Trusting Jesus is the essential key to navigating life's challenges and achieving victory, as illustrated by the story of three boys racing on a beach. The sermon emphasizes that true success in the Christian race comes from keeping one's eyes fixed on the ultimate goal, Jesus Christ, rather than looking back at past mistakes or focusing on others. It further develops this by contrasting the futility of human effort with the power of resting in the risen Christ for His life and power to live victoriously. The message concludes by urging listeners to know themselves through knowing God, to submit to Christ's authority, and to embrace the possibility of revival through prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit.
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Our loving Father, we have come to the Inspiration Hour. We know that unless the Holy Spirit should be our guide, illuminating the Scriptures and leading us into Thy Truth and making them real to our hearts, it will not be an hour of blessing. But if this is true, O God, Draw near and breathe, and move upon our minds and hearts. Grant that these wills may be brought to that place of yielding, to thy lordship, to thy claims, that we with gladness may be able to say, channels only, blessed master.
We thank thee for the day and for all the activities of the day, but ask that thou would guard our minds and hearts just now and shield us as we come face to face with thy truth. Make it a mighty blessing to the one who speaks and to those who listen. May we largely forget each other as we hear the master's voice speaking to all of us. We ask it for our good. We ask it for his glory in his precious name. Amen.
Now I think most of you are getting to know the opening verses of this psalm by half, and I think you could repeat it without really looking at the scripture. Opening few verses. Blessed be the Lord my strength which teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight. My goodness and my fortress, my high power and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I trust. That's where we came to full stop to period last evening. Trusting Jesus.
That is all the key that God has put into the hand of every dear, weak, trembling, blood-bought child that's fallen into his family. If you've trusted Jesus for pardon, you've got that saving faith, that very precious faith in your hand that is the key to all the battlegrounds of the future. Trusting Jesus, that is all. It seems too simple.
That is all. You've got the key there. You know, I'm going to take you to Jamaica for a few minutes, and I'm going to show you one of our lovely little sandy beaches with the Caribbean Sea lapping up onto the beach. The big waves pound on the coral about a hundred yards out, and then you'll get a little lagoon about ten feet, twelve feet deep, coming up to a white sandy beach. And the coconut trees are behind you coming down toward the sand.
And there's this lovely stretch of sand for a hundred yards on either side of you. And the tide has washed up and gone back and it's just clean and clear and unscratched. Calling three little boys, three little Jamaica boys, I say now, boys, I'm going to draw a line here. That's going to be your marks. And you see that coconut tree in the distance there, a hundred yards away down the sand? When I say to your marks, ready, go, you start.
And I hope you'll get there in ten seconds. Anyhow, the one that gets him first will get first prize, and there will be a second and a third. Now, are you tear them up? Ready? Go! Away those boys shoot across the sand. And whether they know it or not, every little footstep that they take on that sand is leaving a track behind them. They come in first and second and third and I line them up and I say, look, look. And they look back on their tracks, every footstep on the sand.
I turn to the last boy who came in last and I say to him, now boy, look over your track. You've made some mistakes, haven't you? And he looks a bit awry and he says, That's bad, isn't it? It's crooked. I say, Crooked? Look, you started running and then you zigged and zagged and zigged and zagged and you came in last. What happened? Well, he said, Mr. Wildish, you know, I thought there was some trick in this race and I thought I was a clever stick. I thought... I would be making tracks in the sand and as I ran I thought it would be a good idea to every now and then look over my shoulder and see how I was running and how my track was getting on.
And so he said, I ran and looked over my shoulder and zigged. And he said, I looked over my shoulder and zigged. And he said, I came in last. Well, son, you made a mistake. What was it? Well, he said, I just didn't forget those things which are behind. No use looking back. Learn by past experiences, but don't live on past experience. Forget when you've learnt your lessons. Now I turn to the second boy and I say, what happened to you?
You're almost as bad, but you seem to have straightened out and you seem to have got in second. What did you do? Look back over your track. And the boy said, well, Mr. Wildish, I just see the mistake I made. You know, the boy that came in last, Tom, he's a great friend of mine, and we do everything together, we swim together, we play together, we school together, and he said, I thought as we were running this race that when you said go, I would keep my eye on Tom. And so he said, we ran side by side, and I kept my eye glancing to him, and when he zigged, I zigged.
He said, I saw my mistake, and he said, I put on a bit of a spurt at the end, and I came in second. I say to him, boy, you see your mistake, don't you? The very best companions you run within the race can make mistakes, and if you're going to keep your eyes upon frail men and friends, even though they are the very best, you will copy their mistakes. Now I say to the boy who came in first, you've got the prize, look back over your tracks, and he looks back over straight tracks. You can see footstep after footstep coming straight down the sand, right up straight to the tree.
