How Christians can regain spiritual power and effectiveness, drawing parallels from the lives of Elijah and Elisha. It highlights the story of the lost axe head to illustrate the loss of spiritual sharpness and the necessity of returning to the cross for restoration. The message emphasizes that true victory comes not from striving but from recognizing one's position in Christ, who has already overcome all enemies. The sermon concludes by urging believers to embrace this victorious position by faith, enabling them to overcome personal battles and serve God effectively.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.35 → restored 4.11
And I'm sure I want to thank our gracious chairman and each one of you for your kind welcome back. Southern Keswick, been here many times about the last two or three years for certain reasons couldn't come. And it's a joy to be back again. I'd ask your prayers. I leave tomorrow with two of the guests, Mr. and Mrs. Hastings. We are going to happen to both Academy, and I'll be there all week with those precious young people. No gray hairs there, you know.
And I do pray for them. They're facing life with all its possibilities, and it's a real privilege to be amongst them and to minister to them. and often chat with them over their problems. Monday week, in the will of God, back to Jamaica, which is home sweet home. The Sunshine Island, the land of opportunity. Glad to say the doors are still wide open there. And in a measure, people still eager to hear the gospel. And perhaps the greatest need for Jamaica today is teaching the Word of God. And a great percentage of my time is given to teaching. busy four months there and then if the Lord hadn't come somewhere around July up to Pennsylvania to Greenwood Hills Conference and through to Canada for Keswick and one or two places and then back to Jamaica again after the summer camps and this is one's work and I value your prayers just pray for a poor old missionary occasionally the wild man from Borneo you remember won't forget him will you Joe Now, we are up against a little problem again tonight, as I told you this morning.
In Two Kings, there are many of these little panel pictures, and I would like to have taken, oh, I would say, fifteen to sort of complete the series. But if we take two tonight, we shall make it twelve. That's as far as we can get. And for the sake of friends who are joining us tonight, We've been taking the picture stories out of Two Kings and with a little heading, seeking to learn some of the secrets of victorious Christian living, which is commonly called the Keswick Teaching. I'm using the word for this place. Around the world, if you mention Keswick, people who know know that it represents a line of Bible teaching that is sadly neglected in the churches and assemblies of God's people, and these subjects can make all the difference.
I could only tell you I wish that I had heard this line of teaching as a growing boy a little earlier. God saved me as a boy at school and deepened his work when I was about seventeen and a half I climbed on a cargo boat and went to the mission field in South America when I was twenty-two, and I looked back with great thankfulness to the Lord, but as I handle some of these subjects now, I wish with all my heart I had learned them a little earlier in life. Now I don't want to vainly repeat, but just running through the twelve subject titles you might like to check over your list.
Chapter one, man of God. And I say chapter one, and it's chapter one in the unfolding of these stories, and it's also chapter one in the book, Two Kings, chapter one. Chapter one, man of God. Chapter two, take the mantle. Chapter three, dig the dishes. Chapter four, pour the oil. Chapter four, second one, which is the fifth chapter in our book, shall I say, watch your days. Chapter four, number six, shut the door.
Chapter four, number seven, protect your food. Chapter five, which makes number eight in our book, forge the links. Chapter five, number nine, take the warning. Chapter six, number ten, open his eyes, and that's as far as we've got. And the two tonight we want to cover will be found in chapter six and chapter thirteen. We shall read from these two chapters, and the titles are, Regain Your Power and Shoot and Smite. You'll hear those words again, so I needn't repeat them.
Now let's get down to our scripture reading, please. Chapter six, two kings. Verse one. And the sons of the prophets said unto Elijah, Behold now the place where we dwell with thee is too straight for us. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take, hence, every man a beam, and let us make a place there where we may dwell. And he answered, Go ye. And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go.
So he went with them, and when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. And then as one was selling a beam, the axe head fell into the water. And he cried and said, Alas, master, for it was borrowed. And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he showed him the place. And he cut down a stick and cast it in river. And the iron did swim. Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand and took it. Now this is panel number one.
And the title over it I'm writing is, Regain Your Power. Now will you turn and let's read the second story in chapter thirteen. Two Kings thirteen and verse fourteen. Now Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness whereup he died. And Joash, the king of Israel, came down unto him and wept over his face and said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. Delash said unto him, Take bow and arrows.
