Fullness of the Holy Spirit (Part 1)

First, I'd like to thank you all for those who came to the airport yesterday, and what a big crowd was at the airport. In spite of the fact — I have to confess — our efforts were to hide the time of our arrival. But it seems we were totally unsuccessful in this pursuit. I don't know how the word got around so fast. Even though, as far as I can remember, the information was released only at the last moment. I was inclined to think that this matter of going to the airport tended to waste everybody's time, and this was the reason for my secrecy, not letting people know when I'm leaving and when I'm arriving. However, not only do I want to thank you, but I want to share something with you, because as a result of this letter which I received — which in fact Helen brought to Israel — has rather somewhat corrected my thinking. Perhaps my thinking was somewhat incorrect in this matter.

Now I'm not suggesting that every time somebody leaves us, the whole church should rush to the airport, but I have come to see that there is some purpose, some purpose that can glorify the Lord through our going, even to the airport, if we go with the right motive. Now this is the letter I received, and I will briefly try to translate certain portions of it to you. This letter is written by somebody who was in the airplane with us when we came back from Australia and Singapore in December, as you may remember. And again, on that occasion there was a large group of brothers and sisters who came to the airport. And on the plane from Singapore, there is this brother called Zhang Kheng — same surname as myself, Zhang Kheng.

We didn't know whether he was a Christian or not, but as so often happens in the airplane, he initiated the conversation, and so we carried on on that relatively short stretch from Singapore to Hong Kong. And when we arrived at the airport in Hong Kong, I asked him if he had anywhere to go to, anywhere to stay, could we be of any service to him, could we help him in any way. So he said, well, he had made some arrangements, but he was not sure whether the message had come through, and he would try to confirm it from the airport. Now some of you may remember having met him. I can see Peter nodding his head because I think Peter was talking with him. And so we waited for him, although our baggage was cleared out first, and we waited for him until he came through.

And when he came out of the airport and he saw the love and the warmth and the joy of the brothers and sisters, he was utterly amazed. He had never seen anything like it in his life. And of course, we at that time did not know the impact that this made upon him. But this is the letter I received in Israel. He works with a company called Sotex. I don't actually know what the company does. I think it sells farm machinery or something. And he was actually on his way through Hong Kong to China, to Peking, to sell this machinery. The headquarters of this company is in the UK, in England. And he was writing from London.

So this is what he says here. He begins the letter by saying, "I don't know whether you remember me or not. I was with you on the aeroplane from Singapore to Hong Kong." And he says, "I thank you for your concern for me on that day. I have spent a month in China and I have just returned to London. But all the way, all through this time, I have been thinking about both of you," that is, Helen and myself. And he said, at the airport, when I saw the fellowship which you had — I just mentioned to him that if he needed help, we have brothers and sisters from our church at the airport. He said, "When I saw the fellowship and the love and warmth between you and the people of the church," then he says — I'm trying to figure out how to translate this — "that kind of atmosphere. I'm not sure I can think of another word. The atmosphere, the expression of being filled with the Holy Spirit."

Now I want to impress this particular sentence on your minds. When he looked at you all — in fact, those of you who were at the airport — the phrase that came to his mind... I'm interested why he selected this particular phrase. He says, what struck him by your behavior at the airport — your warmth, your love, your joy — he could only describe as "that expression of being filled with the Holy Spirit." I was thinking about this phrase. Very interesting expression. Why didn't he just find another expression? Why did he see in your behavior, in your joy, in your love, why did he see in it the fullness of the Holy Spirit?

He said, and he goes on to say, that sight of you all expressing the fullness of the Spirit — he said, "I can never forget that scene, that picture." And then he says, as he goes on to say, "I think this is the fulfilling of God's promise to Jesus who said, 'I came that they might have life and have it in all its abundance.'" Now that happens to be the text that we use on our new — at least in Montreal, I think. Do you use it here also? Yeah, you use it here too, on your church letter heading. Well, at the bottom of the church letter, the official letter paper, has this text underneath. Isn't it amazing that this is precisely the text that came to his mind?

And then he goes on to say, "I hope that in the future I can learn the word of God from you," I presume from you, from all of us. And he goes on to mention that he does do some service in the church, but he says that often he comes by Hong Kong on official business of the company, and he looks forward to fellowshipping with you all and learning from you. And then he closes this letter by saying, "Please express my greetings to all the group of dear brothers and sisters that I met at the airport, and I hope to see you all again."

Now I said that I used to think it must be a waste of time running in and out of airports to see people off, and those of you from Montreal know that in some weeks we seem to spend almost every day at the airport. In fact, the airport chapel seems to become our base. Every time we go there we fill the airport chapel and spend time in fellowship and prayer together. And I just like to share this with you for two reasons. One is that, after all, it does not seem necessarily to be a waste of time going in and out of airports because of the witness that someone may be observing, as has deeply influenced this particular brother. But secondly, and this is the theme of my message today, which I will be sharing — what the Lord has been doing in the last few months, but basing it on these words: the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Now last week, I was sharing in Singapore, and in the sharing I based the message on the words in Romans 8, verse 14, which says, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." And I tried to show that there is often a great misconception of what it means to be a Christian. That to be a Christian, in Paul's definition, is a person who is filled, that is, who is led by the Spirit. But I would like to go one step backward, as it were, to something perhaps even a little more fundamental, and that is that in order to be led by the Spirit, it seems clear that you have first to be filled by the Spirit.

Now, I would like to illustrate this through the sharing. And this week, I will try to make the sharing somewhat more systematic. Last week in Singapore, I just selected various instances, but I will try to go somewhat more chronologically today. Now, many of you will know, as I shared before I left for Israel, that Israel has a spiritually strategic role in the context of world evangelism. I will speak a little bit slower so that it will help the translator, but I tend to go very fast. And if I am going too fast, maybe the translator can just wave your hand to slow me down a bit. Because I gather momentum as I go, and I always give translators a hard time.

Now, perhaps I will begin by turning to Romans chapter 11, so you can follow a little more carefully what I am talking about. Romans 11. To understand what I mean by saying that Israel has a key role. Romans chapter 11, in verse 12, Paul says: "Now, if their trespass" — that is, the trespass of the Jews — "if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean?" Do you follow Paul's reasoning here? Paul is saying that the reason that you and I have the chance to receive eternal life through Christ, through the word of life, through the message of the gospel, the reason why you and I have this chance today is because of the trespass of the Jews. Salvation was initially proclaimed to the Jews, but when they rejected the message, the gospel came to all the world. Paul is therefore saying, you remember the reason why you hear the gospel today, and you have a chance to enter into the kingdom of God, is because the Jews rejected it. Their trespass meant riches for you, the riches of the gospel. And he says, now think of it like this: if their trespass meant riches for all of us, you and me, then what will their inclusion mean? What will it mean if they are no more rejected, but they return to the gospel? It's an argument from the lesser to the greater.

He repeats this in verse 15. If you say, "What is meant by the riches?" He explains in verse 15: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world through Christ, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" We now have reconciliation in Christ, reconciled with God. If you have not seized the opportunity to be reconciled with God, let me tell you that your chances are quickly diminishing, because this opportunity will not remain indefinitely. You seize it now, or the day will come very soon when the door will be closed and the time for the Gentiles, that is, for you and for me, will be over. And on that day, even if you want the gospel, desperately want it, you will not have it anymore. The time is over. And the Lord Jesus told the parable and said, "Enter while the door is open, because the time will come when the door will be closed and you will be banging on the door and it won't be opened anymore." The time is quickly going by.

And I will try to show you from the Scripture as well as from these things that the Lord has done in these past months — and I would say that these past three months were filled with instances of God's amazing doings. But before I go on to that, let me try to get the Scripture into the context of all that I want to share with you today as the Lord will lead.

