Gooding, David: 1 - Life's Supreme Struggle

Good evening, and the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus be with you. The remarks of my chairman were, as chairman's remarks are, sometimes a trifle generous. At the Bible class this afternoon, I did my best, certainly, to answer questions, but the head teacher said I hadn't done enough, and therefore I have to stay in school, uh, and to come back again next week. But the questions were good questions, and it was a very interesting time we had. As you have heard, God willing, from tomorrow onwards through Monday to Friday, and then again Sunday night, we hope to begin the study of the book of the Revelation. Many people find it a difficult book. We shall not be attempting to go through endless tiny detail. We shall be trying to get a general bird's eye view of the book, so that we can get the major themes of its glorious message into our hearts and our minds. It is a very relevant book to our modern times. It tells, among other things, that there shall be a glorious future. God's will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. There shall come a time when the nations of the world shall learn war no more. The military academies will be gone forever, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. That is no empty theme, no empty daydream. That quotation from the Old Testament that stands at the United Nations building in New York is not, I repeat, an empty dream, a forlorn hope. It shall one day come to pass because God is going to see it will come to pass. But the bringing of that day in will, amongst other things, require God to rise up at last and say, time, gentlemen, please. God is going to redevelop Earth. He shall not wait forever for his plans for the redevelopment to take place. That will mean that God will have to intervene. Very severe judgments upon this world to rid it of those who the Bible says destroy the Earth, and to make way for the glorious coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord. These are not daydreams nor fancies. So, if you're free, do come along. We shall be very pleased to see you. Come ready to think hard, if you can, and hear what the Lord says in his message to us through that book. Now, tonight we shall begin by reading from the last book in the Bible, that same book of the Revelation. I am, as you see, old and a little a trifle old fashioned, so that the translation I read from is an old translation, and if you have a new one, never mind, pity my simplicity. And then again, if you don't have one, well, don't let that trouble you either. Do see, sit back and listen to the good word of God from the mouth of the Savior himself. We read from chapter three of the book of the Revelation, and we begin to read there in verse fourteen. And it is our Lord Jesus, risen from the dead, has appeared to his apostle John on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, and he is in process of dictating through John some letters to the Christian churches of that time. And he comes in verse fourteen to dictate the letter that he wishes sent to Laodicea, and he says as follows: And to the church of, and to the angel of the church in Laodicea write, these things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would that thou wert cold or hot, but because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich and have gotten riches and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich, and white ra- garments that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest. And I vow to anoint thine eyes that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will dine with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will give to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father in his throne. And he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And along with that, we shall read some verses from towards the end of the book, from chapter twenty one. These verses begin at verse five, chapter twenty one. He that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he says, Write, for these words are faithful and true. And he said unto me, They are come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But for the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and fornicators and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. May the risen Lord who spoke those words speak them again in our hearts this evening. It is, I suppose, obvious, ladies and gentlemen, when you come to think about it, that it is simply a truism to say that for many people, life is a struggle. That is obviously so, isn't it? Of course, it's that which for some people gives zest to life and interest. They don't bemoan the fact that life is a struggle. Take the champion that's just won an Olympic gold medal. We all know, of course, the tremendous struggle that his training has been to him or to her. And then the race itself, what competition he was against, and how he had to struggle with every nerve and muscle in his being to win the race and earn the gold medal. Now, should you ask him about it, he isn't hanging his hands down with a glum face and saying, oh, isn't it terrible, what a struggle life is. He rejoices in the struggle, feels the struggle was eminently worthwhile because of the tremendous prize at the end. Or you could go into the house of a, of a couple now in their forties, you'll see, and their house is all very pleasant and beautiful. And then they open their heart to you and says the wife, you know, when we started out, life was a very big struggle, you'll see. We married quite young, and uh, we had nothing, and we weren't like the young people with everything given to them right from the start. We had to work hard for every stick of furniture that we got, and the children bringing up the children, and sometimes they were ill. Life was a tremendous struggle. We had a difficulty to make ends meet. And then you can see her pride of heart. She isn't lamenting it so much. She feels it's a tremendous triumph, and now look what we have. Now she's saying, yes. It was a challenge, wasn't it? She rose to it with her husband and is gratified by the result. The fact that life is a struggle is not always bad. Of course, there are struggles