A complete transformation. If you don't like the idea of being a lamb, don't think of becoming a Christian, because otherwise you're going to misrepresent the gospel. Quickly to the next thing: the lambs are sent out among wolves. This is a mission impossible, as we said. Lambs could not last among wolves more than for a few seconds. Just go to the zoo and throw in a few lambs and see how quickly they'll last. I don't think they'll last even five minutes. The sharp, powerful jaws of the wolf will dispatch them quickly. Are you fearful that you cannot survive? So what is the secret? What is the strategy the Lord has in mind?
The other day, I had a cup of coffee. And I was very thirsty and I tried, oh, it's so hot. I think it was at McDonald's. I tried to burn my mouth. I said, how can I drink this in a hot country like this? So my wife Helen went there and asked for a cup of ice. And so we put the ice in the coffee and immediately the coffee became cold within a very short while. And I thought, is that the Lord's strategy? You see, what you do is you've got this bunch of wolves and then you take these lambs and you pour them among the wolves and then all these wolves lose their fire and they all become sort of lambs. That doesn't work. It can't be like this. Lambs, wolves don't become lambs by eating lambs up. I mean, it is said that you become what you eat. If that were true, then that strategy might work. And the more lambs they eat, the more they become lamb-like, right? Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. That can't be the strategy.
So what is the strategy? What is this idea of sending lambs out among wolves? Well, here I come to the key area. The strategy is God's power. God's power at work through the lambs, we transform the wolves. Now this doesn't work in human life at all. This doesn't work in natural life at all. But unless the strategy is through the lambs to transform the wolves, then there is no other strategy except to send the lambs to die. And that surely is not the purpose. He sent them out, as we keep on reading in Luke, it is to bring the gospel to them.
Now the gospel is brought at the cost of the lambs. Lambs in the Bible are a picture of sacrificial animals, right? The gospel has to be brought out at the cost of your life. There is no cheap and easy way to bring the gospel to others. But the way it's taught today, you would never have believed it. You would have thought that preaching the gospel is the easiest thing under the sun. The Soviet Union has just opened up, and I see every kind of person rushing into the Soviet Union, whether they stand in Red Square and they preach and crowds gather. Nothing could be easier than preaching the gospel. Nothing should be easier than transforming wolves into lambs. Just talk, talk, talk. And the better you can talk, then the more successful you are. As the Chinese say, you just depend on your three inches of incorruptible tongue and you can talk the whole world into submission. So, presumably, lambs' tongue, which is a delicacy in some parts of the world, must be most effective. You can talk the wolves into becoming lambs. That's not the picture.
That's why I said earlier, maybe we didn't even understand how the gospel is supposed to be preached. But worse than that, maybe we didn't understand the character of the gospel. So, first thing, I ask you to understand: the gospel involves your transformation. And you alone know whether you are transformed. If you are not transformed, and in fact you don't want to be transformed because you know you can't make your way into the world if you are transformed. That is why many Christians don't want to be transformed. You lose your place in the world, in the society of wolves. No lamb will have any status among wolves, needless to say. That means, in simple language, there are very few transformed Christians. Very few. Let's get that clear. That's what the Lord Himself said. He said that the saved will be few. I've often thought about that. I understand why now. Because you've got to be a lamb. And if you're a lamb, you can't survive in this world, in the society of wolves, except by a certain way. That is what we are going to close on in a moment.
How is the gospel preached? By what principle does it work? It's a principle amazing and yet too costly for us. That's why there is so little of true Christianity around. Believe me, there is very little of it around. And if you can find it anywhere, like that precious water, go after it. And drink at that water and never let that water go. Because you can search the world and have a hard time finding anywhere where the gospel is preached in the way it is meant to be preached. Not because people don't want to preach it. It is somehow it has disappeared. It has vanished, because it is too difficult to comprehend.
Let me try to close now on this very point. How is it preached? What is the nature of the gospel? Well, the heart of the gospel is Jesus Himself. And consider how it was done. When Jesus came into the world, He came as a glorious king, did He? No. He said, I know the Christmas story. He was born in a palace, was He? No. He didn't even have a place to be born in. He was born among the animals. He had a place among human beings? No. Among animals. And then when He went on to live, in other words, He was born in weakness. When He began His ministry, how did He live?
