Address—Bruce Anstey
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I want to speak on the subject of the consecration of the Christians life. Let's turn first of all to.
Psalm 116.
Verse 12 What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?
2nd Corinthians chapter 5.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verse 14.
For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all are dead, and that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
And now for our text for this afternoon in Romans 12.
We'll begin reading for sake of context.
In the end of the 11Th chapter.
Verse 33.
All the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how searchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, Or who hath been his counselor, Or who hath given first given to him, and it shall be recompense unto him again.
Of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Chapter 12. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you might prove that what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God?
For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according, as God hath dealt to every man the measure or a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office or function, it could read, we may being many.
Our one body in Christ and everyone members of another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. Whether prophecy let us prophecy according to the proportion of faith or ministry that is weighed on our ministering, or he that teaches on teaching, or he that exhorteth on exhortation. He that giveth let him do it with simplicity, and he that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy.
With cheerfulness.
I'd like to answer the question that has often been asked by young people and that is what should I do with my life? And I believe that the verses that I have read here would tell us what we should do with our lives. And that is most simply to give them to the Lord, to give our lives to the Lord and let him make our lives a blessing.
You know, life is like a coin.
You can spend it any way you want.
But once you spend it, it can't be spent again. And I believe that the theme of the Scriptures throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament would beg of us that we would use our life and our time wisely because of that very fact. You know, we read in Psalm 90, teach us to number our days and to apply our hearts unto wisdom. And so the Lord would beseech us that we would be careful what we do with the precious thing of time and our lives that He puts into our hands.
And so life is like a coin. We can spend it any way we want, but after we spend it, it cannot be spent again. And we're here this afternoon to encourage every one of us that we make right decisions in our life, that we would use our life for the glory of God and for the blessing of His people. It is truly the happy, fruitful Christian life we read in there in Psalm 116. What shall I do to?
To the Lord, where he is all the benefits that he's bestowed upon me. And we have also read there in Second Corinthians chapter 5 the fact that our lives could be lived unto ourselves.
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Unto him.
And it's a choice that each one of us have to make, and we trust that you'll make it.
In your youth to live your life for the Lord Jesus Christ and what we have before us here in this chapter in Romans chapter 12 is the subject of the consecration of the Christians life to the service of God.
The consecration of the Christian's life to the service of God.
But you'll notice as I began reading in the end of the 11Th chapter that it doesn't begin with consecration.
It begins with something else that would precede consecration and that is appreciation. Appreciation.
We find the apostle breaking forth in a doxology of praise in the last four verses of the chapter before he is exalting in what there is, as far as blessing is concerned, provided by God. And through the opening 11 Chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, he recounts what the grace of God has secured for the believer. He shows that the mercy of God and the grace of God, the compassion of God, and the love of God has secured salvation.
And assurance of salvation and many associated blessings that belong to the believer.
And now he exalts with his heart, full of praise for the.
The grace of God, and the riches of God, and the wisdom, and so on, as he recounts there. And I believe that this is where consecration in the Christian's life begins. It must begin with the heart been taken up with appreciation for what the Lord has done for us. And I believe that the more we spend time with the Lord, as we had yesterday.
Going over his word in a quiet time with him, that our appreciation for him and what he has done is going to grow until our hearts are going to well up in praise like the Apostle Paul and it's going to respond and wanting to consecrate our lives under the service of the Lord.
Isn't that beautiful? And so there is to be a an exercise on the heart of every person.
That mercy has reached through the gospel of God's grace. Have you taken time to be alone with the Lord in your life in a regular way? And does your heart just well up in praise and appreciation for what the Lord has done for you? I believe if you just dwell on that, there's going to be a tremendous transformation that is going to take place in your Christian life. And how important it is that we would take time every day of our life to thank the Lord for what He's done for us.
And to take time to think of what a sacrifice He made for us. It will cause a response in our hearts, and that's what we have open to us in the 12Th chapter, when he says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of the compassions of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Holy and acceptable unto God. The first thing I would point out here is that this is not a command.
He doesn't say. Now I command you, brethren. No, he beseeches them based on the mercies and the compassions of God, that there would be a logical surrender of our lives to the cause of Christ in this world. Another thing I would point out is that this presenting of our bodies is an individual thing. It is not a group exercise, but something that each one of us.
Needs to get before the Lord about and to seriously surrender the.