And I say, well, son, now tell us, there must be some supreme secret that made you the victor, the winner in this race. What did you do? He said, nothing. The other boys said they were doing things like looking back and keeping their eye on Tom. But what did you do? Well, he said, does nothing. He said, when you said to the marks, I was on my marks. And when you said, ready, I got ready. And when you said, go, he said, I just kept my eye on that old coconut tree and ran until I got into it. It's just as simple as that.
trusting Jesus. That is all. Now listen to the familiar words. A whole chapter is given to the men and women who had a good report at the end of the race. who pleased God by faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God. And the great writer says, Wherefore, seeing, Romans twelve one, we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us, they aside every weight, and the sin which just so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race which is set before us, look.
And the word means, having taken the first glimpse, the first look of faith, look looking unto Jesus, the author, the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and he sat down. Keep your eye on the mark, trusting Jesus. That is all. Now, my dear young people, I've chatted with one or two of you during the day, at odd times. I want to ask you bravely tonight to face a question. Are you saved?
What's that question you're asking, Mr. Raj? I'm asking this. Have you ever come as a guilty sinner, a child of Adam, condemned before God? No fault of your own. You were born that way, born selfish and sin, that disease of the soul had dominion over your life. Have you ever... Come and gazed at the amazing cross where Jesus took your place and was wounded for your transgression and died to meet your need. And have you in simple faith ever rested your soul with all its guilt and sin and shame and danger and need in simple faith on the finished work of Christ for pardon?
You say, yes, Mr. Wailish, thank God I have. I can remember the day when it happened. I can remember and tell you the story. I have a testimony how God saved me. Now look, in the middle of an examination, in the middle of a swimming tournament, in the middle of walking the streets, shopping, in any experience, if I all of a sudden bumped into you and said, I challenge you, what are you resting in for your soul's salvation? If your faith is resting in that finished work and precious blood of Jesus for pardon, even though you weren't thinking about it, your soul is resting by faith in that finished work.
Immediately your faith would light up and you would say, Oh, thank God I know it's done. Yes, I'm resting in Jesus. The one who died for me and shed his blood to redeem me. and your faith has found a resting place in the finished work and precious blood of Jesus for power. But young people, and I challenge you, has your faith found a resting place in the risen Christ for power? For power to do this task of witnessing, for power to bear fruit, for power to successfully represent Christ in any situation, for anything that comes along in the Christian life, the flow of his life by the Holy Spirit of God, will enable you to tackle it victoriously, successfully.
a resting faith in the risen Christ for his life. Be honest. If I was honest with you, I would tell you that for years after God saved me as a boy, twelve and a half years of age, I never knew what it was to be fruitful or to be brave to witness for Christ or to seek to win others for him. largely it was listening to preachers and the book was a dead book to me and asked for prayer. Well, I knew how to say little prayers, but I didn't know how to touch the throne. God had to do something.
I remember the day in my young manhood when sobbing and broken I said, Lord, you must take completely over, and from today I'm going to rest utterly in you to do in me and through me what I haven't been able to do myself. From that night, that Monday night, that I shall never forget, there has been, in spite of all my frailty, a resting in the risen Christ. And if any flaw of his life has been seen, and if any of his power has been entrusted, and if any victories have been won, it is all because of a resting faith in the risen Christ, for the flaw of his life has been and through, one he redeemed at the cross.
And I find, I find as I talk with so many lovely young people that they need instruction and they need to be led in clear teaching to a resting faith in the risen Christ for victory. And it would save them from so much anguish. All the number have come to me and they told me that after years of listening to teaching with a head knowledge of it all, there is utter defeat in their Christian life. And they feel that there are failure after years of even the soundest instruction. When you meet people at Wheaton University and in the great colleges like Prairie and Moody Bible Institute, and they come from meetings and they learn soar out their hearts and speak at the few secret places of their life, you realize that faith has not yet entered into the rest in the risen Christ for the flow of his life to do what we can never do by ourselves.
No personality, no argument, no knowledge, no trickery. Nothing can displace or take the place of what the risen Christ has and offers to every blood-bought child of God. The flow of his life by the Holy Spirit. to win victory after victory and every victory one will lead you on to a bigger battleground and a bigger entrustment of service. Oh, young Christians, I do want you to bravely face this great issue. Now, I'm going to read to you some lines which I have already passed on to one or two here this week.
They're in the front of my Bible. I don't know who wrote them. that they have been so valuable to me that I have written them in the front of every Bible I have used for the last few years, and I want you to listen carefully to them. As you leave the whole burden of your sin and rest upon the atoning work of Christ so leave the whole burden of your life and service and rest upon the present in working of the Holy Spirit. Give yourselves up morning by morning to be led by the Holy Spirit, to go forward praising and at rest, leaving him to manage you and your day.