And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow, and he put his hand upon it. and Elisha put his hand upon the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance. The arrow of deliverance from Syria. For thou shalt smite the Syrians in effect till thou hast consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows.
And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times. Then hath thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it. For as now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming of the year. And it came to pass as they were burying a man that, behold, they spied a band of men, and they cast the man into the sepulter of Elisha.
When the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood up on his feet. God will bless to us the reading together of his word for his namesake. Now just our quiet moment of prayer. Our loving Father God we bow our heads over the sacred page. Independence upon the Holy Spirit to lead us and teach us and guide us into thy truth. Lord Jesus you know what we need. Our needs are so varied. We may be all interested tonight, but, Lord, draw near and meet some of our deepest needs in thy grace.
Send us out from this meeting with thyself, conscious of the tremendous possibilities of victory that thou hast enabled us to engage in. For the Lord Jesus' sake, amen. Now we are going to start with the first story in Two Kings Six, if you would like to have it open in front of you. Regain your power. You know, this story is a very exciting one. The sons of the prophets are finding that their numbers are growing and their school is getting too small for them.
And they come to their master and they say, look, it's too straight for us. It's too confined. We want something bigger. God's work must move and expand. Could we go down to Jordan and find a nice situation and build a new school there? The man of God looks into their faces and says, yes. And they say, and would you come with us? We can't go without you, you know. And the man of God, Elisha, says, Yes, I'll come down with you. And so they go down, and I tell you, it's a picture of unity and glorious activity as you see them busy building the new schoolhouse.
When all of a sudden there comes a tragedy. One of those fine young men in the school of the prophets, is using the axe and he's cutting down a bush or a tree and as he chips and chips into the old tree and the chips are flying and he's just getting on splendidly all of a sudden something goes wrong and the next thing there's a big splash in the river and his axe head the cutting edge so vital to an axe in labor is gone down in the water And the story goes on, does it?
That holding the big old axe head he went on, hitting the tree and banging at the tree with the handle. No. No, it doesn't go on like that. He knew instinctively his need at that axe head, and he knew that he could do nothing without that axe head. And so he cried out, Alas! Master! And he turns instinctively to Elisha, the man of God, in this situation. And he said, Master, the trouble is it's borrowed. Now, I want to very earnestly and lovingly right to begin with ask you a question.
You're a Christian here tonight. And may I put in one little word here. These Keswick conferences are not evangelistic meetings. I have seen Keswick conventions completely spoiled by Christians getting anxious that souls should be saved. If you want an evangelistic campaign, plan it. Get the people. Get the unsaved in the right situations and let loose some servant of God to preach the gospel. But that is not Keswick.
Keswick around the world is the gathering together of Christians to do business with God, to learn the secrets of deep spiritual experience. Souls are saved at Keswick. You say to me, well, aren't you keen to see souls saved? Well, I've been a bit of an evangelist in my missionary work all my life, and there's nothing I love more. But perhaps the greatest need of the Church of Jesus Christ today is not more Christians, but better Christians. For if there's better Christians, there will soon be more Christians.
They have a way of reproducing themselves. And I am not a bit troubled, not the slightest troubled when a kentic week goes through and no souls are won for Christ as far as evangelism is concerned, because that is not the target and the objective of a kentic conference or convention. No. We are Christians gathered here. If there's anyone who's not a real born-again Christian, I know the Spirit of God can and will do his work. I say to you, dear lady or gentleman, if you're not right with God, if you will stay in this auditorium at the close, there's not only this man who is speaking to you, but a score of people who would sit by your side till midnight if necessary to point you to Christ.
There's no need for you to go to sleep tonight unsaved. It'll be your own fault if you do, because God's great arms are out toward you, and the people of God would love to help you. But my task is to speak to Christians. Now, Christians, let's face it, it's no good going on beating about with the handle of an axe. there may be a lot of noise and a lot of thump, thump, thump, thump, but no chips will fly, no trees will fall if you've lost the cutting edge of the axe.
And this dear, precious son of one of the prophets had lost the cutting edge of the axe. It was in the waters. He's concerned about it. But he's more concerned about it. For this reason, it was borrowed. He's got to give an account for it. It really isn't his own. I shall never forget when this dawned upon me. God saved me as a boy at school. Happy go lucky, kid. Fond of my games and really fond of my school life, and this Sunday night God saved me.