Captaincy of our life to the Lord, and So what we have in verse one.
Is what we might call dedication. Now, some people confuse this with consecration, but there's a big difference. Verse one is not consecration, verse one is dedication.
Dedication is putting something into the Lord's hand. It's giving something to the Lord. And what we can give to the Lord is our life.
But consecration is the Lord putting something in our hand, and that's what He does when we dedicate our life to Him. He consecrates our life to His service by giving us something to do. Let me say that again then. Dedication is where we give. We put something in His hand.
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Consecration is when he puts something in our hand.
See, consecration means to fill the hands. And when we dedicate our life to the Lord, he then will put something into our hands. He'll fill our hands with a service to do for him. And as I said, this chapter has in view the service of God and the consecration of the Christians life to that service. But it doesn't begin with consecration, it begins with appreciation, which will lead to dedication.
And so the presenting of our bodies to the Lord, and it says bodies because it's really Speaking of the whole person.
To the Lord is something that should come on the heels of a heart that's filled up with appreciation for what the Lord has done for us. Now. I've noticed also that the word present here is in the heiress tense in the original Greek. Now, I don't mean to get into too much of the technical side of this with a address to young people, but the errors 10 simply means having done it once for all. It's a once for all thing. It's and that is what.
Dedication should be.
In the life of a believer it should be a one time thing. In normal Christian life where we come to a point in our lives where we surrender our life to the cause of Christ once and for all and forever. And it should be based on the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ and the compassions of God. You see the logic of the cross of Christ should take us down a one way St.
To the end that we see nothing else but to surrender our lives entirely.
To the cause of Christ. That is normal Christianity. And this usually takes place sometimes after someone takes Christ as their Savior, when they come to realize and the impact of what Christ has done in sacrificing himself for the for the glory of God and for our salvation, that there's this response that wants to do something for the Lord.
And so we find here that there should be a presenting of our bodies as a living sacrifice. This is in contrast, of course, to the Old Testament Saints.
Bring to the Jewish altar dead sacrifices, but God would tell us to bring our lives.
As a living sacrifice to him. Now you may say well.
I'm not just so sure that God would really want my life. After all, I don't have any special ability. I don't have any special gift. I don't really have anything that I could give to Him. But friends, you're looking at yourself and you're getting the object all wrong. You know the Lord is not asking you about your ability or your inability. What He's asking you about is your availability. Will you make yourself available to him? He will do the rest, as we'll find in this chapter.
A tremendous process of transformation will take place in your life, and he will make you what he wants as a vessel for his service and for his glory and for his praise. But the question here is that of the will. And so the first verse is all to do with a decision of the will, you know. It tells us in Matthew 16 that if we lose our life, we shall find it. But he that hangs on to his life is going to lose it, he said. What on earth does that mean?
Let's go over that. He that keepeth his life is going to lose it. That is, if you retain your life for your own interests and for your own ambitions and for your own goals in life and for your own pleasures and so on. Even though you're a Christian, you're going to lose it. You're going to lose your life when it comes to eternity, because those things that are not for Christ will all be lost, but he that will lose it, on the other hand, that is to give it up and surrender to the Lord is going to find it, you say. What do you mean by find it? That is, you're going to find the real meaning of life.
You're going to find what it really means to live in this world. And there's only one way to live, friends, and that is to live 100% for Christ and Him alone. If we hold back anything, it is going to spoil our joy and our consecration will not be complete.
Now notice here it says we're to put our bodies on the sacrifice here and surrender to the Lord. But he mentions also that it should be holy. And that would tell us that God is looking for a life that is one is true with sin. And then it goes on to say acceptable unto God. This is an acceptable gift that we can give to the Lord. What has he given to us so much? What can we give to him? Well, not much, but we can give our lives.
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And that's the starting point, and that's what we want to address here this afternoon, the surrender of our life to God. It is your reasonable service, he says.
Reasonable could be intelligent. The idea here is that it's an understandable or an service that we can understand why we're doing what we do in our Christian life. It's in contrast to the Old Testament Saints. You see, when Moses and the Levites, the servants of the Tabernacle, would do their sacrifices and carry out their work they didn't were doing. In fact some of them may have come to Moses and said, well Moses, why do we have to cut the sacrifices up in such a way? Why do we have to keep moving the temple around or the Tabernacle around and why do we have to set that up this way and that way?
