The theme of this camp, which by now we are all very familiar, is the Spirit and witnessing. Now, when we speak of the Spirit, of course, we are referring to the Holy Spirit. In the title, the word holy is implied, though not stated. It is the Holy Spirit and witnessing.
And in fact, it is this word holy that is the key to all witnessing in Scripture. That is quite a sweeping statement for me to make. And I will have to proceed to justify that statement through the course of this message. It is the Holy Spirit and the holiness.
Holiness is the key to witnessing. Now, when we talk about this word holy, I just wonder what kind of reaction you have to this word. What kind of feelings you have about this word holy. I think there is no doubt that the word holy does not appeal to the sinner. And we as sinners have a tendency to shy away from what is holy. The word holy instills a certain fear in us.
We don't know how to handle this word holy. We don't know what to do with this idea of the holy. Check your feelings for a moment. And when we speak of holy, what is your feeling? How do you react to this word?
That will give you a good idea as to your spiritual state. If the word holy and the idea of holiness arouses a certain warmth in your heart. A certain welcome. A certain appreciation. A certain delight. Ah, what is holy?
Delights your heart. And I must say, you are spiritually very advanced. But if, like most sinners, the word holy strikes a certain sense of wanting to draw away.
To shy away from the holy. That's the natural reaction of sinners. We don't like the word holy. We don't know how to handle the holy. We don't know what to do with the holy. Holy.
Now, we are going to have to look at this word holy. Since we are talking about witnessing. And how do we want to be filled with the holy spirits? If what is holy frightens us. And clearly we are afraid of the holy spirit. How would you want to be filled with him of whom you are afraid?
You are going to have to change your whole mentality towards what is holy. If you really want to welcome the holy spirit. And sometimes we prefer just to say spirit. Sometimes because we are a bit afraid of the word holy. We find spirit a little bit more easy to handle than holy spirit. The carnal man, in fact, is so disturbed sometimes by the word holy.
That in order to handle it, he tries almost to joke with it. He tries to bring it down from the heights of heaven to the degradation of earth. You hear, you hear, oftentimes, almost as a kind of swear word. Or just a kind of exclamation mark. Holy cow. Holy smoke.
You hear this kind of expression. What has holiness got to do with cows, you ask? What has holiness got to do with smoke? I suspect that there is an attempt to make that which is difficult to cope with, by mixing it with something which is very ordinary and mundane, and make it somehow easier to handle. To bring the holy down to the level of cows and smoke. It's a very strange expression.
What's holy smoke supposed to mean? Unless we are trying to say, by holy cow, that we try to make, because we think of cows as rather stupid, as rather slow and lumbering creatures. And maybe we can then comfort ourselves that maybe holiness is also something slow-minded, dull, slow of foot and mind, and so a little bit more easy to cope with. Or maybe smoke and holiness can be linked together in such a way that then holiness can be thought of as something ephemeral, as something nebulous, as something misty, something smoky, and therefore can be forgotten about comfortably. I wonder whether that is in the psychology of these terms. Or else we jokingly call somebody a holy Joe.
Joe represents any Tom, Dick, and Harry, as we say in England. But in North America, it's Joe, not Tom and Dick and Harry. And so we try to bring it again down to something common, something derogatory. We say somebody is holy Joe, we mean that he's again derogatory. It's a derogatory expression concerning this person who is impractical. He's somewhere in the clouds, if we can even say that much for him.
How do you understand the holy? Do you try to run away from it? Or do you try to pull it down in this way by associating this word with common notions? How do you think of the holy?
What does holy mean? Let us get it very clear that in this world, as far as the Bible is concerned, as far as God is concerned, in this world, there is nothing holy. Nothing in this world is holy. Holiness, in other words, has absolutely nothing to do with this world as it now is. Holiness has only to do with God. Only God is holy.
And in the Bible, only those things that belong to God, that are associated with him in the most intimate fashion, only those things are holy. But since there is nothing in this world that is associated with him in this way, nothing in this world is regarded as holy until his power and his presence is manifested in it. Remember, Peter speaks of the holy mountain where Jesus was transfigured in his letter.
Now that mountain has no holiness of itself, but it was holy because Jesus was manifested and transfigured upon that mountain. In other words, it was his presence and his power upon that mountain which made this common, ordinary mountain holy by his presence. But then we still can't handle this word. Okay, so it has to do with God. How do you think of it?
Holiness. We've just said that nothing in this world is holy. Not only so, because everything in this world is defiled. It is separated from God.
It stands in hostility to God. The world, love not the world, because the world stands in rebellion against God. And so the Apostle John says, love not the world. For if any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. You cannot love two opposites. You cannot love what is sinful and rebellious and at the same time love, in the same sense of love, that which is holy.
How to understand holiness? It is very essential. And I hope that by the end of this meeting, in a little while, that you will be able to go away with a new concept of holiness. That when you can think of holiness, you can think of the word holy and the whole idea of holy with a new warmth, with a new delight. As I said, it takes a saint to think in this way and so I hope to prepare the way for making saints out of all of us by the grace of God and by the power of the Spirit. On the way coming here to this camp, there were several of us in the car.
And we passed through Hamilton because we went to see Professor Pinnock so that I could deliver some manuscripts to him. I think some of you are already familiar with Professor Pinnock who has been a friend of ours and who of course participated in the now worldwide, well-known debate in York the other time. I was surprised how well-known this debate became. We never publicized it but even people, the churches in Hong Kong have heard about that debate by now. I must say that the churches have a very fine communication system for some reason or other. But anyway, we passed through Hamilton to hand these manuscripts in to Professor Pinnock.
And as we were trying to find the way to his place, we took a wrong turning. I was driving at the time because we were supposed to go to the north of that road. We went south. And so, coming to the cross, coming to a junction in the road, I could see that it might be more difficult to turn on the main road so I thought it would be better if I back into one of the driveways and turn back up this small road. But somebody in a sports car came zooming up behind and though he saw my reversing lights on, he refused to back off. He stayed put.
So I slowly backed with the hope of coaxing him to back off. But no way, he stood there and refused to move. And so as I slowly backed and not having driven this big car for quite a while, I somewhat underestimated the length of the tail, a very long tail, as you can see, I slightly tapped his bumper. Now, the bumper on this car has a rubber buffer there and his bumper is all of rubber. So it was just rubber touching rubber like this.