He told us the principle by which He lived, and this is what I preached in Singapore just a week ago. He said, "I can do nothing of myself." He lived in total weakness. He chose to be weak. And that is why in John chapter 5 verses 19 and verse 30 He said, "I can do nothing by myself. Whatever I see the Father do, I do. Whatever He tells me to do, I do. I live only by His will. I have no strength of my own. I have no power of my own. I don't function by my power. I am nothing. He is everything." He lived in weakness. He was born in weakness. He lived in weakness.
You know the story of Gethsemane. Let me move very quickly. There you saw Him in His strength, in His majesty as high priest, decked out in the garments of a high priest in all His glory. No. What you saw in the garden of Gethsemane was a man crumpled up on the ground with His face to the ground, tears running down His face. "Oh Father, if this cup can be taken from me, take it away. Take it away. I can't drink it. I can't." And the tears were around. You say, this is a hero? This man is going to conquer the world? It's disgraceful. He's sprawled out on the ground. Can you see a grown man crying? In our tradition it's shameful for a man to cry. And here He is crying on the ground and sweating, and it says like great drops of blood coming out from His forehead, drenched in sweat at the thought that He was soon to be crucified. Where is the hero? This weak link? Shameful.
And in Hebrews chapter 5 it tells us that He was with strong crying and tears, crying out to Him who could save Him from death. What? Save Him from death? Shameful. Look at our soldiers that march bravely to death unflinching. Glorious. Charge. And into the battle they go. Cut down. Crumpled on the ground without a wail. Without a murmur they die. These are men. And what is this? The lamb. Lamb? Yes, indeed the lamb. Weak. Nothing.
Oh, did you ever look at it like that? Well, try to contradict me. Those are the facts. Strong crying and tears. The picture of utter weakness. Supplication. And it says He was heard because of His enormous faith? Because of His unspeakable courage? No. Because of His fear. What? Fear. That's what it says. Read it for yourself in Hebrews chapter 5. Jesus was no hero. The lamb. Weak. Defenseless. Born in weakness. Lived in weakness of His own choice. And in God's number we see nothing but weakness. No strength to be seen. Is this the hero you want to follow? Is this the head of the world? No, He's not. He doesn't claim to be the head of the world.
And then finally on the cross, what do you see there? The glorious hero stretched out without a murmur? Not at all. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Are you complaining against God? What is going on here? Is that not a complaint? You're charging God with forsaking you? What is this picture we have here?
You know what the Apostle Paul says? He sums it up in these words in 2 Corinthians. Let me read it to you so that you see it for yourself, that I haven't invented this by any means. 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 4: "He was crucified in weakness." And though He was crucified in weakness, He lives by the power of God, not by His own power. He doesn't even live by His own power. He was crucified in what? In power? No. He was crucified in weakness. Let it get into your mind. Weak from beginning to end, from the cradle to the grave. Just the lamb. There is no element of wolf in Him. No eagle. No lion. Just the lamb. But strong in the power of God.
Does that picture of Jesus disappoint you? Did you say, oh dear, I never knew Jesus was so weak. I go and look for a stronger leader. You are still too used to the society of wolves, my friend. You are so used to looking for the alpha wolf, as it is called, the number one wolf to follow. At this Jesus you don't know how to follow. The whole secret, my friends, is that you don't understand the nature of the gospel. And am I puzzling you? I think I am. Because you never understood the gospel like this.
The gospel is weakness. It is the weakness of Christ, but the power of God in Christ. Read it carefully again. There are so many passages in the Bible you will never understand until you get this principle clear. If you look at the chapter just before chapter 13, you will learn the secret of how the gospel works. How does the gospel work? It works like this.