Cultivate the habit all through the day of joyfully depending upon and obeying him, expecting him to guide, to enlighten, to approve, to teach, to commune, to use, and to do in and with you what he will, count upon his working as a fact, altogether apart from sight and feeling, only let us in simple faith believe in and obey the Holy Spirit as the rule of our lives and cease from the burden of trying to manage ourselves.
Then, now listen to what this writer says, then shall the fruit of the Spirit, the magnificent beautiful Christ, His love, His joy, His peace, His long-suffering, His kindness, His goodness, His faithfulness, His meekness, His self-control, the lovely and loving Christ Himself appear in us.
as he will to the glory of God. That is victorious Christian living. Is it what you want? Young men, is it what you want? I have sensed already this week that there are one or two or three, I know not how many more, God knows. who have open ears to hear the voice of the Spirit, and they have souls of thirst for the living God, and they really want to know Him.
Whatever it costs, it's the ambition of their lives that I might know Him. And who can tell what God could do with even a few out of the many if only this great wonderful secret is made real in our hearts and lives? Now here is something at first startling to us that look back at the Psalm. After the words, in whom I trust, There comes a little phrase which I ought to spend a whole evening on, but I can't.
We must get through this Psalm by the end of the week, mustn't we? Listen to it. In whom I trust, who's the truth by people under me? I don't know how many people there were, there possibly were four million people in Israel at that time. And here is the king sitting up on the throne, the anointed. Who was he, a shepherd boy? The tail end of a farmer's family, born in a little farm just outside of Bethlehem. The ruddy schoolboy.
The boy who from the early days, a thirst for God, sought God, learned to know God. And he says, in whom I trust, I've learned to know God. I've coined these names for God. And it's all because I trust him with childlike faith. And he subdued my people under me. In other words, he's given me a position, he's using me, he's giving me responsibility, I'm entrusted with authority. Now how could I simplify that?
Listen, you will never be entrusted with authority by the risen Christ until your life is put completely under his authority. If you ever have wishes and longings, and I've never met a young person that hadn't daydreams, great ambitions, as you look out onto life, what I would like to be, what I would like to do. And if you're a Christian, I believe that holy ambitions stir in your heart, and you say, I would like to be. a charming fruit-bearing woman of God. I would like to be a powerful preacher.
I would like to be a successful businessman that could be a steward with a stewardship. I would like to be a missionary in the Congo. I would like... And if these things don't stir in your heart, I would be surprised. It's holy ambition. But God is never going to entrust you with great responsibilities, great battles, great victories, great accomplishments, with authority until that life of yours is completely under his authority. Oh, I couldn't do better perhaps than turn you in thought to Luke's Gospel, chapter seven, to a story you all know very, very well.
In Luke seven, verse eight, there's a story of a Roman soldier who came to Jesus and he said, I'm a man under authority. And do you know what that meant? It meant this, that he had joined the Roman army, he had gone into marine training, he had come through as an ordinary private or whatever you would call him, GI man in the army of Rome, and slowly and steadily as he had moved out in adventures and battles, there had come a day when three stripes were put on his arm and he was what we would call a sergeant, a hundred men under him.
And he said, I am a man under authority. In other words, back there in Rome there's a Caesar on the throne and he can say to me at any moment, go to Palestine and I pack my kit bag and go. I can be serving him at the ends of the earth in any remote part and a voice comes from that throne of the king. Come to Rome and I have to pack my bag and go and stand in his presence. He points to any task and he says, do this and I have to do it. He said, because I am under authority, Caesar has trusted me with authority. And I've got a hundred men in my gang, and I can say to any man, Go.
He goes. Come. Do this. And it is the written Christ who gives authority to men that are under his authority. That's why for three years the Lord took fishermen from the fishing boats, disciples from the tax gathering, and he said, I will make you. And when he had brought them to the place where they were under his authority, he said, Now I'm going to reveal to you my great purpose. I want you to go into all the world and make disciples.
I said, I would call you and make you. And now I realize I can entrust you with my power, the power of the risen Christ. Wait till Pentecost, the fiftieth day, and he will come, the comforter, making the risen Christ real in your hearts, with the entrustment of power to go out to a tender world that has beaten you so far. And they did it. Pack of cowards burst out of that upper room, endued with power. The risen Christ made meal within them by the Holy Spirit. They had been immersed into his body and as individuals filled and they went out in the place of defeat to win the victory.
You could go back to the place of defeats in your life as a Christian to win victory from this Congress. A young man entrusted with authority. Why? Because his life is under the authority of the risen Christ. That's what David says. Whom subdued my people under me. Oh, I wonder if we want it. I wonder if we really want a big job from the risen Christ. You can get it. And the secrets lie here. They're unchanging in the word of God.
