My grandfather, on my mother's side, was a man who appeared to be very strict, very stern. And many people might have thought him to be harsh. He stood straight, not like me, you see. Always, always rather bent. Not really because I'm all that humble, it's just that I have a bad posture. So don't imagine me to be more humble than I really am. I have a long way to go in all these matters, like all of us.
But being a military man, a military officer, he was trained to stand straight as a pole. And perhaps because he saw so much suffering in his time, he seldom smiled. In fact, I can't remember I ever saw him smile. But his heart was filled with suffering, not his own suffering, but the suffering of what he saw in the world. He saw so much death. And more than once, he narrowly escaped death himself.
I think somewhere I shared that during a battle, he was in the cavalry. And in one charge, he charged forward and his entire unit was wiped out. He was the only one left alive. His horse was dead under him too. He looked around. He looked around. Every friend, every comrade. Twisted in contortions. Twisted in pain, in agony. Look at your friends around you and think, if you saw them lying, gasping for their last breath, twisted in agony and pain, what that would do to your inner being.
He never spoke, except to his wife, that is to my grandmother, some parts of the terrors that he experienced in that war. He never wanted to talk about it. But such was the suffering and pain. I think clearly motivated by love. Love of the ones he had lost. Love at the madness of men that would shoot each other, who never even knew who the other person was. The machine gun bullets cut down his friends, and their machine guns cut down the enemy. And yet the two people had never even seen each other in life. They might have been friends had they known each other. They didn't have to be enemies. But some power-mad people up there decided to send all these young people to kill each other.
The burden, the agony, the vision in his mind as he looked around and remembered the faces, those who were breathing their last and those already dead, in more than one battle, left an impression on him that none of us can understand. He was a very quiet man as a result. Very quiet. He hardly talked.
Was like another uncle of mine. Very similar. And this uncle, who by profession was a surgeon in China, went through a war as well. And he too managed to escape only because he was a good swimmer. He swam the river. But he saw his friends shot to death all around him. And others whose ships were not shot, who were not good enough swimmers, went under the water because the river was too wide. They didn't have the strength to make it. He too never spoke. I could hardly get a word out of this uncle. He went to the hospital, performed his operations, and came home. Not a word. He said nothing.
What suffering was in these men? What burden they carried was hard to understand because none of us had been through what they had been through. And they gave the impression of being harsh, of being cool, of being unresponsive, being silent, uncommunicative. But that was not so. In each case I discovered underneath a heart that was very tender, very soft. And it was precisely because their heart was so soft and so tender that they suffered so much. You see, if only they were hard, who would have cared? If they died, who cares? Everybody has to die. Let's not get sentimental. I know about it. But in both of these men, I noticed the reason for their silence, for their sternness, for their apparent harshness. Because they loved so much. They were so tender in their hearts.
I want to talk today about God. I want to talk today about God. Not about my grandfather, not about my uncle. I want to talk about God. God's sake of prayer. And as we were sitting earlier on here in prayer, in prayer time, I want to talk particularly about the holiness of God. You hold in the Bible, you hold in your hands, most of you, a book which, as you look at the front cover, it says, Holy Bible. We gather together around the table called Holy Communion. The church is called the Holy Church, the Holy Catholic or universal church. Everything is holy, but what does holy mean?
And when we say that God is holy, what are we saying? The word holy does not seem to have much meaning for us. Or if it does have any meaning for us, it gives the impression that my grandfather would have given to you and to me. The word holy seems to express the idea of something stern, severe, cold, harsh, frightening in a way, not attractive. But that is where our mistake is.
I said that my grandfather and this uncle of mine in China were like this because they lost so much. They were both honorable men, men of the highest integrity that I have known, even as non-Christians. It is precisely this kind of man, both sensitive within and honest and strict without, that gives to me the picture of something what holiness means. As I was thinking there and talking and thinking about how to talk to you about holiness, I know that as soon as I use this word holy, something shrinks inside of you. The word is scary. What is holy?