Now, Paul says that the acceptance of the Jews will mean life from the dead. Life from the dead means resurrection, of course. How will this come to pass? What is the Old Testament basis in the word of God for Paul saying these things? Because Paul does not speak from the top of his head. Everything he says has a reason for it. And usually the reason is there in the word of God. So let me take you on a very quick and short tour of the Scriptures for you to understand why I am concerned about Israel, because there are few church leaders today who even understand the significance of Israel, never mind be concerned about them. And it's time for the church to wake up to the significance of Israel. It's time for Christians and church leaders in particular to go to the word of God and study what the word of God says about Israel.

Now, let me turn with you for a moment to Luke chapter 21. Here the Lord Jesus is speaking to the disciples about the end time, the last things. The whole passage is too long. I will focus only on one verse, and that is in verse 24 of Luke chapter 21. He is talking about the end time and the terrible distress that is coming. Verse 24: "They will fall by the edge of the sword" — that is, the Jews will fall by the edge of the sword — "and be led captive among all nations." Well, we are all very familiar with this. We know that the Jews are scattered all over the world. They have been captive among all nations. "And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled." Now this sentence of the Lord is exceedingly important. "Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is finished."

Now Jerusalem has been trodden down by the Gentiles for one thousand nine hundred years. And in fact, already before that, right from the Babylonian captivity. You and I have lived to witness some remarkable things. In 1948, Israel became a state. In 1967, an amazing thing happened: the Jews recaptured Jerusalem for the first time in one thousand nine hundred years. Now think carefully on this. Jerusalem was trodden down by the Gentiles for all that time. And then in 1967, which is in the living memory of all of us here, the incredible thing happened. A nation that was dead came back to life. A nation that had been out of existence — in Chinese, wang guo, the nation is dead, gone out of existence — came back to life in 1967. "What will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" Remember? Romans 11:15. Physical resurrection. The physical resurrection of Israel took place in '67.

But of course, what Paul is talking about in Romans 11 is the spiritual resurrection of Israel. Now that is the important thing to grasp. I'm going to show you a few passages where the resurrection of Israel has to do with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Now that's very important. It is going to be something that God will do. Now I would like to stress this matter of the outpouring of the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit, because there are, it seems today, very few Christians who understand what it is to live consistently in the power of the Spirit. And if you as a Christian don't live in the power of the Spirit, you're going to live a defeated Christian life every single day of your life. You're going to live in frustration. You're going to live in resentment. You will say, "Why is the Christian life so difficult to live?" Or you may say, "It doesn't seem to make any difference whether I'm a Christian or not." And that's what your non-Christian friends may think about you too. Or if you are a full-time worker, you'll feel the frustration that there is no power in your life. There is an emptiness there which is absolutely disastrous for a Christian worker.

Now, let's look at some passages of Scripture to see that when it speaks about a resurrection, it always has to do with the fullness of the Spirit. Now let's remember that all of us Christians have died with Christ and risen again. We live in the resurrection life. But this is only possible if you are filled with the Spirit. Otherwise, we are talking empty words. And I would like to ask you today once more, because I come back to this theme as you know from time to time: Are you filled with the Spirit? And as I go along, I want to show how we must avoid certain errors about the understanding of what it means to be filled with the Spirit. Some people are so eager to be filled with the Spirit that they get the wrong end of the stick and do all kinds of wrong things in the pursuit of that fullness.

But let's come back to talking about Israel and I'll show you how it applies to our practical daily life. Before we turn to other verses, look at the verse after the one that we have just read. We read verse 24 about the fullness of the times of the Gentiles, and verse 25 goes on immediately and says: "And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear, with foreboding of what is coming on the world." We see all this language about signs above and signs below, turmoil and distress in the heavens and upon the earth, showing us that the context of all this is in the last days, which is rapidly coming upon us. And I'm saying this in no way to be alarmistic, but just that we look at the Scriptures, open our eyes and look around us.

Let us turn to the Old Testament quickly to Ezekiel, and I will read to you from Ezekiel to show you that the spiritual restoration of Israel is going to be connected with a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Israel, so that you will see that there are two important outpourings. One, of course, was at the beginning of the church age, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which should have meant that the whole church lives in the fullness of the Spirit from Pentecost to the end, to the restoration of Israel. It hasn't worked that way, of course, and I wonder why. But there was a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And there will be one more at the end of the age, but this time the outpouring of the Holy Spirit will be upon Israel. And the reason for that will be that the restoration of Israel will mean life from the dead, not only for Israel, but for the world. That's what Paul is saying in Romans 11:15: "What will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" There will be one last mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Israel, and as a result of that, the gospel will go forth through Jewish evangelists one last time before the curtain closes upon this age. This is why many people think that in Revelation, the 144,000 that are sealed are in fact the Jewish evangelists at the last curtain call before this age closes. I won't go into the exegetical details, but suffice to say we know it will have to do with one last mighty outreach to the world, but this time through Jewish evangelists, because the Gentiles failed. And how we have failed. How abysmally we have failed. If you ever are likely to say the Jews have failed in their obedience to God, let me say the church has done as bad and probably worse than the Jews, and that is why the times for the Gentiles is very rapidly finished.

Now, it's important to understand, brothers and sisters, that the filling of the Holy Spirit is given to you and to me not just so that we can enjoy spiritual experiences, as some people seem to imagine foolishly, but the fullness of the Spirit is given so that we can convey God's life, God's saving life, to others. Now, get this point, I beg of you, very clearly in mind, because many people have sought the fullness of the Spirit in vain, and sought it, as I said, in the wrong way. They think that the sign of the fullness of the Spirit is necessarily to speak in tongues. I have nothing against speaking in tongues as such. But if you are seeking the fullness of the Spirit just so that you can give yourself some good feeling that you can speak in tongues and you are spiritually superior to others who cannot speak in tongues, you have fallen into Satan's trap, and I don't mince my words here at all. I love my charismatic brothers and sisters, but they err if they think — and I don't say they all do think that way, many of them don't — but those err who think the whole purpose of God giving us the Holy Spirit and the fullness of the Spirit is so that we can speak in tongues for our own edification.

God is not like that, brothers and sisters. God gives us His life and His Spirit so that we can pass it on to others. We must be transformed in the thinking of our minds from being utterly selfish in our so-called spirituality, and we will not enjoy the fullness of the Spirit until you say, "Lord, just make me a channel. It doesn't matter what experiences I have or don't have. Give me the grace to forget about me and think about others." That is the way Jesus thought. "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus Himself." What is the mind of Christ? To live for others, to die for others. If you don't want that, you don't even want the fullness of the Spirit. If you think you can have the fullness of the Spirit without changing, without the Spirit changing the whole direction of your life, you haven't understood the mind of God.

Now this is very vital. If you can kneel down before the Lord and say, "Lord, I beg of You, I have lived such a self-centered life until now. From this day forth, I just want to live for my brother, for my sister, for Your people, for Your church. Let me live the life of the cross."

I was sharing with Brother Dieter — Dr. Kemmler from Switzerland, my dear friend who I stayed with just before coming back here. We had a wonderful time of sharing. It's the first time I think I've shared so deeply with my dear brother Dieter. He's a fine theologian, but I can see something has happened in the last few years. Formerly, he would talk theology. After all, he is a theologian, but now he talks about spiritual life. Oh, it's so refreshing. In the past I only talked theology with him if it would help him to move away from the liberal theology that he was once entangled with, and the Lord has completely delivered him now from that. But now, this last time, what a wonderful time of fellowship we had. He just wanted to talk about the things of God in terms of practical Christian living.

And we were sharing about the significance of the cross of Christ. And one profound insight came to us. We all want to be filled with the Spirit so that we can be like Jesus. But we have evaded one important question: be like Jesus when? Before the cross or at the cross? And I think most of us were thinking about being like Jesus when He was on earth. "The works that He did, we will do, and greater ones." Excuse me, but which are the works that are significant for you? Ah, of course, healing the sick and doing this and that. Do you know what is the most significant work of Jesus? To die for the sins of the world. How about doing that kind of work?