that are terrible. When what is at stake is so uncertain and so important that the struggle becomes a kind of a nightmare. I was in New Zealand just the other year, and my hostess on the occasion was driving me along the road and told me how a year or two before she was taken all of a sudden out of a blue with an illness that even the doctors at the time could scarce diagnose, that suddenly incapacitated her from head to foot, and every muscle gave way, and every nerve stopped functioning, and she was barely breathing. How her daughter had to r- take her in the car, the whole thing happened so suddenly, and drive her down the motorway to the nearest hospital, and she said the di- that my daughter was driving with one hand on the wheel and one hand on my chest, trying to keep my heart going and my breathing going, lest I should be dead by the time I got to hospital. That was some struggle, that was, wasn't it? Yes, she got to hospital in time and eventually was cured, but it was a struggle. Oh, you can take a farmer, can't you? When the bottom has gone out of the market and all the old, uh, uh, uh, whatever that was, that disease that attacked the cows and made them mad, you'll see, and all of us who ate them, you'll see. Uh, and some of them now facing impossible odds. Some of them even having committed suicide. They feel life's struggle has been too big. There is one struggle, ladies and gentlemen, supreme above all others. Because of what is at stake, you might call it life's supreme struggle. For it will determine not merely our circumstances and experience here on Earth. It is going to decide what eternity that lies beyond our life here shall be for each one of us. In this struggle, we have read the words of the Bible. He or she who overcomes, overcomes in the struggle, to him, says God, I will give all these things, the magnificent future that God has prepared for those that love him. For this life is not just an idiot's tale full of sound and fury, but in the end signifying nothing at all. We were not brought onto this planet just for a few brief seventy years that in the end are pointless. This life was meant to be a stepping stone, temporary stepping stone on the way to the great eternity. That when we have finished our schooling here, we may go out into life that is real life, the great eternity that God has designed for those that love him. He who overcomes, says God in the struggle, to him I shall give all these things. But to those who don't, what then? And the Bible, with its frank but solemn honesty, says that to be defeated in this struggle is eternal loss and perdition. That surely is life's biggest struggle. Someone will say to me, I'm sure tonight, but how, Mr. Preacher, can you possibly say that? I thought you Christians believe that salvation is a free gift. You don't have to struggle for it, do you? Surely you preach, or your Bible preaches, don't you believe it, that salvation is a free gift. God gives it to all, free and for nothing, upon their repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. You cannot deserve it, you cannot earn it. It's not a prize given for those who succeed in the battle. Well, I understand what you're saying, of course I agree. That is absolutely true. The Bible says it in words almost of one syllable. By grace, says the great Christian apostle, have you been saved? He's talking to men and women that have trusted Christ. By grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast, you'll see. Salvation is free. You cannot earn it. You cannot possibly deserve it. You don't win it in the lottery. It is a gift. Whereas the wages of sin is death, says the Bible. Eternal life is the free gift of God, free, gratis, and for nothing. Oh yes, let me make that ever so clear right from the start. If we would have salvation tonight, we take it as a gift. Well, then you say, what's all that about the struggle you talked of? Well, of course, I'm not telling you you have to earn salvation, but I am saying that in to get it, some of you may have to go through a struggle. You'll see I got a pen in my hand here. Suppose I were to say, I'm not going to, but suppose I were to say the first person that comes up here would like a pen, you come up and I- I'll give it to you. Come up right now. I wonder what you'll think. I think most of you would say, I don't want a pen anyway. But even if I would like it, I wouldn't go out in front of all that congregation and humiliate myself by going out to take a pen free and for nothing. Whatever would people think of me? Why can't she buy her own pen? No, I'm not going to do that. No. And even if you wanted the pen for some reason, and it's a free gift, you would face a sort of a struggle in your decision. Am I going to get it or am I not going to get it? Yes, that is how, uh, it is with salvation, you know. There are many folks that see salvation is a gift, but then when they think of coming to Christ and receiving it, all sorts of obstacles suddenly appear in the way, and what will my friends think of it, and do I need to be saved, am I not good enough as I stand now? I'm not going to humble and humiliate myself and... and so forth and so on. For some people in some countries, it's a very big struggle, isn't it? I and my colleagues from time to time, uh, do work in Russia and other, uh, and in their southern countries. We had a letter at one stage. It came from Chadicistan, from a student that had been a, a, a Muslim and had trusted the Savior. And he wrote to us saying that when I trusted the Savior, my f- my fa- uh, my brothers beat me unmercifully. My father took a knife and carved my back to try and persuade me to give up Christ. Please can you tell, can send me some literature to tell me why when we suffer, when we trust Christ, we have to suffer so much. Yes, some people suffer the loss of all things. Doesn't buy salvation. But if tonight it were to cost you everything you have to come to Christ and receive the free gift of salvation, would you come? Our Lord Jesus was once asked by, by a, an inquirer. Lord, said the inquirer, are there few that be saved? What would you say? Are there many were saved, the majority saved, or only few saved? I mean, if we were bold enough, we could ask the