Today we have Mrs. Leung in our midst, the mother of Raymond in Montreal, who is now in Toronto. And as I thought about Mrs. Leung, I thought about Raymond in his desperate condition, in his mental trouble, in and out of psychiatric ward. He was a brilliant man. A brilliant man. But under bondage. Terrible bondage to mental illness. In fact, I just mentioned Uncle Don, Brother Don from Montreal. He told me that he recently met a person who knows Raymond very well. And when he heard of Raymond being saved and being healed, he marveled at this. Because he knew Raymond so well. He said this case of Raymond, humanly speaking, is a hopeless case. There is no hope. He knew there was no hope, humanly speaking, for this person. And now he sees Raymond healed. I just, we just met him at the summer camp. And he was smiling, beaming. And you look at him and you say, is that the same person I knew before? What is the power of God that could transform a person like this?
But I remember also that night when I was driving to Toronto. There was all fog. I couldn't see where I was going. The fog was so heavy. I was driving on the highway. And you know how I was driving? I was watching the road divider. And you know the road divider has stops and stretches and markers going along like this. I couldn't see in front of me. I didn't know what was in front. So my eye was just watching the lines. I could see two lines at a time. And I was just going along those lines. One or two times I wondered whether I was still on the road or off the road. I had to just follow these lines going. Because sometimes it was so thick I couldn't even see one line. And then suddenly I could catch a glimpse of another line. And following these lines.
And you would think that I would have to concentrate so hard I couldn't think of anything else. And yet suddenly the Spirit of God was working in my heart and said, remember Raymond. Amazing. Remember Raymond. We have so many things to think about. I've got the message to think about in Toronto. I've got so many administrative matters to think about. But the Lord had no time for all those things. He said, remember Raymond. And immediately a love of God surged up in my heart. And immediately I was praying for Raymond. And I realized that this love is not for me. I am not such a wonderful person. I am not such a loving person. I think I'm a very ordinary person.
But the love of God was welling up in me with such power that I was pleading with the Lord for Raymond. You know, it wasn't I who was pleading for the Lord. It was the Lord pleading through me for him. And I had a glimpse into the heart of God. How much God loves a person. He is saying to me, put aside all these other matters. You have lots of decisions to make. You have a lot of things to think about. But right now, Raymond is important to me because I love him. Why do you want to love a person who is mentally ill? Who is in and out of psychiatric ward? Who is so full of drugs that he cannot even talk straight? Who is so confused because of the drugs? His mind, his once brilliant mind that's now so dull with drugs. But God loves such a person. God loves this person who is now so full of drugs he doesn't know where he is even.
And I had a glimpse into the heart of God. And I knew that the prayer that was rising up from my heart was not for me. It was God praying through me for him. And in this way, making me a co-worker with him. That is the beauty of being a Christian. We are called into co-working with God. You know this experience of suddenly finding yourself in tune with God. Feeling his heart. His heart is beating and it's beating in you. Amazing experience. You can't love a person. You can't love a person. As we were sharing just now in the prayer meeting, and suddenly God's love comes into you. And you love somebody you can't normally love at all. I say it's so wonderful to look into the heart of God. And I said, God is like that, is he?
When I speak about the holiness of God, you think of a judge sitting there on the throne. And his finger is looking right at you. Pointing at you. Your sins. And you say, yes Lord, I know, I'm a sinner. Your sins that you can say, yes Lord, I know, I know. And you say, with a God like this, it's very terrifying. The further I can get away from him, the better. But God, he is holy. He is indeed holy. But you know what holiness means. That's the problem.
I looked in the dictionary. Oxford Dictionary should be standard enough. Ah, so what does Oxford Dictionary say about holy? It defines holy as morally and spiritually excellent. Scratch my head. Morally and spiritually excellent. Wow, I suppose there's truth in that. Except I don't know what that means. It's amazing how sometimes you study a definition and you don't know what the definition means. God is morally and spiritually excellent. Well, that's fine. I get this too.
And then the next definition comes on like this. It says, belonging to or devoted to God. So if God is holy, he cannot very well belong to himself and be devoted to himself. So I guess that doesn't help me very much in understanding God. I suppose if it speaks of a human being as holy, it's true to say that he belongs to God and is devoted to God. But it doesn't really tell me much about God himself.