I could never get away from it. For the first time I realized that that cross had something to do with me, and if there was no one else in the world, I had something to do with that cross. And that night I bowed at the cross and said thank you for dying for me. For five years, I didn't live for him. I didn't really make any mark as a Christian boy growing up. I failed him. I didn't stand for him in many situations. And you know, when I was turning seventeen and a half toward eighteen and going out to learn my business in life in the great city of London in England, the Lord drew near, and one Monday night, I won't go into the details.
He said, you know, I didn't pardon your sin for this. I pardoned your sin that I might make some use of you, and I'm not making any use of you because you won't let me. And it was the subject of the judgment seat of Christ. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And as you know, this is an entirely different word in the Greek than the great white throne judgment. This judgment seat of Christ is the beamer, the judgment when at the end of the Grecian Games they gathered around this big, exalted platform or stone.
And those who had been taking part in the games came for their laurels or their awards, and they're well done. and we shall all give an account of ourselves to our Lord when we meet him at the judgment seat after the rapture of the church is coming for his own as I was searched by the word of God I saw five years going up in smoke I saw five years of wood and hay and stubble building of a Christian I saw that when the test came it wouldn't stand the test and that Monday night I remember with tears Yes, and I wasn't the crying sort, let me tell you.
With tears I got down on my knees and said, Lord, if you can ever forgive me for a wasted five years, and if you can ever make any use of me, what I've got is yours. And the turning point had come in my Christian life. He took me at my word. I never dreamt he would. I told you I kissed mum and dad goodbye when I was only twenty-two years of age and climbed on a cargo boat and went to South America and I'm still an old missionary, just an old one now instead of a young one. But I want to tell you this, I look back to that Monday night and I know that Monday night for the first time I realized that it was borrowed, that I had to give an account that I would have to look into his face and say, Master, you gave me this life to live and you gave me a task to do.
And I've got to give an account of my life and my task to be. No, what does this mean? Losing the cutting edge? I don't like to say this to you. But I'm meeting so many people today that a dread comes into my heart sometimes. So many people who were used to God ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years ago, but they're not being used now. Why? They've lost their cutting edge.
Is it possible to regain it? Is it possible to come back to a place where, again, with firm hands, you can hold that axe head, and every blow sends its chips flying, and there are results seen, and trees fall, and buildings begin to go up? Or are we forever to go on holding that handle, stomping away, and nothing's happening? Can we regain? this gracious power that's found in the axe head or not. Well, a remarkable thing happens.
Elisha says, get a big branch of a tree and we'll throw it in if you'll point out the exact spot where it is. You've got to come to the spot where you saw the axe head fall into the river and drop. And when you've pointed out where it is, we'll bring the tree to that place. And amazingly, iron swam, another of the miracles of Elisha. And all the servant of God is told is to put in at his hand in simple faith and stretch out his hand and take. And I wonder what this would teach You know, many of you have a vivid memory of the Bible teaching, and you remember where the children of Israel came across the Red Sea.
They came hungry and thirsty in Exodus fifteen to the waters of Mara, and they came to drink the waters, and they were bitter, repulsive. And Moses was told to cut down a tree. and to take this big branch of the tree and cast it into the bitter waters, and it was made sweet. I think we cannot somehow in New Testament language get away from the fact that these trees picture an old rugged cross, a tree on which our Savior, the Son of God, stooping down from glory, stretched out his arms and died at Calvary.
And we have simply got to bring that tree to the waters, the bitter waters, if they're going to be sweetened. We've simply got to bring that tree to the place where the axe head fell, and it can make all the difference. Oh, I've seen lives that are soured by the bitterness of Mara's waters, made sweet and precious by Calvary. But you say Calvary applied to the Christian, yes. I wonder how I could illustrate this. Some years ago, I was asked to go for a campaign to the big city of Vancouver in Canada.
And in the... Very lovely Granville Chapel there. I was speaking night by night, and they had a remarkable group of singers each night who were singing the gospel, and they were usually behind me. They sang and stayed there behind me on the platform. And amongst them there was a beautiful voice, a tenor voice of a young man. And again and again his voice was outstanding as a gift. But when I met him in a quiet room and when I met him in the chapel and shook hands with him, somehow I felt he was disgruntled. He wasn't happy.
And I remember so distinctly as this campaign went through, God began to graciously work in half and souls were being saved and born again. And this group of singers greatly added to the happy attraction of singing the gospel. when one night I made an appeal and I said I'm going into the quiet lounge at the side and I want those who rarely need Christ to come and see me. The meeting closed and dismissed and one or two came to see me and as I sat there after seeing the last one in came this beautiful singer. Oh, I said, hello. He said, Mr.