And Moses would have to say, well, I really don't know, I don't know. But the Lord told us to do it. We'd better do it just the way, he said.
But in Christianity, there's a tremendous contrast. He not only saves us, but he gives U.S. intelligence in our service that we would know why we do what we do. We know why we preach the gospel to the lost. We know why we baptize those that are saved. We know what we believe and why we do what we do. And so he gives us to have an intelligence connected with our service for the Lord. Then he goes on and brings up another great principle in this chain that we might speak of, that would speak of how the process through which a soul, an exercise of a soul, would go to reach the consecrated Christian life.
Which is what God would bring us to. And that is verse 2 be not conformed to this world. Now here we have another thing. Separation. Separation. First we've had appreciation in the latter verses of Chapter 11. Then in verse one or chapter 12 we have had dedication and now we have separation. Separation is important in the process of reaching the Christian of the consecrated Christian life.
And the reason for it is because the world and all that it stands for, stands in the way of one really having a surrendered life to the Lord.
Before a person is saved, he has all kinds of ambitions, he has all kinds of pursuits in life and goals. And these things are often connected with worldly desires of putting self first, because that is the root principle of the world, is to think of self and to promote self. And so the Lord would show us here that there needs to be.
The setting aside of the world in separation so that we might indeed have a life that would be truly dedicated to the Lord. And more than that, that we might discern His mind and will as that verse two goes on to tell us. And so this world, you know, wants to do our thinking for us. It wants to tell us what kind of clothes we should wear and what names we should have on our hats and our clothes and all this. And you know, it beats its drum. And He wants us to move to that beat.
And those who are more given to that, you can tell that they're under the control and influence of it, though they don't like me saying that.
Nevertheless, that is true. And someone who's perhaps marching along the road characterized by that as being conformed to the world, it goes on to speak about being transformed. And that would just show us that either we are being Cong. Formed or we're being transformed. Because there's no such thing as being static as far as our state is concerned in the things of God. But what he's showing us here in these opening verses.
Is that the there is a new motive that's been brought into the life of the believer that completely changes his object in life and his goal, and he's willing to surrender those ambitions that he once had for the cause of Christ. And now we find in verse two that there's a new cause and a new use for our bodies. Our bodies were once the vehicle of our own will to do our own thing for our own pleasure, for our own self.
And that's what characterizes the world, as it says in Second Timothy chapter 3.
It says they are lovers of self, but now our bodies are to be put on the altar of sacrifice, and they are to be used for an entirely new purpose for the glory of God and for the furthering of the cause of Christ in this world. And what a happy privilege that is that we can have part in glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ while we live in this world that is so opposed to him.
So he goes on, and he says, Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
So here we have another thing, Transformation we've had, appreciation we've had.
Dedication. We've had separation. Now we have transformation. This is a process that begins on the inside. Transformation is the work that goes on within. As he says here in the mind, God will transform our lives when he picks us up and saves us. And we go through these exercises of lead that lead to the consecrated Christian life. And it begins with a.
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With our hearts being lifted up in praise. But it also has worked out through the transforming of our minds. Our minds run down the paths that are really connected with the world, naturally speaking, but God would have our minds to be transformed.
Into thinking his thoughts, the world would tell us to think for ourself.
But God's thoughts are to think for the glory of his Son, and so we find here.
That the renewing of our minds is the next thing in the process of the work of God in the life of the Christian. And what will hinder the transformation process is the world. And so that's why separation would precede transformation in the mind. As I say, even after we're saved, our minds keep running down certain paths that usually have self as the object and motive, and we need to get our minds fastened on what God thinks about. And so when we saturate ourselves with the word of God.
We will think God's thoughts. Remember listening to a tape many years ago and I'm reading, meaning I don't know if it was Chapter Brown or if it was Paul Wilson. One of the other was saying to on the tape in the meeting that we may have to renew our minds 50 times in a day if our minds keep running off onto those things that only pertain to the the flesh.
And the earth. And so we find here that the great result of having our minds fastened on the things that God is interested in. And God is seeking, which is the glory of his own Son. That what happens is that we prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And so here we come to another thing, and that is the realization of the will of God for our life. Not only is there transformation there, it will lead to the realization.