Yet holiness is central to the Bible. So if it is central to the Bible, how can we understand the Bible without understanding what holiness is? And yet if I ask you to tell me, and you may have been a Christian for 10 years, 20 years, and I ask you to tell me, what does it mean that the Bible is constantly telling us that God is holy? What does that mean? Then most people have a trouble then. Hard to explain. It means that he is very stern. No, no, no. Not quite that. It means that he is very pure. It means that he is very pure. It is true. But what does it tell us? We are still having difficulties here.
So I look into a theological dictionary. An ordinary dictionary is no good. Let's look at a theological dictionary. And then you get even more confused at the end of reading. Sometimes language is supposed to communicate, but it doesn't seem to do much for us. One sentence in the theological dictionary says that holiness is not just an attribute of God. It is of his very essence. Ah, now you are very enlightened, I am sure. It's not just an attribute. It's not just an attribute about God. We say he is kind, he is nice, he is pure. Holiness is of the very essence of God. Oh, that's very true. But so, so we still don't know what holiness is.
Now, when we say that holiness is of the essence of God, we are saying something like life is of the very essence of man. That is, if you are not alive, you are just a corpse. You are dead. You may be kind, but without life, your kindness won't go to anybody because you are dead. You may be a very nice person, but if you are dead, your niceness is not going to help anyone. You may be a very clever person. That is one of your other attributes. You are a very intelligent person, very learned and this and that. But if you are dead, your intelligence, your learning does nobody any good.
You may be a very skillful person. Oh, you could repair a car. You can repair a TV. You can repair even a human body. You can do all kinds of wonderful things, no? Like a surgeon. Cut you up, turn you around, stick you together. Very nice job. You are a very skillful man. But if you are dead, you can't do any of those things. And I guess this is what the theological dictionary means. That holiness is of the essence of God. It's not just one of the other attributes. That all other attributes depend on this one thing, his holiness.
So you might say that holiness can in some sense be compared to God's life. It's his life throbbing in him. And when he imparts his holiness to us, he is not taking some kind of thing called holiness and implanting it in us, like some artificial heart or artificial lung. No, no. He is taking of his own life and giving his life to us when he gives us holiness.
Now what's all this talk about holiness so important anyway? Why should we waste our time talking about holiness? Quite simple. Without holiness, there is no salvation. None of us are going to be saved. None of us will have eternal life without salvation. And without holiness, we can't have salvation. The simple is that. That is stated, of course, very clearly in scripture. Especially in, for example, in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 14. Without holiness, no man shall see God. Not even the pastor. I thought I might squeeze by at that time. But nobody will get by. Having a display on that day of judgment, with a big word here, the very reverend so-and-so, pastor, I come to the judgment, he says, look at me. Ah, here. The Lord is standing aside. No use for you. You know what church I am pastor of? Oh, big one. Thousands of people. No good. So what's good? Well, I did give a lot of money to the church. That should be good enough. Huh? You imagine that church couldn't have survived without me. No good.
The Bible tells us, without holiness, no man shall see God. No man. Let's get this point clear. That's why when we are talking about holiness, we are talking about something very important. But the next connection becomes also clear. If holiness is of the very life of God, then we can paraphrase Hebrews 12:14, without holiness, no man shall see God, means without the life of God in you, no man shall see God. That also means that I am not going to be able to save myself. Not even by becoming a pastor. Not even becoming a bishop. Not even becoming the Pope. Nobody is going to be able to save myself. It is God's life communicated into you. That is what matters for eternal life. Because God's life is eternal. God's life is eternal life. To give you eternal life is not to give you some kind of thing. It is to give you himself. Through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now we begin to see, ah, holiness is very important. Holiness is very dynamic. You may have thought of holiness as a state. Like a statue. Very pure and immobile. No, no, no. When we say holiness is God's life, we also mean it is dynamic. It is creative. It is powerful. It is very active. And I want to ask those of you who say that you are a Christian, how do you think you are right now? You think you are saved? Are you sure you are saved? You are saved if you experience this dynamic power of holiness, the holiness of God, working in your life.