same question tonight, couldn't we? Are we all saved? Some of us saved? Or how many? And the Lord didn't a- uh, reply directly, but said, you strain every muscle. Strive, said he, to enter the narrow gate. One day the door will be shut, and there will be many outside. When the door is shut, shall knock on the door, but all in vain. They thought they were inside somehow or other, but they weren't, in fact, they were outside. They'd never entered. And to be sure, entering a door is a simple thing, isn't it? A child could do it. Thus it is with salvation. We used to sing with the children a little children's ditty, one door and only one, yet its sides are two, inside and outside. On which side are you? I am the door, said Christ. By me, if anyone enters in, he shall be saved. Entering the door is simple enough. Ah yes, but coming to the door. Making up your mind that you're going to get in. But if the sky falls on the earth, you're going to get in. The prime thing in life you're going to decide to enter in and to be sure you have entered in before that door closes. Our Lord indicated that we have got to take it seriously, and if we find obstacles in the way, we must overcome them. So, So. there were these people, and our Lord is calling on them to repent and believe and to be saved. They had special difficulties, the people to whom our Lord was writing. Well, to be honest, they were members of a professing Christian church, do they? I suspect because they were members of this church in a place called Laodicea, they got it in their head that that just because they were members of this church, they were all right and didn't bother their heads anymore. Though they were members of the church, uh, things were surely not quite right, were they? For the Lord has to say to them, I know your works, that you're neither hot nor cold, which is you were either hot or cold, but because you are neither hot nor cold, but simply lukewarm, I just spew you out of my mouth. The Lord never talks to believers in Christ like that. What does he mean you're neither hot nor cold? Well, there are a lot of folks, in my experience, around like it, you know. Keen on gardening, maybe, or music or something, and that's lovely. If you ask them about Christ and God and being saved, oh, they say, yes, well, I'm not particularly interested in that, you know. Oh, really? No. They're not, not against God, you know. No, I got nothing against it. I go to church, not a kin. On the other hand, I'm not madly keen on God, so to speak. Uh, you see? Uh, I see. I got it. You're neither hot nor cold. Perhaps you'll sit there tonight and say, well, I'm not mad keen. It's okay for the preacher to be mad keen on God. I'm not mad keen on God myself. Um, of course I'm not against religion. Yes. Shall we suppose that's good enough for God? What would you say? I- I- I- I- one day you met a young gentleman, he was telling you he's proposing to be married the first of October, and you say, yes, I've seen your wife to be, she is a most beautiful, charming girl. You must love her immensely. And he replies, oh, I don't know about that. No. I mean, I'm not against the girl. I've got nothing against the woman. But then, on the other hand, I'm not mad keen on her. Oh, I see. And you're going to marry her, are you? That's a funny, curious situation. How could you ever be, make a, a, a proper relationship out of that, I wonder? Yet many people feel it's okay to feel like that about God. I'm not against him, they say. Not cold. We're not madly keen in love with him. We're not hot. Oh, but wait a minute. That won't do for God. The first commandment, said our blessed Lord Jesus, is we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. That's the first commandment. And you only have to think about it for a moment to see how unsatisfactory is any other attitude to God. How do you suppose anybody would spend an eternity in God's heaven if they're not keen on God? Don't love him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. What was their obstacle? What was their difficulty? Why weren't they taking God and his things seriously, and this whole business of being saved and getting to know the Savior? What was in the way of it? Well, one thing above another, I suppose. You'd call it consumerism. You see, these people were living two thousand years ago, but we mustn't imagine they were savages. Theirs was a very sophisticated city and a very prosperous one. They produced high quality clothing fit for Paris, haute couture, you know, and uh, they were famous for their medical research and their doctors there. A very wealthy city they were. You say, what's wrong with that? Nothing. Hmm, how I love to go around the shops and see all the color and all the goods nowadays compared with what they were in my youth during the days of the Depression in the twenties and thirties. What's wrong with lovely things? Nothing. But there's this danger with them. For all life's lovely things given us by God for our enjoyment, meant to lead our hearts in gratitude back to him. And if they so do, wonderful. But sometimes these good, lovely things have an unfortunate tendency. They take people's way, uh, hearts away from God, don't they? So much time with the lovely music and the email, so much time with the beautiful house and getting a garden right, so much nowadays the pressure of business and all these lovely things, leaving no time for God. No time to settle life's major question. Am I right with God? Am I on the way to God's heaven? No time to consider the doorway that Christ says is standing open for us to enter in and be saved. We're therefore still outside the door. Not taking it seriously. What will Christ say? What a travesty it is, he says. They say I'm enriched and increased with goods and have need of nothing, and they don't know that they're wretched, miserable, blind, and poor, and naked. Blind, you say? Yes. Here they are in the world, overflowing with the good benefits of God given to us, and can't see that there's a hand behind it. There stands the loving God, our Creator, behind it, offering the gifts and hoping they will lead us to open our eyes to see him, see how much more important he is than the gifts he gives. I can't see it. It's as