says is true, or you won’t submit to the Holy Spirit when he says, “Shut up. Just don’t answer. Okay, that took you apart now shut up. Just keep quiet and leave it to me.” And either we won’t believe that we’re crucified with Christ or we won’t simply submit to the Holy Spirit. Now brothers and sisters, that’s it honestly. Loved ones, if I could take each of you and say really if you’re having trouble with either guilty conscience or selfish will it’s because you’re not doing one of these two things. Brothers and sisters, it’s not because you alone have managed to defeat the infinite plan of the infinite Creator of the universe. It is not true. It is not true that you’re so different from everybody else in the universe that God has not made a plan that works with you. It works with you, all you really need to do is give up the salvation by works and come into believing and obeying. Now brothers and sisters, here’s something that we come into after maybe coming into some victory about a guilty conscience and a selfish will. And I say some victory because many of us find we have to walk in this daily in order to experience the victory. But many of us come into a different area completely and it’s this area to do with the mind and the emotions. Here we find that the will is selfish, here we find that we have independent mind and emotions that go their own way at times in spite of the fact that Jesus is with us. Now here’s the kind of expression that took in Paul in Galatians 2:11-14 you’ll find it. Galatians 2:11-14, you remember that they had a whole discussion, Peter and Paul, about the business of whether ordinary people, gentiles, should become Jews before they become Christians. And you remember, they decided no, they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t have to submit to all the regulations that the Jews have to submit to, they should be able to become Christians right away and Jesus coming in wiped out and superseded all those ritual laws of the Jews, though not the moral laws. This is Galatians 2:11, “But when Cephas came to Antioch,” Paul says, “I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” Now do you see, that you can’t accuse Peter who already fought the battle of reputation in the courtyard with the little maid. You can’t accuse Peter who already laid himself, his life down on the day of Pentecost by accusing the murderers of Jesus of that very murder. You can’t accuse Peter of sinful selfish will but want him to go his own way and protect himself. You can’t brothers and sisters. You have to face the fact that old Peter’s mind had been running like a Jew’s mind for years, and years, and years. And when he came into this situation he felt, “Well, well, no I better do it. I better withdraw for the sake of my Jewish friends.” And he made a mistake because his mind had been brought up as Jew for years and years. Now brothers and sisters, that’s what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the fact that many of us have minds, and emotions that have been programmed by a selfish will for week in and week out and month in and month out. And whenever we’re filled with the Holy Spirit here, and crucified with Christ, we often find that our minds and our emotions are still independent of our spirits, still go in ways that we don’t really want them to go. Another example of it for instances, is Matthew 26 and I know none of you will come into this problem with sleep but the disciples did. But let’s look at it just to see how some poor souls have to suffer. Matthew 26:38, “Then he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” Then Verse 40, “And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not watch with me one hour?’” And do you see that the disciples wanted to watch with Jesus but the old mind was used to sleeping at midnight and as midnight came off it went. Now do you see there are times when we get up in the morning, or the alarm goes off at six o’clock and we settled it, “Six o’clock we’ll get up and we’ll start the day with the Father.” And we’re willing to die to our own comfort and we’re willing to put Jesus first, but we get up, slam down on the knee and then, ah it’s beautiful, it’s just beautiful and that time of prayer went so fast. Really, it’s 11 o’clock already, I didn’t know it was gone. Then somebody says, “You know, you slept thru the morning. And you say, “Well, I was higher than that, you know. I was just up there in the heavenlies, I didn’t know a thing. Just went a quick hour like that, never knew a thing.” Now you know you didn’t do much praying at all. You went to sleep, or you dosed, or you didn’t pray. Now do you see that’s the soul, that’s the old mind and emotions that still are not submissive servants to the Spirit. Another example is this, and it comes – you can see it, you can see it in the evenings, you can see it in all our singing. We all used to be great singers, ah we’d get into that church, strum the old guitars, and clap the old hands, and away we’d go. We weren’t very sure whether it was emotion or spirit but we were going, and we were really up there. Now you can see the old problem, we come together again and again as a body and boy, the old emotions are used to going that way. And as some fella gets the whole hand clapping going you’re not quite sure whether you want a tambourine to tap or whether you want to get up and dance, and you’re not quite sure whether it is Jesus you’re preoccupied with, or the beat of the music, but it’s really going. In other words, it’s difficult at times isn’t it, to worship continually in the spirit. It isn’t that the spirit possesses no emotion, but it’s that often our emotions run away independent of our spirits. Or, you meet somebody new, they come into the theater or they come to church, and you really want to be real, you really do want to love them. You don’t want to come over as one of those gushy people who make a lot of small talk to make everybody feel comfortable. You really want to be straight. You really want to be Jesus to them and really love them honestly, and look into their eyes, and let them know that you’re not just turning the stuff on. But the old mind and emotions have been programmed for years and before you know it you’re into – what did they do? what did they study? and you never get beyond that. You just get lost in what course are you studying? “Oh yeah, I studied that last year. Yeah, well it’s quite good here.” “Yeah, do you like the singing?” “Yes, it’s good.” “Well, we met so and so.” And little spirit goes over you know. It’s the old emotions gushing out and you’re making a big impression of friendliness on them but there’s no quietness of spirit coming in. Or, it happens in the houses, really – it’s very hard to live in a Christian house with other Christians. In fact, it’s very hard to live in any house with other people without really being dead to self. It really is. Without being dead to self you’re always coming up against little strains and little pieces of friction. Now, many of us have found that we have really died to self. We’ve really been filled with the Holy Spirit but in our houses we come up against the problem that our mind has been programmed for years to regard that piece of clothing as ours. And this fella comes in and picks it up and you know, really the clothing doesn’t matter much, you’re dead to that, you know that God will give you whatever clothes are needed but the old mind is programmed and you think, “What’s he doing?” And before you know it the mind is out with some comment. I’m not backing the fact that he’s taking your clothing, no I’m not for that. But it’s the problem of the old response coming out not from the level of a selfish will so much as from independent mind and emotions that are just beginning to walk in the old selfish way. And many of us brothers and sisters, have found that if we don’t deal with this independent mind and emotions it begins to drag us back into ourselves. What many of us have found is we’ve committed our whole self to Jesus, we’ve decided to walk with