In that same passage, in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 10, it says that God has made us to share his holiness. What an astonishing statement. God has made us to share his holiness. We become, in other words, partakers of his life. Becoming a Christian is not a question of just believing this and that in your head. It is a question of sharing, of having a share in God's life. Now that's very exciting to me.
The way it seems that becoming a Christian means, look at this great big book here. That's to study so many pages. Learn and learn and learn and spend all your time learning. And in the end, you still can't find when I say, the book of Amos, chapter 12. Amos? Where's Amos? Quick, quick, quick. The guy next to me is getting there faster. So many things just to learn. And once you finish, Amos certainly said, because other books, Zechariah and Zephaniah and other names that you can't pronounce, and you say, becoming a Christian is dependent on so much knowledge. It seems I'm saved by learning. The more I learn, the more I'm saved. The less I learn, the less I'm saved. It's not a question of knowing this and that. It's a question of God's life in you. Do you want this life? Or don't you? Do you want holiness? You say, no, holiness scares me. I want life, but not holiness. I'm sorry. You can't have the one without the other. By now you understand why.
What is holiness? Let's try to understand this a little more fully. The Greeks understood holiness as something with the idea of awe. You know what is awe? Awe is something that impresses you. Something magnificent. It's the sort of feeling you feel maybe when the Queen was in Longhang recently. On Wednesday. Wednesday she was here. So it's pity she wasn't here today. We might have been able to welcome her to the service. But on Wednesday she was here in Longhang. Right here. And awe might be the feeling that some people feel in the presence of her majesty, of her queenly majesty. You feel a sense of awe. She's the queen. Who am I? That's the sense of awe.
The Greek notion of holiness has to do with some idea of mysteriousness. Have you gone to a cemetery at night? And you say, give me the creek, I'm feeling cold. The moon is shining and the owl is making funny sounds in the trees and you're standing there and suddenly the bird squeaks and you jump. What is that? Your legs are shaking and you have goose pimples. And that is a sense of something eerie. Something uncanny. Because we find the spiritual world somehow rather uncanny. A bit frightening. That is the Greek idea of holiness.
That's not the biblical idea of holiness. The biblical idea of holiness, as by now you have seen, is quite different. It has something to do with God's saving power. It has to do with his holiness but also with his compassion. It is like you can think of holiness as the center of the wheel, and all God's other attributes come through the center. His kindness, his mercy, his judgment, his severity but also his mercy. It is so perfectly balanced that holiness comprehends the whole character of God.
You know, human beings are very unbalanced. Some people are very severe and they don't know how to be kind. And some people are so kind that they are like jellyfish. You wonder if the guy still has a backbone or not. Maybe he belongs to another creature from outer space. They cannot get properly balanced. But I'd like you to see biblical holiness as something perfectly balanced.
I could give you references from the Bible and this is not a Bible study so I will not give you a lot of references. But when you study holiness in the Bible, which I encourage you to do, you will find that some references to holiness have to do with God's compassion, God's forgiving attitude towards the sinner. And other references to holiness have to do with his power and his glory. And other references have to do with his severity and his judgment. Like a wheel. Perfect. That is why you will find in the Bible that holiness and perfection are synonyms. "Be holy as I am holy" is paraphrased in another part of scripture as "be perfect as I am perfect." Holiness and perfection are the same thing. But perfection means precisely all the comprehensiveness of God's quality. Not just his severity, not just his kindness but both of these things together. God is so perfect.
Perfect balance is what one sometimes sees in the leaders of the church, isn't it? Some leaders of the church are so nice and the other leaders of the church are so harsh, and you wish that you could put these together and you have perfection. It's beautiful. But that is exactly how God is. He is just perfect in his balance.
But now we begin to comprehend something. That without holiness we in fact cannot understand the Bible at all. For example, why did Jesus have to die? That's a question that many non-Christians ask. Why do we have to talk about Jesus dying for our sins? Why did God have to send Jesus to die for our sins? Why did Jesus have to voluntarily offer himself to die for us? These questions we cannot understand. We cannot answer unless we understand holiness.