Of the will of God for our lives. Isn't that wonderful? Now it says that you may prove. You would think it would say that you might know what is the good and acceptable perfect will of God. No, it says what would prove Now Why? Because prove goes away beyond knowing. Of course He wants us to know what his will is, But he doesn't want us to know us, just to know it. He wants us to prove it by walking in it and living in it, and to finding out that it is good and it's acceptable.
And it's perfect, just like me saying that. Do you know the road to Salem OR? Yes, I know the road to Salem OR. But I can say I not only know it, but I have proved it to be a great Rd. from here to Salem OR because I've been over that road, I've proved it. I've tried it myself. That's the point of proving here. We prove it by trying it, by living in it. And so God doesn't want you just to know his will. Everybody wants to know the future and you know these kind of things.
He's looking for persons that are willing to lay down their lives, that they would walk in his will. If any man shall do his will, he shall know of his of the doctrine. And so that's the great principle that God would seek to affect in our life, the proving of his will in our life. So God has a plan for your life, dear young person.
It will be slightly different than each one of us, because each one of us have a different place to fill in the body of Christ, as he goes on to say in the following verses. But there will be certain similarities in all of our lives, and that is that he wants us to live for the glory of God and for the glory of Christ. All that he has for us as far as our plan for our life will always be subservient to that one great.
Objective that God has and that is to live for the glory of Christ. God has only one objective in his life before him, and that is that his Son may be glorified in this world.
And all of the various details in our life are only to lead to that one objective, the car you buy, the place you live, the person you marry. All these things here really are only subservient to the fact that God wants you to live in those things for His own glory. Now that goes on here in verse 3. And He speaks here of another thing, and that is that that every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
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But to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man a measure of faith, what we have in this verse is humiliation.
OK, the idea of one being humbled at the fact that God would use us to learn his will.
And that he actually to learn that he actually has some service for us to carry out for his glory and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we discern his will rightly before the hymn in prayer. It should take the pride right out of us and make us humble Christians as we see that God has something for us to do. And so I would beseech of you as you lay your life on the altar of sacrifice that you would.
And discern his will for you and your life, that you would then have that state of thinking low thoughts of self, that we would go forward.
In in humility and seek to carry that out for his glory without trying to make a big bit of fanfare about it. Like we were saying at the conference in Walla Walla about that man Jihu, who said come see my zeal for the Lord. He was going to do something for God. He wanted everybody to see it.
No, that's not thinking soberly. We must not think ourselves more highly than we ought. That is, that we can get into our minds certain fleshly and worldly ideas of putting ourselves forward and imagine that God is calling us to certain things that He may not have called us to do at all. And really, it's just the flesh and the things of God, which is a dangerous thing. But if we're sufficiently in His presence, it will humble us, because no flesh in God's sight can ever be puffed up. And so when we see someone.
Who is boasting in their service for the Lord? I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that and this kind of thing. It makes you wonder if they're sufficiently been living in the presence of the Lord himself. But when I see a Christian going about doing something humbly for the glory of God and not trying to make a big bit of fanfare about it, I see that there has been some secret time, secret history in that person's soul between them and the Lord, and it's beautiful to see.
So this leads us to another thing, and that is, in verse 4 through 8 we find that the Lord now places in the hand of those who have surrendered their life to the Lord.
Something to do, verse six, he goes on to say. He tells us we all have something to do. We all have member we're all members of the body and have a different function, not office, but should read function. And then he says we all have a gift. Some of us tell us that we don't have a gift, but that's not true. The Bible teaches this, that we do all have a gift. And Jan Darby said if there was more devotion, there would be more gift among us.
If there was more devotion among us, there would be more gift among us. He wasn't meaning. That gift comes by devotion. But what he meant was is that as a person is devoted to the Lord, it will become apparent. It'll come to the surface, that person's gift, and he'll know and it'll become distinctive in his life. The problem is there's a lack of devotion and dedication in our life. And we all know what I'm talking about here. And that's why sometimes in our lives there isn't much.
Discerning what the will of God is as far as our service for the for His glory is concerned in this world.
And so if there was more devotion, there would be more gift evident amongst us. He goes on here, and he speaks in verses 6 through eight of seven different functions or exercises of gift that we can be involved in. And not all of them, you'll see, is public ministry necessarily. He doesn't call everybody to be a preacher.
Or a teacher. And so there are many functions that God would have.