They crop up in all God's dealings with men and women right through the centuries it's the same. Now turn to verse three and here's another thing that's startling. Lord, what is man that thou takest knowledge of him, or the son of man that thou makest account of him? Man is like unto vanity. His days are of the shadow that passeth away. It just means this, that the men who know God, as they grow to know God, know themselves.
I don't think any man knows himself until he knows God. I don't think any woman knows herself until she knows God. It's a sobering thought. I don't know if you have ever pondered some of those deep experiences that men have had that have been revealed in the scriptures, but they all run to the same pattern. If I were to pick out just one, I think I would turn you to Isaiah six. You know that tremendous story of Isaiah's vision of God.
I would simply say this, that if you were to look back over Isaiah five, you would see a picture like this. Isaiah the prophet living in a community. And as he looks around his community at the children of Adam that lived side by side with him as neighbors and rubbed shoulders with him from school and college days, his head and shoulders above the rest. He looks out on neighbors and those six wolves come out in chapter five. He sees a man, for instance, who is covetous. Now, is there any covetousness in America? People who want to get.
Get as long as I get. I don't care who else gets. I don't care. Why? America is eating up with covetousness. So is Britain. The more prosperous a land is, the more you see it manifest. The covetous spirit of man and covetousness is sin in the sight of God. And as Isaiah looks at that covetous man who's building house to house and increasing, increasing, increasing the things of the material things that he's got to leave behind. He came a naked babe into the world. He's got to leave every shred behind where he's piling it up, trampling people under his feet as he does it. Isaiah is upstairs, he says, Oh, woe to the covetous man God will judge.
Then he turns in the next way in verse eleven of chapter five to the drunkard. And I tell you, it makes me smile sometimes the way these men of God of old looked around them. He sees the drunkard reeling home under strong drink, actually taking his pay packet on Friday night and swallowing most of it in liquor. And acting even as a beast wouldn't act. Why, if you took that old cow there and put a dish of whiskey down in front of him, he would turn up his nose and say, no, thank you. Grass is good enough for me and water. He's got more sense. But you know how liquor has got hold of millions in loved America.
And alcoholic synonymous tried to pick up the scraps that have fallen down. millions and millions of dollars to try and pick up the scraps that the bulls and the liquor makers advertise as LMR TV and this and that and the other. Loaded in television, loaded in radio, loaded in every magazine, drunk, drunk, drunk. Here's a man who stands amongst men and he says, oh what loathsome creatures these drunkards are. God will judge them. They've got to answer. Then his eyes turn to verse eighteen to iniquity.
And he speaks of people who sin like a cart-rope. They start with little sins just like a thread and they say, oh, that's nothing and they can snap it. But it grows in their lives until they're absolutely bound by sinful habits and iniquity. And Isaiah looks at them and thinks what fools they are and says God will deal with them. God's judgment will come to them. Then he turns in verse twenty-one to the proud people and lots of people don't think that pride is assumed, but it is pitying pride, human pride.
Why we sometimes laugh at the old peacock who puts the tail up and struts around like this so proud of himself. And you know, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you something. The abominable pride of human nature is manifest more in America and Canada and Britain than it is in those distant unprivileged lands across the seas. And sometimes you can see the pride, the pride of the faith or pride of race. and it could even be pride of grace in religious circles. God abominates it and Isaiah is just down on it.
He can't stick it. He just says, oh, God will judge all that. Then he turns to the unjust in verse twenty-two. and he speaks about the wicked in verse twenty three you justify the ungodly and the wickedness that was rampant then he's dead against it and the more he talks about it the more he points to it the more you see isaiah coming up on the pedestal Dear old Isaiah, isn't he a lovely man? He wouldn't tell a lie. He wouldn't show pride. He wouldn't show a covetous spirit. He's an exuberant. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a country filled with Isaiah's?
But you turn to chapter six. Listen. In the year that King Isaiah died, I, Isaiah, saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. Now we call Isaiah good king Isaiah. He was one of the good kings that Isaiah served under in his long life. And Isaiah loved the king, respected him, served him, worked for him.
And one day death came to be thrown, and the throne is empty. And Isaiah, the king is dead. And Isaiah is sad. And it was that year he says, I saw the throne that's never empty. The eternal throne. You as a Christian may know it as the throne of grace because Jesus, the written Savior, is seated there. It may be that one day unsaved people will know it as the great white throne when Jesus sits to judge and rule. I can only say this to you, Isaiah saw that throne and he saw the one who filled that throne.
And he saw the servants of that throne. He knew that he was a servant of the living God. And he saw those servants, those mighty, holy beings. And with their wings, six wings, for they were sterile thin. They were covering their faces and covering their feet. And with the other two wings, they threw. And he saw the holiness of those beings who served the throne. They were holy worshippers of the throne. They were holy in their walk before God. They covered their feet. They were holy in their workers. They flew up in the service of the throne.