Wildish, can I speak to you? I said, yes, sure. Come and sit down. Slowly it all came out. He said, you know, I don't think I'm a Christian. I said, what do you mean? She thought you were a Christian and your wife's a Christian and I thought you were singing for the Lord. He said, my wife's a Christian. I've did that since I married her, but I don't think I'm a Christian. I said, what's moved you? Well, he said, you were talking about the indwelling Christ, and I don't know anything about the indwelling Christ.
He said, I know Christ, you died on a cross for me to save me from hell and thought. I thought it was all right. He said, I'd thanked him for it, and he said, I don't know anything about an indwelling Christ. I was puzzled. So we got down to the word of God and after a bit I saw I wasn't making a great deal of progress and I said now look I'm going to ask you to read a verse with me you possibly know it by heart and then I'm going to ask you some questions about it and I read Galatians two twenty I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ live within me And the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
He said, have you ever heard that verse before? Oh, yes, he said. I said, will you close your eyes? He closed his eyes. I said, will you picture that? I said, tell me, who do you see on the cross? He said, Christ. I said, right. but wrong. I said, I'll read it again. I read it again. I said, close your eyes and picture the cross. Who do you see on the cross? He said, Christ Jesus. I said, right, but wrong. I said, close your eyes again.
I said, picture the cross and listen carefully. I am crucified. with Christ who do you see on the cross and I shall never forget the startled face that opened his eyes he said myself he said yes have you ever seen that before he said no no hat he had never seen himself on the cross He had never attended his own crucifixion.
Now, do you realize that I could tell you how to kill yourself until you would sit there squirming? I could spend a whole half hour telling you how you could dispose of yourself. You could shoot yourself, you could poison yourself, you could hang yourself, you could, and I would go on and on and on thinking of ways that you could destroy yourself. But here is one death that you can never administer to yourself. No man has ever been able to crucify himself. Can't fit up. You can get the big cross down here. You can get the nails. You can get the hammer. You can say, now crucify yourself.
And you can get on the cross and lie back and try and put a nail through that hand. But you won't be able to put it through that hand. You won't be able to get it through your feet. You won't be able ever to lift up that great big gibbet and put it in its socket. Someone else has to administer this death to you. I challenge some of you and I ask you to search your Bibles. If you will carefully look at every time you read of the believer's crucifixion, you will always find it in the past tense without exception. I have been crucified with Christ.
knowing that the old man was crucified with Jesus, and so we could go on. God forbid that I should glory save him the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby I was crucified to the world, and the world was crucified to me. Christian, God dealt with you at Calvary, and he put you to death. Because he said you could never be made better or improved to stand before him, to serve him, to fellowship with him. And he dealt with you, the child of Adam on the cross.
You see, is that the old nature? Yes. Is that the flesh? Yes, the Adam flesh. Call it what you like. It's been dealt with. But have you ever attended your own crucifixion? Have you ever gazed at that amazing sight of yourself on the cross? And have you ever bowed your head in the presence of God and said, OK, all correct? You couldn't do anything else. You had to do that. I could never be patched up. I could never be improved. My old nature had to be brought to the place of death. And when you dealt with the spotless son of your love, you were dealing with me.
And I have been crucified with Christ. I dare to say this to you tonight. The chips cannot fly. The sharp edge of the spiritual blade of your axe head in your hands cannot fell trees. The real progress in the building of the school of God cannot go on. If you haven't got this axe head, and the only way for that axe head to be restored is to bring the cross to the place where it's lost.
It's a sad thing to say, and I know it's an awfully sad thing for someone listening to me. There was a day when you rejoiced that God was using you. There was a day when you led many to Christ. There was a day when you had an instrument in your hands, and there was a sharp axe head in your life. Some of you haven't got it today. You've lost it. You see, lost my soul? No, no, thank God. but lost the power that you once were entrusted with. Somewhere along the line the old axe head came loose and it got loosened and it one day fell off with a flash.
It's gone, it's out of your hands now. It's no longer an instrument entrusted to you. It may have been loosened by lack of prayer. Do you know there are some Christians that are going through life today, especially in the later years of their life, with very little prayer? Oh, I used to pray a lot, but not now. And I used to read my Bible a lot, but now, well, eyes are getting dim. Poor thing. So are mine. Oh, dear, how we can loosen up, and somehow the power is gone.