if there were no God. They think they are clothed with beautiful, the latest fashion. There's nothing wrong in it, beautiful. Know not that they are blind and naked. To be physically naked is to stand ashamed, isn't it? One day we shall stand before God, says Bible. Have we never felt ashamed of ourselves in the secret of our hearts and minds? Yes, of course we have. Done and thought things that we would scarce like our best friend to know. We cover them up, sink them in the depths of our forgettery. One day, we shall stand before God. As he sees us now, the Bible says, all things are open and naked to the view of him with whom we have to do. He sees what is inside us. Not overlooked our good points, but he says we're naked before God. We have sins on our conscience and memory. Were we stand, were to stand before God now as we are, our nakedness and confusion would be horrible. He says to Lord Jesus, I could give you sight, could open your eyes, or I could give you clothing, so to speak, to cover your shame, so that you might stand before God at peace with God, cleansed, forgiven, justified, at peace with God, and certain of his acceptance. Marvelous. How shall I get it, you say? Well, says Christ, I want you to come and buy of me gold purified in the fire and fine linen white and clean, that the shame of your nakedness be not appear. You say, there it is again. He says, buy? Yes. You say, but isn't it free? Yes. That's a apparent contradiction, isn't it? Sometimes you meet contradictions like that in the Bible. In Isaiah the prophet, you read, oh, you that are hungry and thirsty, come you to the waters, and you that have no money, come, buy and eat. Uh, come and buy things without money and without price. Why does God talk like that? Salvation is free enough, absolutely free. If you want it, you'll have to come and do business with Christ, says Scripture. You'll have to come and make transactions with Christ. This is a real business with the living Christ. And we must come in our need to him. And say, Lord, now what do you want me to do? And how can I come? And how can I have this gift? And how can I be sure of it? Come buy of me that gold which is eternal, those values that are eternal. Oh, what lovely things they are. The life of God, eternal life, membership of the family of God, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, so that one day we shall sit, so to speak, with God upon his very throne. Welcome to his eternal heaven and all its joys. Oh, what values there are. Come and get it, says Christ. Come and do dealings with me and get this, and how much will I have to pay, you say? Nothing, nothing. But you can't just sit and do nothing. You must come to Christ. Come and get the garments that are pure white. The righteousness that God gives us freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, so that we can come into the presence of God, clothed with his spotless garment, not of our works, but of the righteousness, the forgiveness, the holiness that Christ has bought for us at the cost of his death. What shall I say to him? Is he peddling some strange, exotic religious cult? No, indeed not. He sings, says, the amen, the beginning of the creation of God. Who is it that tonight is talking to me and to you? None less than your creator, you know. Have you realized, surely you have. You didn't think yourself up, did you? You're God's idea, you know. He invented you. The whole vast universe. Christ invented it, began in his mind, and through his powers brought into existence, and was brought in for his pleasure. God invented us. It's the God who invented us that now talks to us. His name is Jesus. I made you, he says. You're so busy with all the gifts and things of life. You have no time for me. Is not that a kind of madness? You enjoy life. How would you not enjoy meeting the giver of life? I made you, he says, and I love you with the creator's love, such that rather than that you perish in your waywardness and sinfulness, I died for you there on the cross at Calvary. God is not against us, you know. God is not some miserable God waiting to make our life a misery and remove all good things. He's a whole heaven, but you can't have his heaven without him. He seen, says the beginning of the creation of God, come and do business with me and receive from my hand the gold and the clothing of salvation. These things says the amen. We know the word amen, I suppose, because if we pray at all, we say amen at the end of our prayers, meaning so be it. Our Lord Jesus was different. He used it when he, at the beginning of a statement, meaning believe me, it's absolutely true. And I love the things he said. Oh, how they provoke our confidence in him. Listen to him. Amen, amen, says he. Or in English, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life. I mean it, says Christ. It is true. Come and do business with me right now, if you will. I can assure you, I can give you eternal life. You will never perish. You will never come into condemnation. You will have eternal life now. My company on life's road to glory. The whole eternity with God. Sharing as heirs of God. Joint heirs to the great inheritance through Christ. That is his plea. And even as we come to the end of our evening meditation, there's a sound, is there not? Echoing in our conscience and in our heart's door. Can you not hear it, friend? It's the sound of knuckles on the door of our heart. And it's the Savior who speaks, our very creator, our Lord, and the one who died to redeem us. Saying, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice, if anyone hear my voice, man or woman, boy or child, and open the door, I will come in, dine with him or her, and he or she with me, sharing the bread of eternal life, sharing the very friendship of God, putting before us all those glorious marvels of redemption. So then, as we have read his word and heard his appeal, come and do business with me and settle the matter of your soul's salvation this very moment and settle it forever. We hear he's knocking upon the door of our heart. Oh, let us not allow any obstacle to stand in the way. If obstacles there be, let us overcome them. Come and rise up and open the door and bid the The Savior Savior enter. enter.