Now this is what Paul was wanting to be conformed to. What did he say in Philippians 3? "That I may be made conformable to His life"? No — "to His death." Read it in Philippians 3 again. "Conformable to His death." Did it puzzle you? We wanted to be conformable to His life. Then we can go around like Jesus: "Get up and walk!" Ah, everybody, mighty man. "The blind man — open their eyes!" Oh, one word of command. And there is the lame man: "Throw your crutches away!" Ah, glorious, and the TV cameras are zooming in there. Oh, wonderful. But conformable to His death? Ah, that doesn't sound so exciting. Suddenly we think about nails, we think about a cross, we think about a crown of thorns, the lashing, the beating, the spitting, the cursing. How come Paul didn't say "to be made conformable to His life," but "to His death"? Now that was what we were sharing with Brother Dieter. You see, fullness of the Spirit — we want to be able to do those spectacular things. But to die for a brother and sister? That's not so spectacular, especially when nobody's looking and there are no TV cameras focused on you. You're wasting away in some corner of the earth. Nobody knows what you are doing. Nobody heard about you. Laying down your life, brothers and sisters.

Ezekiel — I'll just read a few verses, and I want to start sharing since our time is going fast. The restoration of Israel through the outpouring of the Spirit, and I want to show there's a connection between the first outpouring and the last outpouring. I'm not going to comment greatly on these verses, I'll just read them with you so that you will see what I'm saying.

Ezekiel chapter 39, verses 28 and 29: "Then they" — that is, the Jews — "shall know that I am Yahweh their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land." I said, you and I are living at a time when you saw Ezekiel's words being fulfilled before your very eyes. And Ezekiel was writing more than 2,500 years ago. And he says, "I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. I will gather them all back to Israel, and I will not hide My face anymore from them, when I pour out My Spirit upon the house of Israel." There it is. "I will bring them back to their land, and I will pour out My Spirit." Now they are being brought back to the land right now, from all over the world — even from Ethiopia, from India, from all parts of the world. This is already in progress. The next step: "I will pour out My Spirit upon them." That is what I am talking about. Their acceptance will mean life from the dead.

And talking about life from the dead, let's get to Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 27: "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to observe My ordinances." We turn over to chapter 37 and verse 14. This is the valley of dry bones, of course. You will remember this well-known passage. Ezekiel saw a whole valley full of dry bones, and the Spirit of the Lord comes upon them and they all rise up and the bones all come together and they live again. And verse 14: "And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken, and I have done it, says the Lord." In other words, God is a mighty, active God who is doing amazing things in the history of the world and in Israel.

Now, there are too many passages. We'll just read Joel chapter 2 and verse 28. Many of us are quite familiar with Joel because it's cited in Acts chapter 2. But many times you may not have noticed the context. Joel 2:28. And we always cite it in connection with Pentecost. But have you noticed that it also has to do with the Jews? Look at verse 27: "And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, Yahweh, am your God and there is none else, and My people shall never be put to shame." As you read earlier on in this chapter it all has to do with the restoration of Israel. And then verse 28: "And it shall come to pass afterwards that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions," and so forth. And now notice verse 30, which I pointed out to you in Luke 21: "And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes." You see, it has to do with the last days, the day of the Lord, the day of judgment.

Now you will know and I will try to tie in what I have just said with my sharing. You know that at the beginning of January I went over to Israel, and just a few days before that the terrorists killed quite a lot of people in the airport at Rome. Well, by some diversion I ended up going to Rome. I was supposed to go to Athens and change planes from Athens, but all of a sudden somebody had a heart attack on the plane, the SIA, the Singapore Airlines plane. So some of you know that when I got to the airport my flight had disappeared, and they reshuffled me and SIA then put me on Alitalia, and I was off to Rome where the bombs had gone off a few days before. Well, all of this — when I got to Rome there was no sign of the damage and the shooting and the killings that had gone on. Everything had been cleaned away, but the airport was in a state of chaos. What it all did mean was that I had to transfer from Rome to Athens, which meant an extra flight, and I got to Athens, overnighted there, and went on to Jerusalem.

And when I got to Jerusalem I was so exhausted that I have to confess to you I couldn't do very much else but sleep for many days, to try and simply sleep off the tiredness and to just commune with the Lord, to be quiet before Him, to gradually regain physical strength. It was a precious time of quietness, basically staying in my room. Now what was remarkable was that when I got to Jerusalem, I went back to St. Andrew's Hospice, the Church of Scotland Hospice, which is situated on a hill overlooking Mount Zion, or looking across to Mount Zion. Mount Zion was the headquarters of the apostles, and that was probably where the upper room was. It seems quite well established now that Mount Zion was what the twelve apostles chose as their headquarters whenever they came to Jerusalem, and that is where the Lord Jesus, of course, also fellowshipped and stayed with His apostles.

But what was interesting is that some of you may know that I studied in Israel in 1962, and I also stayed at St. Andrew's Hospice back in 1962, over twenty years ago. So when I got back to St. Andrew's Hospice, of course the management and everybody is different now there, and they gave me my room, and when I went to the room it was exactly the same room that I stayed in in 1962, with the same veranda and view that looks out to Mount Zion. And I thought, "Lord, how amazing are Your ways. You've brought me right back." And there are many other rooms — why did they put me exactly in this room? In these very little things you can still see the hand of the Lord working in amazing ways.

Now, many of you have met the Cooks who were here — Jeff and Rosemary Cook. The last time I told you already how amazingly God opened all the connections for me in Israel to the Jewish world through this Jewish couple from New Zealand, the Cooks. And I want to tell you something by way of encouraging you again: the love that you showed to them when they came here on their way to Israel made such an impact upon them that I think it's very hard for you to grasp what kind of impact it made on them. They never stopped talking about their time that one evening they spent with you here. Everywhere in Israel they took me around, whenever they said something they said, "You know, we went to that church and it was the most wonderful experience that we ever had." Now it's difficult to understand how mighty is the love of God through His Spirit, and if you think, "Well, my contribution means nothing," you're wrong. Remember Duncan, when he speaks about the impression it made on him, was the fullness of the Holy Spirit in your lives.

Now to the very last day, I think it was the 14th of January, when Jeff and Rosemary were leaving Israel, they said to me one more time: "The most wonderful thing that happened to us in this entire journey" — those are his words — "the most wonderful thing that happened to us in this entire journey from New Zealand to Hong Kong to Israel to UK to United States and back to New Zealand, the most wonderful thing that happened to us on this journey was being with the brothers and sisters in Hong Kong." Amazing. They spent one month in Israel and it didn't make that much impression on them as that one night, that one evening they spent here with you all. Incredible, isn't it? Love. The fullness. The fullness of the Spirit and the power to affect and to influence and to enrich — and I think the word "enrich" — their lives. It was something they could never forget. Now they are Christians and they have lived in a church with church people for years, yet they had never seen such an outpouring of the love of God through you all.

I'm not saying this to make you feel good. I think we all have a long way still to go, don't we? We have a long way still to go. But we have made a little start. Let's not be self-satisfied. But I'm saying this because many of you felt almost frustrated and in despair to think, "Can we ever live in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, or will it forever elude us?" Let me encourage you: you have made a start. Press on from there.

What is a sign of the filling of the Spirit? I've already said it is not necessarily speaking in tongues. In fact, I can demonstrate to you from Scripture quite easily that it has nothing, in fact, to do with speaking in tongues. But it does have to do with a remarkable filling of God's love in your life. That is seen in Romans chapter 5, verse 5, which I constantly quote: "The love of God which is poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit." If you want to know whether you're filled with the Holy Spirit or not, just ask yourself one question — or let the Holy Spirit search your heart and say, "Am I filled with the love of God? Is the love of God pouring into my heart and pouring through my heart to others?"