Immediately, he jumped out of his sports car and threw all kinds of abuses and foul language at me and came out very fierce looking for a fight as it were. I must say, I found the whole thing very amusing at the time. And he strutted out and said, with the first words, you have crushed my bumper. Wow, I thought that is really something. Is this car made of biscuit tin or something? With a tap would crush his bumper?
And so I got out of the car, I looked at his bumper, I couldn't even see a dent on it, never mind crushing the bumper, it wasn't even a dent on it. So I said, well, where is the damage? He said, here, here, at the corner. And he pointed to a patch about this size on his rubber bumper, a black rubber bumper, which was scratched at the edge of the bumper and had yellow markings on it, with yellow paint on it. Well, first of all, because it's a rough scratch, as you know, a bumper is not rough, you cannot make a rough scratch with a smooth bumper, point one. Secondly, I don't have any yellow color on my bumper, and so you can't have a rough scratch with yellow color coming from my bumper.
So he said, I gotta see your insurance, I need a new bumper. He said, this bumper cost two to three hundred dollars. I said, my friend, calm down a moment. First of all, this car of mine did not do the damage on this bumper of yours.
You must have scratched it against some kind of a wall, presumably with yellow paint. I pointed out the yellow to him on it. And she said, the girl that was in the car was saying, that's due to the rust on your bumper. Well, the car is old, but it doesn't have the rust on the bumper. And rust is not bright yellow in color, as you should know. Rust, as anyone knows, is orangey in color.
And anyway, he kept on abusing me, calling me all kinds of names and other things, and there, I said to him, look, I apologize to you that I bumped your bumper. That is my fault, I fully apologize. But the damage on your bumper is not due to me. So he said, okay, let's call the police.
I said, excellent idea. Let's call the police. And so I hurried off to look for the police. At that, he began to change his mind. So I was looking for a phone booth because I couldn't see any police on the road.
So I was looking for a phone booth to call the police, knowing full well the police would take one look at this and say, what are you wasting our time for? But, that was the attempt to bluff, to insult, to bluff, to be rude, arrogant, everything. So, I was looking for the phone booth and then one of the sisters suggested that maybe there would be a phone in the hotel so they rushed in to call the police. At that time, he was already driving away. So I said, where is he going?
I said, do you want to wait for the police to come? He said, no, no, I think I'll be going now. So, then he disappeared with that. Coming back, I was thinking of the whole method and thinking, here we have an example of how the world functions. Insulting, abusive, bluffing, talking about crushing his bumper when you can't even find him, exaggeration, deceit, an attempt at trying to get a new bumper from a damage which wasn't even caused by me. But I found something very interesting.
I found that the arrogance and this bluffing attitude of the world is very impressive because I noticed that several sisters, as they later confessed to me in the car, were almost convinced by his argument. They thought that I really damaged his bumper. They thought I was the guilty party. Only later, when I explained to them why it could not be that I had done it, they said, oh yeah, yeah, that's right. It couldn't be. The sheer, what in Greek is called hubris, I don't know how to translate it, insolence, arrogance, is in fact very impressive.
You almost think, oh yeah, we're guilty, but in fact you're not. it is a kind of attempt to crush you into submission. And that's how the world works. And that epitomizes, encapsulates, and say, puts into a picture how the world functions. All this behavior, and I say particularly for those who had the advantage of being in the car that day, can very well picture the unholy, the defiled manner in which the world conducts itself. It is unholy behavior.
And so, in order to understand holiness, one way is to think of the opposite of holiness, and then think that is what, and then think of the opposite one more time, reverse it again, and then see what holiness is. When you see this unholy behavior, then think of everything that is opposite to that. Gentleness, meekness, kindness, courtesy, all these things will give you an idea what holiness is like, what God's character is like. In other words, God is exactly the opposite of this kind of behavior, and that is how we should be, and how we will be when we are filled with the Spirit. I remain courteous to Him throughout, even when I pointed out to Him, this was not done by me. As you well know, it was not done by me.
In fact, I made it clear to Him, you know it wasn't done by me. I don't have to be a logician to show and demonstrate that this charge is false. And hence, His speedy exit. And some of those in the car said, yeah, if it was me, I might have admitted, okay, okay, it was me, okay, here's my insurance number, and you'll pay two or three hundred dollars for damage that you didn't cause. try to understand then the ugliness of unholiness, and from that try to understand the beauty of holiness, what the Bible calls the beauty of holiness. Every time when I looked at the conduct that even these past few days thinking on the conduct of this person, I thought, how ugly, how repulsive, how disgusting is this kind of behavior? behavior. But then it is the way the world behaves.
Those of us who live in Hong Kong are very familiar with this. The underground train, the doors open, and everybody outside rushes into those who want to get out. I have many a time I had problems trying to get off the train, because those wanting to get on are not going to let you get off. They want to get on before you can get off. So there is a struggle and a fight at the door almost each time, and it simply delays everybody.
I mean, why not just let them get off and get on even faster? No. We get on first, as though the idea is when we get on you can get off, but once they get on, how do you get off? So, you see, it's regardless of anyone's interest. If they are going to pour water at the plants, they don't ask whether anybody is walking down below. So the other day, Jeffrey's daughter, I think some of you who are from Montreal and from Toronto too will remember brother Jeffrey, who came to Montreal, the English brother who is a physician.
His daughter, he is living in Hong Kong these days. His younger daughter is called Sarah, who is a close friend of course of Grace's these days. And they were walking together, and one day Sarah got a shower. Look, somebody was watering the plants up there in Hong Kong. Nobody cares about this. If you happen to walk below their plants, when they want to water their plants, that's too bad for you.
I'm sorry about that. No regard as whether you have a new dress on, a new, you know, $200 hairdo or whatever. It's too bad that they come to water. That's it. No concern if you happen to be going to a party or to a wedding, that's your business. This kind of disregard for others, my interests, this is what the Bible sees, describes as defiled, unholy.