him, we’ve decided to die to our own careers, to the right to success, to social security, to life insurance, and we walk that way but the old mind and emotions we don’t allow them to be dealt with by the cross and so they flip back onto the old way of thinking. And so we’re in a worse state than people who never started on the Calvary road. We’re half way out there, we’re working for Fish for $120 miserable dollars a month and we’re way out there and the mind is going back to the brothers and sisters at home, to the family, we’re listening to what our parents want us to be, we’re listening to what we should be in our careers and we begin to come into real conflict. Now brothers and sisters, do you see that if you don’t deal with the independent mind and emotions, you can minister no life. If we don’t come into a real freedom from the bondage of our minds and emotions, we will minister no life in our meetings, we’ll minister just emotion. We’ll minister no life in our witnessing, we’ll minister just a very persuasive convincing logical argument. Or, we’ll impress people with our emotion of love, but unless we come into a place where we begin to allow the cross to deal with these parts of us and not wipe them out but discipline them and bring them under the control of our spirits, we’ll really be useless for ministering life and we’ll eventually fall back into our selfish will. Now here is the very problem, many of us when we see that we begin to realize we have to do something about it. The verse that you find it in is 2 Corinthians 4:7 which would express this truth – it runs like this, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.” Many of us would come to that conclusion, “That’s right the Spirit of Jesus inside me but my old earthly mind and emotions are around it and they’re not submissive to it and they’re not expressing it purely and cleanly.” And so we say, “Yeah, well this old earthen vessel, I’ll have to do something about it.” Now, here are the two approaches that most people take to deliver themselves from this. By works, and it only brings them into more bondage. Some people say, “Well, pastor what you said tonight is true, my old emotions whip away off at times when I shouldn’t be emotional at all. And I know that I should be ministering the quietness of Jesus in a quiet emotional love, but I’m out gushing away. My emotions are out of control and I know that. Now I realize that what you say is true, that a real Christian who is walking in the spirit is one who has his emotions controlled by his spirit. I am going to control those miserable emotions.” And that’s the first wrong step we take. And many of us get into the business of annihilating the emotions. And we say to ourselves, “That’s right – a Christian is not an emotional person, he’s a spiritual person so I must annihilate these emotions. Nobody will get a smile out of me, nope. Very interesting brother, I’m glad that your wife had a baby,” but thinks, “I mustn’t get too excited about it least he think I’m not a spiritual Christian.” Now brothers and sisters you know that in many so-called spirit filled circles you meet those dear, dear souls and you must be loving and kind to them because all of us have made the mistake, who think that a Christian is one who has no emotions at all. Or, there are some people that say, “That’s right brother, a Christian is one who walks in the spirit not in his mind.” And so they come into this problem of becoming passive in their minds, and they just give up the use of their minds. And there are many dear ones who have good minds, and they come to making a decision and they just won’t think about it, they won’t think about it at all. They won’t use their mind to gather the information that God wants them to gather, they just say, “No, no, I’ll wait for the spirit to tell me.” And these are dear ones, you know, you meet them and you ask them, “Do you know what you’re going to do tomorrow?” And they say, “No, no I’m waiting for the Lord to tell me.” And they’re still waiting tomorrow, and they’re still waiting the next day, and they’re just wandering around in a kind of blankness because they’ve started to annihilate their minds. They’re the people, you know, who read books and won’t judge the book, or criticize the book, they’ll just read the book and accept everything that comes in from the book. Anybody that appears to have a spiritual smile on their faces they’ll say, “Ah, they’re spiritual people.” They give up using their minds completely and they come – most people like that come into a tremendous passivity, you know, where they just join a bless me club where they just worship, as they say, in the spirit night and day and they are not used by God to transmit any life to anyone else. That’s one of the problems where they come into bondage by trying to annihilate the mind and emotions. Or brothers and sisters, there’s another method that some try, they ‘over’ exercise their minds and emotions. They read a verse, you see, there’s a verse in Romans 12:11, and it runs like this, Romans 12:11, “Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord.” And they say, “That’s right, the way to be a spiritual Christian is to be aglow with the Spirit.” And so they try to glow with the Spirit. You can’t decide to glow with the Spirit – you know that. The Holy Spirit glows within you as he did on the face of Moses or he doesn’t. If you’re disobedient he doesn’t, if you’re obedient he does but you can’t say, “I’m going to glow with the Spirit.” But many dear ones say, “Ah, that’s the way to be a spiritual Christian, I must glow with the Spirit.” And, ah you know, you get fed up with their smiles, you know. They just smile, and smile, and smile, and smile. You could cut their arms off and they’d still be smiling, and there’s something a wee bit unreal about it, you know. Or, they say, “I must be aglow with the Spirit, that means I must worship in a way that glorifies God. I must abandon myself to him.” And they abandon themselves not spiritually, because you can’t touch your Spirit at all you see, only the Holy Spirit can touch your spirit. But they say, “I’ll abandon myself in the Spirit,” and they misunderstand of course the strongest part that is inside them for the Spirit, their emotions. And so they abandon themselves emotionally, and they feel -you know – that if they’re praising God with great expression in their voice, and I was caught in this – oh maybe four years ago – in this same business, if you express to God with a strong emotion in your voice then you’re being very spiritual. And you get them doing all kinds of things in their prayers, and then if they get into the experience of tongues at all – they just lose themselves. They’re just content to pray in tongues all the time not realizing that really that is God’s gift for a person in his infancy. That is just uninterrupted tongues, you know, in a meeting. It’s just a gift of God to people in their infancy and worship. But that God wants you to come on through to the place not where you stop speaking in tongues, but where you begin to be able to express yourself through your mind and emotions to him. And it’s maybe good to look at that because I know some of you will have questions. It’s 1 Corinthians 14:14-15 and it would be good just to mention this for a moment or two, brothers and sisters, because I think there is great misunderstanding about the ninth gift of the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 14:14-15, “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.” And God allows that to come about you see, because many of us have minds that are earth bound and God is gracious and fills us with the Holy Spirit and gives us the ability to speak in an unknown tongue where our mind is not used. Our mind is just bypassed by the Holy Spirit and it lifts us up into the Father. But do you see that isn’t God’s final will for us, that we’ll spend all our time in prayers doing that. Here’s his final will in 15, “What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also.” In other words, it is