Was the Apostle Paul a powerful man? You think so? Oh, he was clever. Yes, we agree he was clever. Was he a charismatic powerful character? According to all the accounts we have from early church history, he was a short, balding, unimpressive character. Not your charismatic wolf but just another lamb. Indeed he had a matchless mind reading his letters you can see, but his character was said to be weak because the Corinthians said when he is in our midst he is weak, and you know the Corinthians despised him. They dared to bully him. Strange. All our impressions and suppositions are wrong. And you know something? Paul wanted it exactly like that. That's the way he wanted it. Because he knew a secret that we don't know. What is the secret?
Let me read it to you. Here in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 10 of chapter 12: "Therefore I take pleasure" -- can you believe your ears? -- "in infirmities," that means in sicknesses, "in reproaches," when people are rude to him, "in needs," when he is poor, "in persecutions," when people give him a bad time, "in distresses," when he is under pressure and stress for Christ's sake. And listen to this: "For when I am weak, then I am strong."
If you remember nothing more about this message, remember these words. This is the essence of the gospel: "When I am weak, only then am I strong." Did you ever understand that? I think not. It takes me a lifetime to try to understand this, because by nature I am not weak and it is so difficult for me to understand this. But I must understand it and I must implement it, otherwise I do not function by the power of God.
If I bring people to the Lord, what I may be doing is simply getting wolves to agree to become Christians. I convince them with a better ideology, but they are still wolves. They have not been changed inwardly. They are refusing to become weak. They want to remain strong. They want a better ideology. I can win the world with that. And the church has in fact won the world in exactly this way. It has Christianized the world and produced a Christianized society of wolves. The church has become the most powerful of the wolves. It is the richest, the most influential, the most well organized by any measure. The churches in North America dominate the nation. They can sway votes and every president has to be careful how they speak because the Christians can bring them down anytime. Every president, you will notice, has claimed to be a Christian. Has anyone claimed not to be? They dare not. They'll never be voted into office.
We have a world that is simply Christianized wolves. That is why I say you can hardly find the true gospel anywhere anymore. We can convert the world simply by saying, you stay wolves but here just be nicer to one another, just love to have a little bit better morals, or just believe certain doctrines to be true. You don't have to change to believe doctrines to be true. Just believe that Jesus came into the world, believe that He lived this life of purity in the world, that Jesus died. As long as He died, I don't have to die. That's great. Let Him do all the dying, I do all the living. Right? He paid the penalty for sins. I can do the sinning. He pays the penalty. I just go back and make my confessions. I get my pardon. I can get on with my life. I feel secure this way. Christianity suits the wolf fine. I gobble up a few more lambs and next Sunday I come and say, "Pastor, or father, I'm sorry I gobbled a few lambs last night."
This is the problem. We don't know that the secret of the Christian life is power through weakness. God's power through our weakness. "When I am weak, then am I strong." I don't know if I can get this message across to you. I almost didn't want to preach this message because I knew how difficult it is to grasp, and I suspect when you walk out of here you'll say, "I don't know what to do with that message. I can't change my diet. I like my lamb chops, and as for eating grass, I'm not into this kind of food yet. I'm not into vegetarian diets." And so you'll happily go on calling yourself a Christian with your wolf nature underneath, and on that day when you meet with the Lord Jesus, it'll be a little bit embarrassing. You meet with the lamb and He'll look at you and say, "Why are you here?" Oh, I'm calling you Lord, really. But you're not one of my own, because you have a different nature. You're a wolf.
I'd like you to understand, you see, as we close this message, there is a secret that we must understand. The whole Christian life, like the life of the Lord Jesus, begins in weakness and goes through life in weakness. What is the weakness? It began with, first of all, to become a true Christian, what did you have to do? Do you remember? You had to be weak. What do you mean? Well, you had to acknowledge that you're a sinner. What can be weaker than a sinner? And you had to repent of your sins, and you said, "Lord, forgive me, I'm a sinner." Oh, that's very disgraceful, groveling on your knees repenting. And once you were standing straight and now you're groveling on your knees in all weakness in order to repent. And then some fellow takes hold of you and dumps you in the water in all humiliation, and you're choking coming out of the water and you got baptized, gasping for air, all wet and dripping all over the place. I mean, that's humiliation. And you accepted that. It was all in weakness.