There is nothing in this world, there is nothing in the unregenerate, the unsaved person that is holy. Now, it is true that we can polish ourselves up and we can behave in a more polite fashion and so on. We can do that too. But that kind of outward courtesy carrying a lot of inward hypocrisy is just as unacceptable to God as the plain rudeness. That hypocritical courtesy which the unregenerate man can put up is equally unacceptable. My father was a diplomat in his time, a government official mixed with diplomatic circles.
In our home, we often entertained ambassadors of various countries and other high-ranking officials. And one of the things that my mother in particular could not stand and which virtually drove her out of this lifestyle was the diplomatic lifestyle. lifestyle. Why? Oh, as you know, the word diplomacy means by its very definition to behave in a shrewdly polite manner in order to achieve certain kinds of objectives through that kind of conduct, diplomatic conduct. And my mother could not stand this kind of thing. You never knew why the person was shaking your hand and smiling at you and saying nice things to you and bringing you a box of chocolates or nice flowers.
What, you ask, is the intention of this? What is that person trying to accomplish? Because you know that he didn't or she didn't bring you that box of chocolates or the nice cake because he loves you. Love is not the word in diplomacy. Nobody loves nobody. The point is that you have to show all this niceness in order to achieve an objective.
The niceness is a tool to manipulate you. That's in plain language what diplomacy means. How to live in this lifestyle when there is no genuineness where everything has an ulterior motive. That is equally unholy.
True holiness means I love you and I give you this with no intention of getting any advantage out of it. I give it to you simply because I see that you need it. You are welcome to have it. I don't want anything in return for it. That is true holiness, true love.
Now, that is not possible in the world. People don't give without wanting something in return. It has to be that the Holy Spirit has done something in our lives and so transformed our lives that we are willing to do something without looking for anything in return. This is not natural but it is holy.
It is divine. Now, let us continue and try to see the relevance of all this for our theme, the Holy Spirit and witnessing. Since I have only one message, I have to make this thing very, very condensed and in fact, I cannot in many points document my statements and so with this you will have to bear with me otherwise I will have to give you reference after reference for which we don't have time. We cannot speak of anything in the Word of God unless we fully understand the spiritual principles involved and I am going to state two principles that have to do with witnessing in Scripture and these two principles are mutually related. The first principle we cannot be a witness without being holy as far as the Bible is concerned. Let us get this principle very clear.
We cannot be a witness without being holy. To talk about witnessing without understanding that holiness is inseparable from witnessing is holy to miss the meaning of witness in Scripture. Second principle related to this is that we cannot be holy without the Holy Spirit.
There is no way we can be holy without the Holy Spirit. That's why he's called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of holiness as Paul says in Romans chapter 1. He is the one who is not only holy in himself but he is the spirit of holiness. He imparts holiness to those whom he indwells. Now only when we understand these two spiritual principles and I only wish that people in this day and age would understand the spiritual principles although you cannot expound Scripture without understanding the principles.
Otherwise we shall always be beating around the bush. Let's recap then. It is not possible to be a witness of God without being holy.
I shall elaborate this in a little moment. Therefore being a witness is not a question of techniques. It is a question of what you are whether you are holy or you are not.
It is not a question of studying this technique of evangelism and that technique of evangelism. I don't say there are no such things as techniques but the techniques are not the essential things. If you don't have holiness forget the techniques because you are going to make a greater mess of witnessing than anybody could ever hope to accomplish. You are going to cause problems for the church of God which we are suffering right now. It is only when you are holy then you can think about the techniques.
But there comes the second principle you cannot be holy without the Holy Spirit. Now let us go back a little to understand this whole process. First of all I would like you to understand that holiness in the Bible is not some airy fairy thing.
It is something very concrete very practical as I tried to illustrate from earlier on in contrasting the behavior of a worldly person with the behavior of a holy person of a saint. You will find that a holy man a saint is a very practical person. Contrary to what worldly people think that a holy person is somebody who lives in the clouds who sits there with folded legs and hands together and he is lost in transcendental meditation all day long and doesn't even know it when the fly sits on his head or a bird builds his nest on his hair. He is oblivious to all these things. People who talk like this don't understand what they are talking about. They don't know what holiness is.
It is the holy God who saw us perishing in sin who didn't say I am too busy to meditate on holiness and all these people are perishing in sin and I have no time to look at them. I am too busy. Let them all perish. It was the holy God who was moved with concern for the needs of you and for me. He looked at a perishing world and he did something about it. He did a lot about it.
He went so far as to lay down his life for us. That is how practical holiness is. The unholy never did anything for us but it is the holy who did everything for us. So get into your mind when you think of holiness not of some strange lofty lost in the cloud mentality.
Holiness in the Bible is something exceedingly practical. I always love to think of this when the Lord Jesus raised the little girl from the dead and everybody was lost in ecstasy. The Lord Jesus was the only one with his feet still on the ground. everybody else was lost in the clouds.
Wow, she was raised from the dead. This is fantastic. This is amazing.
Everybody was all lost in ecstasy. And the Lord said, do you mind giving this little girl something to eat? Oh, she needs to eat. Oh, I see. Nobody else remembered that this girl had certain physical needs. Everybody had forgotten about her physical needs.
They were lost in rapture. The Lord Jesus was the only one still with his feet on the ground. That's how practical the Holy One of God, as the Lord Jesus is called in the Bible, the Holy One of God is. So practical.
So if you think of holiness as lost in the clouds, you have not yet understand biblical holiness. You see how far we have to go to learn what holiness means? Now becoming a Christian, we are talking about witnessing.
What does becoming a Christian then mean? By now it becomes very clear. Becoming a Christian means a transition from a life of unholiness holiness to a life of holiness. Now if you are trying to witness to people, what are you trying to accomplish?
You are just trying to convert them to the Christian religion? I beg of you, leave the poor person in peace. They have got enough religion to cope with as it is. people. What that person needs is not more religion, more philosophy. What that person needs is a new quality of life. If that person is going to live in peace and in joy and in the power of the Holy Spirit, that person doesn't need more religion, more philosophy, more religious ideas, more religious rites, burning more candles, burning more incense, spending more time reading out some liturgy.