In the body and this in these verses 6 through 8 are what is properly consecration when he fills our hands with something to do and to carry out for his service. Now if you were to go back to Exodus 29, where you get the consecration of the priests, you'll see it immediately. They were brought into the presence of the Lord. They were there was a sacrifice that was made at the altar, and in the sight of that very sacrifice they were to be consecrated, and Moses was to place into the hands of the priest.
And the Levites, various things. A loaves of bread, I think it was there was the wave shoulder and all these things. There were 10 things.
Into their hands. He was filling their hands with those things that speak of Christ, that they were to carry out and be busy around the Tabernacle and that sanctuary for the service of God. And that is really what God wants to do. He wants to fill your life with that which is of Christ, and fill your life for the service of God and the service of Christ in this world. But it begins, dear young person, with the dedication of our life.
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To the Lord, and that is only going to happen when there is.
Appreciation of what he's done for us. I've seen a bumper sticker say Jesus is my copilot. Jesus is my copilot. But you know, friends, he doesn't want to be your copilot. He wants to be the captain of your life.
Someone told when I told somebody that, he said, you know, I saw a bumper sticker and you and it said if Jesus is your copilot, you're in the wrong seat. I thought that was pretty good. Jesus is your copilot, you're in the wrong seat.
And that's true.
And so here we have.
What is properly consecration? God may give you a work that He will give you a work to do. It may be teaching it, may be shepherding, exhorting, even giving with simplicity and showing mercy. You say. What's the gift of showing mercy? I don't understand that.
Brother told me one time that the gift of mercy would be ones who seemed to have a special.
Gift from God to be able to comfort the broken hearted and to help those who are sick and infirm. You see them going to hospitals, They just have a gift for it. An ability to just be able to say the right word and to know what to do. I mean, we should all have a heart for the afflicted and we should all have, you know, the shepherd's heart too. But there are some that seem to have.
Quite a ministry of showing mercy to them that need it. And notice what he says. You're showing mercy with cheerfulness, and that's what people need when they are cast down or are hurt in some way. You know, as I said, we only have one life we can live in any way we want. The only happy and fruitful life that can really have any meaning to us at all is to have a surrendered life, as we've been saying. And I was just thinking about.
Armistead, Barry.
I heard this story years ago. It's affected me deeply.
When he was a teenager.
He was a dedicated and devoted young man, thank God, and he worked with his father on the farm, and their farm was set up in such a way as that, just outside where the house was going up the road they had to go up a steep bluff of a hill, a very steep hill to where their their their fields were where they kept the cattle. And after a long day's work, one day more Armistead was working with his father. They came down out of that field, down that steep Rd. made to the bottom. His father was tired.
When he got to the bottom of the hill, he turned around and he noticed that they left the gate open and Armistead turned. I mean, Mr. Barry, the senior father, turned and said, oh, we left the gate open and he started to go up the hill and Armistead said, oh Dad, I'll get it. And he said to Armistead, Armistead, you always do things that please me.
So Armistead took off up the hill. He climbed up steep hill and he closed that gate. And when he came back down to the bottom, his father was laying on the ground. He passed away with a massive heart attack and the last words that boy heard. Armistead, you always do things that please me. Isn't that beautiful? He said that there was something that encouraged him in his life and service thereafter, that he knew at least he had pleased his father.
Those of us who know that man know that he pleased God his father as well, because he lived a life of devotion and service to the Lord. But you know, I just was thinking about this dear young person here. If your father or your mother was to fall dead on the floor here today, and passed into eternity to be with the Lord in heaven, would they be able to go into heaven with the thought that they are reasonably sure?
That you were one that really had the desire to please the Lord in your life, or would they pass out of this world into the presence of the Lord with a question mark? I wonder how my son or my daughter are going now. We have no assurance. But that man, Mr. Barry Senior, left the scene with reasonable assurance that his son was one who really had the Lord before him and wanted to please not only his father.
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But God too. And so it starts there, dear young person, in the presence of the Lord, appreciating what He has done for us.
You know, I don't like to.
Make personal references.
And when people do it, I I shrink from it. And I know because the scripture says he to speak of himself, speak of his own glory. I'm going to depart from that rule here for a minute to try and press on the point that I am trying to make to you.
When I was younger.
There was a brother, Wayne Coleman, that he and I sought to follow the Lord with these young persons. We were both 20 years of age.