You see, there is a gulf between what is holy and what is unholy. And between this holiness, in this gulf, nobody can cross it. Let us understand this clearly. God's holiness means that he is unique in his perfection. But which of us are unique? He is perfect in purity and sinless. But which of us are sinless? That means that between the holiness of God and man, the unholiness of man, there is a great gulf fixed, to use a biblical expression. That expression occurs, of course, in Luke chapter 16 and verse 26. There is a great gulf fixed and nobody can pass between the one to the other. That means to say, between you and me, in our natural state, and God, there is no way to pass across to him.
The gulf is absolutely like a great chasm. It's like a great and deep gorge between two countries or two areas. When we were recently traveling in Israel, we saw such a gorge. Amazing. The land goes like this and suddenly it drops down thousands of feet. A thousand feet, I think. Straight down. That is a chasm, a gorge that separates these two regions, in an area very near Galilee. Now you and I cannot pass through to God because of that gulf. The distance between holiness and unholiness is infinite. There is no way to pass through.
Jesus died to bridge that gulf so that we can pass across. The only way to pass this gap is through death. I would like you to understand that. There is no way to pass. That is why it is said in the Bible that nobody can see God and live. Just to look at God, if he ever granted you one glimpse of him, would mean instant death. I can see why holiness, without holiness, nobody can see God because the moment you see him would mean your instant death. That is what the Bible tells us all the time. It is only when he has imparted his holiness to us that we can see and live. That is the wonder of it all.
Jesus portrays the perfect balance of God. He must be holy. He must inflict destruction upon the sinner. He must. Otherwise he wouldn't be holy. And yet in his love he doesn't want any person to perish. The Bible says God is not willing for anyone to die. So there are two things that God must face. You have to die but God doesn't want you to die. So what's he going to do? He has to destroy you and yet he wants to give you life. Put yourself in the heart of God for a moment and think what am I going to do?
The answer God came up with is the most astonishing thing of all. He laid down his life for us. He with his own life breached the gap. Jesus died. He became the bridge. And so through this enormous chasm as you can imagine it set from infinity to infinity where there is no way to cross, there comes one bridge put across. Jesus is that bridge and now through his death we can pass over to God and receive his life. An amazingly beautiful picture. The more you think of it the more wonderful it is.
Do you want God's life? Do you want to experience his power? Do you want to enter into that life? You know God loves in such a way that not only has he made that bridge and said well I have opened the way for you to life, take it or leave it. You don't want it, forget it. You know every moment of every day and in fact at this very moment I know that he is tugging at the hearts of some of you. I cannot talk you into the kingdom nor would I want to do that. But God is drawing you. There is something frightening about holiness and yet something very attractive about holiness. And God wants to draw you to himself with such anxiety, I almost used the word anxiety to describe it, that he can save you and does save you sometimes in the most astonishing circumstances.
I wanted you to know the story of George Foreman. Do you know the story of George Foreman? No. I hope you know who is George Foreman. Obviously you are not a boxing fan. Heavyweight champion of the world. He is the guy who knocked Muhammad Ali out of the world championship and you don't know him. I am sure you know who Muhammad Ali is. But George Foreman was the guy who took the title away from him. You don't even know that. You think I am a boxing fan. I make a confession to you. I even watched the fight. I told you I don't pretend to be more pious than I really am.
You see some people say, what? You watch boxing? I make even a worse confession to you. I did boxing myself. What, you mentioned some other things too. I don't want you to think, you see some people say they don't like to talk to me too much because he's too holy. So these days I'm trying to make you feel that I'm not that holy if possible. I would like you to know that holiness is God's life in me. I hope it's not because I look very stern. I would like people to come nearer to me and talk to me. Not be so frightened. Some people I see in the conferences wherever I speak, oh they take a big circle away from me. I thought what did I do wrong to him? Did I hurt him? Did I offend him? Then later on they share with other people because the pastor is so holy. I wonder what's their concept of holy? Maybe I'm like my grandfather. I don't smile enough. So I try to smile more. I try to tell you that I even like boxing. I hope it makes you feel more comfortable with me. Of course if you don't like boxing I can't do much about that.