What that person needs is a new quality of life which the Bible speaks of as holiness. Now, when you are going to witness to somebody, I hope you know what you are trying to achieve. I have not the least intention of converting anyone to Protestantism or Catholicism or Christianity vaguely so called. If I witness to a person, I am witnessing to the person in the way that the Lord Jesus requires, and that is that this person moves from one world to another, from a one lifestyle to another, from death to life, from unholiness to holiness, from being defiled to becoming clean spiritually, from struggling under the bondage of sin to a new life of victory and triumph in Christ. Now, how does that sound to you? Sounds wonderful to me.
That's what the Bible talks about. Who wants to convert somebody to Protestantism? Protestant is no better than anybody else if he does not live a new quality of life. What do I want to have a new church for?
We don't need more churches. The world is full of churches. I'm not here to build churches. I'm here only to build a church if that church is a church in which the Holy Spirit has full sway. If that church is one in which Christ is exalted and as a result of all this, there is a quality of holiness in that church. That is to say, the quality of God's life, since he is holy, the quality of God's life in this church, in the life of each person.
But the church as a social institution, we have too many of as it is. We don't need any more. The church as a social institution is bringing a bad name to God, is it not?
When I was a non-Christian, one of the reasons I didn't want to become a Christian is because I went to a Christian school. I was educated in a Christian school. And the Christian school gave me a bad taste in my mouth as to what Christianity was about. I said, if that's Christianity, I don't need it. If that's a priest with a black gown and a white collar and a cross hanging there, I don't need this. Because I can't see anything in his life.
That tells me that he is different from everything else I see in the world. He is exactly the same from any non-Christian I know. It's only the difference is that he wears a black gown and the other guy wears something else. Do you not agree? We don't need more religion. What we need is holiness.
And that's what's hard to find. That's what's hard to find. The problem with too many Christians is that you can't tell the difference between them and the non-Christian. So why should we want to be Christians if the only difference is a name?
So when we are witnessing, when in this theme we are talking about witnessing, what are we talking about? What is it we want to accomplish? We want to accomplish this. That God's saving power will come into that person's life. But when we say saving power, what are we talking about? Save from what?
Well, save from sin. Save from sin, unholiness, uncleanness, filth, from selfishness, pride, arrogance, greed, all that behavior that we saw with this man in the sports car. And he is not alone. But for the grace, I was like that too. Until the mercy of God came. So I am not there to condemn him or to feel supercilious or self-righteous.
I know that if it were not for God's grace, I would behave exactly like that, probably worse. So what do we want to accomplish? We want to save this man. Save all men. He will no more be like this. But now, if being a Christian is this radical, amazing transition from being unholy to being holy, from being unclean to being clean, then that is an amazing objective.
It means nothing less than the transformation of man. Something that no ideology, no philosophy has ever been able to accomplish. I know it. I lived in the middle of probably the greatest experiment of this kind in China, probably in the world. The communists came into China with the intention of changing the Chinese people through communism. And by now, of course, we have the advantage of historical hindsight to know that the experiment was a disastrous failure.
There is simply no philosophy, no ideology that can transform the human being. This is possible, and I know it with absolute confidence that it is possible, but it is only possible by the power of God through the Holy Spirit. That is how the power of God is applied to our lives.
You and I in this church have seen lives transformed one after the other, one after the other, transformed, utterly transformed beyond any recognition. You looked at them before, they were like this, we knew them what they were before, now we look at them and say, is that the same person? Total transformation. That is the beauty of witnessing.
That you produce what the Bible calls a new creature, a new man in Christ. And it is absolutely certain, it is a matter of fact, that this cannot be accomplished by anything in this world, not by ideologies, certainly not by communism, certainly not by any other religion. This is not a question of arguing about superiorities of religion.
I am not in the least interested in religion as such. I am interested only in the facts. and the facts are only affected by one thing, power. The power of God. This is what makes witnessing so exciting, when you have a part in the transformation of a life.
I have many times said in my preaching that this I find is the greatest reward. Of course, if I were in the world, I would perhaps have a higher income. If I were in the world, I would have more this and that and the other thing. But it is nothing, it is garbage.
All of this, I don't even think of it as sacrifice. I have sacrificed nothing. For the joy of seeing one life utterly transformed. That God takes an unclean, unholy, arrogant, filthy, self-centered person, living under bondage to sin, and by his power lifts him up from the miry clay, as the psalmist says, and establishes his feet on the solid rock, and makes a new man out of that person. Beautiful with the beauty of God, beautified with the beauty of holiness. Wow, it makes your heart beat faster.
So beautiful. Not perfect, not flawless, but distinctly beautiful with the beauty of Christ. Now that is the impetus that drives you on to witness.
I think when Paul had seen what God's power had done, he said, I glory, because the power of God, I glory in it. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. You saw these lives change, you saw more lives change, and he wants to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. If you have never won one person for the Lord and seen what God's power can do in his life, just one will get you moving. After that, you just want to go on to see what the Lord... Why is God so real to us?
Actually, there is nothing so difficult as to change as a human being. As you yourself know, you try changing, you know how difficult it is. But it can be done by the power of God.
How great must that power be to change a bad man into a good man? Not by some brainwashing, some something, but the power of God coming into his life, transforming him. You can think of a work more worth doing, you tell me about it. The world will not be transformed until man is transformed. There is no way you can transform the world without transforming men. God is building a new society, what is called his holy society, the kingdom of God, his holy kingdom.
And that kingdom will be peopled with all these new men, these new creatures, what Paul speaks of as a new creation. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. He has not become a Protestant, he has not become a Catholic, he has become a new creation. Christian. Wow, that is wonderful. So, becoming a Christian then involves a profound transformation.
It's the way he lives, the way he thinks, the way he behaves every day is totally changed. He has moved from what is unholy to becoming holy. So much so that the apostle calls every true Christian, he calls them saints.
In fact, he starts almost every one of his letters, we're saying, Paul to the saints at Ephesus, or Colossae, or Corinth, or wherever. He calls every true Christian a saint. You know what the word saint means?
If you come from the Roman Catholic Church, you think of somebody who's standing there with his hands together and a halo above his head, duly fixed with neon lights because otherwise it wouldn't shine properly. And so, the saints are there. Paul knows of only Christians. Every true Christian is a saint. You don't need any church to canonize him or whatever you have to do to him, to make a saint out of him. Why is every Christian a saint?
This takes us to our second part of the principle. We cannot be holy except by the Holy Spirit. But if you have the Holy Spirit, then you are holy.