God’s will that we should come to a place where our spirit can express joy and glory to Jesus and use our mind to put that into ordinary words that others can understand. Now don’t sit there and say, “Ah, we can’t use tongues.” Yes, yes you can use tongues but don’t remain in tongues alone for the rest of your life. See that the Father wants to bring your mind under the control of your spirit so that you can speak that forth in beautiful words that others will understand so that they can say amen, so that a stranger comes in he’s not baffled as if you’re speaking in a foreign language. Now there are other uses for tongues, you know, but I’m talking about the one where we glorify the Father. You see it’s the same, many people go into meetings where they speak in tongues and worship God in tongues, and then the meeting closes and the strange thing is they’re no closer to each other than when they first went into the meeting because the Spirit has not brought their minds and emotions into submission to him and so they are not able to express that love to each other after the meeting is over. The only way they can really feel one with each other is to blot out all their minds and bypass all their minds, and go straight up in an unknown tongue to God. Now it’s the Father’s will you see, that we should come to a place where we can really express love to each other not only in tongues but really using the words and our minds. Now these are some of the reasons why God wants us to avoid this business of either annihilating the minds and emotions or over exercising the minds and emotion thinking that they’re the spirit. Alright, how do you come into freedom here? It’s the same truth dear ones, it’s through experiencing the resurrection of Jesus and that resurrection is experienced particularly through the verse that you read in 2 Corinthians 4:10. 2 Corinthians 4:10, you might like to look at that and this is the progressive experience of Christ’s death in our own lives. 2 Corinthians 4:10, “Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” In other words, there is a daily experiencing of Jesus’ death that is specifically planned to deal with these independent mind and emotions. There’s a once and all experience of Christ’s death to experience with our selfish will but there is a daily experience of Christ’s death to deal with these independent minds and emotions. And that’s the experience that the Holy Spirit wants to make real in us. How does he do it? Through our believing and obeying two truths that are there in scripture. First – the believing, believe Hebrews 4:12 and that will save us from all our attempts at annihilation of our minds and emotions or ‘over’ exercising of them. Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit. The word of God will divide between our souls and our spirits, “Of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” In other words, the first step in dealing with these problems here is to believe God’s word, “Father, I believe that you by your word will distinguish between my soul and my spirit. You will gradually bring about through revelation a knowledge of when I’m using my soul and when I’m using my spirit.” That’s the first step just to take. The second step is found there in 2 Corinthians 4:8, it’s the way God deals with this and makes this real in us. It’s obedience to this truth that enables the Holy Spirit to separate our souls, our minds and emotions from our spirits and to bring them under the control of the spirit. And it’s 2 Corinthians 4:8, and it isn’t an easy way but it is God’s way. 2 Corinthians 4:8, breaking experiences, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus.” And then what happens when you do that? Verse 16, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature,” our soul, our minds, and emotions, their independent strength, “Is wasting away, our inner nature,” our spirits, “Is being renewed every day.” And that God brings about inside you. What does it mean? I remember going home in the car one morning after service about maybe three or four years ago and it had been a good service, it was at Bethany Presbyterian and Jesus was just very really there and I was going home down the River Road, I lived in Bloomington and was going down the River Road, and was just singing away. And I was really enjoying it and really just glad that Jesus had done such a work in the service. And I got home, sat down at lunch and just went down like that and I didn’t know what was wrong. And then I began to seek God and God showed me, “You were high on emotion and what you’re now experiencing is just a breaking experience. I have to break you from that kind of emotionalism because if you will go high on sheer emotion, Satan can bring you low in emotion the next moment.” Now that’s the kind of thing that God will bring to you. You’ll gush out to somebody that comes into service on a Sunday and they’ll just turn you off. In fact, you’ll hear in a roundabout way from some friend that they were utterly put off the body and utterly put off Christianity by the way you dealt with them. That’s a breaking experience. And God, brothers and sisters, will bring you daily into breaking experiences that break the independent power of that mind and emotions until eventually the Holy Spirit brings them under his control. Now if you say, “When does that finish?” Probably when we see Jesus face-to-face. That goes on throughout this life. But you can tell loved ones, you can tell the people, you know, by discernment of the Spirit, the people who are beginning to come into this kind of experience. They’re people who seem to transmit a hidden quiet life to you without dissipating you emotionally. Whereas there are other people who just wear you out. They talk far too much, they tell you the thing and then they tell you it over again, and they tell you it five times more and the original truth was good and exciting but you’re worn out with it. Now people who have been broken in their soulish powers transmit just a pure life of Jesus to you and you transmit it to them. Now loved ones, there is much more really in connection with that but maybe that will help you at least introduce you to it. Those of you who have been to the seminars know we deal with that particularly in the seminar walking in the Spirit and Watchman Nee deals with it particularly in his book Release of the Spirit. So maybe you’d just remember that what I’m trying to do is just give you the skeleton of the way God deals with us in the life. Maybe I should just deal very quickly with the last one. Many of us come into this problem where we find, yes we’re free from the emotionalism but our spirits are often irresponsible. Often we get up in the morning and our spirit will not rise up to God, it just will not rise up. It seems to have a heaviness about it. We come into a meeting of some kind and our spirit just sinks down low. Or, we begin to find that after a while of walking in the Spirit our spirit begins to ebb, or it begins to be blocked inside us, it can’t get out somehow and we find that our spirit is irresponsible. Where the Holy Spirit of Jesus is rising up to the Father and glorifying him, our spirits are sinking down inside us. Now really, many of us try to get over that by all kinds of exercises and we try to fight Satan, we try to fight Satan by our own exertions. We come into a situation in the home where Satan has just turned the atmosphere sour and we get in there with our sleeves up and we set about analyzing everybody. Analyze dad, analyze mom, analyze the brother and the sister, put everybody right and then it should be beautiful. And the whole place falls apart. Or, we come into a situation in the office and Satan has just got in there and he’s brought about an impossible situation, two people have talked about us and we know about it. And we get in there and we start tackling Satan on our own and we decided what we need here is a tea group or sensitivity group and we get everybody to confess all that they said to everybody else and then we sort the whole