The secret to a life of radiant joy, emphasizing that it originates from an inner state independent of external circumstances. Drawing from Luke 15, the message highlights the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son to illustrate the immense joy in heaven over a repentant sinner. It contrasts this divine joy with the self-centeredness and lack of compassion seen in the elder brother, and by extension, in a complacent Laodicean church. The core lesson is that true joy is found in actively seeking and celebrating the salvation of the lost, urging listeners to move beyond a traditional, self-satisfied faith to embrace a sacrificial, outward-focused life that reflects God's own heart for the perishing.
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 2.51 → restored 4.02
My dear friends, last evening sitting in Edmund Chapel with about sixteen hundred young people, my eyes turned to the words, words above the speaker's head. Right across the back of the chapel are written the words, millions are lost. Do you care? I went to my bed last night and I couldn't forget those words. Millions are lost. Do you care? I asked the Lord for the message for this morning and I had a little battle.
I had to say, Lord, no, not that message. And again and again the message came. You must speak to them. on the life of joy. Now I know many young people will be surprised to find out the secret of the joyful Christian life. Yesterday we spoke about the life of worship. Do you want to face a life of radiant joy? That's something in the inner life that's not dependent upon changing circumstances. And that life of joy, you say, I'd like to find that secret.
Well, will you turn to Luke's Gospel, Chapter Fifteen, and we are picking out one or two verses from this very familiar chapter. Verse six, and when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Millions are lost. Do you care? I, the Lord Jesus, say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repented.
more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance verse nine and when she had found it the coin she called her friends and her neighbors together saying rejoice with me for i have found the peace which i have lost likewise i the lord jesus say unto you There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repented. Verse twenty-two. And the Father said to his servant, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him.
Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. Bring hither the patted calf, and kill it, the debtor eat, and be merry. But if my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found, and they began to be married. Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and counting. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. He said unto him thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.
He was angry, and would not go in. Therefore came his father out, and entreated him. The answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed thy at any time thy commandment. Yet thou never gaveest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, Which hath devoured thy living with harlots, Thou hast killed for him the fatty class. He said unto him, Son, all that I have is thine. It was meek that we should make merry and be glad.
For this my brother was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. Millions are lost. Do you care? Now some years ago I went with a glorious young band of Jamaican creatures up into the mountains to hold a service in a village. And as the crowd gathered round and the gospel was being preached, one of the pious young preachers in Jamaica was again and again trying to expose the sinfulness of the human heart.
And again and again he looked into that crowd's face and he said, You're worthless! You're a worthless bunch of people! And I know Jamaica well enough to know that no one in our island likes to be called worthless. If you want to hurt someone, you use that word. As we were on the way home, I touched my glorious young friend on his arm, and I said, listen, you called those people worthless. Are you sure you're right? Oh, yes, Mr. Wildish, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none, righteous, no, not one. I said, I agree. But are they worthless?
I said, you know, one of the words that I have learned to love in the Bible is the stern word lost. L-O-S-T, millions are lost. If I take a little piece of paper and I throw it down on the floor, it's worthless. No one goes on hands and knees to find that half of our paper. But if I drop my little watch off my wrist and it rolls down on the floor, someone will pick it up and hand it back to me and I'll say, oh, thank you, that's such a valued friend of mine. And you only use the word loss.
for something that is worth something. God looked down from heaven his dwelling place, and God saw that sin, awful disease and pain had brought men into a lost condition. But God saw in them tremendous worth. He wanted the smile. He wanted the muscle. He wanted the personality. He wanted that magnificent piece of manhood. He sent forth his son into the world not to condemn it, but to win salvation. And heaven seems to go mad with joy. Rejoice with me. I have found the sheep, the coin, the boy that was lost.
Millions are lost. Do you care? Now in this well-known portion of scripture, I think we have a creep into the heart of the eternal God as nowhere else in the Bible. In the shepherd, you see the good shepherd that went after a lost sheep. Surely a picture of God, the eternal son, in his mighty stoop into the lonely places to search for you, to search for me. None of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed. How dark was the night that our Lord passed through ere he found his sheep that was lost.
