I look like a cowboy here with this six-shooter attached. Good thing I'm hiding behind the pulpit. It's nearly three years now since we last met. And you know, I always have very sweet memories of Melbourne. Churches are like people. Every church has its own character. And when you think of a particular church, it's like you're thinking of a particular person. And every time I think about Melbourne church, it gives me certain warm feelings inside. The love, the kindness, the thoughtfulness of the Melbourne brothers and sisters always stays with me like a kind of perfume. So it's a joy to be back.
Of course, when there will be the chance to come back again is very uncertain. Because in the last three years, my health has been going down the drain, getting worse and worse. And this long flight from Hong Kong, being stuck in one seat for a total of nearly ten hours, does all kinds of mischief to my back. So the last few days I've been trying to recover. Not to mention, of course, one loses a whole night's sleep flying through the night. And maybe some of you are great sleepers — you get on the plane and you can sleep. But for me, I just can't sleep on the plane. It's very difficult. And I don't think I got more than ten minutes of dozing on the plane. So I'm still in the process of trying to recover. But soon after getting back to Hong Kong, within a week of returning to Hong Kong next month, I have to go on a very long flight again, another twelve, thirteen hours just to cross the Pacific to Vancouver. And after that, another five and a half hours to Montreal. So you can imagine that with a back problem and sitting long hours in the plane, it causes serious difficulties.
One occasion, my back was hurting me so much that I pressed myself up on the arms of the chair and suspended myself in mid-air on my two arms, you see. It's like — I don't know if you've done gymnastics on the parallel bars. You push yourself up on the parallel bars, and the air stewardess came by and looked at me — what am I doing there? She said, "Are you alright?" I said, "Not alright. My back is giving me trouble." So she said, "Oh, I see, alright." But she couldn't do much about that.
Anyway, the point is, it's not at all clear whether it will be possible after three more years for me to return to Melbourne. So I wonder if this might just be my last trip to Melbourne. But well, we'll leave these things in the hands of the Lord to see how He will work this out. You know, if it were not for the grace of the Lord, I wouldn't be here at all today. Because He has really watched over me, without which, without His protection and His care, I wouldn't be talking to you today.
So what happens in three years, we don't know. But I know what happened a year ago. And I just want to share the fact that our lives are always in His hands. A year ago, I was back in Canada, almost exactly one year ago, March of last year. And in Canada, it was still in deep winter. And I had to go to Toronto from Montreal. So we, as you know, we have two churches in Toronto. And I felt it was my heart's desire to visit them and to fellowship with them and to encourage them as well as receiving encouragement from them. It always goes both ways, doesn't it?
Well, it was a very busy weekend in Toronto. And the time came for me to return to Montreal, 500 kilometers to drive along the highway with minus 10 degrees temperature outside. So I got on the highway back from Toronto to Montreal. And as I was driving out of Toronto, I began to feel very tired. I didn't realize I was quite as tired as that. And it was rush hour traffic, it was very heavy. And I had just gotten out of the city and was on the highway to Montreal. I was beginning to feel more and more tired. And I thought, how am I going to cover these 500 kilometers back to Montreal?
And as I drove along, I began to find myself getting sleepy. So I realized, as a reasonably experienced driver, how dangerous that is. So what were my choices? I wondered, what could I do? And I decided, well, maybe the best thing is I will stop at every station along the way. Canadian highways, you have rest areas where you can drive into, where you can have a drink and so on. So I stopped everywhere. I even got off the highway at one point and went into a small local town with a big shopping center, a big mall. And I walked around there for over an hour to make sure I was as wide awake as I could get before driving on.
And so it went on. And every rest area I stopped, walked around, took some breaths of air, made myself as fresh as I could, kept on driving. Until I passed a town called Kingston, which was about more than 250 kilometers already away from Toronto, more than halfway to Montreal. And I thought, well, less than halfway to go. So I have to keep going, keep awake. And it was by this time very dark outside. And I was driving on and fighting this. I felt the sleep was coming on. I was fighting to stay awake.