thing out and it’s just agony. It’s just miserable. In other words, we’re fighting Satan now with our spirits but we’re fighting him as if we’re fighting flesh and blood. Now brothers and sisters there is only one way to fight Satan and that is really on the basis of Ephesians 2:6 and I think it was mentioned earlier tonight. Ephesians 2:6, and you remember it simply states that we who were dead in our trespasses and sins have been raised up and made to sit with God in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And that position is there in Ephesians 1:21, “Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.” And really brothers and sisters, that’s the position we have to come into. In order to fight Satan, in order to have a spirit that is responsible to the Holy Spirit, we need to come into a position of Jesus’ ascension and that is a miracle that the Holy Spirit works in us. Now I know that tonight maybe, you know, we’re already passed where a lot of us are and yet I just want to share it so you at least know where to go. It’s necessary not only to come into resurrection as far as your mind and emotions are concerned, but it’s necessary to share with Jesus his ascension. That is, to come into that place by revelation of the Holy Spirit where you sit with Jesus at the right hand of the Father. Now that’s a miracle loved ones. You can’t bring that about, you know. You can’t bring it about by saying, “Oh yeah, I’m raised with Jesus at the right hand of the Father. I’m with Jesus at the right hand of the Father. Yeah, you can do what you like with me I’m with Jesus at the right hand of the Father.” That’s autosuggestion, deals with the mind, gives you a soulish experience but not a spiritual experience of ascension with Jesus. There is only really one way to come into it and that is to allow God to crucify you and bury you completely with Jesus and then in his good time, as you set your eyes on this fact of your resurrection with Jesus, to allow the Holy Spirit to make it real in you. And the way is, to believe Colossians 3:2, you know, really just to believe it. To believe that what God said is true, that you’ve been raised with Jesus to the right hand of the Father. Set your mind on things that are above not on things that are on earth, and to begin to deal with life as if you really are at the right hand of the Father there, and to allow the Holy Spirit to make that real in you. And then to obey him, he says in James 4:7, “Resist Satan and he will flee from you.” In other words, the way to experience real victory in spiritual warfare is to believe that position that you’re in with Christ. You’re above all rule, and authority, and dominion, and power and to resist Satan down here on this earth. And that is the way God brings about spiritual victory in situations such as I described in the office and the home. Now brothers and sisters, that’s just a very skeleton outline but I think it’s important for you to realize that God has a liberty and a freedom for you to come into in each of those areas and really the complete man or woman in Jesus is one who is beginning to come into these things, you know. Now, don’t set it up as one, two, three, and four, God will deal with you in his own way in his own time, you know. And he’ll continue to deal with all of us presumably in three and four. And really he’ll continually – we’ll continually have to start the day on the cross with him for victory in regard to selfish will and again, and again as God reveals to us sins that we didn’t realize we had. We’ll have to come into a real experience of Romans 5:9. But do you see brothers and sisters that there is a way of freedom to walk in and it is through experiencing fully the birth, and death, and resurrection, and ascension of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit making these things real in our lives. And really it comes through believing and obeying. Now really, one of the reasons I shared these things with you at all tonight before we start the series in October with the brothers and sisters who are back from Europe and Puerto Rico is it is God’s will for us to walk in liberty and victory. Brothers and sisters, whenever you’re in bondage, whenever you’re down about something it is not because you’re experiencing truth, it is because you’re believing some lie, or some deception of Satan. And really, the way into victory are these words, these words that God has given us. So I really do pray that even though it’s just a skeleton production that you will seek the Holy Spirit. Forget now everything that has been said, you know. Forget the old overhead, forget all the little illustrations that we used and go to the Holy Spirit and say, “Holy Spirit, only you can keep me in liberty and freedom. I trust you to do it. I trust you to bring the right truth and apply it to me and show me what I’ve to believe and to obey at each stage of my life in Jesus.” And then it is possible to walk really continually in victory. You know, I say that, I’m 38 so I’ve been honored for maybe 21 years I suppose, and been in victory of the Holy Spirit for seven or eight years, and loved ones, it is not necessary, it is not necessary to spend hours or days in depression and despondency. It just is not. It is possible to walk in continual victory, it really is and certainly there is warfare but it is a peace inside that passes all understanding. So I really do covet that for you, you know, and pray for that experience to be your own, that you live life in the heavenly place.

The Truth Frees Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill So I’d like to share this morning the whole fact that the truth does make you free. And if you’re not being made free then what you’re looking at is not the truth. And it’s very important I think, to see the truth as it really is. So let’s go to Lake Calhoun and two little guys in a boat, eight year olds, can’t swim. And they’re messing about in the boat and of course it tips and they’re both thrown into the water. And they start yelling and shouting for help and two lifeguards on the shore see the immediately dive right in and are beside them in a moment. And the lifeguards tell them what to do, “Okay, just lay back, lay back, and let me get a hold of you and just rest there. Just relax and I’ll take you right back.” And one of them does it. He’s just used to doing what somebody older than him tells him so he just does it, just lays back and lets the lifeguard drag him right back, doesn’t move a limb. The other wee mate, he hears too and he knows he’s in good hands, and he knows the lifeguard looks strong, but he’s just so used to helping himself all the time that he decided, “Yeah, but I better kick a little just to help him.” And he keeps splashing and thrashing around, and he thrashes the whole way back to shore. Now, both of them get back to shore it’s just that one did it effortlessly and the other thrashed, and kicked, and splashed the whole way trying to help himself the best he could. One is a carnal Christian and the other is a spiritual Christian. I think the first truth that God wants us all to see this morning is they both get back to shore. Now not as easily, but they do both get back to shore. And loved ones, it’s important to see that, that Paul never talks about a carnal Christian, that is one who is struggling, and struggling in the defeat of Romans 7, “The good that I would I cannot do and the evil I want to avoid that’s the very thing I do,” Paul never talks about the carnal Christian that is described there as anything but a Christian. Now maybe it’s good to look at that because I see some of you wondering. So maybe look at 1 Corinthians 3:1 dear ones and just check his actual words there because they’re God’s words to us about this and I believe a lot of us come under bondage because we don’t realize this truth. We get so caught up with realizing we’re carnal Christians that we forget, “Yeah, but we are Christians.” 