That God desires to bless His people, but this blessing requires an open heart and life for Christ to truly abide within. Drawing from Psalm 144, the message highlights the need for individuals to allow Christ satisfaction in their lives, not just superficial acknowledgment. When individuals open themselves to God's intimate communion, they become channels through which rivers of blessing can flow to others, transforming their lives and communities. The sermon concludes by urging listeners to be brave, deal with God alone in private, and allow the Holy Spirit to produce new songs of praise born from fresh experiences with God, rather than living on past encounters.
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Let me see this. Just a moment of prayer together. Our loving Father, as we open by word we hush our hearts asking that our risen Lord amongst us will lead us by the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit into the truth that thou hast for each one of our hearts tonight.
Thank thee for another happy, full, glorious day. Even though perhaps we are tired in body and even in mind, We pray for the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We ask that we may largely forget each other and be conscious that thou art here to bless, for our good, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Now back to Psalm And as you have it open, I am going to pick up the story just where we left it last night in verse five.
You know, I'm thrilled when I see the tremendous variety of musical gift and song that God has given to his church in America. I remember as a boy at school in Form III they had a singing class and after about three evenings I was picked out to be thrown out of the class. The leader said, Wildish II hasn't got any gift that way and he had better do something else.
And I went like this, I was so glad. I didn't like singing. and I thought I could play football or something. But you know, school days are very cruel days. They sent me to the extra Latin class, which was really much worse. And then my mother and father, who had an older boy, Teddy, two years older than I am, who was quite a good singer and good at music, they thought that I too should take music lessons. And so every week I had my music lesson and I would never practice for it. And I got my, in those days, my knuckles wrapped again and again by this nasty old musical teacher, this lady.
And one day I heard mother and dad discussing Harold. And they said they didn't really think that it was worthwhile spending money on Harold. as far as music was concerned. And, oh, I was so glad, you know, to get rid of this responsibility. And I thought I would get out and have some more football and things. But, you know, honestly, since I've grown up, I've been trying to invent a way to kick myself. You know how you'd like to sort it out. Bend down less. But I...
to think that I had the opportunity of learning to play because I realized what a tremendous help it would have been in the mission field where God graciously sent me. And so the Lord very graciously knew perhaps I was no good on those lines. He gave me a little wife who was a good singer and a good player and she's had to take the strain along those lines. Now it's rather strange tonight that Brother Jack here with that amazing story and talks about nineteen twenty nine March when the Lord drew near to claim his life and his gifts. And my mind immediately went back to nineteen twenty nine and I wondered where I was and what I was doing when the Master met you, my brother.
You know, I was a young missionary then. I had had four and a half years of missionary work in South America, up in those Amazon jungles, and riddles with malaria, and had to come down and out to the West Indies to pick up in health. And in March, I was with two remarkable men of God, Mr. Harold P. Barker and Mr. Albert Whitterson. And we were finishing five months together and I was just a junior kid, a young missionary helping them and taking the children's meetings and occasionally plugging a hole and working in this team right through the islands.
And we were just about to finish our job and turn back toward England where I was going to get married, of course, to the best girl in the world. And in nineteen twenty nine, when the Lord was drawing near to you, I was a young missionary, perhaps rather discouraged, being turned out from South America, but in the thick of the fight. And, you know, God is dealing with us all like this. As my brother rightly said, as he looks into the phases of young America, he thinks of the tremendous possibilities that are wrapped up in a group of sixty young lives. If the Lord didn't come back, where would you be in ten years, twenty years, thirty years, forty years, what record would you have left behind you?
And I just love to think that any gift you have, if the Lord lays hold upon you, that gift is a captured gift, and it can be consecrated to the Lord and used, used to display Christ and make His glorious gospel known. Now it's rather remarkable that singing comes right into our passage tonight. Let's pick up the story where we left it last night. Psalm a hundred and forty-four. Verse five. Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down. Touch the mountains and bays of smoke.
Cast forth lightning and scatter them. shoot out thine arrows and destroy them. Send thy hand from above, rid me and deliver me out of great waters from the hand of strange children whose mouth speaketh vanity and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood. I will sing a new song unto thee, O God. Upon us sultry An instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings, who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful sword.
Rid me and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is the right hand of falsehood. Now last night we were talking about God coming down in gracious reviving power amongst his people. We were trying to find out if it's possible even today in nineteen sixty one for the heavens to dip. I am convinced myself that when God promised Israel of old in Malachi.