And can it be regained, yes, if you will bring that cross right to the place, that cross, and you will say, I am crucified with Christ, but I am a living man. And this living man can honestly say, I reckon myself to be dead indeed unto sin's mastership. Sin shall not have dominion. Sin has no claims or right. But Christ has dominion. Christ can use every instrument. God can take this body. It can be a vehicle that he can use. I prevented a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God by intelligent service, not conformed to this world.
transformed by the renewing of my mind I shall prove the will of God and the will of God is that you might be entrusted with power that you might have in your hand his divine power that accomplishes tasks that you alone with bare hands cannot do now will you turn with me just for the remaining moment or two to chapter thirteen and it's A very stirring story here. Dear old Elisha, verse fourteen, is sick. We are not told what it was. No good trying to guess.
He's over ninety years of age. It seems that he's bedridden in his weakness. And there comes to his bedside the young king of Israel, Joash. And he comes with tears on his cheeks, and he bends over the old man, weeping, weeping in his weakness. And you say, why is he weeping? Because the enemies are pushing in on every hand. Because Israel is being defeated. No victory out on the battlegrounds. And in his pathetic weakness, this strong and fine young king, still in his twenties, weeping over the face of the old man.
Well, what is the situation? The young king knows that the greatest treasure in Israel is that old dying man. Somehow that dear old dying man has had the secrets of victory. Again and again the Lord of hosts has been round him. The movements of divine forces have been seen. Enemies have been beaten on the battlefields. And the old man's dying. The young king is weeping. I tell you his words are revealing.
Verse fourteen. Oh, my father, my father. The chariot of Israel and the horsemen there are. Where are the chariots? Where are the hosts of the Lord? Where are they? We heard about them in days gone by. Your eyes have seen them, but they're not manifesting themselves. There's no divine power in Israel to give deliverance and victory. The poor young king is weeping. Delisha said unto him, Bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows.
Now you can see the big long bent bow and you can see the sheath of arrows. He's got them in his hands. Now said the old man to him. He said, put thy hand upon the bow, and he put his hand on the bow, and he put his hand up, and Elisha put his hand upon the king's hands. It looks as if one is overlapping the other. As much as I say, you need a divine hand. You need a bigger hand over your young hand.
Your hand with all its natural ability, with all its natural strength. You need more than that. You need something to cover it. Something to, yes, just clothe it. Now he said, open the window eastward. That's eastward toward the land of Syria that lies here, away east. Syria. So the window's thrown up. He said, now shoot, and he puts the arrow in and shoots, and the arrow goes straight out east, right toward the land of Syria and drops down.
It's rather significant. As much as to say, you take the offensive, you get in a position to attack. With that open window toward the enemy, you claim now that you will attack the enemy and take his country and resist his invasions and drive him back and win victory. And so the arrow shot out. It's gone. The old man looks at the young man. He said, now take the bundle of arrows and smite, smite. The young king takes the bundle of arrows.
The old man on the bed is angry. Righteous indignation. He said, why didn't you snipe five, six, many kinds? Where's your enthusiasm for victory? You'll only win three battles against those Syrians. You could have wiped them up. You could have gone to battle and five or six times destroyed them and pushed back the frontier and won a complete victory. But you lacked all enthusiasm. There was no living faith that would try. It shall be done. But you know, this is one of the greatest secrets of victory in Christian life and service.
This is the victory that overcomes the world. Your faith, an enthusiastic faith, a trusting faith, a faith that cries, it shall be done. Not because of my strength, not because of my hand's ability, not because I shoot the bow, but divine powers are mine. Now I'm closing with this and this is one of the biggest secrets God ever taught Harold Wildish in his Christian life. For years and years of a young Christian and out on the mission field I thought that if I went on earnestly trying climbing one day at last somehow I would reach the top of a mountain and I would be able to stand as a victor on the top and say, Victory at last, I'm here.
But it would be a long climb and a long scramble and a long clamber up the side of the mountain to reach there. And one day I stumbled across something in Ephesians chapter one. I don't know how it dawned upon me. For I can't ever remember reading it in the writings of any servants of God. It just seemed to come that God took Jesus, the one who died on the cross at Calvary, and God dealt with me there, and he took him out of death and put him back on the throne. And his life is my life.