# Fullness of the Holy Spirit (Part 2)

Sure that you are filled with the Spirit. That's a daring statement, easy to prove. I say it again: if in the morning you get up — I hope you do this every morning, which is what I do — every morning, "Lord, fill me with Your Holy Spirit, now and throughout this day." You see, the fullness of the Holy Spirit is a continuing process, not just a once-for-all thing. It's continuing. "Be constantly filled with the Holy Spirit" is Paul's injunction. And that means we must daily let Him fill us.

And then I wonder, "Am I filled with the Spirit?" All I have to do is search my heart, and I can almost sense the love of God pouring into my heart, pouring in, and through me pouring out to others. If I sense that I dislike a brother or sister, if I have some grudge against a brother and sister, it closes right away. The fullness is gone. You can never have the fullness of the Spirit if you hold so much as a little murmur against a brother or sister. Believe me, you try it and see. You try it and see. It's a matter of practical experience.

But the moment you clear all this away and throw your heart's door open to the Lord and to brothers and sisters, the fullness of the Spirit can almost be physically felt. I say almost. I don't ask you to look for a feeling. It has nothing to do with feeling. But it will be there. Sometimes you can almost feel it — the warmth, the love, the power of God's love as distinct from human love, that power of love. You can almost feel the power of it working through you and lifting you up. There is the sure sign of the filling of the Spirit.

And suddenly you find a smile coming across your face you're not even conscious of. When you see a brother and sister, the joy of seeing that brother and sister simply makes you smile. You don't smile because, "Ah, it's time to smile. Brother so-and-so has appeared. How are you?" Right? Oh, a brother and sister! And so this kind of two-faced behavior is unacceptable. Christians cannot be like this. We cannot be two-faced.

One of the things that touched me as a young Christian was the love of Brother Henry Choi that I have shared with you. And every time he saw me or some other brother and sister, you could see the sheer joy coming up in him. You could see that his smile carried the very love of Christ to you. He was so delighted just to see the brothers and sisters. A man filled with the Spirit of God. No wonder when he preached the Word there was power. When he witnessed to someone there was power. His life had a magnetic quality. It just pulled you with the love of God. Now that is how every one of us has to be.

I said there was a first filling of the Spirit, an outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. This outpouring was meant to empower the church for witnessing to the world, of course — that your life would just shine out to the world, pulling people to the Lord. But then Christians became selfish, as usual. They want this so that they have this gift and that gift to display to others. They want to be able to speak in tongues, to do this and that and so on, to make themselves feel good. They call this self-edification. "Given to us for our edification." This is a misunderstanding. Even what is given to us for our edification is really meant that when we are edified, we pour out that edification to others. It is never meant for us as a last stop, for our own sake.

Now I went to Israel just asking the Lord, "Lord, just make me a channel. Make me a channel. I have come to serve. I have come just to be a servant." And God more than answered my prayer. Well, so I was back in St. Andrew's Hospice, and after some time of rest, I began to meet all these people that Brother Jeff had either written their names down or personally introduced me to. I began to meet the various leaders of the Jewish believers. It would take simply too long to go into details. Everywhere I could see the hand of God arranging and moving.

I met a brother called Lance Lambert. Now Lance Lambert has written a number of books about Israel and about the end of the times of the Gentiles and the place of the Jews in God's purpose. And God willing, you may see him here sometime next year when he passes through Hong Kong. Now when Jeff mentioned Lance Lambert, I said, "That name sounds rather familiar to me. I don't know where I have come across that name, where I have met him." But anyway, an arrangement was made and I fellowshiped with this brother, who is one of the well-known leaders among the Jewish believers. And after meeting him and spending the afternoon with him and fellowshipping together, talking about Israel and the work in the future, I kept searching my mind: where did I come across this name?

And then the next day it struck me. I actually met him in England once, at a place in the south of London. And suddenly it dawned on me — yes indeed, I had met him. And then I mentioned it to him, and he said, "Oh yeah, no wonder somehow there was something familiar about all this." And so we are building up a working relationship to see how together with these Jewish leaders — leaders of the Jewish Christians — we can fulfill this purpose of preparing the Jewish people for that final outpouring of the Spirit. Now we seem to be small, insignificant people, and there we assume that great things can be accomplished through us, not because of anything in us, but because His power is sufficient. Maybe we will play only a small role in the restoration of Israel and through Israel the evangelism of the world, but we are grateful for any little role that God may be pleased to grant to us.

Well, through Brother Jeff I met another brother. And as I have shared with some in Singapore, I think — or was it here — Brother Jeff arranged to meet me at what is called Christ Church Hospice, which is just inside the Damascus Gate in the old city of Jerusalem. And so we arranged to meet there. That was the first time we were going to meet in Israel, and so I went to Christ Church Hospice at the appointed time and I met Brother Jeff there. And he said, "I would like to introduce you to another brother here whom I knew from New Zealand, a Jewish believer from New Zealand."

And this brother came up in a plastic helmet, in working clothes, and with a beard. And so we sat down and fellowshiped. And as I looked at this brother, the words of the Lord Jesus came to me: "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile." You remember that in John? These were the words that the Lord Jesus spoke to Nathaniel, or concerning Nathaniel. And somehow when I looked at this brother, these words came into my mind: "An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile."

Well, he invited me to meet his wife and to go to his home in Natanya, a city on the coast, on the Mediterranean coast. And as we fellowshiped together, he asked me about what is the work that I am doing and what things — and so I had to mention a little bit about our church and the disciple training. He said, "What? Disciple training?" He said, "Let's hear more about this." So he kept squeezing more and more information out of me, and finally he said, "What about us? How about us?" So the next thing I knew is that both he and his wife — well, most, first he himself — and at first the thought of it was too stunning for his wife to catch up with — to go to Hong Kong for training. I mean, this was too much to try to imagine. It was like going to the ends of the earth, literally. And then they were comparing it with Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees and going to Canaan, some unknown place.

But the day before I left, this brother was talking to me very seriously about the matter of joining the next training. We leave it in the Lord's hands. There again, I was thinking, "How can we serve the Jewish people?" And before we know what's happening, the Lord is drawing already one Jewish couple to join the training. Now this brother himself studied food science in Australia, in New Zealand. But it's very difficult for Christians to find work in Israel, because once you're known to be a Christian, that's finished — you don't get a job anywhere. So he was working on a construction site, willing to work in the most menial task of laying pipes in the ground and doing all kinds of menial tasks, because he chose the cost of giving up a comfortable living in Australia and New Zealand in order to serve the Lord among his own people, whose desire is to witness for Christ in Israel.

So I could see already God's hand working in amazing ways. The next thing I knew, this brother was talking to another brother, another brother who was very close to him, telling him, "You know what, you and I want to train for the Lord's work. You and I don't want to go to a seminary. And you know what I've just heard — there's such a thing as disciple training in Hong Kong." So the other Jewish brother is saying, "Hmm, we need the training. We want to serve the Lord full time. We've got to get the training." They don't want to go to a seminary. They don't want intellectual type of training. So let's think about it. The next thing I knew, this other brother invited me to meet his wife, this time in Tel Aviv, to talk about the training, among other things of course. It's just remarkable.

I was saying, "Lord, can I have a small role somewhere in serving Your people?" And suddenly we have two Jewish couples thinking about the next training. They cannot come to this particular training, of course, because this first brother that I mentioned has to do his military service — he's in the army, in the Israeli army right now, and will be serving there for a number of months. And anyway, I wanted them to wait before the Lord, not to rush anything. It's important that the Lord — and Him alone, and He alone — will lead them.