And they cried, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. And as he gazed at the throne and sawed out God, who is eternal light, a consuming heart, The hands that had pointed to his neighbors went up and he cried, No, it's me, for I will hear them death. I will not have seen it. Now have you and I ever had a vision of God that made us feel in our own soul?
That is in my own flesh. Well, it's no good thing to stand before God. Have you as a Christian ever had that experience? Oh, I tell you, to know God means that you begin to know yourself. And knowing yourself, you begin to say, I have no confidence in the flesh. but with trust and utter confidence in the risen Christ, you begin to let him live in you and give you a life that you could never begin to live by human personality or strength or effort.
What is man, he says, what is man that thou art mindful of him? the son of man that thou takest account of him man is like to vanity his days are as a shadow that pass it away oh i wonder if i've ever seen my life like that in the sight of god man is like to vanity vanity is the world that Solomon uses in his Ecclesiastes his philosophy of his findings on life under the sun. Twenty-nine times in Ecclesiastes he speaks of experiences that he sought under the sun to give satisfaction to his deeper soul.
And he again and again, as he tries, it says, vanity of vanity. All is vanity. And anybody who knows anything about words knows that the word vanity means, in fact, a very large in Hebrew says, a breath. And just like a boy who takes a little clay pipe and dips it in the soap suds and then lets his breath go through the clay pipe and fill the growing bubble and then sips off the bubble into the air. Oh, God, isn't it? Lovely, wonderful, pretty, beautiful, all it's going to give me satisfaction.
A soap suds. Just a breath in a form of soap. And a modern translation of that little refrain that comes in Ecclesiastes is this soap, soap bubble of soap bubbles, all is soap bubble. And that's what Solomon found under the sun. And that's why he turns preacher in the last chapter and looks into the face of youngsters like yourself. And he says, young people, Remember now thy Creator, there's someone above the sun who made the sun and he made you, and you'll never find satisfaction in the material things under the sun.
You may have to live by them for a few years, like a little, as it were, moment flashing by compared with God's eternity. What is man? and if God hasn't brought to you eternal life in Christ and the life of Jesus by the Holy Spirit that is eternal life this is life eternal that they may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent if you haven't got that life then you've got nothing oh dear young Christian knowing yourself And listen, when you know Christ and you know yourself, then the door is open for your soul to call upon God to do his miracles in a way that he has never done them before.
And I just wonder tonight if there's one person here who's really willing to talk to God as David now talks to God in verse five. Thou, thy heavens, O Lord, and come down. Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. Cast forth lightnings and scatter them. Shoot out thine arrows and destroy them. Send thy hand from above. He wants God to move in Israel. Amongst the foreigners outside, yes, but amongst the strangers in Israel within, that we're eating like a canker into Israel's soul. He wants God to scatter and deliver and move in such a manifest way that grace of survival would come, spiritual movement would come to Israel, that would transform that nation from its selfishness, its self-satisfied state.
to be the instrument that God planned to the nations around. Oh, I wonder if there's a longing in a young soul for that tonight, a longing for it. I'm speaking to young people who've never seen revival. I must tell you quite frankly, I can look back over my life and only once in my life have I seen gracious, heaven sent spiritual revival. And I tell you when it comes, things happen that are so startling, so amazing, so transforming that you realize that you are swept along in the mighty forces of God.
But you've grown up in assemblies, in churches, and you've never seen mighty spiritual revival. You've seen the steady work of the church, the faithful witness of the church, the continuing steadfastly in the breaking of bread, the teaching of the word, the normal things which are very, very valuable and very right, but you've never seen revival. But he again personally told me this in Jamaica last year. He said, in all my campaigns I have never seen revival. I've seen well-planned campaigning that has gathered the harvest of much toil, reaped the harvest of much prayer and hard work of thousands of ministers and preachers and Sunday school teachers and parents, but I've never seen revival.
He's right. You see, I don't know what revival is. Well, let me see. Is there time, yes, in my closing few moments, there's time to tell you just a little story of a revival. In the year, nineteen forty-five, which is now almost sixteen years ago, something happened in a group of little islands called the Hebrides just off the west coast of Scotland that rather startled Christians all over the world as they heard reports of it I wish I could picture to you the Hebrides their simple islands with fisher folk and folk who deal with wool from the sheep's back spinning the lovely cloth and they are godly folk they keep the Sabbath which is the Lord's day to us they are little curts and their little gospel
chapels which they call meeting rooms are scattered through these islands they're usually Presbyterians or Brethren or not many denominations there or sects just godly folks with a long heritage But for many, many long years, spiritual life had been dipping and ebbing and growing lower. A generation had risen up that wasn't like their God-fearing grandfathers and mothers. For instance, there were fair congregations in the Turks and the meeting rooms, but there weren't many conversions. In fact, it was rare to see a conversion in the Hebrides.