He said, if you'll bring the whole tide into the storehouse, if you'll put meat upon my table, if you'll prove me, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll open the windows of heaven and pour you out an overwhelming blessing. They weren't willing to pay the price. It didn't happen. But even in these Laodiceans, self-satisfied age and days, on the throne there's a waiting Christ, and he's waiting for the precious fruit of the earth. He's looking over his church, and even today, I believe if any man, if any woman will hear his voice, and open the door, and let him come in to sup with you, I think what that means doesn't just mean to go on Sunday morning and break bread.
It doesn't just mean to go on Sunday morning to the spread supper table and remember the Lord's death and agony. it does not mean to go and say well I know I'm saved his blood was shed and his body he bore my sin and I can just say thank you Lord for saving my soul it's not that he said I will stop with you in other words can he come on the inside of a door into the life of an individual and sit down and find satisfaction in your life, that which he is hungry for.
Your affection, your praise, your adoration, your worship, your appreciation, your love, your thanks. I will stop with you. This is someone owning the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the door is wide open for that intimate communion that he longs for, that he might abide there and find his satisfaction in your life. Not you finding satisfaction in him or saying you do, but he finding satisfaction from you. He's hungry for certain things, and if he gets them, Wherever you go today and wherever you see trickles of blessing flowing, always, without any exception, you can track back those trickles of blessing to a man or a woman or a group who have opened the door to let the risen Christ have his rightful place.
So I'm optimistic, I say, as long as the Lord waits, He's still waiting for the precious fruit. He's still waiting with His promises ringing in the ears of His blood-bought people, and He's willing to let that blessing flow in your life and through your life. Oh, what a channel you could be if the rivers, not just the trickle-drops, but the rivers began to flow. Let's be brave. Many of us Christians, we want to get a bit of blessing and we have to take the old washcloth of our lives and sort of screw it hard to get a few splashing drops out.
And Jesus said, no, that's not the life I provided. If any man thirsts, get him come unto me and drink. Out of his innermost bill, it shall flow. Lord of us! Wherever you find rivers, you'll find people, blessed cities, plantations, green trees, prosperity. If there's no rivers, there's desert. Back in Philadelphia, in Harrisburg, in the town where you live, your life could be A life that is blessed by the Lord and become a channel of blessing through which the rivers of water are flowing to others.
Don't miss this. This is God's plan for your life. Now he moves to a great concern. He says, if heaven dips down and the hand of God is seen, the first thing I want him to deal with is the internal problems of the nation. He said, twice in these verses, rid me, deliver me out of great water from the hand of strange children, verse seven. Verse eleven, Whid me and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand apportioned.
In other words, he wants Israel purified and cleansed from that distressing mixed multitude, the strangers, the foreigners, Those who are not really home-born, who are producing weakness in the midst. And you know, when revival comes and the Lord really is on the move, this happens, happens in communities and happens in individuals. There's lots of things in your life and mind that will have to be rigor. things that are weakening, things that are spoiling, things that bring discontent, things that have got to be got rid of.
And when God comes in reviving power, it should be the longing of our hearts. Lord, rid me of that thing that's distressed me so long. I always treasure secrets and confidences, and I never use them from the platform, but I want to tell you this already. This week I have been conscious in my talks with some that they have besetting sins, that they have habits and ways and things in their lives that give them great sorrow. And there are experiences in their lives which they know are the root of much of the weakness and frailty, and even though they have longings for victory, and they would love to be entrusted with power, they know that there are certain things that have got to be dealt with in their lives before the Lord can ever give that entrustment, that enjoyment, that ocean, that anointing, that honoring of their service in His name.
And you know, sometimes that's where the knife has to cut deep, and that's where sometimes the hurt comes. And that's why I say to you and I mean it, for I have seen this so often, that's where when God begins to move in your soul, you are wise to be brave as an individual and creep away to a lonely place and deal with God alone. We have had our glorious weeks for our young people up in the mountains of Jamaica and we've seen them come back from a week in the mountains of retreat with God with a mark upon their lives as they go back to the great big city.
But in our planning there we never have a meeting around the Word of God without at least one free hour at the close of the meeting to be alone with God, to work it out. One of the pictures that I can see in my mind now is the hills of Jamaica, three thousand feet up, and the meeting is over and very quietly it's dispersed, conscious of the presence of God. And you can stand on the steps of the old plantation house and see a girl under that tree over there and a boy sitting under the wall over there. And another boy up there on the top of the mountain. And another boy, perhaps under a big shady tree there.