1 Corinthians 3:1, “But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh,” or it’s “sarkikos” you remember, as carnal men, “As babes in Christ.” So Paul’s saying, “I couldn’t treat you as spiritual Christians, I had to treat you as carnal Christians, as babes in Christ.” So the two little fellows acted completely differently and one of them was experiencing all the benefits of having a strong lifeguard towing him back to shore and the other wasn’t. But, they both were in the hands of a lifeguard. And really it’s important to see that whether you’re a spiritual Christian or a carnal Christian that is your situation and you are in that sense saved. In a sense, they were saved from the moment they started to shout for help. The moment they realized their predicament they really were saved from that moment on because the lifeguards saw them and got to them. Now, they responded differently to what the lifeguard told them to do but still the lifeguard was able to save them once they realized their predicament. It’s the same with us, once you realize your predicament, once you realize that you cannot get out of it yourself, that you need someone bigger than yourself to help you and to rescue you, then in that sense you are saved. Once you realize that you, because you’re living your own life, for your own glory, by your own power, according to the directions of your own will and have rejected the life of God’s Holy Spirit, once you realize that because of that God is committed unavoidably to condemning you to death. And once you realize that instead of killing you on the spot and taking your life from you at this moment, he has put you into Jesus and crucified you there with Christ and therefore has nothing else against you and is now willing to give you the Holy Spirit. And once you go to him and say, “Lord, I know that’s my predicament and I thank you that crucified me in Jesus and have allowed me to stay alive in this life in order to receive the Holy Spirit. I thank you. I accept the Holy Spirit and I give myself into Jesus’ hands.” Once you do that loved ones, you’re saved if you want to use that term, or you’re rescued, or you’re forgiven, or you’re justified. But you are a Christian the moment you receive the life of God’s Holy Spirit into you and put yourself into Jesus’ hands. And it’s very important to see that because I think a lot of us say, “Oh but pastor, if you knew me. I’m struggling against all of the attitudes of anger, and resentment, and inward sin, and rebellion, and jealousy that you talk about and that Paul talks about in Romans 7.” It doesn’t matter, as far as God is concerned he regards you as crucified with Christ. As far as the Father is concerned, you’re in his Son’s arms and he regards you as a child of his and as on your way back to shore. Now loved ones, you can see how important it is to see that. If you don’t see that, then as the Holy Spirit begins to convict you of inward sin, of jealousy and pettiness, and of resentments, and of anger and bad temper, then you’ll begin to treat yourself as if you weren’t a Christian very easily and say, “I’m not a Christian at all.” Loved ones, you’re a Christian if you’ve committed your life into Jesus’ hands and have accepted his Spirit into you. Now you may be like that little fellow, you’re wiggling, and splashing, and thrashing like mad and saying, “No, no Lord, I can do it myself. I can do it myself.” But Jesus still has his arms around you and is still trying to get you to lay back and relax and let him take you the way he wants to, to the shore. Now God’s truth about that always makes you free. So will you look with me just at a few different truths about that experience? The first one is one you know of by heart but let’s just look at it anyway, Romans 6:6. Romans 6:6, “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” Every time you really see that truth it sets you free. It sets you free from self condemnation. Every time you see a sign of the old self springing up in your life and you remember that truth, you look up to God and say, “Lord, I thank you that you have crucified that old self with Jesus. I thank you Lord, that you have destroyed it with your Son on the cross and that you’ve removed it far from me. I thank you Father that that has been dealt with.” Every time you see a sign of the old self life and you really believe that truth, that’s what you say, you believe God’s word that that has been crucified with Christ, it sets you free from condemnation. It sets you free loved ones from depression and resentment every time anyone speaks to you or writes about death to self. It sets you free from that old depression and resentment that used to hit you. They talk about death to self and they mention anger and you remember you lost your temper last week, “I’m gone again.” It sets you free from that kind of resentment against the speaker, or the writer, or depression and self-defeat and enables you to say, “Lord, I thank you that that has been crucified with Jesus. Father, I’m not experiencing all the benefits of that crucifixion yet but I thank you that your word is sure, that that old self has been crucified with Christ. I thank you for that because that is all that is worth doing with it. And I thank you for that Lord, and I thank you for this dear brother or this dear sister who keeps on telling me that I don’t need to keep struggling any longer. And Lord, I ask you to give them strength to keep telling me that until I eventually lay still in your arms.” But loved ones, it changes your attitude to it you see. But if you don’t believe that your old self was crucified, if you believe it you have to do an old Martin Luther on it and back yourself up against the wall and beat yourself with chains, then it will irk you like anything and it will bring condemnation to you every time you hear the gospel of crucifixion with Christ preached. But loved ones, if you really believe that our old self was crucified with Christ then you’ll say, “Thank you Father, I know that. I know in your eyes it’s dead. In your eyes Father, you don’t attack that old self that produces all this anger, and bad temper, and unclean thoughts to me. Thank you Lord. Thank you that it’s dead and thank you that you’re trying to get me to enter into the freedom that that brings.” Loved ones, it just makes a tremendous difference. The truth really makes you free. It sets you free from trying to justify yourself by the works of your own experience. If you really believe that our old self was crucified with Christ, then you’re saved from checking yourself up on last week’s performance. “Well, I didn’t get so angry with her last week. It wasn’t just as wild as it used to be. And, I haven’t had an unclean thought for two weeks, and yeah – but, but I still have some selfishness. Yeah, I’m still not crucified. Okay, back to it.” And you get back and you start beating yourself again. Loved ones, it’s not the way. Do you see it, it’s not the way? It’s the little mate saying, “I’m not in the arms of the lifeguard. I’m not in the arm of the lifeguard.” Well, he can kick as he wants but he knows there are arms around him and he has to accept them. And he’s trying to save himself but he knows whether he saves himself or not he’s going to be saved anyway because of the lifeguard. Loved ones, do you see there’s a complete difference in the approach? If you really believe the truth that our old self was crucified with Christ because of God’s word instead of giving attention to the remaining works of the flesh that are making themselves known in your life because you’re still believing the lie of Satan that everything is not crucified. So loved ones, you don’t look at your experience to see that you’re right with God. You look at the fact that your old self has been crucified with Christ as far as God is concerned. And if he believes that then you better believe it or you have a bigger controversy on your hands than you thought you would have if you’re going to disagree with the maker of the whole universe. So the first truth that really I think it’s important to really grasp is that our old self was crucified with Christ. And accept it, and don’t fall into a defeated resentment – don’t fall into Satan’s successful brainwashing technique, “No, no it isn’t. No it isn’t.” You replay, “Yeah it is. God’s word says it. I believe it. I don’t believe you and I don’t believe in my own miserable experience. I’ll believe God’s word. I won’t argue with God.” Loved ones, it really saves you from just a lot of grief, you know. And unless you do that – see, unless you believe God’s word the Holy Spirit can’t do anything in your life. Do you see that the Holy Spirit only applies to you the benefits of Jesus’ resurrection and his death and his ascension if you believe God’s word? The Holy Spirit can only work in your life on the basis of your acceptance of God’s word. But if you’ll never accept God’s word, if you keep doing a double take and say, “No, no, my experience says, ‘No, I’m not crucified.’ No, I don’t believe your word Lord.” Then the Holy Spirit has nothing to work on at all. So really, the truth makes you free if you see it. Loved ones, if you’re not free you’re not seeing the truth you’re seeing some heresy that Satan has put over on you and you should turn from it and see the truth. Would you look at another truth because I think it is important? It’s John 16:18, in relationship to the actualization of this victory of Jesus’ death and resurrection in our own personal lives. John 16:18, “And when he comes,” that’s the Holy Spirit, “And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin.” That truth really frees you from introspection if you see it completely and accept it. It frees you from all those sickening times of self-pity and introspection in prayer. It saves you from going to prayer and instead of looking up to God and seeing him, instead of looking up to Jesus and seeing him in all his beauty, looking into yourself and saying, “Okay, let me open it all up and get it all out. Let me see what I did wrong last week.” And your eyes immediately go on yourself and your own experience and worst of all they go on sin. And so you become more and more fascinated by sin and as you become more mesmerized by it you become more and more defeated by it. But loved ones, if you really believe that the Holy Spirit will convict you of sin and that that is his job, then you’re freed from all that self-pitying introspection and you’re able to say, “Holy Spirit, I trust you to convict me of sin. And not to convict me of all the little bits of things that I look at, my anger and my jealousy, but to convict me of inner sin, of self deified that I cannot see clearly. Convict me of sin of my independence of God, of my rebellion against him, convict me of sin. What I find when I look in with introspection is just the symptoms of sin and I get all downhearted about those. But Holy Spirit, I trust you to convict me of sin and I’m going to stop this introspection. I’m going to stop this thrashing around to see if I can find what is preventing me experiencing resurrection with Jesus.” Loved ones, if you really believe that truth it sets you free from all that. Sets you free from self application of truth. Sets you free from coming to church on a Sunday, or from reading Andrew Murray or Watchman Nee and applying the truth to yourself. I think a lot of us do that. I think a lot of us come and we hear someone speaking under God’s anointing and they mention some things that are present in certain people’s lives. We take over the whole operation. We forget that the Holy Spirit is there to apply God’s word to each of us as he wants. We grab the truth. We say, “He talked about jealous this morning, jealousy must be my problem. Okay, I’ll look over my jealousy.” And we get the whole list. Loved ones, do you see that the only reason you’re all prepared to gather here and listen to me is because we really do believe that it is God that is able to speak through me, not as me. There are some things that I say that aren’t for you at all. But we believe that the Holy Spirit is able to say some things through the preacher, that he is able to make real to you. Maybe it’s only one thing, maybe it’s something that he doesn’t say at all. But loved ones, do you see that when you really accept the truth that the Holy Spirit’s job is to show you in what way you’re not experiencing the full benefits of your crucifixion with Christ and your resurrection with him, then you’re freed from all that miserable self application of truth which is really masochism, isn’t it? I mean, it’s really going to church, collecting all of the works of the flesh that were mentioned that Sunday and then beating yourself with those. Now loved ones, the Holy Spirit will convict you of sin, you don’t need to do that, you can rest in his arms. It frees you also from that hesitant, self-conscience, paranoid kind of prayer and speaking in the body of Christ lest your slip show. You know the way you say, “Well, I want them to think I’m crucified with Christ. I know really I’m not, but I certainly want them to think that. Now, if I pray – if I pray too often without due preparation they’ll see that huge self just sticking out like a sore thumb – so no. Alright, alright I won’t pray. I won’t pray. That’s it. And if I speak, if I go up there and speak pastor will know immediately that I’m soulish, or I’m carnal, so okay, okay I’m not going to let anyone see that.” Loved ones, when you really believe that the Holy Spirit will convict you of sin, then you’re free to walk boldly and confidently towards Jesus saying, “Lord, I haven’t experienced all the benefits of your crucifixion but I want to experience them and I want to do what you tell me to do. And I may speak, and my slip may show, and everybody may see just what a mess I am but Lord, but I’m going to do it because I’m more anxious to see what’s wrong in me so I can get that on the cross than I am to make everybody else think I’m right.” Loved ones, it just changes that whole paranoia. It gives you freedom to walk confidently towards Jesus trusting the Holy Spirit to convict you. I think you see, some of us feel, “Well, pastor do you think he will? I mean, do you think he will? Does he not convict me if I get involved in introspection and start examining myself, and psychoanalyzing myself?” Loved ones, introspection for a Christian is sin. That’s it. Introspection is sin because it’s the Christian trying to save himself again. Trying to deliver himself from the old self on his own by his own insights. So it’s always wrong to introspect. It’s always right to believe the truth that God tells us, that the Holy Spirit will convict you of sin. Loved ones, really don’t be uncertain about it. The Holy Spirit is more anxious to get you completely into resurrection than you are to get completely into resurrection and he hasn’t forgotten about you, and he’ll bash you now and again, and he’ll give you a faithful wound of a friend if you will trust him. But if you’re trying to do it yourself, you only really work yourself more and more into a neurotic state. The truth frees you from all that, the truth of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Just one more truth loved ones, I’d like to share because I think it will help, it’s John 16:14. John 16:14, “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Those of you who can read Greek will be able to check that the word declare actually means impart, communicate to you. In other words, the Holy Spirit will take what is Jesus, what belongs to Jesus, all that Jesus experienced the Holy Spirit will take and he will impart it to us, he will make it real to us. That truth sets you free. It sets you free from all the mental contortion acts and thought juggling acts you go through to try to make your crucifixion with Christ real. “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead. I’m dead, I’m dead. No, I’m dead. I’m dead. No, I’m dead I have died. No, I’m thinking of it wrongly I’ll go back and listen to pastor and I’ll get it right. Okay. No, if I could get the right phrase, if I could read the right phrase in a book I’d get it right, I know I would. No, if I could sing the