The word saint comes from the Greek which simply means a holy person. And as far as Paul is concerned, every true Christian is holy. That's why he's a saint. You are a saint. Think on it. And Paul would call you a saint if you are a true Christian in whom the Holy Spirit dwells.
As we saw yesterday in the question and answer period in Romans 8 verse 9, Paul says, that if the Spirit of God does not dwell in you, then you do not belong to Christ. But if you belong to Christ, the Holy Spirit of God dwells in you. Well, do you belong to him or not? Is the Holy Spirit dwelling in you or not? If the Holy Spirit dwells in you, praise be to God, you are holy. Oh, this is wonderful to think on.
That's you are holy. Holy. Try to get used to the idea. We are always told you are sinners.
You are all filthy. You are always dirty. You are sinners. So we always be sinners.
One day we will be holy when we get to heaven. Wrong. You are holy now as far as the Bible is concerned. Get used to this idea. Striking and astonishing as it may be. Get used to the idea that you are holy.
But now, the holiness in the Bible is not man made. It is not achieved by our own effort. It is not achieved by some transcendental meditation.
It is not achieved because we have put ourselves to physical torture. We don't make ourselves holy by certain rituals. That's the way the world does it. In India, they are familiar with the idea of holy men. And one wonders what do they mean by holy men. We do
# The Spirit and Witnessing: The Power and Courage of Holiness (Part 2)
several times a day who go through certain rituals to keep themselves or make themselves holy. But holiness in the Bible is a gift of God's grace. We say we are saved by grace simply because we cannot make ourselves holy. If we could make ourselves holy, we don't need God to save us. We could save ourselves. We are holy because it is God who made us holy by his power.
How? By giving us his Holy Spirit. That is why there is no room for pride in this holiness.
The holy person, as far as the Bible is concerned, is never a self-righteous person. The self-righteous person in the Bible is exactly the opposite of holiness. Holiness in the Bible is always accompanied by humility, by the realization that we are holy, only because God has made us holy. He has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. The holiness is a gift. We are saved by grace through faith.
Therefore, there is no need to be afraid of saying that you are holy, as though we achieved our own holiness. No way. We can't achieve holiness. I hope all this is perfectly clear.
Now we have seen, I hope we have established very clearly, that there is no way you can witness without being holy. Because unless you are holy, you are not a Christian. If you are not a Christian, what do you witness to? What is there to witness about?
Another thing concerning the word witness, of course, is you cannot witness unless you have experienced something about which you can talk. You see a car accident, you were present when it happened, so you are called as a witness because you experienced that accident. You saw it with your eyes, you heard it with your ears, you were present. But if nothing ever happened to you, then what is there to witness about?
Nothing to witness about. A person who witnesses has to be a person who himself has moved by the power of God. He has been taken out of unholiness, out of the kingdom of darkness and placed into the kingdom of Christ, of Christ, the kingdom of God's dear son, as Paul says in Colossians. You have experienced this amazing transition, which is no less than the experience of the blind man in John chapter 9. Once I was blind, but now I see. You see, he can witness.
He can witness because something has happened to him. If nothing has happened to you, you have nothing to talk about. There is nothing to witness. But if this transformation has taken place, you have something to witness about.
I always feel very moved as I think of the words of my father as he said them to me in Singapore. When I had not seen him for many years, and I was leaving him after a short visit to him in Singapore. And he said to me, Eric, before you leave, they were just about pulling up the gangplank on the ship. He said, before you leave, I have one more thing to say to you. I said, yes, Dad, what is it? He said, Eric, I want to tell you something.
You used to be a very bad person. But now you are totally changed. I can see that you are a new person. He could see it. The transition from the unholy to the holy. You see, I didn't even have to preach to him about the gospel.
He knew me before. He knew me now. A witness, being a witness is not talking. It is being a witness.
If you cannot live a life that is a witness, then all your talk is a waste of time. Your talk carries no conviction. It is just hot air.
I have heard lots of people witnessing, so-called witnessing for Christ, who should not open their mouths. Because the more they witness, the less credibility they have. People look at their lives and see nothing in their lives that is worth talking about. And they are always talking. Hey, will you become a Christian? Will you come to church?
Will you believe in Jesus? What are they doing this for? Is this some kind of intellectual conviction? Do they say Christianity is a new ideology? I say to you, unless you are holy, you have no right to witness. God only wants the holy to witness for him.
There are two places in scripture that is very interesting and very puzzling to some commentators. But when you understand the principle I have been talking about, there is nothing puzzling about it. In Mark chapter 1, which you can turn to at your leisure at some other time. Towards the end of the chapter, say from verse 23 onwards. There was a man possessed by a demon, an unclean spirit, in the synagogue. And this man was shouting out in the synagogue about Jesus and saying, he is the holy one of God.
You can say that the unclean spirit was testifying to Jesus, that he is the holy one of God. Well, you say, wonderful. If the unclean spirits testify to me, fine, good. Any testimony is welcome. But not from Jesus. That illustrates the principle I have been talking about.
You cannot be a witness unless you are holy. That means God doesn't want you to witness for him until you are holy. He did not accept the witness of the unclean spirit. Of course the unclean spirit knows who he is.
Much better than all the people in the synagogue. The unclean spirit knows him from eternity. He is the holy one of God, this one. And the Lord Jesus said to the unclean spirit, be quiet and come out of him. He would not allow the unclean spirit to testify. You see that?
But many commentators are puzzled. Well, since he is shouting all day long who you are, then let him keep shouting. Any witness will do. Not any witness. Only a holy witness. The same thing happened in Acts chapter 16.
In Acts chapter 16 from verse 16 onwards, you will find that there again an unclean spirit was testifying concerning Paul and his co-workers. And this unclean spirit in this slave girl was shouting out aloud all the time saying, These men are servants of the Most High God. These men are the servants of God preaching the way of salvation. And this spirit was shouting out everywhere that Paul and his co-workers went. There was someone, this unclean spirit in this slave girl was behind testifying to them. That these are the servants of the Most High God preaching the way of salvation.
And Paul ordered the spirit to depart. Out. Come out of that person. And you know that it was because of this that he was sent to jail and beaten up. Did you know that? And that was the result.