But let's get back to George Foreman. Our time is running out. Now George Foreman. You see him? Full of muscles. Black man. Very, very impractical figure. But what strikes me about this is God's love for this apparently vicious, heartless, ambitious, greedy, money-loving boxer. I'm trying to think of other titles to add to this. You know that just over some ten years ago he was fighting in Puerto Rico. One of the small countries in Central America. He was fighting in Puerto Rico and God took hold of this man in the most strange situation as he was warming up for a fight. To fight some guy I don't even know who the other fellow is, so I guess it would have been a walk over because boxers have to fight from time to time to keep their shape. And so he was preparing for this fight and just having done his warm up he was then waiting in the dressing room for the fight and God is so anxious to save this man as indeed to save each one of us here that God started to work on George Foreman in the dressing room just before the fight.
And with such power that suddenly George Foreman felt that he was going right into hell. His first experience was one of utter darkness. He was sinking into hell and he was crying out, I am going into hell. And people thought that he was having a mental breakdown. But he was perfectly clear in his mind. So this guy is going nuts. What happened? Maybe he had one fight too many. That hit on the chin too many times and now his brain is gone. And he was shouting out, I am going into hell. I am going into something much worse than death. He said I am sick for death.
And the coach, his boxing coach is getting very worried. His trainers were getting worried. What's happening to him? The fight is coming up in a few minutes and he was shouting up and down about going to hell. I said what's happened to this guy? But God cares nothing about boxing matches or titles or the world belts or world boxing heavyweight belts and this kind of thing. He was interested in saving George Foreman and he didn't care if there was a title fight coming up right now. And the Spirit of God worked with such power in him that Foreman was literally just rolling around there on the ground and the trainer stood there wondering what are we going to do with the heavyweight champion of the world? What happened with him?
One of his brothers apparently was some kind of Christian and was trying to help him and then as he cried out to God as he called upon the name of the Lord right there in the dressing room, God brought light into his soul and he was filled with a light and a joy that was indescribable and beyond his understanding. He was not exactly a Bible scholar. Verses of scripture began to pour out of his mouth. He didn't even know the Bible that well and the scripture was coming out of his mouth. He was speaking the word of God.
# What Is Holiness (Part 2)
Now the world champion has really gone mad. I mean, when you start quoting the Bible, you have to be mad. That's what I just want to say. They got the ambulance. The ambulance came screaming into the room. They grabbed hold of him, stuffed him and took him off to the hospital. There was no fight. They had to put on some minor stars to punch each other. But the world champion was nowhere to be appeared. They said, sorry, but he just jumped to the hospital. George Foreman had not gone mad. He had come to the Lord.
Now I find in it something humorous, as you see something humorous too, that God determined that this was the moment and the hour to save him. George Foreman today, please do not know, ex-heavyweight champion of the world, is preaching the gospel. Especially among the black people, of course, but everywhere else. God loves a man or a woman so much for the sake of that person's soul that he was born with his holiness and with his saving power.
I wonder if you can look into the heart of God and sense him drawing you even now. It is truly amazing. Truly wonderful. How he works. And I have been preaching the gospel for years and I have looked and wondered, not only at the case of Raymond and others. I have just seen case after case of how much God loves a person. I am driving in the fog. Hardly can see where I am going. And my heart is just pouring out to God to save Raymond. And I see God's heart. How much. I wonder if you could glimpse for a moment how much God loves you. Don't think that the holiness of God is something to run away from. It is his life that he wants to impart to you. That you may share in his holiness. The dynamic power of salvation.
Talk about power of salvation. I have shared in many messages the amazing things that I have seen God do. Also through me. But I will talk about the miracles he has done through me. I was just reading the other day how wonderfully God works. I wonder if you also know of another case. Maybe many of you have not heard of an American general. This American general was called John Medaris. Major general in the U.S. Army. And he was until not so long ago head of the U.S. Army Space and Rocket Research Program in Florida.