As to prayer, well, the prayer meetings have dwindled to the old guard, you know, granny and auntie and a few of the old faithful brethren who were always there, but no young people went and no young voices were heard. And things were pretty dead, and with that deadness there was creeping in from the mainland of Scotland, all sorts of amusements to fill up the time of the young people, a dancing hall here. a drinking saloon and billiard hall here. A rather doubtful picture place where people saw lots of second-rate pictures there.
And these were crowded, but spiritual life was ebbing. A Mr. Campbell, an evangelist who works through Scotland, visited those islands, and he preached around for week after week, and he just seemed to be hitting a stone wall. Nothing happened. And as he was about to leave and go back to Scotland, he called for all the Christians to come together for a convention, and he put before them the crying meat for prayer. He said, if God's people will humble themselves and pray, if they will really pay a price, God can open those windows that seem closed and pour out a blessing.
Blessing could come if we will pay a price. He went on his boat to Scotland and it seemed that the bulk of the Christians, let alone others, just didn't heed his voice much. But there's always the ones and twos who do. And in the capital town, just a little town as far as American standards are concerned, there were two little groups of prayer that used to gather every night at the end of the day. And you'll almost laugh when I tell you these groups. In our house a godly old couple of sisters in Christ and sisters in the flesh, they were real sisters who lived in the same cottage, used to, when the day was over and the little girl who served them, the lassie had gone to her bed, they used to settle down to prayer about nine o'clock and pray till midnight.
and two old women on bended knee lifted their hearts to God to open his hand in the Hebrides to send the blessing that was needed that would swamp this worldliness and sin and selfishness and revive God's church and make it an attacking church. At twelve midnight they would get up from their knees and brew up a nice pot of tea and settle down to enjoy it and then about half past twelve they would go back to prayer for another hour before they slipped to their bed and they did it night after night after night after night the other end of the town are known to the women and the women are known to them a godly pastor of a church and a group of men brethren in Christ Most of them fishermen, some working in shops, gathered in a barn, an upper part of a barn where the hay was on the floor and the machinery or the animals or something kept underneath.
And they climbed a stair into this barn and every night until midnight they would pray. And then about midnight the fishermen would slip away from the meeting because they had to get to their beds and up early for fishing. and others would stay till one and two, sometimes three in the morning, laying hold upon God in real supplication and intercession and prayer. The sort of prayer that is so rare in America today, so rare in the Caribbean today, so rare in Britain today, that laying hold of God, doing business with God.
One night something happened, and I try to bring to you the picture as friends of mine who've been there and looked into the faces of these loved people and heard it from their own lips, have told. One night, midnight came and passed, and the spirit of prayer was on the old couple, and the spirit of prayer was on the band of men in the upper barn. And it must have been somewhere between one and two in the early morning, a younger man who was on his face in the hay prostrate, all of a sudden rolled over and getting up onto his knees, grabbed his Bible, and taking his Bible, he stood up, and he said, Brethren, I must read something to you.
and he turned to Psalm twenty-four. And he started to read Psalm twenty-four to men who had tumbled over from their knees and were now sitting on the floor looking up at him. And he began to read, The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded upon the seas, and established it upon the flood. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, who shall stand in his holy presence, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who have not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor swarmed deceitfully.
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord. And he stopped. And little round up the other, he said, Brethren, do you see it? Night after night we are crying to God for blessing. And it says, He shall receive the blessing of the Lord. It is ours, Brethren, if... We have clean hands, and a pure heart, and a soul that lifted up to vanity, and lips that haven't swarmed us easily. He said, The sin is the blessing of the Lord. He says, These things are true.
And then it happened. You say what? They can't tell you. Tom Reese, a friend of mine, Arthur Wallace, the son of Captain Reggie Wallace, a personal friend of mine, spoken to those men, and all they can say is this, that in that barn, all the sudden and overwhelming sense of the presence of God filled the flesh. They couldn't speak, they couldn't argue, they couldn't pray, they were just overwhelmed by the sense of God's presence.
And they knew instinctively, God was here. Get that to bless us. Without a word, one by one slowly, an hour after it happened, trickled away from the barn to their homes. to bow up their beds, to lie with eyes open in the night wondering. Now as it turned out at the exact same moment that that happened in the barn, an old couple of women were on their knees praying. When all of a sudden one of them They said, Praise God.