And we got interested and more interested and more interested in the Scriptures. And I would just say this to you as I pause here for a minute, It is really good to have another young person that you can walk with and who wants to please the Lord. You can confide in one another and you can encourage one another. But nevertheless, as we got more interested in the things of Scripture, we got this notion that we should get together every night, since he only lived a few blocks from me. And we would pray.
We would pray to the Lord.
And we talked and we talked and we talked a lot. Every night we would get together and we prayed. This went on. And as our talks went, we talked about the mediocracy that we saw in Christians life. And we thought it was nauseous. And then we thought about ourselves, well, we're much any better. And if at all.
And he used to speak of that verse so often. He said the thing that chills me the most. Is that what Samson said when he said if I lose my Nazarite ship, I'll be as any other man.
That's what I fear more than anything is to just be an average.
Mediocre.
Christian that has one foot in the world and one foot in the things of the Lord. And as we spoke about these things, we talked about how really the Scriptures only present Christianity. One way I can remember us talking about how that we need to.
Go all the way or not at all, because that's the only happy path and we would pray about it.
I remember one night we we talked for a long time. Before we prayed, we said, you know what we should be doing is consecrating or dedicating rather our lives to the Lord entirely. I mean total surrender.
Said. Yeah, I know, but you know what that cost? Yeah, I know what it cost.
We were serious young men. I look back on it now and that our dedication to the Lord was filled with so much imperfection. It's embarrassing. But nevertheless we were real and we were serious about this, what we were talking about.
He said, You know, we need to pray about this and tell the Lord that we're going to give our lives entirely to him.
It's going to mean everything. Yeah, I know. OK.
In my bedroom, we cut down. He prayed first.
And we talked and told the Lord, and I don't say that we need to do this in a group thing. I just already said it's an individual thing. But we were praying together. At any rate. He prayed that. And I prayed. And we talked for a long time after that again. And we said, you know, if we're going to go all the way, I mean all the way, we better clean up things, take care of things. Well, he had a Jag Jaguar. I mean one of those Ex K ES with the long nose on it.
Said. I can't serve all over that. I better get rid of it.
I don't know where we got some of these ideas from, but anyway.
I had a grand.
Piano. Beautiful black piano. I like to play the piano, I said. I better get rid of it.
Why? We were serious. We were really serious. And that's the point. I'm trying to get home here. I sold that piano and the Lord allowed me to sell it for every penny, I think within $100 of what I paid for, which is amazing. And he got every penny he got out of his car. The Lord seemed to honor that. So we got rid of those things.
And as we talked right around that time, because we came together every night, he said, well, we need to learn the truth. If we're going to go all the way, we're going to have to learn the truth. Well, what had happened just before that an old brother in our meeting had died and I was given, oh, about maybe 2 rows or three rows of books of ministry because they gave it to some young brother. I said, I'll take it. I didn't know what they're for.
You know, various. I had to read them or anything, but we had them there. So we're going to learn the truth. We're going to read these books. Well, then he had some books too.
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So we said, well, if we're going to learn the truth, we went out and bought a bunch of pamphlets in BTP. In fact, we bought every pamphlet that they had on the subject of learning the scriptures, not gospel things and so on. And when we got to that, we talked about it the next after we got them, we said, well, you know, this is not going all the way, what about all the books and industry they have? So we went back and it's embarrassing. We bought every single book that they had in BTPI mean we were serious with our wallets. We were getting serious. And some of those books I still have on my shelf and I still haven't read them.
But we were serious. That's my point. And then we said well.
We could. We should be sharing the gospel. We got to share the gospel. We just got to do this. OK, We got to do it. And so we found tracks, and some of the tracks were at the meeting, were so outdated. And we just, you know, for our generation, they scoffed at us. We used to think for passing our tracks. One of them was called the Two Rabbits. Have you ever seen it? I don't know if you have, but it was just so outdated that we just can't pass that on.
We found a track that Gordon Hayhoe wrote that wasn't antiquated, but we thought it was an erring someone.
20 year old brothers, we thought it was airing somewhat that Mister Hayward wrote, so we rewrote it. Don't ever tell him this, will you? We rewrote it a little bit just to change a few things and we printed them. We printed thousands of them. We printed hundreds of thousands. I'm not bragging him. And we passed them out downtown and we would get down there and we passed them out to these people. After 2-3 hours our legs were hurting.