right song I’d get it. No, if I could really surrender I’d get it. No.” I mean, you’re a mess. Worse than you were before you started. Loved ones, you don’t need it. The Holy Spirit will make real to you your death and resurrection with Jesus if you will trust him and listen to him. Give up all the mental juggling act, all the contortion acts and trust the Holy Spirit. Say, “Holy Spirit, I know you alone can impart to me and make real to me all that I’ve experienced in Jesus on the cross. Holy Spirit, I trust you to do that.” And loved ones, suddenly instead of trying to brainwash yourself into something you become more interested in obeying the Holy Spirit in the little gentle impressions that he gives you through the week knowing that in relationship to your obedience to the little things he is showing you he is going to be faithful and through sheer grace make your crucifixion and real in a moment, in an instant by a cosmic miracle from God. And loved ones, that’s the way it takes place. Not by trying to persuade yourself, not by trying to get the phrases right or trying to think about it in the right way, but by really believing what God’s word says that the Holy Spirit will take of the things of Jesus and will make them real in you. It frees you from trying to suppress your bad temper and your anger to persuade yourself that you’re actually crucified with Christ, in order to try to autosuggest yourself into that experience. It saves you from all of that and enables you to be yourself and yet say, “Holy Spirit, show me. Show me what way you want me to lay in the lifeguard’s arms. Show me in what way you want me to relax. Holy Spirit, I’ll listen to you just show me and then it’s up to you to make it real to me and I’ll receive it when you want to give it to me.” It frees you loved ones, from that schizophrenic experience of trying to walk with your eyes on Jesus and your eyes on self at the same time. Trying to walk free from justification by works and yet walking in the midst of a preoccupation with the works in your own experience. It saves you from that. It frees you from that trying to keep your eyes on Jesus and eyes on self, eyes on Jesus, eyes on self, eyes away from the bad things I’m doing yet eyes on the bad things I’m doing. It enables you to look to the Holy Spirit and look to Jesus and praise God in your prayer times, and walk obediently as the Holy Spirit is showing you giving the whole burden of the actualization of your death and resurrection with Jesus into the Holy Spirit’s hands. The truth sets you free. So if you say to me, “Well, do you not have some hard times?” Yeah, yeah, I think you’ll wriggle under it at times, and you’ll resist the Holy Spirit and some of the things that he’s asking you to do. But that’s not the normal experience as you walk into this deliverance. The normal experience is you walk into the deliverance, his eyes on Jesus thanking the Father that you’ve been crucified with Christ, he’s responding to the Holy Spirit as he shows you things. If you say to me, “Oh, no pastor as you were walking into it were you not miserable?” No, I wasn’t. No. And if I was I kept my misery to myself, but no I wasn’t. I had some hard times when I disagreed with the Holy Spirit over what he wanted me to do career wise or what he wanted me to be prepared to face reputation wise. But no, the normal walk was one of joy. Loved ones, if you’re not walking normally with your eyes on Jesus, accepting that you’ve been crucified with Christ and responding to the Holy Spirit as he shows you other things in your life and just giving them over to him, then you’re not walking in the truth you’re walking in some lie, some heresy that Satan has really sold you. Any questions loved ones? Anybody still have questions about that? At the end of the day, you know, man cannot explain it. Okay, I hope you walk free. Let’s pray.

þÿThe Gospel Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O (cid:25)Neill Many of us are Christians who come Sunday-after-Sunday, but I think a number of us are a little uncertain of whether we are Christians or not. And so we listen to a lot of this heavy stuff that we study Sunday morning after Sunday morning and some of us have a feeling at times, (cid:28)Well, we (cid:25)re really not quite at that stage yet and what we need is something just a little plainer and straighter so that we can get into the right position with God ourselves. So really, God has at different times just told me to stop expounding Romans and just to preach a very simple gospel so that anyone who is not a Christian can settle it with Jesus this morning. And so that (cid:25)s what I (cid:25)d like to do. The gospel dear ones, really is a person, Jesus, who lived in the first century and whose life we have examined and found to be different from every other life. He has a perfect humanity about him that is just different from Mohammad, or Buddha, or Confucius. There is a seamlessness in his life that is attested to by his enemies, that is utterly different from any of the great religious leaders that we hear about in Hinduism. And above all, he has not only a power over sickness and over nature, which other great religious leaders haven (cid:25)t had, but he himself had the power over death in his own life. So that even though there was no question that it was not a coma, it was not a swoon, but that it was real death, yet he was able to come back alive and to appear alive again over a period of 40 days. Because of this, we believe that this man is really the Son of the Creator of our universe and that He is, at this moment, with our Creator and that he came to earth to do something for us that nobody else could have done. Now how did he explain it? Very simply, he explained to his followers and they explained to us that the first part of the gospel is bad news for us, because it is that – all of us here, in this place, have sinned. All of us. And we (cid:25)ve fallen short of God (cid:25)s glory. That is, we (cid:25)ve fallen short of what our Creator intended us to be. So all of us have sinned. So there (cid:25)s something inside each one of us that says, (cid:28)That (cid:25)s right pastor, you give it to them. All of them have sinned. (cid:29) And there (cid:25)s something in us that says, (cid:28)That (cid:25)s right, all the Lutherans have sinned, all the Presbyterians have sinned, all the Methodists have sinned. All those people in all those other liberal churches, they have all sinned. All those miserable people lying in their dormitory rooms today, they (cid:25)ve sinned. (cid:29) But loved ones, don (cid:25)t you see that the only way we can become recipients of God (cid:25)s grace and his forgiveness is if we see it (cid:25)s us. It (cid:25)s all of us who have sinned. All of us. Now sin is not a moral concept so if you look along the row and say, (cid:28)Oh, I (cid:25)m sure they haven (cid:25)t done many immoral things. (cid:29) They may have not done one immoral thing in their life but sin is a concept about our relationship with God. It means we have lived independent of him even though we may have lived very morally independent of him. So it (cid:25)s not a moral concept. I think many of us say, (cid:28)Oh, we haven (cid:25)t sinned because we are very moral people. (cid:29) You could be a very moral person and still sin because sin is simply living your life independent of God (cid:25)s live and living it apart from the way he wanted you to do it. So it (cid:25)s something between you and him. It (cid:25)s not a legal concept. A lot of us look along the row and say, (cid:28)I (cid:25)m sure they were never in jail. I (cid:25)m sure they never did anything that got them in trouble with the law. (cid:29) Loved ones, it is not all have committed crimes. It is that all of us have sinned, every one of us here and God states that through his intuitive knowledge of us, not through his empirical objective observation of us. But he states that because he knows it (cid:25)s true, all of us have lived independent of him and that (cid:25)s the basic meaning of