You accepted that repentance. Repentance is the total expression of weakness. If there is not the expression of weakness, there's no repentance. "Be merciful to me." Before you met other people, look to you for mercy. You are the one that dispenses mercy, otherwise you sink your sharp teeth into them. Now you are begging for mercy. And you go to those people you sinned against and say, "Please forgive me." What is this? Where is my glory, my majesty? Now I'm going around begging. Who wants your forgiveness? Who are you? But now your attitude changed, for a while anyway.
And then what happened? Did you go on in weakness? No, because you became a Christian. What for? To become strong. You say, give me an abundant life and peace and joy. Peace and joy is strength. Oh, I'm kind of a bit mixed up now. Start with weakness and I became strong. Where did I change? Has it left you wondering sometimes? You know somebody who came to the Lord and you say, where did he change? I don't see any change. Maybe you look at your own life and say, where did I change? I don't see much change. I'm still the same old person I was before. I still think in the same way. I still behave in the same way. It's one of the mysteries to me why I often see people in the church for years and years and I don't see change. You have not yet become utterly weak, and that is why you never have the experience of His power.
The first time I experienced God was the one and only time in my life that I became truly weak. I shouldn't say only time. It was the first time. And it was when I humbled myself totally before God, was willing to grovel in the dust before Him, willing to become nothing before Him, and His presence manifested Himself to me. That's why I'm a Christian today, because I experienced God revealing Himself in His glory and majesty to me. I could never turn back again after that. And He continued to reveal Himself every time I was weak. Every time I was willing to humble myself before Him, He revealed Himself again. And I've shared in my testimony the miracles that I have experienced, one after the other, when He kept me weak, in a condition of starvation. That's how He had to keep me weak. And there I experienced God all the time.
That is why Paul said, "Therefore I will much rather glory in my weakness." Why? Because then you experience God. You are too rich. You are too healthy. You are too strong. You are too much in a high position. That's why you never experience God. I guarantee you, if you are rich, you won't experience God. Where would He provide your need? You don't need Him. If you are in a high position, you are satisfied with yourself. Do you experience God? Guaranteed no. You might mumble about some experience you had here and there. You know very well that that is no deep experience of God at all. If you want to experience God, you've got to go down, brothers and sisters and friends. You've got to go down to weakness. And you experience God's power. "When I am weak, then I'm strong." Why? Because a few verses before that the Lord said to Paul, "My strength is made perfect in weakness." It doesn't fail. Every time you truly become weak, every time you're willing to become a lamb, every time you humble yourself into the dust, God will manifest His strength and His glory to you. You can try it. If it doesn't work, tell me then the Bible is not true. If the Bible is not true, you don't want to be a Christian. Don't ever come to church again, because this is all garbage, this is all rubbish, it's all nonsense. Either the gospel works, it is a matter of strength and weakness, God's strength through our weakness, it is a matter of life and death, or it's nothing. Let's not fool around with the gospel. I have no time for superficialities. Either God is real or we waste our time with this whole message. That's the way it is.
So to sum up, let me close. I sum up simply in three points. First, we are saved. The first point is saved, and that salvation means transformation. Second, we are sent. "I send you as sheep, lambs among wolves." And that in itself is a miracle, because you will notice that the lambs are not destroyed. Not at all. Why? There is a secret. Because in the weakness of the lambs, the power of God is manifest. The lambs will overpower the wolves through God's power. And then the whole world wonders how come the wolves cannot devour the lambs. They can't, because God's power will be manifested through them.
And thirdly, strength. The constant experience of strength through weakness. Saved, sent, and strengthened. That experience of living in God's strength while we happily, gladly accept our weakness. Indeed, we glory in our weakness. That is the way you experience the reality of God every day. Every day, that is how you become a dynamic Christian, a lamb that can overpower the wolves. And the whole world looks in wonder. That's why it says in Revelation, the whole world looked at the lamb and marveled, because the lamb conquered the world. It conquered everything through the power of God. That weak lamb that you saw on earth conquers everything.
Let us close in prayer.