He was imprisoned with Silas because of that. And we are mostly familiar with the latter part. When the Philippian jailer was converted.
But why then didn't Paul just let this unclean spirit continue to testify to them? Because the principle is that the witness of that which is unholy is not accepted. Not accepted. Now, how does that govern evangelism in the church today? Do you see what I mean? The church is not concerned with holiness anymore for the most part.
My heart grieves within me. We are talking about evangelistic techniques and methods and so on. And finding ways of getting power. Brothers and sisters, do not for a moment be deceived.
There are no techniques that God wants you to use. Until you are holy. Until then, forget about techniques. Don't even bother about them. It is first and foremost essential that God transforms your life.
You know why? Because most and many of these techniques which are used today for another thing. Use worldly methods. Which are not acceptable to God. I say they are not acceptable to God. The technique of closing the sale.
Using sales techniques developed by the world to sell the gospel. So, what are we talking about today, brothers and sisters? We are going to use worldly methods to bring men and women to Christ?
They say any means is justified. I see. It is most certainly not justified.
For not only must the witness be holy, the methods must be holy too. How can a holy man use unholy methods? The methods are not neutral. Please do not be deceived. Psychological methods are not neutral. They are based on the principle of the ego of a person.
How to manipulate the ego of that person. These methods are unholy. But the church is extensively using it. I was in a Christian bookshop yesterday in Paris. Paris, Ontario. A whole section was devoted to successful business methods.
It is amazing how many Christians are reading books on business excellence. And thinking this is wonderful stuff. Gobbling it all down. Using psychological techniques. Manipulating the ego. And so forth and so on.
What has happened to the church? We have become blind. You know why we have become blind?
Because we have left holiness out of the church. You say, well, what is the difference in method? Let me tell you.
In Acts chapter 7. We have the whole chapter devoted to a message preached by Stephen. And there is not one psychological technique used by Stephen that would be commended by church psychologists today. He condemned his hearers for the stiffness of neck. For the hardness of heart. You do always resist the Holy Spirit.
Stephen said to the Jewish hearers. And thanks to his statement, he was stoned to death. That's psychology. Poor Stephen. Haven't you? You should have come to one of our American institutions of evangelism, my friend.
I mean, you are a good holy man filled with the Holy Spirit. The problem with you is you don't know psychological techniques. Come to my school. I will teach you. You wouldn't do such a stupid thing to get yourself stoned to death. It is stupid.
Don't you understand? No, no. Stephen knew exactly what he was doing. And it was a result of that preaching in Acts chapter 7. And you wonder why it is recorded in full. In Acts chapter 9, Paul was converted.
Paul was present while Stephen was preaching. Indeed, Stephen laid down his life. But from his blood, from his death, from the blood of the martyr came the seed. There came forth Paul who brought the gospel to the ends of the earth. And he too finally laid down his life. Psychological technique is not to be employed.
Believe me. I know psychological technique. I learned those methods when I was a non-Christian too. I deliberately refused to use this kind of technique. Because God does not permit it. I will give you an illustration.
Our time is quick going. Before I came from Hong Kong, I received the letter addressed to me. And I looked at the letter. And my wife Helen looked at the letter. And I said, who is this from? It came from Liverpool.
And I thought I knew everybody in Liverpool. I couldn't identify the name. And I shared this briefly with some brothers and sisters in Montreal. And it took me, I looked at the, there were two letters. And I looked at this. I couldn't figure out who is this from Liverpool.
As you know, I pastored the church in Liverpool. So I wondered how come I got a letter from somebody I don't seem to recognize who it is. So I opened the letter.
It was in Chinese. I read the letter inside there. And then, because I only knew the person in Chinese. I didn't know the name in English. And then it dawned on me who this person was. This person is a very wealthy person.
Who owns a lot of property. Both in England and in Hong Kong. Their family is multi, multi-millionaire. And this person was in Liverpool. And her sons and daughters, they are all medical doctors. The reason being that she regards the only profession worth studying in this world for her sons and daughters is medicine.
They were literally not allowed to study anything else except medicine. The youngest daughter, who was not that good at studying, had the greatest difficulty getting through her medical exams. And she failed them and took them again and failed and took them again. And I don't know what happened in the end. But if you keep going at it long enough, I presume one of these days she will get her MD or whatever it is.
But anyway, simply because they had enough money in the family, they can one way or another see to it that somewhere in the world they can study medicine. And take as long as they need to get their degree. And so if you are rich enough, in the end you can get what it is you want. And so all her children and doctors. And one of her sons in Liverpool, she assigned. And I think it's right because she is really a matriarch.
She controls the family. Everybody has to listen to her, including her husband. So she controls everything.
And so she treats all her grown-up sons and daughters as kids, of course. And orders them around telling them what to do, even when they are in their 30s already. She runs their life for them. They can't go anywhere, do anything without her control or permission. Well, one of her sons, she told, because she was active in the church, in the Hong Kong church and so on. And of course the Hong Kong churches had a high regard for her because, I mean, the churches, many churches are very eager to have some financial handouts.
And who doesn't want to make friends with millionaires? And so, because she had a lot of influence on the Hong Kong churches because of the money. And she wanted to start a church in Liverpool, as it were, in competition with ours. And she started, she bought a huge building, a vast building, exceed a thousand people. If you have money, you can buy anything, right? So you buy this vast building and she would start the church.
And her son was to start the church in there. But thanks be to God, her son had a real love for the Lord. Her son, of course, is another doctor who was working in the hospital at the time. And so he tried starting these meetings and preaching there, but something just couldn't get going. People simply didn't come, so they offered free meals. I mean, you have money, you can offer free meals too.
Okay, free meals. Everybody come, you have free lunch. Unconditioned, first you attend the service, after that you get free lunch. You have the lunch first, you don't attend the meeting. So eventually, that was supposed to be a Chinese church and they got a lot of English down and out.
Because since they were going to get a free lunch, they could sit and sleep during the service and after that they get a free lunch. So all the down and outs came into this meeting. So this brother is thinking, I think we have missed the purpose of this service.
And then when I came to Liverpool and began preaching there, then this brother, her son, came over to our meetings to listen to the messages. And then he decided, hey, what am I doing? He said to me one day, he says, well, since you are here and you are preaching here, I don't see the point about having another church. So he went and closed down his church and came over to us.