And then presto, in one flash of a second, I'd fallen asleep. The car was cruising at 100 kilometers an hour. And suddenly I heard a tremendous sound of a bang. And I woke up. And then I looked around. And I saw snow and ice flying past me. And I looked up and I saw one highway on this side and one highway on that side. And I had dropped into the ditch between the two highways, right onto the hard ice. It was frozen ice in the ditch between the two highways. And in that split second, I was wondering which one is the right highway. If I go up the wrong side, I will go head-on into oncoming traffic and end up with a head-on crash. And of course, the car was still flying with the momentum, with the speed going on. And then I finally reckoned that it must be on this side, which is the highway.
Now the next question is, how do you get the car up on an icy embankment? And the wonder is, how come the car didn't turn over when it went down the embankment? It should have turned over, but it didn't. It went sideways down and then kept going inside the ditch. So I decided that while the car was still moving with momentum, I would swing the car back onto the highway and try getting up there again. And hopefully the car wouldn't turn over in the process, but I couldn't stay in the ditch. So I swung the car up. And I come to think of it, I don't know how the car got up that embankment. It's still a mystery to me. It didn't strike me at that time. But for those of you who have driven in snow and ice — probably many of you haven't — you know that the car wheels cannot grip snow and ice. It just can't go up an embankment.
And to this day — it took several months later for me to think about it — I thought, how did the car get up? It's still a mystery. It is a sheer miracle. On top of that, in Canada, which is half the year you're in snow and ice anyway, we changed to snow tires in winter, which gives a much better grip on icy ground. But because it's such a nuisance to keep changing every six months from regular tires to snow tires and back to regular tires, a large proportion of drivers now use what are called all-season radials. It means you use it year in and year out. And I also switched to these radial tires, which means that they actually have a poorer grip than snow tires on snow and ice. They don't grip the snow and ice so well. But that makes it even more mysterious how the car managed to get up a snow and ice embankment.
Anyway, I got up, but the force of the momentum shot the car right across the highway down to the other side of the embankment. It was like I shot through and came right up and down the other side. And I thought, "Oh no, now I'm down on the other side." And the amazing thing is I didn't hit any of the traffic coming at full speed. They're all on the highway, of course, going at around 70 miles an hour, 100 kilometers. And I went down. I had to try and get the car back up another embankment, back onto the highway.
And this went on. Anyway, finally, I managed to get the car back on the highway. By this time, I thought that the whole car body was smashed to pieces because it was banging into all kinds of things along the way. And I thought, "What's left of this car?" Somehow the car got back onto the highway. I steadied the car. It was wobbling, of course. And I wondered whether this thing is going to get me home anymore. Amazingly, the car stabilized and then I kept going. But, of course, on the highway you can't stop. So I kept going until the next rest station.
And I was amazed it was still running. I got to the next rest station. Got out of the car and took a look to see what's left of the car body. And to my amazement, there wasn't so much as a scratch on the car. Nothing. There was no damage, nothing to the car. It was untouched. So one mystery after another. But sometimes in the greatest wonders, there is one little thing that stands out as particularly astonishing. And that was the fact that when I had left Toronto, the dear co-workers had, of course, given me some food and drink to take along. And to try and keep awake, I had opened a can of apple juice and put it beside the armrest on the seat beside me, so that I would sip the apple juice as we went along.
And then after I had gotten back on the highway, it suddenly occurred to me — yeah, the apple juice. Where is it? Because I could imagine the whole car was full of apple juice by now. And I looked around and the floor didn't look wet. And I thought, "Where has the apple juice gone? Must be all over the seat in that case." Couldn't find it. And then I went on a bit. And then I found the apple juice. Mysteriously, I had a backrest on the passenger seat. And the apple juice had somehow traveled around the backrest and gotten to the door of the car on the other side and sat on the armrest of the door of the passenger side, and was standing upright with no juice having come out of it at all. I remember the force of the car going down the ditch. The obvious thing is, of course, the apple juice would have fallen onto the floor. It takes no genius to understand that. It would have gone right onto the floor. How then did it not go onto the floor, remain upright, travel around, and end up on the armrest? I haven't figured that one out. I said, "Lord, You are too amazing."