And then God wants to lay hold of this man too. He has another way of dealing with each person. He dealt with George Foreman in that way. He dealt with Medaris in this way. And he will deal with you in a way that he knows best for you. And when that day comes, don't be shocked that he has to deal with you. Because he loves you so much. One day, General Medaris had terrible pain in his bones. And he went for a medical checkup. And the diagnosis was a shock to him. He had cancer of the bones. Which is an excruciating and painful thing. Cancer of the bones. And the doctor, the specialist gave him one year to live. One year. And that shattered his life.
You know, sometimes God has to confront you with his holiness in such a way to show you that if you stay in sin, you are going to die. You have to come to his holiness. You have to pray for his holiness. Open your heart to him in obedience to him. So that he can give you his Holy Spirit. His life.
Medaris saw that his career was finished. Not just his career. His life was finished. And he knew of a lady. This lady was not famous in anything except in prayer. And thanks be to God that there are some people who are good at prayer. People who know what it is to live in the beauty of God's holiness. I just said beauty. You know, in the Bible, holiness, the holiness of God is sometimes also described as the beauty of God. So beautiful. I would like you to have a whole new concept about holiness. It is the indescribable beauty of God. A beauty that this General Medaris knew nothing about.
But this lady knew a lot about that. You know why some people love to pray? Because they have come to see the beauty of God. When people fall in love with one another, it's why. You wonder why they want to spend all this time together. Well, because they see some beauty in each other. I don't suppose they want to stay together if they thought each other was so ugly. You say, where do you spend all this time with that person? Oh, beautiful. Oh, beautiful. Oh, beautiful. So what beauty? I don't see no beauty. They see beauty. It's a good thing you didn't see the beauty. Otherwise, everybody would be after the same person. But they see beauty in one another. But have you seen the beauty of God?
This lady loved to be in God's presence. That holy beauty drawing her into communion, into prayer. People don't pray because, of course, God isn't attractive to them. He isn't beautiful to them. But she knew how to pray. And this general then went to this lady and told her, the doctors have found cancer of the bone. And the pain is getting worse and worse. Some people could endure cancer, but they can't endure the pain of cancer. The lady said, that's fine. I'll pray for you.
She went before the Lord. She knew that God was using this to deal with this general. She prayed for him. God continued to deal with him for two years. Two years. He wasn't healed right away. Two years more of suffering. And after two years, he was totally healed. Totally healed. They went back and checked him. They couldn't find a trace of cancer anywhere in his bone. Totally healed. God was drawing him. First, to show the desperate condition that sin brings death. And when he had repented of sin, was ready to receive holiness into his life. The holiness of God. God gave him new life. Physical and spiritual.
We are not talking about fairy tales. General Medaris, who is alive today, resigned his post as head of the space and rocket project of the U.S. Army. And is today a pastor. He's a pastor today. He wanted to become now himself, not a means of chandelier. He wants to be channeling life to other people. Isn't that wonderful?
Our time is gone. And I pray that God will draw you by the beauty of his holiness. That you want to have his life, this eternal life. That you will see into the heart of God and realize, even though just a little bit, I hope that today God by his Spirit will help you to see how much God loves you. You. Not the next guy, not the other guy, but you. And that this love is powerful and attractive. In fact, so attractive that it can draw you without a single word being said.
I've often shared with you, and with this I have to close, I've often shared with you that wherever I go, I have seen how God works through such an unworthy person like me. I would like you to believe that I am unworthy. I am unworthy. Unworthy of his grace, of his kindness. The more I walk with God, the more I feel unworthy. I tell you the truth. I keep wondering, Lord, you are so wonderful, so glorious, so majestic, so mighty, so loving, so holy. Why is it you walk with me? I am nobody. He says, I love to walk with nobody. I love to walk with nobody. If you are somebody, he has no time for you. But if you are nobody, he will love you. He will walk with you.
And I'm trying to share this, that everywhere I go, I find something amazing. I just let God's holiness, that is his life, operate in me. I don't try to do anything in my own strength. It is in the words of the Apostle Paul. Christ lived in me. I am crucified with Christ. And now Christ lived in me. And there is something amazing. I hope the Lord is gracious and patient with me, because I am almost experimenting every time.