So when his mother came from Hong Kong, he said, what happened to the church? He said, I've closed the church. We're wasting our time. We should go to the other church. So he came regularly to our church.
And I saw that he had a lot of potential. So he began to attend the Bible studies. And then to the horror of his mother, he was talking about full-time training. Oh, this is too much. My son is a doctor. You know what is a doctor?
Oh, that is the finest profession in the world. And you can serve the Lord as a doctor. Do you know you can serve the Lord as a doctor? Of course you can serve the Lord as a doctor.
So full-time training, no way, no way. So when he wanted to go into full-time training, the mother started pulling him out of the church. And he was trying to get into the church. And she was pulling him out of the church. Almost physically. Physically.
Well, he didn't want to leave the church. And so she tagged around with him every time, mumbling and scolding him and murmuring. And being very unhappy all the time. Like this. And so she came to the church, insulted my co-worker, for which I severely rebuked her. And she was utterly astonished.
Because in Hong Kong, if you have lots of money, everybody is kowtowing to you. How are you? Very nice. I'm nice. The offering box is here. Don't forget our offerings.
She came to the church, and one day she insulted my co-worker. And I said to her, Mrs. Chen, in this church, do not ever try to insult my co-worker, who is a servant of the Lord. For if you should ever try to insult a servant of the Lord again, I will send you out of this door, and you never come back into this church again. Understand me well. She was shocked.
She looked at me with white eyes. Her mouth dropped open in astonishment. Nobody, but nobody in this world, not even her husband, especially not her husband, had ever talked to her like this before. And certainly no pastor had ever dared. And so she said to me, she was so stunned, she said, oh yes, yes, you teach me more, I need to learn more. But then she got more resentful.
She got more, what was the principle on which I was acting? Holiness, brothers and sisters. It may not be good psychology, as far as the world is concerned. Maybe you should treat it in some psychological manner, not me. If their conduct is unholy, I shall deal with it, as the Spirit of the Lord requires me. Just as the Israelites were stiff-necked and disobedient to God, Stephen denounced their disobedience.
He rebuked the Israelites, even if they put him to death. That's okay, you can put me to death, I will still speak the truth. That may not be psychological, that may not be appealing to the ego, but it is speaking according to holiness. If the Spirit of God lives in us, we will speak what is true. We will speak holiness. And so, she was severely rebuked.
That is my responsibility to do so. So she got more and more resentful. She tried to drag her son out, even harder from the church. Get away from this church. This guy is dangerous. He's going to convert you, and you're going to become a full-time preacher.
Come out of there. But the more she tried to pull her son away, the more her son wanted to come. So one day, one day her son, we were going to have communion.
We were sitting around in a circle to have communion. And her son came to me and said, I would like to take communion. I said, fine, sit down. And she said, but no, no, it's not that simple. He said, my mother has threatened to cause a big row if I sit down to take communion. She's going to disturb the whole service.
And I don't want the service to be disturbed. So I don't know whether I should take communion or not. I said to him, sit down, look to the Lord, worship the Lord, take the communion. And if she causes a disturbance, you just leave that to me. You just get on with worshipping the Lord. So he sat down, very happy.
And so the mother comes in, huffing and puffing, like a dragon with fire breathing out. And so she sat down there. And as we began the communion service, true to form, she began to shout, she began to insult everybody in the church, you people, you are hypocrites, you are not loving, you are not kind, you are this and that, and shouting at everybody. And it went on like this. So we couldn't get on with the communion.
We sat there, and she kept on shouting and raving. And so everybody was looking at me, wondering, well, am I going to do something or not? I remained very quiet, and sat there. And the whole communion was being held up, and she kept on shouting for 20 minutes. So I called on the name of the Lord, and after 20 minutes, she suddenly packed up.
As like running out of steam, she suddenly became very quiet, and sat there saying not another word. So when she became quiet, and I noticed that the Lord had subdued her, I said, let's get on with the communion. And we proceeded, and she never caused any further problem through the rest of the communion. But after the communion, I talked to her, and I said, said to her, Mrs. Chen, you have committed a serious sin in this church. You have interfered with the Holy Communion.
I therefore tell you, in the name of the Lord, that you are excommunicated from this church. Leave this church, and never come back again, until you have repented of your sin. Don't come through the door of this church again. She was out. She obeyed. She never came back.
She went to another church, and she hoped that the other church, an English church, a very large English church, there she would sneak in to take communion, because she still professed to be a Christian, you see. She sneaked in to take communion. But the pastor of the church detected her, and said that he had heard. I had not directly informed the pastor, but the pastor had heard, that we had excommunicated her. And so he said to her, we respect the Chinese church. And since the Chinese church has excommunicated you, and as far as we are concerned, you are also excommunicated in this church.
I do not allow you to take communion in this church. Wow. She began to insult the pastor too. She never insulted me, but she insulted the English pastor. She even insulted him on the street once publicly. So, that was the background of this lady.
And then, as a result, her son didn't know what to do. But her son still wanted to join the full-time training. But she would not allow him. She controlled him absolutely. He could hardly even leave the house. Now you will notice that I dealt with her according to the principle of holiness.
Not according to any psychology to please her, or say, oh, Mrs. Chan, you shouldn't behave like this. No, no. I was exceedingly severe with it. Because it is necessary in terms of holiness. Did I do the wrong thing?
Did Stephen do the wrong thing? Well, I just mentioned. Ten, oh no, twelve years later. Just before I came to this conference. All this, what I have been telling you is about twelve years ago. Just before I came to Canada, I got these two letters.
As I said, at first I didn't know who it was, then I realized it was this lady. In two letters, she confessed her sins to me. She asked for forgiveness. She apologized. She said, I have been wrong. I have been wrong in relation to God.
I have been a bad mother in relation to my children. I have been domineering. I have been proud. I have been arrogant. Coming from her mouth, that is really some confession. What did God do in her life?
And then, amazing of all things, she said to me, I now realize that you are the only person who can help my son. I beg of you, please help my son. The very person who would not allow him to come to full-time training, who wouldn't even allow him to come to church. She begged me three times in two letters, please accept my son. Please help him. I now realize there is nobody else who can.