I reached out to grab the apple juice and began to sip it again with thanksgiving. God, my God, is so amazing. So amazing. We are so weak. I struggle with physical weakness, physical exhaustion, and just see the way the Lord watched over us, watched over me. Just amazing. All these years I have walked with God. And how amazing God is. It just boggles the mind. And many of these things I've thought through back and forth and I couldn't figure it out. How did it come out like this? I don't understand it. I don't understand how the car got up the icy embankment. You try it sometime. See if you can get up. You back your car up and you come charging at the embankment and see if you can get up. What's more likely is that the nose of your car will just get stuck into the ice embankment. That's all that would happen. It wouldn't go anywhere, because of the weight of the car — it will squash right into the ice and snow. But somehow the car goes up. I don't understand it. And that it did three times, because I had overshot each time. I had to come back up on the highway again. And then this apple juice. And how come there's no damage to the car? It's really amazing.
On the way back home, I saw another car in the ditch. So I wasn't the only one. I ended up in the ditch. I don't know for what reason he ended up in the ditch, but he never got out. He was still in there. And after this thing happened to me, I went further on. And another hundred kilometers down the road, I saw a whole truck in the ditch. And that one had turned over. So you can understand that it was a very dangerous night to drive on. And truck drivers in Canada are among the most experienced drivers there are. If a truck driver ends up in a ditch, you know that something wasn't quite right there on that night or the weather or whatever it was.
I just want to share these things with you because it actually connects with my message that I'm going to share with you in a moment. But there is another thing. When I think of what the Lord has revealed to me through the trials of the physical body — sometimes one asks, "I'm serving the Lord. Why should I have all these physical trials?" I think, as I say frankly to many people, it's because I have too many faults, too many weaknesses, that God wants to sort out from me. I have no illusions about that. I think God is kind to me not because I'm better than anyone else. It may well be because I'm worse than most people. And so He has to work very hard on me, you see. Has to straighten me out. Stick some pain in me here and there. Wear me out because I get too energetic and full of myself. So that I can say, "Lord, I have no strength. I can't carry on. Here I am." Just like today. I was trying to come out. The pain in my hip was agonizing. I could only groan in pain. But I also know that when it comes to preaching, He's going to take it away. And He always does. I don't know why. I've never been able to understand that one either. Most of you know that I can hardly stand up like this for more than five minutes without going into terrible pain. Yet when I have to preach, for reasons that I can't understand, I can stand there for forty minutes, one hour, and the pain is simply removed for that time. It's an amazing thing to walk with God.
But let me tell you about something else, which if it were not for the grace of God, I might not be here today, which also happened almost exactly a year ago, about the same time. But the beginning of this matter goes back more than five years, nearly six years ago. When one day I discovered a lump under my arm, right there in the armpit. I suddenly felt a lump and I thought, "Oh, this doesn't look good." I think most of you know what a lump means, especially when a lump develops in a gland. And I think most of you know that in the armpit, you have the lymph gland, linba xian, as it's called in Chinese. And the lymph gland, of course, is what protects the body as a line of defense, especially against cancer. And that is why if you have a lump, it's a very high likelihood that you have got some form of cancer. And lymph cancer is a big problem. I happen to know enough about physiology of the body and some of these problems to know that this was no kidding.
And I thought to myself, "Hmm, so now I'm going to face the reality of possible death. My time has come." And I often thought that I never feared death. And now was the test. You can talk big, you know, when death isn't looking you in the face. So you can say, "Ah, who fears death?" And then suddenly death is looking you in the face. "Are you scared of me?" Hmm, wow, it looks pretty ugly. So I thought, "What shall I do?" I dare not mention it to my wife because she, being a nurse, is going to get very excited, you know, get very nervous. "Ah, lump!" So, "Lord, so my time has come." I didn't know which way I'm going to leave. I thought I was going to die a martyr. Would have been more glorious, you know. But it looks like the privilege is not granted to such a lowly person as me, not fit to be a martyr. I'll have to go the ordinary way. But most of you know that death by cancer is one of the most dreadful kinds of death, and not something we like to look forward to. And being a martyr might not be so bad — sometimes you're tortured a bit, but other times, you know, you're just one shot and you're gone. That's an easy way to die. But slowly, death by cancer... hmm.
# Experiencing God (Part 1) — Conclusion
For advice, I know what they're going to say. Operate, man, that's the thing. If the knife comes out, like this, here it goes. I wonder whether I was more scared of the knife or of the tumor, which one? But more importantly, I wanted to check, first of all, whether I really did fear death or not. Why? Because the Scripture says that Satan has kept people under bondage to himself through the fear of death.