And so by this time — in fact, in these cases Helen had already arrived, one month after I had gone to Israel — so we went down to Elat, to the south coast, thinking, "I must get some holiday into this, because it seems there's all the time doing this and that, and praise the Lord for His wonderful doings, but what's happening to the holiday?" So we will get away down to Elat, and there we're going to do some swimming, which didn't materialize too much, because twice I went into the Red Sea to swim and was freezing cold. I stuck it out for 45 minutes anyway on each occasion and came out shivering for the next 45 minutes. But anyway, since there was supposed to be a rest, we thought we best not try to contact too many Christians here, otherwise the purpose is going to be defeated. But on the last day we will meet some Christians.

Well, so on the last day we went to look up a Christian youth hostel because we heard that the Dutch brother there has a great love for the Lord and he is witnessing to various hippies on the beach of Elat. It's amazing how Elat draws hippies from all over the world, and they're all sleeping on the seashore, and he goes around witnessing to them. If you like witnessing to hippies, apply to Brother John in Elat — I will give you the address if you like to go. He has had a very fruitful ministry, and every week he pulls in about 100 or more hippies to his house and gives them a free meal and gives them the gospel along with it.

So we went there looking for this Brother John, but instead we not only met Brother John, we met an Australian couple — an Australian couple around 30 years of age who had been to Capernwray Bible School. Some of you may have heard of Capernwray Bible School in England. And it happened that again they asked me, "Well, what are you doing? What is your work?" and so on. And I was like, "Here we go again." And they would not let go. They kept pursuing and pursuing, and every time I gave a short answer they wanted more, and they kept squeezing me for two or three hours until they had everything they wanted to know, plus the question: "Can we also join this training?"

So by now we had three couples — two Jewish couples and one Australian couple (whose wife is actually from Scotland) — and they had finished this Bible school training but they did not feel it was enough for them, and they were looking to the Lord for the next step, waiting on the Lord: "Lord, what shall we do next?" And here we turn up at Capernwray. And so it may be even in a few months' time that they will come already to Hong Kong in preparation for this training. But again I said, "You must wait on the Lord. Let the Lord alone lead you as to what you should do."

And so you can see how this mission to Israel begins to develop in all these ways. All kinds of things start happening like this. And then I met more Jewish leaders, some of whom you may see in due time — very interesting persons. Oh, very interesting. But the best way is that you meet them yourself, and you'll see how interesting. One was a brother, a Jewish brother who is a rabbinic scholar, who studied both at Hebrew University as well as at what is called the Yeshiva, which is a college for training rabbis. And he can really expound to you the Old Testament in full flight for nothing less than two and a half solid hours.

Now, if you think that our meetings are long, you haven't seen anything yet. Even I was exhausted, and I thought we were used to long meetings. Helen and I discovered that the average length of a meeting in Israel is two and a half hours. Now if you think our meetings at one and a half hours is long, as I said, you haven't seen anything yet. And after two and a half hours they're not through yet — they've got more fellowship coming. It's really beautiful. And this two and a half hours goes on solid, non-stop. And when Brother Joe Shulam — this dear brother who's in the rabbinic college — gets going on the Old Testament, wow, there's no stopping him in full flight.

And so I could see that these dear Jewish brethren could make a very important contribution also in the ministry of understanding the Word of God. They can approach it from an angle which you and I may not even have thought about, as they approach the New Testament from the angle of the Old Testament, which we have seen that Paul most frequently does. And so there was this brother and various other Jewish leaders that we met. And as I was sharing with Brother Sekwai's brother yesterday — almost every one of them are scholars. They have a familiarity with the original Hebrew and Greek which is reserved for scholars among the Gentiles. They can converse from Hebrew to Greek and Greek to Hebrew, back and forth, with a facility that leaves you panting.

And I was sharing with his brother yesterday how I was at a meeting of Jewish Christians, and this brother was expounding on the Old Testament, how he was translating — he himself was translating the Greek, one of the Gospels, I think it's Luke's Gospel, into Hebrew — and he was talking about the gems that he discovered in the process of translation. And in that discourse he was referring to the Manual of Discipline, which is of course one of the books of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And they are conversant with this kind of thing which is reserved, as I say, for scholars in the West. And I thought, "Wow, what does he do? He's a professor of which college around here?" And it turns out that he was a metal worker who does his Bible translation in his spare time. But if you listen to him, he was as erudite, as learned, as any professor in the West. And I can tell you, there is hardly a professor in the West that can keep up with them in either Hebrew or Greek.

And that's why I was sharing with Sekwai's brother that for me, a very humbling experience. You feel very small. I know some Hebrew too, but I dare not mention it in their presence. I studied Hebrew in Israel, as I mentioned, back in '62. And when I went back to London to King's College, where I was studying at the time — wow, everybody thought I was a scholar. "Look at him, he can even read a bit of the Old Testament in Hebrew! What a learned man. And he can even speak some modern Hebrew." Even my Old Testament professor, Professor Ackroyd, was very impressed with me. But when I go to Israel, then I'm like a dog with a tail between my legs, very humble and chastened. Why? Because every bus driver can read Hebrew faster than I can.

And what is even more humbling is that he can read the Bible with or without the pointed text — that is, without the vowels. And most of us can't read them without the vowels. We need the points there to tell us how to read that text. But they not only read the Bible without the pointed text if necessary, they read the newspaper like this, flipping through the Hebrew. And I'm struggling to understand, "What does this mean here?" And I'm quite proud if after a few minutes I have worked out the meaning of that passage. I was even boasting to Helen, "You know, I have figured out what the sentence means in the Hebrew newspaper." So you see what I mean. That's why I was suggesting to Sekwai's brother maybe he'd like to try going to Israel — very good for our soul — because he teaches Hebrew, his brother teaches Hebrew at a seminary here. So going to Israel is very good for me and good for us in more than just a physical way. Very valuable.

And when I listen to these dear brothers, Jewish brothers and sisters, sharing in the Word of God — so refreshing to my soul. So refreshing. I'm not to say, of course, that there were not things that concerned me. And here is where I hope to play another little role, another small role in Israel in the future if possible, and that is to bring the Jewish leaders together. Why? Well, you see, these dear Jewish believers, they're wonderful people, but there is a well-known saying among the Jews — at which they laugh at themselves too — is that where there are two Jews, there are three opinions. And that means if you put two Jewish believers together, or two Jewish leaders among the believers together, in fact there might be more than three opinions. That means to say they have a hard time agreeing with one another on anything.

So what I have discovered is all these dear brothers, these leaders among the Jews — sometimes they don't really want to talk with each other, because conversation could be a little tedious if you have to mince through so many opinions. Now if there is going to be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the last days and we are preparing Israel for that outpouring, then the Jewish leaders had better get together and unite in heart. Now I have developed a very warm relationship with each one individually, and I'm hoping that through this to put them together and serve as a peacemaker in some small way — get them to sit together two at a time, maybe talk to each other face to face, and really love one another, hug one another, even kiss one another, I hope.

Talking about kissing, I learned quite a lot about that too. You say, "What, you want to learn about kissing?" Oh, praise the Lord, wonderful! I got kissed by two sisters on the same day, fortunately in Helen's presence, in Israel. I found this quite embarrassing. I didn't know quite how to react to this. I got a bit lost in the moment, because I'm talking about loving one another, and I said, "We as a church have come so far, we have learned a little bit about hugging one another, but kissing is a little bit difficult, I think. We are still behind on this one." But especially to be kissed by sisters is even more difficult. But Paul said something about a holy kiss. So that day, as we were saying goodbye to various people in Israel, this holy kiss was administered to me, much to my edification — I think also to my confusion. But we are growing together, are we not, in learning to love? I still think the practice in Hungary is better, where the brothers only kiss each other and we don't get involved with kissing the sisters. Maybe at our stage of growth, where we are still very immature, we still have a long way to grow in love — maybe we'll stick to that one.