We look at each other. Well, it's time to quit. Yeah. And then we'd, he'd say, well, but if we're really dedicated, we just keep on because Paul would. OK, We keep on. And we were driving one another with this. I mean, I see it was so filled with imperfection. Then we went back, We pray about things. We say, well, we got to preach. Preach. Yeah. I don't know how to preach. Well, how are we going to do it?
Will get tapes. Who's a good preacher? Well, Gordon Hale is a good preacher, so I bought every tape I could from Mr. Smith, and some sister was telling me it was. Martha was telling me about how that she'd heard that. I don't know how she heard that. I bought every tape. In fact, when Will Hayhoe bought the the collection from Mr. Smith, I said I got them all.
I was not exactly true, but I had a lot of them. In fact, we dedicate or devoted them to the meeting room. There's over 4000 of those tapes. We were serious.
And we collected many takes by Mr. Wakefield too, and tried to imitate him, even wrote out what he said and so on. I'm telling you we were serious. But it's embarrassing, as I stand here to tell you, but I'm trying to get across to you that what God is looking for is serious young men and women. If there's some imperfections and some whatever, He worked those things out.
Process of transformation. And so we got to the Gospel Meeting and some of our brethren were beginning to wonder what was going on. A couple of guys like John the Baptist running around. But anyway, what happened was.
I can still remember Mr. Coleman saying, would you like to preach the gospel? We knew that was coming, so Wayne said no. This is interesting. I want to tell you, Wayne was a man that stuttered, stuttered in school, stuttered.
Mr. Coleman said to him. Would you like to preach the gospel tonight? We know your boys are working.
He said sure, sure, sure, sure. He got up and he preached and he never stumbled once, and he's never stumbled since.
The power of God to transform a life is amazing.
Now this is really going to be embarrassing.
I got all the way through school into my late teens and I could barely read. I was not a good student.
And here I am with all these books from Bible truth publishers.
And even after that happened, in the next couple of years I would pray about the Lord helping me to read so I could read them books. And I asked the Lord if He would help me to have a memory that would remember scripture.
And I'll tell you something.
He gave me right at that time the power to remember Scripture.
Used to call me The Walking until I asked and don't do that anymore because that's putting puffing. A personnel person would say quote a scripture anyway, tell him that's Romans 410 or whatever. I don't know where it came from. I'm not talking about miracles here, but we had so completely thrown our lives into the cause of Christ that there were things happening and they were all good. We were happy. And when John Kemp heard about it, he came out and said, well, we'll take you boy St. preacher. Oh, here we go. So we went out on the street.
And we got preaching, and we had thought preaching. That's for the old days. You can't do that today. We're living in the hippie era and so on, you know, back then. And so we started. And you know what happened? A crowd gathered. John was surprised, really. He was the crowd. And we were preaching. We were choking out verses and stuff. And there were people that were actually interested. We couldn't believe it. There were people who were heckling us too. And I'm telling you right now that reproach of Christ that we felt.
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I'm telling you this, we felt like Christians ought to feel. We felt the reproach of Christ, but we were happy. And I'll tell you this, I wouldn't trade places when anybody in this world for what the joy we had of standing there passing out tracks, calling out verses in the middle of the downtown of Vancouver. God helped us. And it was a wonderful time and I do not regret it one single bit. And so we're going to learn how to preach. And the Lord helped us with that too.
Our concept, our dedication to the Lord got so out of control that on the basis of Jeremiah 16, we were not going to marry. We said, look, if we're going to go all the way, I mean all the way, we're going to be like the apostle. And So what happened was on basis of Jeremiah 16, we said we're not, we're not going to get married. Thankfully, I'm here to tell you that someone talked us out of that.
And I hope my consecration to the Lord is a little more.
Balanced.
But I'm telling you, those were happy days, full of a few failures and imperfections, but they were happy days.
And I'm here this afternoon to just say to you young people, is your one young brother or young sister that is willing to put your life in the hands of the Lord like that and just say, OK, Lord, have it all, none of this. A little bit and a little bit and a little bit. Have it all. He'll make your life a blessing and you will not believe the joy that you'll have in your Christian life. And more than that, you don't want. You'll make him.
Happy. Don't you want to make the Lord happy? You know, Mr. Hagel used to tell us. And I know I have the tapes.
He used to tell us that everyone of us are making a present that someday we're going to give to the Lord Jesus. Your life is like a present. And every day you're making something beautiful for him. That when we come to the coming day, when he at the judgment seat, we're going to stand there when my name is called and I'm going to give him my present and he's going to look at it and he's going to open it and I'm going to look at his face when he opens that.