Praise God. And an over-sensitive, overwhelming sense of joy and peace and assurance. It swept her soul. And she got up. And the other one too got up. And they kissed each other rejoicing. And they said, There's no need to pray anymore. God's blessing is here in the head with these. Praise God. Now what shall we do? They decided to call the girl out of her bed and they sent a little lassie with a shawl wrapped round or out into the night. She went down the street to a minister of a church who lived nearby and he was knocked up that night and a little lassie brought him back to be a couple.
And they told the story and he didn't know what to make of it. Well, he said, What do you want me to do? And they said, Will. We think you ought to send for Mr. Campbell to come back because the basing is here now and he can come and reap the harvest. And they wouldn't let that minister go back to his bed that night until he had promised to send a cable, what we call a telegram over there, to Mr. Campbell, asking him to come back at once. In the morning he sent the cable. At midday he brought the answer back to these two women and he said, look, here's the answer from Mr.
Campbell. Mr. Campbell said, I have two weeks gospel meetings and I have a convention book. I couldn't come before three weeks according to my planning. But they said he must come the best things here. Well, said the minister, I can't do anything more. That's all I can do. He can't come for three weeks. And he went back at midday to sit down to his lunch. And after lunch a rather excited and strangely puzzled minister went back to those two women with another telegram he had received in his hand. He said, look, I've just got this from Mr.
Campbell. The evangelistic campaign has been cancelled and the convention can easily be put off or he could be substituted. He's coming on the vote tomorrow. And Mr. Campbell stepped back into the place where he had battered the walls and tried to win souls for Christ and nothing had happened. Do you know with no planning, no advertisement, the biggest church in that little town was thrown wide open that night and directly the day was over and the darkness came down. People began to make their way to that building until the building was packed with people.
And that night about seven o'clock Mr. Campbell got up into the pulpit and he gave out a psalm and they went through it and he prayed and they gave out another psalm and went through it. He took his Bible and read a scripture and they sang another psalm. And then he asked for guidance to the right message and as many a preacher does he put his hand down into the quiver of well-tried arrows. Message is that he had used before and sought grace to use again for the glory of God and taking out an arrow message. He said it entered the bowstring and he fired his message. And as he closed his message there was a sense of awe over that meeting and he said, Now if any of you want to get right with God, As I dismissed the meeting and send you to your homes, we shall gather back here tomorrow night again.
But if any of you want to get right with God, would you come and sit in the front pew? Come and sit down here, and I would gladly pray with you. Slowly the people crept out. There was little talking and little chatter, and they moved out through the outside of the church building to their homes. And Mr. Campbell stood there, and not one soul came and sat in the front seat. He was puzzled. He stood there looking round and all of a sudden one of the men who had been in the barn came up to him and putting his hands upon his shoulders said, Brother Campbell, don't worry.
The blessing's here. Mr. Campbell looked at those empty front seats and he said, but look, he said, there isn't a soul that's anxious or stayed for salvation tonight. What do you make of it? Don't worry, said the man, the blessing is here. God is here. The blessing is here. He said, Brother Campbell, while you were speaking tonight, I heard them. And he looked at this man, Campbell said, he looked at the man and said, Heard what? He said, I heard the rumbling of heaven's chariot wheels. The Lord of hosts is on the moves.
The blessing is here whether we see it or not. Don't worry, God is here. And it was an extremely puzzled Campbell who went to his bed and didn't sleep all night, as he stared into the darkness and prayed and thought and wondered. Next night that building filled with people, and there were people peering through the windows. He got up and gave out his sum, and he prayed and gave out his sum. And as he was wondering what message really he should give, all of a sudden it happened.
A woman down in the packed audience cried, Oh, God, have mercy upon me! Oh, God, forgive me! And dissolved in tears. And all of a sudden the man cried out, Oh, God! Oh, God, I can't! I can't! I can't give you the love of God! That's a change of life! It will forgive me, oh, God! And Campbell never preached that night, as souls were being dealt with for salvation and for sin in Christians' lives and for backsliding. And the meeting went on with the voice of song and the repeating of scripture and the cry for mercy till midnight passed.
The nights went by and Campbell never preached a sermon for weeks. They came together in the presence of God. They prayed, they sang, they rejoiced, they testified. God was working in salvation, restoring backsliders, cleansing sin in believe of lives. Soon every church and every little meeting room was open right out into the country villages and remote hamlets. Some nights Campbell went to five meetings and on his way from one meeting to another as he went along he would see two men on their knees on the sidewalk and he would stay to the driver's stop and jump out.
What's wrong then? Oh so we want to get right with God. The Spirit of God was moving and brooding over those islands and you would see a liquor shop and the liquor shop had the shutters up and a big ball right across the front with the words painted in white, Close forever! Hallelujah! And the transforming power of God was changing lives, smashing wrong businesses, closing evil games, and reviving the Church of Jesus Christ and making up what had been lost for a generation.