Anyway, I move on quickly, because there are too many things to share about Israel. I move a little bit more quickly before we close today, because there is so much to share in the riches of what God was doing in Israel and elsewhere. So I'll just for the moment leave Israel. And we went on to Greece — we have to go back to Greece because you can't fly directly from Tel Aviv to this part of the world. So we went on to Greece, where we got some rest there too, and I will leave out this section — there's also too much to share — because I want to talk about Hungary before I close.

So we went on to Vienna in Austria, which is very near Hungary, in order to go into Hungary. There were two main reasons for going into Hungary. One was to meet my Japanese friend, on whom I place a great deal of hope to be a key for witnessing in Japan in the future. Both he and his wife love the Lord, and I'm concerned about their spiritual life because they have gone for years and years without fellowship. And they said the only teaching they get is from the tapes which are being sent to them. Incidentally, they want more tapes — whoever is in charge of the tape ministry, I'm mentioning right now — they said this is the only source of teaching they get, and they are so hungry that they just listen to the same tapes over and over.

And his wife — because my friend Saburo, some of you have met him, I think, in Montreal when he came to visit us in Montreal — my friend Saburo keeps saying all the time that Keiko, his wife, literally listens to the tapes day and night. Literally, day and night, she's listening to the tapes. And it turned out that God in His wonderful arrangement arranged for us to be there precisely the day after his wife — actually the very same day, isn't it — he came back from overseas, the very same day that we arrived in Budapest in Hungary. Budapest, as you know, is the capital of Hungary. And she had an important spiritual question to ask as well as a prayer request to make concerning her mother, and I will not go into the details. But that visit, I think, proved very crucial for her spiritual life.

Now he is a very senior diplomat in Hungary. He is second only to the ambassador in Hungary, and his next promotion will be to be an ambassador. That's how the Japanese civil service goes: you climb the ladder step by step. So his present posting is what is called Minister-Counsellor, which is the second in command after the ambassador, which is a very senior diplomatic post. He will then be transferred back to Japan and his next posting will be as Japanese ambassador to somewhere or other in the world. And I remember joking with him in our student days — we knew each other in England in our student days — and when we were parting I said to him, "Saburo, I think one of these days you are going to become an ambassador," which is now almost about to be fulfilled. And I remember him smiling and answering me this: he said, "I would much prefer to be an ambassador of Christ." I never forgot that sentence. And I will never let him go on that sentence. So I have challenged him. I said, "Either you bring the gospel to Japan, or I will do it." So he looked at me and said, "Well, put on those terms, I guess it's my responsibility." In fact, they are preparing to translate the messages on regeneration and renewal into Japanese. Both of them are highly educated, and the wife particularly has this desire, as the Lord will lead her, to translate the messages into Japanese. And you know the Japanese are people who read all the time, so the printed page is a very important means of reaching Japan.

So meeting them was to find whether we could help them spiritually, but particularly to put them into fellowship with Hungarian Christians if possible. Now I discovered that it's very dangerous for Hungarian Christians to associate with them at least on a person-to-person basis. But as a result of meeting some Hungarian Christians, we have arranged for them to go to a Hungarian church — that is not dangerous, because a diplomat can also go to church, and so what church they choose to go to is their business. And if the believers fellowship with them in a church, that will not be dangerous for the believers. But if they fellowship with them individually outside the church, that could be dangerous.

Now how did we put them in fellowship with Hungarian Christians? Of course, we had to meet Hungarian Christians first. And so this was the second purpose: we were hoping to give some little encouragement to the Hungarian Christians. Now many of you who have come back from Montreal have met Brother Daniel. Brother Daniel was a pastor in Hungary, in the Reformed Church of Hungary, until he was stripped of his pastorate and removed from his church by the bishop. Why? Because the bishop was himself, frankly, a communist. That's why he became bishop. He was appointed bishop. He was high up in the hierarchy of the Hungarian — the Hungarian, I don't know what it's called, the People's Committee or whatever — which is of course all communists.

And Brother Daniel — who is the brother of Pastor Zabo in Montreal, who continues to come to our church once a month as you know, who is also a pastor of the Presbyterian Church — now I asked Pastor Zabo in Montreal whether it would be alright to visit his brother in Hungary or whether it would be dangerous, and Pastor Zabo thought it would be alright. Now I have come out of Communist China, so I know the risks of being a Christian in a communist state, so I was very concerned in case our visit should cause any trouble to Brother Daniel.

Now as I said, Brother Daniel was a young pastor some 20 years ago after he came out of a seminary, a Reformed seminary in Hungary. And one day a fellow pastor was being accused falsely by the bishop — and this bishop accuses any pastor who is on fire for the Lord, any pastor who is filled with the Spirit. He can't stand these people filled with the Spirit, that's a bishop who cannot stand people filled with the Spirit. And so he accused this pastor falsely. And in the trial, as these proceedings went on, Brother Daniel — at that time himself, as I say, he was a pastor — could not see his fellow pastor being accused like this. And many other pastors kept quiet because they didn't want to lose their bowl of rice, of course, or their piece of bread, I should say, in Hungary. And being filled with the Spirit, he could not stand this injustice. And though he knew what would be the consequences if he stood up to defend his fellow pastor, he did it anyway. He stood up and defended his fellow pastor, declaring that the charges made by the bishop were false, that he can testify they were false. The bishop was so angry at his loss of face that he stripped Brother Daniel of his pastorate, to take him out of the church.

And so Brother Daniel for the last twenty years has been working as a clerk in a hotel. I want to talk about Brother Daniel for a few minutes because if you want to know what is a person filled with the Spirit, you just have to look at Brother Daniel in his environment in Hungary. When I looked upon him, I thought I looked upon the face of an angel. Somehow it did not come across to me like that in Montreal — maybe I didn't spend enough time with him, and he just came in and out of the church on several occasions as you know, and even then I think we were refreshed. But I did not have the chance to see the fullness of the Spirit in action — and I mean in action — until Helen and I visited him in Miskolc.

Now Miskolc is a city on the eastern side of Hungary. And I wondered what should we do — should we phone him to say we are coming, or what should we do? And I was afraid that phoning him may get him into trouble. So we knew the name of the hotel in which he is a clerk, so we decided, "Let's entrust this thing in the Lord's hands and let's just go to Miskolc and just go to the hotel." Now when we got to the railway station in Miskolc, I asked Helen to phone the hotel to make a reservation, and I said, "If you hear the voice of Brother Daniel, if you can identify his voice, then tell him who we are. If not, then we don't say anything; we'll just go to the hotel." In fact, Brother Daniel did come on the phone, but Helen didn't recognize his voice over the phone — maybe it's the phone lines, the phones in Hungary are quite terrible, I should say.

But anyway, so we went to the hotel. And as we stepped up to the glass door of the hotel, Brother Daniel was behind the counter and he happened to look up, and I think he saw me first, right there at the door. And the expression on his face was one of utter astonishment and shock. This time I think he thought he saw an angel. He thought I was away in Canada, and suddenly I'm standing in front of the hotel — how can this be? Now I dare not show that I knew him in case he was being watched, which in fact he is, and people would say, "Who is this person who has turned up, a foreigner from somewhere?" So I was prepared just to go on as though I didn't recognize him and just say, "We have come to the hotel, will you please register us," and so on, and maybe just blink your eyes a little bit.

But as I stepped up to the counter, Brother Daniel rushed out from behind the counter and grabbed hold of me and kissed me on both cheeks. I was talking about the holy kiss. So I thought to myself, "Oh no, I'm going to get this dear brother in trouble. Lord, forgive me, what am I doing here?" But Brother Daniel couldn't care less about being watched or whoever. He said, "This is worth it." This was his joy. It was truly a very touching moment, and he was just filled with joy at seeing us. And so we — I kept asking him, "Is it alright? Are we going to get you into trouble?" He said, "No, no, no. Let's not live in fear. Let's live in freedom — the freedom of the Spirit." You see, he was teaching me spiritual lessons. Wonderful. He said, "We can live in constant fear if we go on all the time worrying about this and worrying about that, and whether I should do this and whether I should do that, and because I'm being watched. Let us live in the fullness of freedom — not being foolish, being wise — but not letting the whole oppression crush us." He said, "We can be utterly crushed by this oppression. So let us live as God's people."