And when you were saved for the grace of God a cry rang out, Rejoice with me, that heaven was glad, joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner the propensity. in that sweeping woman you can see the gracious person of the Holy Spirit of God who came into the dark places to look for that which lay still with no light when she found that coin she said rejoice with me and heaven would bless I don't know any picture perhaps that's more moving we are so familiar with it to see the Father with eager eyes watching and running and putting his arms around the particle boy and covering with kissing.
And there's music and dancing. In fact, the chapter's full of it. It's rejoice, joy in heaven. It's time to be merry and be glad. Why? Millions are lost. And when the gracious power of the triune God brings salvation to soul, heaven is filled with joy. But do you care? That's the blessing. I don't want to be unkind, but it seems to me that in our modern, prosperous, bustling world, the words of the wise old man in proverbs have come true joy has withered away in the hearts of men A world today is running after entertainment.
They say, I don't want to think. Ah, muse me. You bring to my thinking that which will take away the stoner thoughts of life, that I can roar with laughter. Bring out the wine cup. The more we are together, the more we drink, the more joy there will be. But this isn't joy. Is there a secret of life for an abiding joy? the joy of the Lord in your heart and selfishness will rob you of that joy. If you are a soul winner and you rarely care, you will find that you will be able to say, ye are my joy and power.
And there is no joy like seeking others, whether you are the first link or the final link in the chain that leads the soul to Christ. there is joy in the service of the Lord as you look around you and see the needy world millions are lost do you care and if you care and your life is devoted to us there will be a life of joy and by and by you will hear him say well done good and faithful servant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord Now around us in our modern world, in Christendom today, there is a growing, strange Laodicean spirit.
Thank God for every Philadelphia Christian that you can find who holds past and stands true in loyalty to Christ. You can't travel wisely without seeing a Christendom today that is largely self-satisfied. The risen Christ stands outside the door and he says, You say that you are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. You don't know your true condition. Thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. And there is no grouping of Christians in the world today that has escaped this Laodicean spirit.
It is rampant in the world. That's why the call comes to the individual that Christ wants to come within those Laodicean doors. And supper with you, and supper time will be a time of joy, and he wants to make his magnificent plan real in your life. Now in this story in Luke's gospel so familiar to us, Have you noticed how we preachers who handle this chapter nearly always leave out the closing story of the elder brother? We go down to the end of the certain verse where it says that the house was filled with joy and music and dancing, and we see that prodigal boy safely home.
But the Lord did not stop this. The Lord said in verse twenty-five, now his elder son was in the field. And as we read these closing verses, we are introduced to a strange character, a surly, ill-tempered, selfish, cold, or lukewarm at the very best. boy who has grown up with all the privileges of the home has grown so used to them that they mean little to him and as he steps into the picture i don't know how you will feel but i don't like him there's something about him that says oh i don't As I turn to the Laodicean church, I remember Jesus said, I am sick of you.
You make me sick. As I look at your condition, I feel like vomiting. Oh, Lord Jesus, did you say that about professing Christians that they make you sick? That's happiness. As I read the story of this elder brother, there's something that reacts within me, and I say, I don't like him. I don't like his spirit. My prayer would be this morning, oh God, banished from my life the spirit of the elder brother, and put into my life the spirit of the good shepherd that went after the lost sheep, the spirit of the woman who searched till she found the locked coin, the spirit of the father who ran with his arms outstretched to the prodigal boy.
Give me of thy spirit as I look around the perishing world. Millions are lost. Do you care? Now the first thing that strikes me so strongly, and all young people gathered in Congress at Wheaton, take it to your heart to get everybody around you. Just sit alone in the presence of God and let God draw near, using his words to reveal things. Take it right to your heart. Here is a man who learnt no lesson from the abundance of his father's table.