The fear of death is not just a question of whether you're brave or not brave. It's a question of whether you are freed from the grip of the evil one, of sin. And to be able to face death calmly — not like somebody charging in the battlefield — it takes some courage too, but in the moment, in the heat of the moment, you forget about lots of things. It's still courage, but not the same as when you look death calmly in the face. Maybe you say like the Greek philosopher Socrates, who took the cup of hemlock in his hand, poison that he was ordered to drink. And though his friends pleaded with him not to drink it, to take the route of escape, he had no fear. He slowly downed the hemlock. That's courage. I wondered that as a Christian, one could have that courage too.
Well, I kept waiting before the Lord. I wouldn't panic. I wouldn't do anything. I would just wait. If the Lord wants me to see a doctor, I see a doctor. If not, I wouldn't move. I would wait for His specific instruction. However, I did — as you know, we have some doctors in our churches — I would sometimes say to them, "What happens if somebody, you know, has a lump under his armpit? What would you advise him to do?" Of course, I know what kind of answer they're going to give. Biopsy. Go and have an operation, take it down, have it examined. I said, "Ah, predictable." I knew that they were going to say that.
So I waited one year and two years, three years, and slowly it got bigger. No pain — it's just painless, of course, as you know these lumps are. But it got bigger and bigger. Five years. Until last year. And then one day, oh, it became exceedingly painful. I thought, "Oh, I left it too late. That's it. My time has come." It became so painful, I couldn't even sleep at night. And I was saying, "Lord, what am I going to do now? You want me to go to the hospital? I know they're going to go straight there and they will just take it out. But it might have spread already." So I waited.
The first night, it was agonizing. So painful. Couldn't sleep. The second night, it was again exceedingly painful. I thought, "I can't carry on with this much longer. I can't go on without sleep." And the third night, I sat there in quietness on the sofa, just focusing my heart and mind on the Lord. And I said, "Lord, I'm Your servant. You deal with me as You see fit. If it's time for me to come home, it is my privilege and my joy." By this time, I was very peaceful. There was no fear of anything at all. I committed my life in His hands.
And then I felt something very wet. And I felt that suddenly everything was very wet. And there was a strange smell. I thought, "What's going on here?" And then I noticed that my whole shirt and t-shirt was soaking wet under the armpit. So I went and took off the t-shirt. And I noticed that it was all covered in pus. And you know that the pus came running out of that tumor for almost one full month. Amazing. Because gradually the quantity of pus reduced, but it kept going for almost one full month. Have you ever seen anything like that? Surely no boil could contain that much pus. Where was it all coming from, I wonder. It seemed that the whole body and all the impurities were draining out of that point.
Now, I should mention to you that I finally did tell Helen. But maybe one or two years later, after the thing happened, I told Helen that I had this tumor, this thing under the arm. I thank the Lord that she was very, very quiet. She didn't panic. She agreed that we should just look to the Lord about this matter. But at the time when this pus began to come out, she wasn't there. She was still back in Hong Kong. I was by myself in Canada at that time. So I just looked to the Lord about this matter. And then the whole thing — at one point when I showed it to Helen later, she said, "Wow, it's so big." She was getting a little bit worried because it was getting larger and larger. And then it drained. This remarkable thing. So I share this with you. And now, of course, it's completely gone. And there's only a mark left where the tumor once was. It's amazing to walk with God. No fear, no panic.
Now, I wonder how you know God. Whether God is real in your life. I think through all these years, I have shared the amazing ways in which God has been dealing with me, walking with me, encouraging me, disciplining me, purifying me. How amazing God is. Amazing. And some people say, "Is God real?" I don't even know how to answer the question. And this is what I would like to come to. And as we come now to the main part of the message in the remaining time, let's commit this time to the Lord in prayer.
Our precious Lord and our God, thank You. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You. That You, the living God, high over all, Creator of heaven and earth, and You who in Your love for us did give Your Son to die for us upon the cross, to take away the sins which stand between You and us, so that we may enter into communion with You, fellowship with Yourself, so that we can walk with You. For it was for this reason that You created us, that we may walk with Yourself. But how few there are in this day and age that know You and can walk with You. How few there are who hear Your voice, how few there are whose lives are open to Your working.