What if he opens it?
And all there is is wood, hay and stubble. In our life, we've lived it for ourselves. We don't care what people say. We hear preachers talking like this all the time. It'll wear off. It's just like a man pulling up his socks, you know what I mean? She's back down a couple days later.
Are we going to give a present of our life to the Lord Jesus at the judgment seat? And there's going to be very little there for him. We'll all get the smile of his approval because it says then shall every man have praise of God? He will praise this even for the smallest little things.
But wouldn't you like to bring joy to the Lord Jesus by surrendering your life? I mean, totally.
My worry in talking about this and I have really gone back and forth, though I had to confide with Brother Ed's tags about this going back and forth because I don't want to get up here and beat a drum and have sort of like a pep rally and I have really agonized over taking up this subject.
This afternoon I don't want to be like the old man that was. I read this report of an old man that sat at a railway station or some 100 yards off from the railroad station.
And he saw a newspaper laying on the railroad tracks or nest to the next to the railroad tracks. Somebody had thrown it down. And a train, he heard it off in the whistle coming along. And he said all that train and that train came through town blasting away. It didn't stop. It was it was like a whistle stop. Wasn't a real railroad station anyway. It just came right through town. And as it got near that newspaper, the wind just ripped that newspaper up and it was flying in the air around like you've seen the air paper going in the air.
That train went on down the way and disappeared on the site. The newspaper started to go down, down, down, and it fell down onto the track where it was before the train came. And that's my fear here this afternoon that we can talk about these things, about consecration to Christ. You can get all excited for a day or two or a week and go back home and there's no effect. You know, you've got to get into the presence of the Lord if this exercise is going to be sustained. Another verse that Wayne used to always quote, and he still does, really.
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It really disturbed him, and that is in Acts 27, it says. And when the past when the fast was passed, sailing became difficult when the fast was passed. The fast is a time of exercise before to God, God may give you an exercise. I pray that he would do that here today. But don't let the fast past, Don't let it pass out of your life. Hang on to it and be serious about these things with the Lord.
Because there's a time and an enemy that's going to try to take it all away, you know, and justice. Now in closing, I just want to mention how that in First Samuel, where Doug was speaking, first Kings Chapter 20, you will read, you don't need to turn to it, but you'll read that Ben Haydad, who's a type, as he was saying, of our enemy, of our souls, and you find that that enemy comes up into the land of the children of Israel. And what is it that he is after? He says.
Your household mind and all your possessions and your children, even the goodliest they are mine. He put a claim on them. And Satan, the enemy of our souls, is seeking to put a claim on the young people, and the goodliest, especially that is those who have some talent or ability or whatever that he wants them, especially for his system.
The dialogue went back and forth between Ahab and the messengers of Ben. Hey Dad. And anyway, what happened? Later in the chapters, Doug read to us that a prophet comes to Ahab and says to him, we're going to take care of that enemy, he's going to be defeated. Ahab says How? And the prophet says by the young men, Isn't that something, the very ones that the enemy was putting a claim on, God was preparing to use for the deliverance of Israel?
And you know, if the Saints of God gathered to the Lord's name are going to be delivered.
And further the testimony be furthered. It's going to be through the young man, the next generation. It's you, dear young people, that are going to further the cause of Christ and the truth of being gathered to the Lord's name, not only in principle but in practice. But the enemy is after your soul, and he wants to take you into other things, so that you will be useless in the things of God, May God give you.
That exercise this very day.
To dedicate your life to the cause of Christ and prove the happy joy of living for him. And you can't go too far in the things of God. You may run across people that will tell you, oh, you're getting a little crazy now you're getting a little fanatical, but you know.
It's the happy path, and I just want to leave that with you, now that you might be exercised About that, let me read you a little poem. When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ and he shows me his plan for me, the plan of my life as it might have been had he had his way. And I see how I blocked him here and checked him there, I would not yield my will. Will there be grief in my Saviour's eyes? Grief, though he loves me still?
Would he have me rich? But I stand there poor.
Rob of all but his grace, while my memory runs like a haunted thing down the path, I cannot retrace Lord of the years that are left to me. I give them into Thy hand, take me, break me, and move me to the pattern Thou has planned.
Let's pray.