sin, you see. All of us have tried to plan our own lives without any worry about how he wanted us to plan them. All of us have tried to plan vacations without any question of how the Creator of the universe wanted us to spend our vacation. All of us have run our own home lives, our own academic lives, our own business lives independent of him. That (cid:25)s the basic meaning of sin. In other words, you could sit in your chair and sin like mad. That (cid:25)s really it. You don (cid:25)t need to be doing things, sin is just an attitude towards God where you automatically say, (cid:28)Okay, you don (cid:25)t have anything to do with my life. My life is my life, I decide it my way. (cid:29) Sin is just a tacit attitude to God that he is not to have any right to control your life at all so you can just sit, and sit, because sin is an attitude to God. It (cid:25)s a bit like an attitude to each other, you know when things aren (cid:25)t right with somebody else. You know you can have that attitude and you don (cid:25)t need to say a thing to them. You can just feel utterly distant from them. Think of the attitude you (cid:25)ve often felt to your dad or your mum when they were just getting in on you a bit too much and you just said, (cid:28)Well, they can do what they like but they (cid:25)re not going to have anything to do with it. (cid:29) Well, that (cid:25)s it sin is an attitude and God says all of us have sinned in that sense. All of us have lived independent of him and independent of his Holy Spirit. All of us have sinned in a very obvious way too. We have sinned in act and in word. We have actually done things that his law doesn (cid:25)t allow us to do. Some of us have fornicated. His law says, (cid:28)Do not commit fornication. (cid:29) Some of us have slept with people that aren (cid:25)t married to us. Some of us have been adulteress with other people, we have committed adultery. Some of us have not done either in those things in act but we have done them in our thought life. So in so far as we have lusted after a woman in our thought life we have committed adultery with her. All of us have sinned in act or thought in those things. All of us have had other Gods before God. A God is somebody that you spend your whole life trying to fulfill and trying to satisfy. Many of us have had Gods that we set up that haven (cid:25)t been the Father of Jesus. Many of us have determined, (cid:28)We are going to be famous, (cid:29) and that has been our God. Many of us have determined, (cid:28)We are going to be rich, (cid:29) and that has been our God. Many of us have determined, (cid:28)We are going to be better than everybody else at this particular subject, (cid:29) and that has been our God. That is what having a God is and all of us have sinned in that at some time or other we put something before God. All of us have stolen. We (cid:25)ve stolen little things, we (cid:25)ve stolen paperclips at times. It didn (cid:25)t matter about the paperclip but we have an attitude in our mind that we knew we were stealing it. But worse, we (cid:25)ve stolen people (cid:25)s reputations. We (cid:25)ve run people down. We (cid:25)ve said, (cid:28)Yeah, yeah, they (cid:25)re good singers but you should see the way they dress. (cid:29) And we (cid:25)ve just with one stroke of a word stolen from their reputation. Now that (cid:25)s what it means loved ones. All of us have sinned. There (cid:25)s nobody here this morning that can say, (cid:28)No, no, all the others have sinned but I myself have not sinned. (cid:29) God says we have all sinned and we (cid:25)ve fallen short of his glory. And the second part of the bad news is this, that the wages of sin is death. I think some of us have the feeling, (cid:28)No, the wages of sin is only death if you sinned big, real big. (cid:29) And we say, (cid:28)Well, well, you know, if I smoke 50 a day and it gets the lung, okay I die young. Alright that I can see the wages of sin is death. (cid:29) Or we say, (cid:28)Alright I (cid:25)ve been promiscuous sexually so I (cid:25)ve caught venereal disease so I (cid:25)m going to die. Alright, I can see that. (cid:29) Or, (cid:28)A fella that drinks a lot and destroys the inside of his body, alright the wage of sin is death. (cid:29) Loved ones, that (cid:25)s not true. The wages of all sin is death. That (cid:25)s what God says. It doesn (cid:25)t matter whether you have sinned a little bit or a big bit, the wages of sin is still death. And I remember reading an illustration just very clear about this, two great 500 foot high cliffs, 35 feet between them, and you (cid:25)re going to cross them in a rocket. No, no, but 35 feet between them and 500 foot high cliffs. And so an old, old, broken sinner, an alcoholic, he totters up, his body is destroyed with sin, and he totters up and he decided he (cid:25)s going to try and jump so he totters back and takes a few steps and jumps down to the bottom and is dashed on the rocks and dies. But one of us noble young sinners, who have sinned just a little and whose bodies are in good shape, we decided we (cid:25)re going to jump that gap and we take a massive run and we leap and it (cid:25)s 32 feet, and it (cid:25)s a world record but it (cid:25)s three feet short and we (cid:25)re dashed. And it doesn (cid:25)t matter because we (cid:25)ve fallen short and we (cid:25)ve fallen short of God (cid:25)s glory loved ones. None of us are what God meant us to be. We (cid:25)re all pretty much messes compared with what the Creator intended. And of course, he looks down on us and he sees us all living our own lives, and doing what we want and he sees 3.5 billion people going in all kinds of different directions and he realizes, (cid:28)If these people ever liver forever they (cid:25)ll destroy and desecrate the whole universe. They (cid:25)ll fill it completely with their rebellion and their garbage. (cid:29) And the Father is committed to destroying us. That (cid:25)s what it means the wages of sin is death. And loved ones, if you have not at all dealt with Jesus, there is just no question you (cid:25)re going to die physical, you know that but you know that already the signs of spiritual death are inside you. Already you have real trouble finding peace, already you have experienced some of the desperate loneliness that will come when we go into outer darkness apart from God. Already you (cid:25)ve sensed some of those things. Already in prayer times you (cid:25)ve sensed, (cid:28)I can (cid:25)t get through, I can (cid:25)t get through. (cid:29) The wages of sin is death and death begins to operate in us not only physically now as our bodies grow older but inside spiritually. And so there will come a time loved ones, and you just have to face it, that Jesus who is our best authority on it, he (cid:25)s the only one who went through death and came back to tell us what it was like, and his best words to us are that there is an outer darkness, there is a terrible loneliness. Oh you remember, Sartre (cid:25)s play No Exit, maybe something like that. Maybe something like that where you remember, two perverts and another person lived together in a room and the light bulb never went out, never went out. And the whole play that Sartre writes is bent on showing us that they just pick each other to death, pick each other to death, criticize, criticize. Now loved ones, outer darkness will be something like that. Hell will be something like that. It will be something like a place where we wear each other down, where we consume each other continually, where God, and gentleness, and love is absent and God says, (cid:28)The wages of sin is death. (cid:29) There is a place where all of you who refuse to the live the way God wants you to live will have to go and that (cid:25)s the bad news of the gospel. And that (cid:25)s it. I think one thing we don (cid:25)t realize is the penalty of sin is death. We keep thinking in our sophisticated western way that we can substitute something else for that penalty. We don (cid:25)t really look at it in those terms, but really that (cid:25)s what w