And with open Bible alone, they are working out what they've heard. And I want to tell you this is business with God and this means something. And it leaves a mark upon young people. And in this Congress I say to any of you young people as we reach Wednesday, listen, your leaders and those you look up to would be the first to say okay to this if God speaks to you. Don't feel you've got to go to the activities afterwards. Cut out and find your bedside. A room where you can shut the door, a lonely part of the grounds under the trees.
And do business with God, even with tears. You'll never regret it. Never regret it. It'll become a holy spot in your own soul's experience. Now, notice that the moment heaven dips and the moment his great desire for the witting of these foreigners and strangers, he says, I will sing a new song, and a new song birthed forth. Verse nine, I will sing a new song unto the O God. You know, I'm going to touch upon something that will search my own heart, I know.
Are we singing new songs? Now, dear young people, I don't want to be a critic and I don't want to be unkind, but many of you have been born and bred amongst assemblies of Christians. And thank God for it. It's a godly heritage. Don't take it lightly or easily. There's something there that's very precious, if only you can enter into its preciousness. This simple gathering together in the love name, in simplicity, with utter freedom for the Spirit of God to use one and another has produced something that in the great Catholic Church of Jesus Christ has a unique place all over the world.
But we are the first to be brave enough to know that we have appalling weaknesses. And very, very often we hold truths and we hold principles with prophetic weakness. And I'm sure many of you, if you ever have been to the prayer meeting of your home assembly, and I hope you youngsters do go, if you possibly can. I know that college and school days and studies and demands make it very different, difficult for weeknight meetings, but if you can go, you will have noticed that certain brethren get into the habit of always saying the same things. If you hear them one week, they'll say the same things the next week.
And somehow there's no newness or freshness. It's always the old, the old. And oh, how do you wish they would produce a new prayer? new phrases, new approaches, new interests. Now, let's be frank. Are we coming out of our experiences with God, the battles? And may I say to my young brethren and sisters, some of those battles that you bear your heart, the secrets of and tell me about, they're not unique. Thousands of Christians have had to face them. In fact, most. Don't think that your battle is the biggest battle in the world.
It's come to you on the line of finance or friendship or worldly attractions or sex. I don't know how it will approach you, but temptation comes from different angles and you feel in those battlegrounds you've been defeated and it's produced weakness in your Christian life. Now listen very carefully. I will sing a new song. You ought to come out of every battle, and the bigger the battle with the bigger and better song, a new song. I'm going to open my hymn book, and I'm going to quote from a hymn, and I'm going to ask the one in this audience who detects what him I am quoting from to raise their hand the moment it dawns upon them whose him I am quoting.
Care, grief, sin, trouble, discouragement, pain, sorrow, despised, witness. Any hands up? Right. Gerald, dear old Joseph, scriven's hymn, the Irishman's hymn. What a friend we have in Jesus, sung all over the world in every hymn book, loved by the Church Catholic. Now listen. Joe was born just outside of Dublin in Ireland.
He was born in Roman Catholic country and he was of Roman Catholic stock. One day in one of his visits up to Dublin, he heard the gospel as he had never heard it before and somehow the simplicity of that charming message that Christ came down to die for sinners. And Christ, finishing the work upon the cross, went down into death for sinners. And Christ, because the work was finished, was raised from the dead triumphant to be a living Savior. And he could step into hearts and lives to pardon and cleanse. And don't go it! It dawned like a shining light upon his mind and heart.
And he received Christ, and he was born again. But mom and dad and friends didn't understand this. They despised him because they thought he had turned Protestant and was denying the church, the Catholic church that they belonged to. And he had to leave home. With many a break and heart tearing, He went and found digs in Dublin and he got a job there and very soon he found, as so many of us found, that the family of circle, the blood-bought believers, is large and wide and soon he was mingling with dear Christians, finding his joy with them.
And I tell you, life was new. And then it got even more wonderful because he fell in love with a very charming Christian girl, an Irish girl, a sweet character. And he caught it her and they were engaged to be married and they were looking forward to the day. And then don't ask me to explain why, because not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly, will God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why. The dark threads are as needful in the weaver's skillful plan as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern he has planned.