Oh, get that. Morning, noon, and evening, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, he came through the palm-yard door, and he sat down at the table that was loaded with food. And as he sat there and looked at the food, picking and choosing in that lovely home, away in a distant land, a boy sat at the fine trot. He pain would fill his stomach with the pig-boo. He's having memories of the home of his boyhood, and he says, My father's servants have read enough and to spare.
So in the family of all eaten, and the servants of all eaten, the senty over, and I would fill my stomach with this pig-boo. You are born many of you in Christian homes, and you have the privilege of being taken to the house of the Lord, and you have sat again and again amongst the people of the Lord. What a heritage you have, what you have been saved from, that you haven't far to look around you to see the kids, the kids that are rushing after the pig's food in this world, who, saying, find satisfaction and joy at the fine trot, they're on every hand around you.
Does the abundance of the table speak to your heart? I know that most of you on Lord's day, morning, the resurrection morning, that Lordly day, love to gather together to keep the Lord's supper. He says this too in remembrance of me. And I trust you look forward with eager hearts to that appointment when you come to meet him. and to sit quietly and remember, and as you move through Gethsemane to Calvary, your heart is strangely stirred, and you commune with him, and you offer him the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and he comes to stop with you to take from your heart the appreciation, the affection, the love, the overthrow of your spiritual life.
I trust all of you have this wonderful experience. But listen, young lady, listen, young man, there is an awful possibility of us traditionally not wanting to miss the breaking of the bread, but to come and go from that table. and not discern the Lord's body, that mystic body that he is building in which every true blood-bought believer himself by his spirit is a part, and to miss the fact that we should go out with eager heart to a perishing world, to make known all of that table speaks of, and enlarge the family circle of the Lord.
I wonder if you and I have to face the fact that the abundance of that table doesn't speak to our hearts as it shows. He died not for us only, a little flock. He died for the sins of the whole world. There is peace sufficient for every sinner's need. There is peace sufficient for every troubled heart. There is blood sufficient to cleanse away all sin. There is pardon and joy and strength for every soul in our all sufficient good and Christ. When you meet him at his table and you sit in peace, is it possible that it doesn't speak to you about those that never gather at his table, those who are sitting at the swine trot.
who are trying to find satisfaction out of Christ. Is it possible that we are selfish Christians and that Laodicean spirit is gripping our hearts as we didn't really know it? We thought that we were privileged and rich and increased with goods and had need of nothing, that we were a special people of the Lord. Ah, but listen, it brings a tremendous responsibility to have this heritage. And if there isn't a great, big, compassionate outflow to the others in their need, something's wrong. So I want you to turn to the empty chair that was in front of that elder brother as he came in from the field and he sat at the table and saw the abundance from the table.
It didn't speak to him. But every day he looked across at an empty chair, and somehow that empty chair never spoke to him of a missing brother. And that poor prodigal boy came home. The father got so excited. He shouted out, Bring forth the best robe, shoes, kill the proudest car. But there's one thing you can't read in the story. He never went to the farm yard door and shouted, Billitz Carpenter, knock up a new chair. My boys come back. An empty chair. Day after day stare that three times a day as he feasted on the abundance of the table.
never spoke to his heart. I am turning now young people from that pressure Lord's table where you gather to keep his supper of remembrance, where you meet with him and see the abundance of all the Calvary has won for you, but not for you only, to those evangelistic services that you have in your chapel, when you proclaim the gospel. And you arrive and sit and listen to the gospel and compare preacher with preacher. A lovely address this morning, not so good today. And yet around you there are empty chairs in those chapels, and you are not filling them up.
When did you last take a precious girl that you went to school and college with, with a real prayer, a real desire in your heart to sit by your side, to listen to the life-giving gospel that Jesus died to win? The empty chairs today should shame us, should speak to us. Oh, I love to think of the Lord Jesus in Luke's Gospel, chapter five, looking at poor men who had teamed up to bring their paused friend to Jesus. I hook off, I cook, they're going to do it. I can see them teeming up and getting the bed on their shoulders, and they come, and there was always crowds in the way.