And God put him far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named. And he sat him down at the right hand of the majesty of the heavens. And he put every enemy under his seat. And I read there that I was a member of his body. And I was linked with the risen head and every enemy was under his feet. And I said, Well, if they're under his feet, they're under mine. And he just dawned on me like that. I've been striving for a position of victory.
I've been climbing and hoping, and one day that I could taste of sanctification, of holiness, of victory, of power, of something up there on the summit. And one day I hope to get there. And it dawned upon me that God had given me this position in a risen Christ. And in simple faith, for all God's best comes by faith. You must take the position. It is not fighting for a position. It is taking a position by faith and fighting from that position. And this had a transforming effect.
Sometimes in pathetic weakness I would go to the battle and would say, Lord, in my own strength I can do exactly what? Nothing. But Lord, I can do all things through Christ, who poureth his strength through me. Now if you forget everything else tonight, Just remember this in the two little tiny panel pictures. You can write over them. I can't!
I can't be the Christian that I ought to be. God says, rub it out and put down... I can do all things through Christ who pour it his strength through me. He can turn the I can't of a Christian who wants to engage in service into I can. And it's as that Christian says, I'm not fighting for a position. I am taking a position by faith that my Lord has won for me.
and standing there with Christ, with all enemies under my feet, I can fight victoriously from that position. You try it in the nursery. You try it in the home. You try it on washing day. You try it in the business rush. You try it. Lord, I can't. I've learned that. But Lord, I can. I can't scramble up the mountain and one day accomplish that thing I dreamt of. I take by faith that position and I can do all things through Christ.
Through Christ I can. Not I, for I can't. But Christ lives in me and the life that I now live. I live by faith. in the Son of God, moment by moment, the one who loved me and gave himself a me on the cross. Oh, if Ketit Week only meant this, that you went to your bed tonight, and when the darkness came you whispered in the night, Lord, I said I can't, I can't.
Taken the old axe handle and gone on with some service, but nothing's happened. Nothing's happened. There seems no power in my life. Well, let the divine hands direct you out toward the battlefield. Lay claim to the Syrian territories. Rub out the words Syria and put down some of those other words which I've put at the bottom of my Bible. Listen, this is the battleground for you. You've been beaten by these foes. Pride. Oh, how many Christians are beaten by pride?
Ease, taking it easy. Fear. Met several beaten by fear this week already. Here on the ground. Jealousy. It's beating lots of Christians. Worry, selfishness, covetousness, irritability, passion, conceit, envy. Oh, I could go on with the list.
It's a nasty one. I didn't say strong drink. I didn't say gambling. I didn't say murder. I didn't say all those nasty, disgusting sins, sins that you would never expect to see in a Christian's life. I spoke of those sins that are beating you, beating you. And those are the battlegrounds. But out through the open window you can direct your arrow and let it fly. Say, I'll win the victory, and you can enthusiastically strike again and again. I'll win it there. Not once and twice and thrice, but five and six times.
And you can be more than conqueror through him that loves you. Shall we pray? Our week has come and gone as we are bowed in the Lord's presence, just about to separate once again for the last time this week.
I know you're all going to locally try and come and hear Dr. Culbertson, a great friend of mine, a man I have a tremendous admiration for, sterling ministry from God's word will come from his lips. But that's next week, at the end of this week. Let me ask you the question, do you want to be a man, a woman of God? Do you want to take the mantle for the double portion? Do you want to dig the ditches for the water to flow to the battlefronts? Do you want to pour the oil till every vessel is filled?
Will you watch your days? Will you shut your door and learn the lessons behind it? Will you protect your food? Will you forge your links? Will you take the warning? Will you open your eyes? And tonight will you regain your power, the sharp edge of it? Will you shoot and slight and win the victories? Loving Lord, what shall we say to thee except let thy precious word abide in minds and hearts? One dear child of God, picking up some special point here or there, learning some lesson, finding thy gracious deepening work going on in their souls.
And wilt thou grant, Lord, that as we go back, many of us, to the old settings of service and life, it may be not merely challenged, but determined and renewed with secrets of victory in our hands. that we might be more than conquerors through him who loved us so much. We commend each other to thy keeping grace. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ always sufficient. The love of God our Father that matchless love. The gracious indwelling, fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit the comforter.
Abide with us all, until the day dawn, and the shadows flee away, and we see our Savior, Lord, at his coming, face to face. Amen. Thank you.