A group of young people went down to Kingston Harbour for a swim picnic And as they were swimming, the girl got out of her depths in the cold waters. She called for help. They went out and helped her in and dragged her ashore. And in spite of all their efforts, that body was cold in death, and she was drowned. And poor Joseph's cartels crashed. He thought there was only one thing he could do. He would leave the country and he would go to Canada, as so many young Irishmen did in those days, and he would forge out a new way of life.
And he went over to Canada and he settled in a district Between Toronto and Peterborough, if you go up that main highway from Toronto to Peterborough, you will pass right through the country where he lived, a farming country. And you ask anyone if you go on that road to stop at Stribbin's Memorial. On the side of the road it's a stone to Joseph Stribbin put up by the people at the farms all the way round to their loved friend, Joseph. Do you know he was everybody's friend? If anyone was sick, Joseph was there. If any children needed teaching, there was no Sunday school for them.
He would leave his little cabin, his log cabin, and go and gather them in one of the cabins or on the farm doors. And he was loved and known as Joseph stood in everybody's friend, never married, never gave his heart again to anyone, but loved everybody, and the love of Christ flowed through him. And it wasn't till he died, a lonely, rather old man, that they were slotting through his papers and came across some lines. And the lines were these. What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh, what needless pain we bear. Are there trials? Are there temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? Are you discouraged? Do your friends despise, forsake you? Is there sorrow anywhere? Jesus knows our every weakness and written into this hymn of all the words that speak of battleground after battleground in his life. And today it's loved, sung in twenty-thirty, forty-fifty, seventy different languages throughout the world.
Joseph's one and only old hymn. What a friend we have in Jesus. Now I wonder, I wonder if in your life God is producing a new song. Now come, a new song. Yes, Psalm forty, He took me up out of a horrible pit and from the mirey clay. He set my feet upon a rock. He established my goings. He put a new song into my mouth, even praise. But to David, I will sing a new song. You won't hear the old song again and again.
New battles have come, and out of new battles there have come a new song, born of a new experience. There should be no such thing as stand still in a Christian's life. There should be new songs born of new experiences. Oh, what a song we have to sing. You know, I remember when I first left England on a cargo boat as a boy, twenty-two years of age, to be a missionary. I climbed on this little cargo boat at Liverpool and had seventeen days crossing the Great North and South Atlantic to touch down on the South American coast. And you know, it was just a cargo boat with a few passengers, and there was a little tiny sort of lounge.
and the cabin I had was off the main lounge. I don't know how I got it. They told me it was the captain's cabin. And when the captain saw that a minister of the gospel was coming on his ship, he thought, oh dear, some venerable bishop or clergyman or somebody. And so they put down Harold Wildish in the captain's cabin off the lounge. I had the best cabin on the boat. Twenty-two years of age, I can see the old Captain Riley looking at me when I came on board. Now the few people on that boat, the officers and the few passengers, they used to get together in that lounge at night to smoke and drink and play cards and to sing and put on records.
And sometimes I just felt I would get right away from that atmosphere and I would climb into my bunk early and I couldn't help hearing. I would just lie there in the cabin with this going on next door in this little lounge. One night I just burst out laughing. They put on record after record after record and I just burst out laughing. I remember the first record they put on that they did begin to chuckle. It was this. Put it on, they put the old needle on, it began to scratch out. I was only blowing bubbles. And I couldn't help nothing. I thought, isn't it true, vanity of vanity is always vanity.
I was only blowing bubbles, blowing bubbles, blowing bubbles. Then they put on the next one and it went something like this, if I remember rightly, it ain't going to rain no more, no more, it ain't going to rain no more. And I really was bursting with laughter now. I thought, empty bubbles and no rain will somehow erode in the negative side of things. And then they put the next one. And what do you think it was? Yes, we'd have no bananas today. And now I was howling with laughter. I was only twenty-two years of age, you know, hadn't got my old age reserved yet.
And I was just howling with laughter. And I remember when it finished, I burst into song. And what do you think I sang? In my poor, old croaking voice, I sang, Lord Jesus, I love thee. I know thou art mine. For thee, all the treasures of sin I resign. And I went through that great old hymn. Now the Christians got something to sing about. Out out of the horrible pit, seized upon the rock, established goings toward eternity, But listen, don't, oh I pray you don't, live on past experience.