The door was locked. It seemed so difficult to get that friend to Jesus, but they climb on the roof. They open up the roof. They let down with ropes the man on his bed. And I love to think of Jesus looking up at four excited faces. And when he saw their faith, he said unto the man, Thy sins are forgiven thee. Take up thy bed and walk. Are you filling up those chairs? Do you ever phone people and invite them to come and hear that servant of God who's come to preach the gospel?
Do you ever write a letter with a teardrop on its page? Do you ever invite people in for a meal to fill up your car with unsafe kids to go with you? Shame on us! Our chapel should be packed to the door every time the gospel is preached. But it isn't. Why? Because perhaps unconsciously the Laodicean spirit is kept into our hearts. And we see the table with all its abundance and get used to the empty chair. You know, I was having a mission in Cardiff town in Wales, and I told a story on the opening night in the Big Tent.
I said, you know, there's a couple up in Manchester who brought to a mission hundreds of people by simply asking folks to English tea. English tea is a lovely silver tea pot with thin bread and butter and strawberry jam and a few cookies. And everyone likes an afternoon tea over there, and this couple had got the idea of inviting their neighbors in, and then just at the right time, about six-fifteen, they would say, Now, friends, we always go down to the mission to listen to the gospel. You will come with us. And after taking all the tea and the cookies, they couldn't very well say no. And through the years, they brought hundreds of people under the sound of the gospel in that big central mission in Manchester.
I told this story as I challenged God's children. I said, will you during this tent campaign do this? Will you prayerfully put down a list of names of those you will contact and bring during this month? Sitting in the audience was a girl, a teenage girl, about fifteen, a school girl. She went home and she shut herself in a bedroom and she got pencil and paper and she wrote down name after name of girls that she played hockey with and tennis with and sat by her side in the school. Eventually she got seventeen names of those she rubbed shoulders with in everyday life.
And in the presence of the Lord there she said, Lord, help me to bring them under the sound of the gospel this month. The month came to its end and we had a convert meeting. And as workers and converts were meeting in Sweet Fellowship, this precious girl came up to me and she showed me this piece of paper, the list of seventeen names. And I noticed that every name was ticked. Some once, some twice, some three times, some five or six times. And she said, every time I brought my friend, I ticked this list. And she had been able to bring them all under the sound of the gospel in that month.
And as I looked at these ticks and I looked into the face of this girl, I said, what are these two that are underlined? Oh, she said, Mr. Wildish, those two have given their hearts to the Lord Jesus, she said, and they're saved. And I looked into the face of a girl who was radiant with the joy of the Lord. There is a joy in soul winning, there is a joy in sacrificial living toward others in our perishing world. Today, largely, yes, those the most privileges, we are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.
Don't realize the wretchedness, the miserableness of a life that felt, spent selfishly? Oh, if you woke in the morning and said, Lead me to some soul today. Oh, teach me, Lord, just what to say. Friends of mine are lost, lost in sin and cannot find the way. Few there are who seem to care. Few there are who pray. Lead me to them. Do you know that you could go from this Congress to begin to be a radiant, joyful Christian instead of that very, very, very normal bread and butter Christian?
And your home assembly would see the change because you've caught the vision of a perishing world and you realize that you can't do anything for the world, but God can use you to be a channel to those you rub shoulders with. And if on bended knee you pray, and you bring them to him, he will give you the contact, and surely he'll give you the door of being a link in the chain of blessing to their soul. But now I turn to the third thing, as you look at that table, not only is there an abundance of food, but it doesn't speak to him, not only is there an empty chair, but it doesn't speak to him, As you listen to the conversation around that table, he never talks with his father about his absent brother.