O Lord, have mercy upon Your people these days. For there be few also in Your church who know You. Many can speak of doctrines and argue over the finer points of dogma. But know You, they do not. We pray, Lord, that You will forgive us. For the fact is that when we do not know You, it is not because You have not made it possible for us to know You, but because our hearts have been closed for one reason or another, our spiritual perception has been dull because of self-centeredness. Pray, Lord, that You will have mercy upon Your church in these last days. I do pray for all the dear people here that You will work powerfully in every heart to enable each person to be so delivered from self as to be able to be conscious of Christ. It is our plea and our prayer. We commit this time to Your hands. For Your glory's sake we ask in Jesus' most precious name. Amen.
I was listening to the sharing of a brother who had applied for full-time service. And I must say that I could scarcely believe my ears when I listened to this sharing. But the reason I mention it is because I think his sharing is quite typical of most people in the church today. He was sharing this: he was trying to pray and he was bugged by some mosquito. So as he tried to pray, this mosquito was going around bugging him and he couldn't concentrate. And so he prayed, "Lord, strike the mosquito dead, and then I know that You are God."
I thought to myself, "Did I hear him right?" We want an experience of God. We want to know whether our God is real so that we can walk with Him, so that we can serve Him. And we look for ways in which He can prove Himself to us, that He is God, that He cares for us. And since we are praying to Him and this mosquito is bugging us, so strike the mosquito dead. Well, of course, if you chase the mosquito away, that will do too. But then if the mosquito goes away, it may go away for other reasons than that God chased it away. So you can't be sure that it was God who chased the mosquito away. But if the mosquito dropped dead right there in front of your nose, then you know God struck the mosquito dead for daring to bother you, a holy person praying.
Now the whole thing would sound pretty funny if it weren't actually real. I didn't concoct this story. This is a real thing. Is this the way we try to gain some experience of God, to know that God is real? And then I heard a brother who had served the Lord in China, and he had spent twenty-some years in hard labor camp, who had gone through every kind of suffering — and mosquitoes were the least of his problems. And he himself told me only a few weeks ago when I saw him again in Hong Kong, he said, "You know, in China I went preaching in the villages, and in some of the villages I went to preach, I saw them wearing their shirts coming to the meeting, and I saw black patches during the service on their white shirts." And he came closer to take a look and he said, "You know what I saw? I saw hordes of mosquitoes stinging them through their shirts, and they didn't even budge. Listening to the word of God, they didn't even budge. The mosquitoes didn't even disturb them."
And he said, "When I was speaking, a mosquito went up my trouser, and I was trying to get the mosquito out because it was distracting me, and I was trying to preach with this mosquito bugging me inside." And he said afterwards he felt so ashamed of himself — that they could stand there, or sit there, with the mosquitoes stinging them and they didn't even bat an eye. They just let the mosquitoes feed themselves. And he said — I remember, he had spent twenty-over years in hard labor camp — was bothered by a mosquito in his trouser. Well, and I thought, funny that I should hear him telling me this at the time when this brother is talking about striking the mosquito dead for distracting him in prayer.
We want to experience God. Well, did God strike the mosquito dead? Of course not. He didn't strike the mosquito dead. God is not in the habit of striking mosquitoes dead. That's as simple as that. You see, the mosquito, whether we like it or not, happens to be God's creature too. And what if the mosquito was praying, "Strike this fellow dead — he's moving the whole time, I'm trying to get some food, and he's moving the whole time, he's bothering me the whole time"? So what a way to try and experience God. Amazing.
And then, of course, you're very familiar with hearing the same thing: "I am trying to move house, and I prayed, 'Lord, let it not rain, because if it rains my furniture will get wet. So please, God, when I'm moving tomorrow, it won't rain.' And from not raining, I can experience the reality of God." So God is rather convenient to have around. He's there to open the umbrella for us when we want to move. I mean, what kind of God are we thinking of? What kind of God do we want to experience, after all? So what is the disaster — it rains a bit? It's going to spoil your furniture a little bit, or what? Then cover your furniture! You need to have God open the umbrella for you? Is God the person there to attend to all our minor needs, move away the mosquitoes? I mean, these things were reserved for slaves in various countries to do — to fan away mosquitoes, to hold up an umbrella for their master. We want a God who is not — well, rather humorous.