When I was flying back this time, from Montreal back to Hong Kong, my flight from Montreal to Chicago, I had the whole row of seats to myself. Nobody was sitting next to me. But when we got to Chicago, we had to change planes to San Francisco. Those of us who take cheap tickets have to keep changing planes. Those of you who are rich can go straight. We poor people change planes. That is wonderful. So, from Chicago to San Francisco, I found myself sandwiched in between two people. Very crowded. Don't know where to put your arms, your elbows. I can put it up like this.
So I started my experiment again. I will not open my mouth. I will not speak. And I will let the power of God so work in the guy next to me that he has to speak to me. That's what I call experiment. I ask the Lord's forgiveness. I trust that I am doing acceptably before him. At least he hasn't convicted me yet. If he does, I will pretend they're wrong. Because I am so certain of God's remarkable power that time and again, I never start saying, hey, are you a Christian? Are you saved? Now, here's the Bible. It says in John C. What about you? Here, take a tract. Read it quickly. The plane might crash before we get to San Francisco, so you better get saved.
You know, I can never find it in my heart to work like this. Maybe some people work like this. It's not for me to judge them. I ask their pardon if I sound in any way judging to anyone. Maybe somebody, sometimes it should be done like that. But I have such confidence in God's remarkable power that I leave him to work and I say nothing. I don't show any Bible. I use no pins, no crosses, no air. Nobody knows who I am, what I do.
So on the plane from Chicago to San Francisco, I sat there quietly. It took one hour. The guy next to me, very handsome American guy, in his 30s, mustache, looked like one of the film stars from Hollywood. I don't know what he did, but anyway, he suddenly turned to me and started talking to me. Did you see? How God works. I knew it was coming. It took one hour, but we have plenty of time until we get to San Francisco. Before we got to San Francisco, he wanted to hear my whole testimony from the beginning. I had to share my testimony with him. He kept encouraging me to tell him more. I was asking him about himself at first. I wasn't talking about myself. I asked him about it. And then finally he said, well, what about you? So he wanted to know about me and I told him about how the Lord worked in my life and he wanted to hear more.
I find that this is the way God has put time and time again as I have traveled, as I have shared with you before. How to explain this thing? I mean, you haven't even seen my face. In the plane, you all look in front. You don't look at the guy next to you. You all look in front. You hardly get a glimpse of who is the guy next to you. What is it that somehow, again and again, by God's power, he is drawn like a magnet? What does the Bible say? I was putting into principle something that the Bible says in John. The Lord Jesus says, when I am lifted up, I will draw all men to me. I have seen this drawing power work without fail. But without fail. It's just amazing. My God is real.
Now, if you don't experience God working, God will never be real to you. Why don't you try to experience God's work in your life? Why don't you try? So that you don't have to say, I believe because the pastor said so. That's not a very good foundation for believing. I believe because I know that God is real. I have seen his holiness, his life-giving power at work in my life. It's truly remarkable.
And so the seeds were sown in that person's life. And these seeds have been sown elsewhere and elsewhere. And one of these days you shall see the truth of it. But the most important thing is this. When the Lord Jesus said, when I am lifted up, I will draw all men, he was referring to the cross, of course. When he would be put on the cross, crucified there, put to death, God's holiness, God's severity, and God's love would both be manifested. It is there that I will draw all men. Holiness is frightening in a way as the cross is in some way frightening, and yet remarkably attractive.
But do you know what the Bible says? Jesus was on the cross as a sin offering. And in the Old Testament we are told that the sin offering is most holy. It is most holy. And anyone who so much as touches the flesh of the sin offering himself becomes holy. Amazing. Holiness by contact. Such is the power of the sin offering to communicate holiness. And Jesus said, when I am lifted up, when I am lifted up, I will be a sacrifice for sin. And when he is a sacrifice for sin, he is most holy. And as such, he draws all men to himself.
May the holiness of God draw your heart powerfully. May you have a glimpse into his heart today. And may you see today how much, I beg of you to see, how much God loves you. Let us pray.