I will sing a new song. A new song. Born of new living experiences with God that I'm going through. I hope God will use me to speak to my own heart and yours. When I say this, one of the things that saddens me is the number of people today who are living on a past experience. You've all heard and you've all chuckled over the man who used to love to tell of a great spiritual experience that he had.
You know it. He used to love to talk about his experience. And as the years went by, from ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty-five years, he had recorded this experience on some parchment or paper. And when any friends came in and the conversation got round, he said, did you ever hear about my experience? And they said, no, what was that? And he would get out his experience on the paper, you see. One day he called to his wife, he said, Wife, would you run up to the door or the cupboard and get my experience? She ran up and opened the cupboard and then in a rather horrified voice she said, Darling, you said the rats have eaten your experience.
Hallelujah! Praise to the Lord! Let the rats get them. If you're living on something thirty years ago and you can't tell of what God did in your life this week, last week, last month, then face the fact you've come to a standstill and instead of a Christian on the move you've become a monument of the past, perhaps for the glory of God, but that's not what God wants. A new song. Now here's a Bible quote for you. Young people, you must in your Bible studies always look for the first time a word is used in the Bible.
And if I asked you, where is singing first mentioned in the Bible? I suppose you would start off Genesis one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, hunting through. You won't find any song in Genesis, no song there. As you turn from the book of beginnings to the book of redemption, the Exodus, and it isn't until chapter fifteen you read of singing. In Exodus fifteen, the first time you read of a spontaneous song bursting from people's lips, born of a tremendous experience under the whip of the Egyptians in bondage.
And God has come down to bring salvation. And saved from the storm of judgment, by the blood sprinkled doors, the hand of God has brought them out to the banks of the Red Sea. And with the Red Sea in front, and it seems like mountains and desert on either side, an Egyptian chariots chasing them, they're in a cul-de-sac. There's no way to turn. They could be pushed into the sea. God says, Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And standing still they wait, and then God moves.
And he says, Go forward, and as they go forward, the hand of God moved, opened the way through the sea, and the waters mounted up. And they came across to the other side, and looking back, they saw the Egyptians penetrating into the Red Sea. And as they saw those quivering waters falling, and they saw those carrots engulfed, and their enemies drowned in the sea, a song was born. The Lord! Nothing of themselves. The Lord hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider hath he cast into the sea. And a song was born, the first song of redemption.
I think it's called the Song of Moses. It'll probably be song sung with the Song of the Lamb around the throne in the glory for eternal ages. But look, do you know this? Thirty-eight years passed after that Red Sea song was formed, before you read another song. You check me on this. I'm going to dare to suggest to you that two years afterwards, if at Kadesh Farnia they had gone in, victoriously in the power of God fought the giants to possess the land of Canaan.
They could have burst into song on Canaan's hills. I'm dwelling in Bularand. But they didn't. Because of unbelief they turned back. They saw God through giants and giants seemed to loom so large and God was made small. And they turned back to wandering, to camping place after camping place, to learn themselves in the desert. And then again at last God begins to do certain things that indicate that He's going to teach them what they ought to have learned by a new experience.
Now I wonder if you would turn back with me to the book of Exodus for a moment. Exodus fifteen is the time when you read that first song, but I want you to notice that just after that first song, when they move out into the pathway to Mara, the waters of testing, the bitter waters in verse twenty three, and they come to the resting place of Elim with the wells of water. The next chapter is filled with murmuring, but in chapter seventeen something happens.
They are in need of water, water, water. And in verse six, God says, behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock of Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink and Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. I tell you it fools me to see that great sight of the elders of Israel with Moses and there they are facing this rock. Now I don't want to confuse young people but I would ask you to note this and check it with me.
That word rock there is a bedrock, a big bedrock pushing its nose as it were out of the desert sand. The actual word for the rock is T-S-U-R and it means a bedrock. And Moses is told to take that rod, the rod of the shepherd's rod that has become the rod of God in his hand, the entrustment of power. It wasn't Moses' hand had the power. Face that fact. When Moses threw the rod down and turned it into a snake, and took the snake by the tail and it turned into a rod.