I think that was the right way to deal with the problem. If you are a baptized Christian, one who has first made a commitment to the Lord and entered into covenant with God through baptism — I mentioned baptism as a covenant, just like when two people get married, they have a marriage ceremony. It is not the ceremony that is all important, but it is the outward expression of a mutual transaction, which is of course what baptism really is all about. And I would like to draw the parallel between these two things. If you are a Christian who has entered into covenant with God through commitment and baptism, you have experienced God the whole time. The problem is that what you have experienced may not have registered with you as experience of God. Let me explain what I mean.
Now, before two people get married, they have very idealistic notions of what marriage is all about. And those of us who are pastors have had to do a lot of marriage counseling with marriages that are in all kinds of difficulties, and we of course know what is the real nature of most marriages. Before coming to Hong Kong, we were having supper and there was a young girl talking with us, and she was talking starry-eyed about marriage and her boyfriend and all these things. And she was saying, "Oh, marriage is so beautiful," and so on. And I was sitting there — yeah, yeah. I could remember all the people I had to counsel who were tooth and claw fighting one another. And here was this idealistic girl, and I was trying to tell her, "Yeah, well, ideally that's how marriage would be, that's right, yes." Well, but how do you destroy a young girl's dream? You don't want to do that, do you? So you keep quiet and you smile and you say, "Oh yes, yes. How is your boyfriend? He's a knight in shining armor? He's wonderfully kind? He's so beautiful? He's — yeah." Well, that lasts.
Christians, or those who want to become Christians, they think of the Christian life and they say, "Ah, the Christian life — you know, it's like, you drive on the highway and you go into the ditch, and God brings you back on the road, and your can of juice stays there and you can still drink. Oh, it's wonderful. Wonderful. Beautiful." Oh yeah? And then you have this tumor under the arm and — what? God just takes away the tumor and look at you, you can carry on again. That true in my experience? That's a good question. Why isn't it true in your experience? My car hit the tree and it didn't miss the tree — would have been nice if it happened to miss it, or that somehow the tree got removed in just the right time. But unfortunately, I had to get another car. Where was God when my car hit the tree? I had other physical problems and God didn't deal with those. Right?
You see, there is the union of wills in marriage, and that is where the whole problem is — the union of wills. That is the most difficult of all things. Now, if the union of wills of two people's wills was perfect, you would have heaven on earth. There would be no problem whatsoever. The difficulty that is produced in marriage is the conflict of wills. That is why marriages go to pieces. How often when we counsel people in marriage, the husband says, "Yeah, but she is my wife and I have the right to this and I have the right to that, and I demand this and that." And the wife makes the same demands, and everybody is standing firm on their own demands. What you have is a terrible conflict of wills, and that is what causes what should have been a dream-like marriage to fall apart into battlefield situations.
The same applies in our relationship with God. God's will and our will — and this is the key of all things you have got to understand in the Christian life. If you don't understand this in the Christian life, you have understood nothing in the Christian life. The Christian life is a matter of God's will and our will. If you want to experience God, you can experience Him either positively or negatively. You have your choice, just like in the relationship with two people — you can experience each other positively or negatively.
Two friends, if you decide to oppose one another, your friendship will fall apart and there will be tension and bitterness. If however there is a union of wills — some of us have had these kinds of wonderful friendships that somehow we click with one another, isn't it? We understand one another. Words don't have to be spoken. A movement of the eye, not of the head — you understand. Perfect. There is the intermeshing of wills in perfect harmony, and that kind of friendship is what the Scripture even describes as the friendship of David and Jonathan. Beautiful, beautiful. There is no conflict in it. I have had such friends in which — well, it doesn't mean we agree in everything, but even in disagreement there is no conflict. That is the beauty of it.
Now, most relationships are not of that kind. There is conflict of wills, and the result is the experience that you get is negative — negative experience. Now, most Christians have a lot of experience of God — you'd be surprised! Of course, it's negative experience that you have, and that's the kind of experience you don't count as experience of God. But it is experience of God. Our Christian life actually began with a negative experience of God. Do you remember what it was? If you are not a Christian, of course you would know, but if you are a Christian you would know. What does it say in John 16? It says this: that the Spirit will convict of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Your first experience of God on the way to regeneration is negative — is God convicting you of sin. His will clashes with your will and says, "You will not enter into life and not enter into relationship with Me until the sin in your life is dealt with."