And so we had this time of fellowship together. And then I was figuring out — we've met dear Brother, and the timing of all this was incredible. Actually he was off duty one hour ago, one hour before our arrival, and if he had left, we would have no way to find him. The reason being that dear Brother Daniel does not have an address. Talk about living in the fullness of the Spirit — he is so filled with the love of God even for those who are persecuting him, even for the guy who is watching him, and he knows who is watching him. They are not too subtle about that, you know. There's one character who is sitting on the sofa right there in front of the lobby — a huge abdomen because he does no exercise, puffs on a cigarette and eats the whole time. And Brother Daniel is contributing to that too, because he said to me, "I know this fellow is watching me, but every time I have something to eat I go to him and say, 'Would you like to have something to eat?'" And he just pours out the love to this person who is watching his every move, so as to maybe get him back into jail sometime. Filled with the Spirit — can you love your enemies?

You know that even the bishop that stripped away his pastorate and took away his church — Brother Daniel said, "I must not allow one little bit of bitterness in my heart to ruin my relationship to the Lord, to spoil my communion with Him. And so what I have done is I went back to the bishop who did all this to me, who told lies at my trial." And he said, "You know what I did? I went to the bishop and I said to him, 'Bishop, I have come here today for one thing only. I want to tell you, in spite of all that you have done to me, I love you. I love you to the depth of my heart. I forgive you for everything you have done. You lied about me. I forgive you all.'" He will not allow anything to stand between the Lord and him. Fullness of the Spirit. Could you do that to somebody who had treated you like this, and made you work as a clerk for twenty-some years in a hotel, who reduced you to this status? And because of the accusation of the bishop, he has been in the black books of the communists ever since — watched every move, under surveillance all the time. Filled with the Spirit.

Oh God, grant to us Christians like that. That is why the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost — that we may have Christians like this, full of the beauty of Christ. Where are these Christians? His life just speaks with power. His enemies are moved by his love. They don't know how to fight with him because he goes and loves them all the time. Loves them. They don't know what to do with him. How do you fight this man? You accuse him and he still loves you some more. What to do with this man? His love is like this: he had a tiny little apartment, and then he saw a family that had nowhere to go, and what he did — he moved out and gave his apartment to the family. That's why I say he has no address. He has nowhere to live. He has nowhere to sleep. He is literally like the Lord, with nowhere to lay His head.

And I asked him, "Brother Daniel, where are you going to sleep tonight? In a nice place?" I said, "Well, can you tell me where this good place might be?" He said, "Well, there is a sofa — there is a sofa in the hotel lobby." I said, "Come on, you are not going to tell me you are going to sleep all night on the sofa?" Well, he said, "There may even be a vacant bed in the hotel." I said, "Sofas and occasional vacant beds — this is the way you spend your life?" He said, "Well, there are some Christian families I could go to sometimes too." Now if you know Hungary, you know that this business about Christian families is that a whole family is squashed into two rooms. So where is Brother Daniel going to sleep? Well, it will be another sofa if there is one available, or the floor of the living room if there is floor space available, for the sake of some other family. That's the kind of life he lives.

So the next day I asked him, "Brother Daniel, where did you sleep last night?" He smiled at me and said, "It's a good place." He won't tell me any more. But judging by his almost falling asleep on the train to Budapest, I judged that it couldn't have been that good. He was so tired that he closed his eyes in the train. And as I was sharing in Singapore, there was such a beautiful smile on his face that I saw the face of an angel. There was something so beautiful about his smile as he closed his eyes, and I could see he was just not sleeping — he was communing with the Lord. That's why there was a smile on his face. This brother has so refreshed me. I just wanted to share this time with you. You see a person like that and you have a living commentary on what it means to be filled with the Spirit.

He gets a salary of about 120 or 130 Canadian dollars a month, most of which he gives away, because there are so many poor gypsies around. And every time he sees a gypsy child with not much to eat and not much to wear, he hands in his pocket and as much as he can give, he goes and gives. And so he has nothing left. Filled with the Spirit — the love of Christ constrains us, Paul says. Are you ever — do you feel that constraining power of being filled with the Spirit?

Then he said to me, when we were leaving the next day for Budapest, "I'll come with you to Budapest because I want you to meet another brother there." And so he went with us to Budapest. And after that was a real cloak-and-dagger story, like a James Bond story. This part I won't go into — very, very exciting there, because we had to throw off potential observers and people who might be following us. And Brother Daniel is well-skilled in this task. I mean, he's lived in this place for over twenty-some years. So this exciting business of jumping into taxis and speeding off is a pretty thing. But anyway, he wanted to introduce us to Brother Andras, who was the Olympic champion — the Hungarian gold medalist in the Olympics of 1972 in Munich. Brother Andras was five times world champion in the decathlon. Another man filled with the Spirit. So also his wife — wonderful couple. You will see the glory of the Lord in their faces.

His wife was on the national gymnastics team of Hungary herself. She studied mathematics at university and was so good at gymnastics she was selected to the Hungarian national team in gymnastics. You know the Eastern European countries are fantastic at gymnastics. But when Andras won the gold medal, he made a choice. He was a national hero when he came back from the Olympics, of course — Hungary is a small country which seldom wins gold medals. Anyone who wins a gold medal immediately becomes a national hero. And so he was. They chose that moment, at the height of their glory, to go down as far down as possible. They are the living commentary on Philippians chapter 2 — that though the Lord Jesus was at the height of glory, even to being equal with God, He humbled Himself to the death of the cross. At the height of his glory, he chose that moment to declare that he is a disciple of Jesus Christ, that he is a Christian.

Now he knew what would happen to him. He knew. And it happened, of course. Everything was stripped away. Everything was taken away from him. And we visited him in a tiny apartment on the suburbs of Budapest, with the seven children crammed into what, as far as we could gather, were two little rooms — seven children, with not even a garden to play in. He didn't even have a telephone — that's why we couldn't phone him first. And yet this couple — this fullness of the beauty of Christ. When we went there, only the wife was there, and later Andras himself came in — a tall athlete, great gymnast, great athlete himself. And I think he must have been puzzled to see his living room — his tiny living room — occupied by a number of Asians, because my friend the diplomat with his wife, Helen, and myself. It's a good thing that Brother Daniel was there, I think. "What's happened here?" And yet as soon as he saw us, he just overflowed with joy and his love, and immediately asked if we could pray together, because he said nothing delights him so much as to pray. Have you heard of anybody who wants to do nothing more than pray? The first thing you get together — "Let's pray together." That's his delight. I said, "How do you get fellowship? How do you get strength?" "Oh, through prayer." We went to encourage the saints, and I have to say they encouraged us far more than we could encourage them. We thought we would give a little, and we received abundantly and overflowing of their love.

And as I shared with the Singapore brothers and sisters, I have booked him for next year — keep

# Fullness of the Holy Spirit (Part 3)

To get him to Canada to witness for the Lord there. And we will try to arrange meetings for him at York University, at Toronto University, at McMaster and so on. That the power of their lives may speak to our flabby Western Christians and flabby Eastern Christians. Let's not be feeling too superior ourselves.

I have been calling out to the Lord these past three months. I have had in my heart the cry to the Lord: "Lord, where are the people among us who are filled with the Spirit?" I have been praying, "Lord, what about our teams? The people who have been fully trained and yet have not yet been able to function in the fullness of the Spirit." I think that this letter from Brother Duncan gave me some encouragement. Because I was beginning to feel quite anxious about the fact that so few in our church and in the churches generally and even among the training teams know how to function in the fullness of power.