You catch the picture. He's coming in dead. A nice little calf was born last night. Yes, a good pedigree. Splendid. You hear the news, Dad? The prices of the wheat's going up. We've got a fine crop. Better keep it in the barn. It'll go up a bit more, I think. He can talk business. He can talk about everything. He doesn't talk about Dad with Dad about that lost boy. If he did, I think Dad would get up and with teardrops dropping on his head, would have put his arm around his shoulder and said, son, get the horse out and go and find him. I'm turning now from the Lord's table and from the evangelistic service to the prayer meeting.
And I'm going to ask you, young people, when your voice was last heard in the prayer meeting in your home chapel with a sob in it, Father, save souls. Some of you don't go to the prayer meeting. You have never bent the knee with God's people in a Sunday life. I tell you, you're making a great mistake. I'm sure, Mr. Tatham, will be bringing to us a message in a matter of moments that you should continue like the early church steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching and in the fellowship of the breaking of bread and in prayer, one of the major assembly gatherings. Yet you are missing, you youngsters.
You're not found there. When did you last bow the knee in the home chapel and rarely pray for a perishing word? When did you talk with Father about the kids that you play hockey and football with? When did you last pray with deep concern that they're not found around the table, that they're not enjoying the feast in Christ? Tell me, you know, I was saved at the age of twelve and a half, and God deepened his work in my soul at the age of seventeen, and I was baptized and came into an assembly. And I used to always go to the Monday night prayer meeting, an evening devoted to prayer in those old days.
And I used to sit on my seat, very timid, to take any part. But they used to come in and sit behind me a rugged soul. He was a carpenter's boy. He had never had education or the advantages that so many of you have had. His name was Donald Meadows. He became and is now one of my dearest friends in this life. And Don used to sit behind me and I could feel his hands on the back of my seat and I always knew when he was going to pray, I could feel the trembling. And I knew Don was exercised to get up. And when he got up, you would hear him say, Oh Lord Jesus, we do thank you for going to that cross to die for us.
And we do ask that your work may be prospered, and it would be a simple prayer, and then he would get on the soul. Lord, would you save Jim? I worked for the side of him in the carpenter's shop today, Lord. He took that tract, tracked. Will you make it a channel of blessing to his heart? And then, Lord, there's Andrew. You know, Lord, that I met Andrew last week, and he brought Jim and Andrew and those that he was working with day by day to the Lord. I say, do you wonder that God thrust him out into whole time service in the midst of the Second Great World War? And today he's living in South Borne near Bournemouth. And here's the point.
Wherever I go, I find a trail of souls he's left behind him. Why? Because he talks to Father about them. That's why. The Father says, go and tell them. bring them twice in Jamaica they have come out to our fair island from England fairly recently two souls and when they came and introduced themselves well when did you find the Lord or the Lord find you oh Mr. Meadows led me to the Lord the schoolmaster Mr. Meadows led me to the Lord Oh, I tell you, there could come revival all through the chapel scattered through North America.
If only, if only the abundance of the table, the empty chair, the real desire to say, Father, I must talk to you about the absent one. There must be a vital prayer life. will ask me to put my finger upon the thing at the lowest ebb amongst the people of God that we love so much, it is their prayer. Unless there is a revival in prayer amongst us, we can never be the channel of blessing that God wants us to be. And we could be in these critical days when many hungry, disappointed, and needy people are looking for some refuge, some place of fellowship.
if only we were vital in our prayer life and doing business with thoughts. Oh, what a difference it would make. The fourth thing I have put down is that this big, strong elder brother did nothing to bring the prodigal back. None of his personality, none of his muscle, none of his tremendous gifts. were devoted to the task of bringing that boy back. He came back in spite of and not because of the elder brother. Oh, I wonder, I wonder so much if you have devoted your personality, your gift, yourself to the Lord, to be a channel of blessing.