And even more, she went on further to say, I have a property in the new territories in Hong Kong. A three-story building. I would like to offer it to you for the Lord's work. Will you please accept this building for the Lord's work? Amazing. What is the Lord doing?
You see, the power of holiness. It may have taken 12 years, but finally she could see the difference. She had once tried to buy me as the pastor of their church. She once said to me, how much do you earn as a pastor in the gospel church in Liverpool? I wouldn't tell her. So she found out for herself anyway.
She said, your salary is a joke. Well, there was truth in that statement. She said, if you become pastor of our church, we will give you a decent salary. She says, what is more? I will build a new church for you. She says, you call the architects.
You appoint the architects. You design a building according to what you want in Liverpool. I will build the building for you. Only condition, please be the pastor of our church and remember the decent salary you'll get. I said to her, Mrs. Chen, I would like to tell you something.
I am happy to preach the gospel in the open field without a church building. Under the trees, under the cathedral of heaven, I will preach the gospel. I don't need a church building. It is true, the building we have is a ramshackle building.
I don't need a building. I will preach the gospel in holiness, even under the fields in the open fields. I don't need the money to build another church. She was staggered. All the other pastors were begging her for more money for the new building. I am offering you a whole building, not part of a building, not just a donation, a whole new building according to your design.
And you don't want it. What kind of a pastor is this? I couldn't understand. That was before she was thrown out of the church, of course. In the end, the power of holiness got to her heart. Can you understand these things?
Her son is now in Hong Kong at this very moment. He just arrived about two weeks ago. And one of the first things he did is he phoned us, but I had already left. We talked to my wife, Helen. And he will be waiting for me to return, to get in touch with me again. In the meantime, his mother also returned to Hong Kong, but the Lord is still dealing with her.
As soon as she got off the plane, she suffered a stroke, so that she had to go to hospital. I hear that it's a minor stroke, but it's still a stroke, and so she's been sent to a hospital. The Lord is still dealing with her.
But that is the gracious kindness of God, that he will do whatever is necessary to make us holy. We must conclude. Our time is gone. We have talked about why we need the Holy Spirit to witness.
Because we need the power to witness. Brothers and sisters, get this thing very clear into your mind. You will not have a shred of power. Not one shred of power until you are holy. In the Bible, God will never entrust his power to anyone but to one that is holy.
To talk about receiving power without talking about holiness is entirely to miss the point. And yet I see that in the church all the time. Receive the Holy Spirit so that you can have power. No way you're going to have power. Try it and see. Until you have holiness.
Remember in Acts chapter 3, verse 12. The apostle Peter and apostle John, they raised the lame man in front of the temple. the temple gate that is called beautiful. And all the people were astonished at the power by which God through these apostles raised up this lame man. And they were all marveling at them. What wonderful men. What holy men they are.
Indeed, they were holy men. But remember what in Acts 3, verse 12, apostle Peter said to them. Why are you looking at us? Why are you marveling at us? As though by our own holiness or power we raise this man. Power or holiness.
They're virtually synonymous words there. It is by the power of holiness that he is raised. But not by our holiness. By the way, when you read in modern English translations, it's amazing how they keep changing the word holiness. Sometimes they translate it as sanctification. Other times they translate it as piety.
Other times they translate it this and that. Why don't they just use the word holiness? Is it that Christian translators are also uncomfortable with the word holy?
That's what the word is. Holiness. It is through holiness that they raise the lame man.
But not their own holiness or power. It is the holiness and power of God. Our time is gone. There is so much to share. But I have to close.
Let us sum up as we close. I hope these principles stick clearly and firmly in your mind. Spiritual principle number one, I reiterate. God has so required that no one may witness for him unless he is holy. That is only the holy one, the holy ones, those who are holy by God's grace and power can be his witnesses.
The second principle is this, that we can never be holy of ourselves in our own strength, by our own merits, by our own efforts. We can only be holy through the gift of God's Holy Spirit as he indwells us. He makes us into his holy temple. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, we read there in verse 17. Paul says in verse 16 to 17, Don't you know that you are the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit dwells in you? And don't you know that the temple of God is holy and you are that temple and that holy temple? You are holy.
You are his temple because the Holy Spirit dwells in us. That is why we have power. We also spoke about courage. Do you know that it's not possible to have courage in the spiritual sense except through holiness? If you can think you can get to courage without talking about holiness, you haven't understood the principle yet either. We also don't understand this principle.
The reason why the apostles had a holy boldness is because God made them holy. Read in Proverbs 28 verse 1. The righteous are as bold as a lion. The wicked flees when no one pursues him. But the righteous is bold as a lion. You know why?
Have you ever seen the boldness that comes from a pure conscience? A humble boldness. There is a carnal boldness like that man who struts out of the car shouting abuse. Is that the boldness we are talking about? We don't have to have courage. It's not only Christians that have courage.
Non-Christians also have courage. We are talking about a different kind of courage. The courage that comes from holiness. the courage that comes as Paul speaks about in Acts chapter 23 verse 1. The courage that comes from a pure conscience. Have you ever found that you've seen somebody driving by and then he's driving very wildly but suddenly he sees a police car and suddenly the car slows down exactly 30 miles an hour. The police car is gone.
The foot goes down and accelerates and it's gone again 60 miles an hour and it goes on. Why? Have you seen how some people suddenly become very strange in their behavior when a policeman passed by? Something wrong with their conscience. They lose all courage because their conscience is bad. But as Proverbs says the righteous are bold as a lion.
He is not afraid. His conscience is clear. It is the boldness that comes from holiness.
Let's not talk about the wrong kind of boldness. Because you sometimes wonder why do you have preachers have to talk about being boldness coming to the Holy Spirit. What's the connection? Non-Christians are also bold. And one question was asking. They were even ready to burn themselves in gasoline.
They were willing to go into a holy war. They are also bold. They are also courageous. But we are talking about different kind of courage. So whether it's power or courage or any other quality we are talking about those qualities which are marked by holiness.
And that holiness comes from the Holy Spirit. So these are the two principles. May the Lord first enable us clearly to understand and secondly by His grace to apply it into our lives. You will live and witness most effectively and your life will be filled with praise and adoration when you apply these things into your daily life. Let us pray.