Did he fondly think that he was going to be entrusted with power in his hand? It was his hand. Oh no, says God, put your hand into your bosom. Bring it up. Leprosis, white as snow. In other words, human activity and work born of a human heart is just sinful and leprous. If ever that rod is going to be a rod of power, it isn't the rod of Moses, it's the rod of God entrusted to Moses' hand. The man, eighty years of our age, is minded, the sheep fields, he can do nothing, and now God says, I can do something with you. And he goes to that big bedrock, and publicly before that big group of elders he fights the rock, and the gushing waters come out, gushing out.
wherever they began to move from camping place to camping place in some strange and wonderful way the gushing waters that met their need in the desert followed. Now, will you turn with me to Numbers chapter twenty and thirty-eight years of past? Numbers chapter twenty? Oh dear, what wandering, trying, difficult desert years they've been. Chapter twenty, verse two, and there was no water for the congregation, and they gathered themselves together unto Moses and Aaron, they chowed with them.
Verse eight, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod. Take the rod. Now where have you got to take it from? Do you know? It wasn't the shepherd's rod, this is Aaron's rod that budded the rod of resurrection. He took it from the inner sanctuary. He took it from the ark. He took it from the very presence of God whose glory was like Shikanga on the mercy seat. It's a different rod. Take the rod. And taking the rod of Aaron, the rod of resurrection, he is told to go out, verse eight, with Aaron, his brother, and strike.
No, no. Speak. Speak unto the rock. Now I pause here. You take any good concordance like strongs or youngs and you will find that the two word rocks are different. This is not T-S-U-R. This is S-E-L-A, sailor or sailor. In other words, it was the exhorted cliff rock and he was told to speak to it. You never strike a risen Christ.
The bedrock, Jesus, who came down amongst us, rock of ages, cleft to me, in dark hell we were stricken but the water of my gush forth at Pentecost. But you never strike the risen Christ. And that's why in his anger with the people he made a tremendous mistake that actually seems to have forfeited him the right to lead those people across Jordan into the land. He handed over his leadership to Joshua. Read that verse six. I'm sorry. Read that verse eight. Take the robbed and gather thou and the assembly together, not the elders, publicly for all the congregation to see.
and speak unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to their water out of the rock. Verse nine, and Moses took the rod from before the Lord, that's from the ark, as he had commanded him, and then feared anger. He said, Here now, you rebels, must we take water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice. Water came out, all right. But the Lord spake to Moses, verse twelve, Because ye believed me not. You acted in self and anger. Now, with those two scriptures like that, look there.
One, Exodus chapter seventeen, the rock that was stricken, and Numbers chapter twenty, the rock that should have been spoken to, side by side with those two rock experiences, you get the two songs with a thirty-eight-year gap between. The song of a redeemed people out in the desert. The Lord has triumphed gloriously. Exodus fifteen. And if you turn a page to Numbers chapter twenty-one, you'll see the song bursting out again. Read with me Numbers twenty-one.
Verse sixteen, and from thence they went to beer. Now the word beer simply means a well. And from thence they went to beer. That is the well where with the Lord they come to Moses, gather the people together and I will give them water. Then Israel sang this song, Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it. and the princes digged and you can see a singing congregation again. Now what I'm driving at as I close, and I'm going to leave it with you tonight, is this.
Young people never be satisfied with just looking down into the horrible pit or the Red Sea and saying, oh, what a song is put in my heart. ever look for new songs born of new experiences for God. Come out of those experiences with a song of praise, a song of deep knowledge of God. In closing, turn with me to Ephesians five. Verse seventeen, Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Oh, you say, Mr. Wildish, that's what I need. I've heard so many of these servants of God. I've read books about it, the filling of the Spirit. They were filled in the upper room. They were filled again and again through the Acts of the Apostles. And these filled men and women showed marks of doing exploits. They knew their God. They went out adventurously to attack. They weren't just Christians standing still. They attacked the enemy. They were they were conquering.
They were more than conquering. They were spoiling the enemy's camp. Yes, with the shout and with the song they went forward, men who could even sing with thrashed backs at midnight in the innermost jail and win jailer families for the Lord in the middle of the night. Oh, you say, if only it happened today, well, why couldn't it? Why couldn't it? Oh, you say, if only we were filled with the Spirit, We'd all be like Billy Graham. Now, just a moment. Just a moment. No, you wouldn't. Why do you want to be filled with a spirit, and what do you expect when you are filled with a spirit?
You say, well, explain it. Well, there it is. Read it again. Be not drunk with wine. On the day of Pentecost, the explanation of Pentecost in the eyes of the world is, these men are drunk. And Peter knocked that on the head very, very quickly. He said, it's only the third hour of the day. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. And the pubs aren't open and the liquor dens aren't selling their stuff yet. That couldn't be the explanation. But why, tell me why, the world said they're drunk men, simply because drink changes men. I don't know how much they can take. I thank God I don't know anything about it. But they tell me if you take a glass of liquor, you get a little bit free with your tongue.