The world around us is trying to build up people, to give them personality, to encourage their self-confidence, which is very good to face men. But when we are dealing with God's things, we've got to come to the place where at the end of ourselves we have no confidence in the flesh, and we say, Lord, you must take over. These members which have been crucified, as far as the old Adam is concerned, are now set free in resurrection to serve a new master. And they're at thy disposal. Nor think, look, speak, love, will, work, walk, use everything I've got. You know, I was in Haiti, the big country next to Jamaica from time back.
And in the early morning at six as the sun climbed over the Haitian hills at the town of Hinch, I saw one of those sights that make your eyes amazed. Three thousand people gathered on the riverbank, three precious Haitian elders in the water, over a hundred piling their way down into the waters for believers' baptism. standing at my side was a little cobbler, a little Haitian negro who has a little tiny box like cobbler shop where he men's shoes.
And he looked up into my face and he said, Brother Wilde, isn't this great? He said, you know, a day is not well spent and blessed. I've won a soul for Christ. And I looked down at him and said, Say that again. A day is not well spent and blessed. I've won a soul for Christ. I went out to a bite at breakfast and I looked at that old veteran missionary, Wood, and I said, Mr. Wood, tell me about the little cobbler in his shop. Is he a soul winner? He said, Brother Wildish. He said, was I sometimes have classes of forty, fifty, sixty converts to attest for church fellowships?
He said, I find that many of them have been led to Christ by that little cobbler. He said, he sits bending his shoes and they come out of the hot Haitian sun and they sit on a box or a broken chair and he's got his little New Testament on his bench and he talks to them the gospel and shows them the scriptures. He said, you can see heads bowed as he points sinners to Christ. None of your advantages in loved America, but... that little fellow who you would say is nothing, is something with God. Why? Because he cares about perishing souls, and he says, Lord, Lord, use me as a channel, and a day, every day is a new adventure, and it's not well spent unless I've led a soul.
You see, is that possible for me gloriously? At the end of the day, if you ever confess your sin to your Lord at the throne, and you should put things right at the end of the day with him, if you're honorable, you will have to confess the lost opportunity, the wasted out, the people that you talk with about cars and jetties and food and politics and a hundred things that you never talked about your law. He wanted to use you, but he hadn't the instrument to use. The fifth thing I've got on my list is the elder brother was not there when it happened.
Yes, when the light went on and the music struck up and the dancing began and the crated calf was killed and all the wardrobe was brought out. He wasn't there. He was an absentee. I wonder if you are missing this. I wonder if when God is on the move you are an absentee. I wonder if when you see God's people in deep concern going out toward a perishing world, you're on the fringe of things. You're not there. Do you know as I close the biggest heartbreak of all, number six, this elder brother found no joy when it happened.
He didn't seem to care at all whether The Father found satisfaction or not. He wasn't glad. Oh, how to see. You can see that surly man out in the courtyard, and you can see the Father leaving the scene of joy and merriment and happiness, and coming out, and they stand face to face, and there seems to be a gulf between them. And the Father says, Thy brother is come. And a surly voice says, Thy son, that devoured thy living with harlots. And the father says, It would miss that we should make merry and be glad.
He was angry and would not go in. And the father says, All that I have is thine. And the surly voice says, Thou never gavest me a kid that I make merry with my friend. Now I ask you, as I close in Congress and those who listen over the air today, do you see anything of this subtle Laodicean elder brother spirit creeping into and settling down in your Christian life and robbing you of the spirit of the good shepherd that went off to the lost sheep, the spirit of the woman who searched for the lost coin, the spirit of the father that ran to welcome the prodigal home.
It's not by might, it's not by power, it's by my spirit, says the Lord, Spirit of the living God. Fall afresh on me. Break me. Some of you young people need to be broken. Melt me. Melt me. I might be the instrument in my hand towards that world that perishes. Millions are lost, lost. God cares. He sent the first great missionary amongst us, not to condemn us, but to save us.
So send I you, he said. Do you care? Do you care? Would you bow for a quiet moment and say, Lord, banish that older brother spirit and give to me the spirit of the living God? Shall we bow in? you