And the world began to hear about it, and they hoped it would come to Scotland and poor me the England or speak to Ireland. But it didn't. It stayed in the Hebrides. Tom Rees told me that two years after that revival, he went there and he said they only knew after two years of two young girls. Out of the hundreds who were saved, out of the hundreds of backsliders restored, out of the hundreds of Christians put right with God, only two who turned out mere professors and went back on their profession.
A deep work of God that stood the test. That's what God can do. if his people are willing to pay the price. But we are not. I say at this sad heart we are not. But do we want it? Would you look back at your psalm? Thou thy heavens and come down, verse five. Touch the mountains and they shall smoke, cast forth lightning and scatter them, shoot out thine arrows and destroy them.
Send thy hand from above. Touch, touch, send thy hand. Three times God through Moses lashed at Pharaoh's kingdom in power. and the magicians of Egypt it's the finger of God the finger of God what can you do with a finger if I had to get a boy a whipping and I whipped him with my finger give love The hell, hard, a different story.
The hell, hard. Listen, young people. The Bible speaks of God doing this, what men do when they want to wear, work hard, bearing their arms. Would you like to see the owner of God bear that in America today? It would counteract all that we saw in San Francisco last night. It would save America in the sluggish decline and backsliding of its life. If only this could happen. And it's only going to happen through a revived church.
Those who know God and know themselves. And look up and say, Bow thy heavens. Come down. Do refresh what our fathers and forefathers told us of, but we've never seen. Revive in Israel. I wonder if we're willing to pay the price. I don't know. Shall we pray? O God, our loving God and Father, but the God whose name is terrible in thy power and judgment, holy and reverent, terrible is thy name.
Or could we see thee coming down afresh to work? We know thou wilt never work in America until thou dost begin to work in individual hearts. To the end of the age thou didst say to poor drifting, failing Israel, if my people will bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, if they will put meat upon my table, if they will prove me, I'll open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing. But they weren't willing and Israel was led into the times of Gentile dominion in all its fullness.
It lost its opportunity of being a blessing to the nations. And here we are bowed before thee, confessing sadly that the Church of Jesus Christ is lukewarm, Laodicean, self-satisfied. And yet thou didst to every church say, If any man or woman hath an ear to hear the voice of the Spirit, they can be overcomers from all the drift and failure. And thou didst come to the door of the Laodicean church to call the man. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will sup with him. Lord, there's a girl here bowed before thee who's desperately anxious to taste of this experience.
of Christ communing and supping in the innermost part of her life as a young fellow who really wants to pay the price to be the victor in battle after battle, the center of spiritual movement because Christ is magnified in his life and body. Now Lord, in a few moments the cards will be filling In a few moments we will be going to the hour of the evening that will give recreation and refreshment physically. But Lord, if there are one or two who would like to pull out from that train and stay for a little prayer because they are hungry and thirsty, give them the courage to do it.
We commend ourselves to thee and pray that thy spirit and thy word may do their gracious work. Loving Lord, we hand over the meeting to thee and pray that thou wilt let thy richest blessing be upon our hearts as we separate. But oh, make us hungry for that blessing of the coming of God in reviving power amongst a people who have so badly failed thee. those who bear thy name, the Church of Jesus Christ. So, Lord, dismiss us now and let us with quietness leave this building and go our way to our homes or to the cars to the evening of recreation.
But again, Lord, I say it if there's one or two who would like to stay to pray. May they sacrifice and stay tonight. Hand over to thee, do thy work in thy known way and for thy known glory, for thy dear name's sake. Now, dear young people, I want to say this to you very quietly, very earnestly. I know you're in for a great evening. of fun and recreation. Don't want you to think I'm a killjoy, I'm not.
I just want you to enjoy it. Go all out, enjoy it and keep these things in your mind as you go to it. But if any would like to break away and stay for a little prayer because there's a hunger in your heart, I believe there's one or two or three or four or five which will feel, well, I must see this thing through tonight. There's been so many defeats in those battles and past days and I'm not much use and I just want to get hold and want to pay the price for this victory. As the meeting dismisses, I would say to the visiting friends, the loved friends who come and join us, how we love to see you, don't stay talking in the hall quietly and prayerfully grip each other's hands and step out and talk under the trees or around your car and those who are going have to rush to their rooms for wraps and things like that and get to the cars and line up for this great evening you're going to have I'm not going to spoil it but if there are any just a few who would like to stay you just linger and I'm going to just gather with you if it's only one or two or three for a little time of prayer and waiting before the Lord with this book in our hands and I'm speaking to those who are really
hungry you say yes the Lord's voices come I hear it, I must heed it, I must see this thing through. God bless you. The meeting is dismissed. I'll be right here for a time of prayer, you know.