My daily prayer is, "Lord, fill me with the Spirit." Make it yours. Let the love of God fill you without reserve. And I can see there's not enough love among many of those in our training teams. That is why you don't have power — neither in preaching nor in living. Your work is going to be fruitless, if it's not going to stumble many other people before you're finished. You and I have to learn the fullness of the Spirit.

And this is why I'm trying to get some of these Hungarian Christians out, that you and I may learn more from them. We may know more theology than they do. We may know more about the Bible than they do. But they know more about functioning in the Spirit than most of us do. And so hopefully, once we have managed to get this brother out to Canada, maybe one of these days we can invite them also to the Far East. So I have booked this brother, the athlete, Brother Andrus, for Canada. Because as a first move it may be easier to get them out to Canada. Once we have been able to do this, we will try to extend their ministry.

Now another reason for my inviting them, as I shared with them, is that to show the government in Hungary that we Christians are bound together in the love of Christ. That whatever they do to those Christians, they are doing to us. When they make them suffer, they will make us suffer. It's time to let them know that the body of Christ is one. It's time to declare to these authorities: we love our brothers and sisters there. Every time you hurt them, you hurt us. And so inviting them out is to tell the government, we have not forgotten them. We care for them. We know about them. Strangely enough, this is something that puzzles me — the Western Church in Europe seems to have forgotten the brothers and sisters in Hungary. I don't understand this thing.

But there is one interesting thing about the Hungarians, and with this I must close in a moment. Did you know that the Hungarians regard themselves not as Europeans, but as Asians? I didn't realize that until I went there. "We are Asians," they said. I was struck. They don't look like Asians. But they are. And they demonstrated this to me even linguistically. There's something else I didn't know. We in Chinese put our surname first, like myself — the surname first, and then the name afterwards. Did you know that Hungarians do exactly that too? So I was first puzzled. I didn't realize that they also put their surname first and then the Christian name afterwards. Exactly as we do.

And a taxi driver was explaining to me — you see, I'm learning from such varied sources. Even the taxi drivers can teach me so many things. And the taxi driver was explaining that their sentence construction is the same as the Asian languages. Because he was learning Japanese. And he was saying, "How do you put your sentence in Chinese?" And he said, "That's exactly how we do it." Even the syntax follows the Asian pattern. Very interesting. So there we have another link with the Hungarians, both in the Lord, and also even, it seems, racially and linguistically. Amazingly enough. So these were things I didn't know until I went there. What a wonderful thing.

Well, there are so many things I can share, but I think our time has gone. And I must conclude. I want to pass on the greetings, of course, from Brother Daniel to all of those who know him. And many of you know him personally from before. I'd like to pass on the greetings of Pastor Rudy as well, who sends you very much his love. And you have also received, I think, gifts of love from him in the past, and others are coming in the future. But he wants to express his love.

And his was a very important visit here that I paid to him. Actually, I was feeling quite tired after the strains of Hungary. So I thought — and I must confess to you — that I would bypass Germany, get a few days' rest, and come back here. But the Lord would not allow that, I have to say. And as Helen and I discussed the matter, we felt that this is not quite right. What we did not know was that Brother Rudy was on his knees praying to the Lord and saying, "Lord, You've got to make them phone me." That's what he told us when we got there. "You've got to make them phone me." And the Lord sure did that. So we phoned him, and he said, "Yee! The Lord has answered my prayer!" I was just about to tell him that maybe we are not coming to Germany. But when I saw his love and enthusiasm, I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. So he said, "You must come right away. You must come as soon as possible." And I said, "Yes, yes, I'm coming. I'm coming now. I'm coming." So we went there the next day, from Austria to Germany.

And it turned out that he had some important things he wanted to discuss with me about the future, about his future. And we discussed this matter prayerfully together. And he has decided to resign next year from the state church. As you know, he's a pastor of the German South German state church. I took some pictures. I'll show you one of these days what he looks like in his — not like me, you see, it's all this modern stuff. But he's got this nice Geneva collar and black gown, and a church dating from the fourteenth century and all this kind of stuff. So you'll see him. But he has decided that he's finished with all this. He's through with all this. It's time for him to enter a new phase of ministry.

And he wanted to discuss with me, as he has been waiting on the Lord, what should be that new phase. And of course, I was able to suggest a number of things. Among these things, one of these things which he's very keen on, is that he would translate the regeneration, renewal messages into German, because his German is exceedingly good. He would then also lead a house church instead of the present rather dead state church.

And most importantly, as we were fellowshipping together, the Lord laid another thing on my heart. I don't know what's with me, but my heart seems to reach out everywhere. I think it's because of the Lord's working and constraining of His love. As I listened to him describe to me the state of the German state church and Germany generally, I thought of the text with which we began: the times of the Gentiles were speedily coming to an end. And as I listened to him, I could see that the day of grace for Germany is almost over. The Reformation started in Germany. But today there are few countries spiritually so dead as Germany. It is dead. Oh, brother and sister, it's dead. And my heart went out in compassion for Germany as well.

And of course, I stuck my neck out again. I said to Pastor Rudy, "How about if the Lord permits, we will issue to Germany one last call for repentance before the door closes on Germany forever. Let me tell you, it's closing fast. Why don't we have a team in which we will proclaim the gospel throughout southern Germany in the various state churches?" Because there are very few other churches besides state churches in Germany. There are very few free churches. "And I will act as a coordinator for that team, while you act as the administrative coordinator for the team. That is to say, you will send out letters of invitation to the various state churches." Because as a state church pastor, of course, that's very easy for him to do, arranging all the meetings in the various state churches. And I will get together a team.

And immediately I thought of Brother Daniel. You see, Brother Daniel speaks fluent German, as you might or might not know. And now, God has taken away — I mean, the bishop took away a ministry from him in one particular parish. And God will give him a ministry to the entire world, if He permits. Why not start with Germany? And this man, filled with the Spirit, will give to the Germans in their own language a last call. And I thought of Brother Daniel as one, and maybe some others. And so, by next year, Brother Pastor Rudy can begin coordinating this particular effort of giving Germany one last call.

It seems that we have ambitious projects. We are very small people. But God has laid great things upon our hearts. If nobody else will issue that call to Germany, so may it be granted to some small people, such as we are, and such as myself — the high privilege of acting as prophets in these last days. We are prophets. Insignificant, and may we always be insignificant. As Paul says, "Though I am nothing, yet God's grace was abundant to us all."

Our time is gone. And I just want to share these wonderful things that the Lord has done to show you that these three months has meant a beginning to a much wider ministry in the future — in Israel, in Hungary, and in Germany. And possibly in Greece too.

So, once more as we close, I ask you: be filled with the Spirit. And I hope that when you think of the things I have shared, the picture I have tried to convey to you all the time is what it means to be filled with the Spirit as you look at people like Brother Daniel, Brother Andrus, and all these people. As well as when you are filled with the Spirit, how the Lord constrains you to do so many things. Like the apostle Paul — he was restless until he could get on with God's word and preach God's word wherever it has not been preached. I find myself being constrained with that same power. Driven on.

Some people may say, "We have one billion Chinese people to be reached. What are you doing in Israel? What are you so concerned about the Germans for?" I don't know why, brothers and sisters. But the love of Christ constrains me. And let me say this: if we narrow our vision only to a small section of the world, or maybe just to our own church or churches, or just to our own people, God cannot bless this mentality. Let our hearts be as wide as the Lord's heart when we are filled with the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit — you cannot exclude anyone of any race, any nation. Your heart goes out to them all.

Are you filled with the Spirit? Test yourself by this yardstick of love. Let us be quiet before God in prayer.