And instead of being a... sort of quiet, sophisticated sort of quiet man, you begin to chatter and talk and liven up and talk to everybody. And if you take the second, you get very friendly and you put your arms round people. And if you take the third, you pull out your wallet and give all your money away. And it sort of completely changes a man for a few hours. And then he has an awful hangover next morning. And to get out of the world with its worries and problems, people turn to strong drink. Because they know of the change of feeling and the change of attitude, and somehow they feel it's worthwhile to spend their hard-earned money and face the hangover, if only they can get away from things.
Now be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, or in your Spirit know the gracious filling. It just means that the Lord and His Word made real by the power of the ungrieved Holy Spirit will possess the possessions that Christ bought at Calvary's cross. And you say, what will happen? We'll go out to preach great sermons and win multitudes for Christ. It doesn't say so. It says the first marks will be, verse nineteen, your speech. If you're a poor fellow like Harold Wildish and you can't sing, well, God won't expect you to all of a sudden have a lovely tenor voice and keep in tune, that God will expect that the lips that can speak will begin to speak about spiritual things.
Speaking to yourselves in songs and hymns and spiritual songs. And if you've got a gift of singing, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, it will be shown by the mark of thanksgiving. You will be a thanksgiving Christian, thankful to the good Lord for everything. It will be seen in verse twenty-one submitting yourselves one to another, that aggressive, proud, selfish spirit will be gone. There will be the spirit of submission. It will be seen in wives, in their attitudes to their husbands, the spirit-filled wife.
It will be seen in a husband's love toward his helpmate, the weaker vessel. in all his tenderness and care. It will be seen in the hundred and one everyday things, right through the next chapter it's pictured. Children, fathers, servants, masters, and we are right down to the bedrock of everyday living, and that's where the spirit-filled life should be seen. The gifts for the church are quite different. The tremendous tasks and entrustments he may give you will need the empowering and unction of the Holy Spirit.
That day by day you need the filling of God to go to high school as a Christian to represent Christ. You need the filling of the Holy Spirit to live victoriously in your relation to mom and dad and brothers and sisters. You need the filling of the Spirit in all your contacts that you rub shoulders with. That's where it will be seen. And God will entrust you with battles. They'll come from strange angles. But every victory one will lead you to a bigger battleground. and out of every battle you should come with a new song, with a new song, born of a new experience.
Shall we pray? Now as we bow in prayer, I can see David taking his sultry, his harp, and I can see his fingers running over the harp. And he said, I won't sing a new song. I will take an instrument of ten strings to produce it. And I'm just wondering if the Lord could produce a new song in you and me, an instrument of ten strings.
Now think of it. You count it up. Two little eyes to look to God, the children sing. Two little ears to hear His word. Two little feet to walk in His ways. One little tongue to sing His praise. two little hands to do his will, and one little heart to love him still. You count up those instruments, just ten, on an instrument of ten strings. In your life the Lord Jesus wants to produce a new song, born of a new experience.
Now just ask yourself in prayer with the Lord, when I go back from this Congress, back home, Will there be a new song? Will mother detect it and hear that song in that instrument of ten streams? Will dear old dad see it? Will the folks I go to school with and play with? Will those I rub shoulders with day by day who know me best somehow be conscious that something of the Lord's gracious deepening working in my soul is producing a new song? And now, loving Lord, we hand over the evening session to thee and ask that thou will preserve and write thy word upon mind and heart and make it deep in our souls.
May we ever be willing these days to creep away to a quiet place, to talk things over and work things out with thyself alone. We thank thee for all the sessions. We thank thee for all the times when we look into each other's faces and share experiences. We thank thee for the glorious hours of freedom and fun and fellowship. But, Lord, we ask as this Congress moves forward that we may not be ashamed to leave the crowd, to spend the quiet time alone with thee, to work out in our own soul those deep things that thou wouldst teach us. We ask it for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake.
Amen. number three hundred eighty three I
don't like to give up any of the verses, let's sing all of them. Our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ, our rock, our well, our refreshment. May each of us, Lord, find new songs for day. We pray in Jesus' name and... Feel free to spend time in prayer. We'll meet back here, oh, in about twenty minutes. You're dismissed now.