Sin, righteousness, and judgment are not three different things. They are simply three different aspects of the one thing. When you are convicted of sin, your righteousness falls apart and God's righteousness comes into view, and with it comes into view also God's judgment in His attitude towards sin. That is a very negative experience. I have seen people coming to God who fall down on their faces and they will cry, they will weep, they will howl before the Lord as they are coming under conviction of sin. I've known one person who cried for hours — my roommate — he wept and he wept and he wept over sin. Such was the powerful conviction of sin he came under. That is an experience of God. It is the experience of God that brings newness of life. That experience of God is transforming.
Negative experiences of God, in fact, are more significant in their inner work, in the inner workings of the heart, than positive ones. I can tell you, of course, of God protecting me on the highway. It is significant; it brings thanksgiving to my heart. But the negative experiences that I have are ones that work deeper transforming results in my life. Of course, many experiences of God begin with a negative thing and then are transformed into positive when your will then harmonizes with God's will. So when God's Holy Spirit convicts you of sin in this powerful but fearful negative experience, and you repent of sin, what comes then is a positive experience. You are granted an experience of forgiveness, of peace, of renewal, of transformation, and an experience of God that is amazing. I have sometimes experienced the presence of God so profound and so powerful that it seemed I could reach out my hand and touch Him, that close. But most of these experiences begin with a negative, and then when your will is submitted to His, there comes the positive experience.
Now that is the first thing I want to share with you today. If you want to experience God, you must understand this principle of the disharmony versus the harmony of wills. For those who walk in harmony with God, whose wills are subject to God, who have yielded their lives to God — as in John 7, verse 17: "If any man's will is to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, he shall know whether I speak the truth or not." You see, there is the harmony of wills: "If any man's will is to do His will." You subject your will to His, then and only then will you experience God. People say, "When I have experienced God, I'm going to believe in Him." Well, I can say bye-bye to you now — it'll never happen. If you want God to submit His credentials to you first for your approval before you believe in Him, God isn't going to do it that way. You do things on His terms, His will, not on your terms, your will. Either His terms or not at all. You subject your will to Him and He will do His part. That is faith. If you see first and then you believe, you don't need faith. That believing is no longer faith. What is seen requires no faith.
In Mark chapter 16 and verse 17, it says that signs followed those who believe — followed, not preceded. In my walking with God through all these years, I have seen the truth of this principle. God's signs follow when you are in the line of duty, when you are serving God. I wasn't driving between Montreal and Toronto for fun. It was in the line of duty. He then protects you; He then watches over you. My whole life is in the line of duty, and then God does what He does to look after His servants.
Our time is gone, but I just want to share with you this vital principle. You want to experience God, and the secret lies in this: you must be willing to submit your will totally to His, to let your will harmonize with His — which is more difficult, in a way, than the harmonizing of two human wills. You see, you and I, we are sinners. We are self-centered people. We have more in common with one another than we have in common with God. His will is totally unlike ours. Our wills are very similar to one another. If we have difficulty harmonizing with one another when our wills are pretty similar — and sometimes, of course, non-Christians can have wonderful friendships with one another in the similarity of their wills — they share the same goals, they even share the same selfishness, and it works out fine. You know, there's honor among thieves. We aim to do the same things together, rob the same bank, you know, we share 50-50. Our wills can harmonize very well in this way.
But our wills are totally different from God's will, and there is where the harmony is much more difficult. That's why we must submit our wills. With human beings, it may not be a question of submitting one's will to another because the wills are so similar, there isn't very much to submit to. But with God, His will must prevail — to change us from our self-centeredness, our greed, our sinfulness, to His perfect and holy will.
Now, the point I'm sharing with you today has much more importance than I can mention in the brief time we have together, because there is a tendency sweeping through the churches today which has been going on for quite a long time — to seek experiences from God. The charismatic movement has been in progress for quite some time, and there is the desire to experience God, whether it is in speaking in tongues, healing, which is now a great fad going on at the moment. I think I'm not wrong to call it a fad, but I will take time to prove my point here — the notion that when people can experience God even at second hand, seeing somebody else healed, it enables us to believe, doesn't it? Doesn't. You have to understand that the problem lies with the will.
When a person does not want to believe, you can present all the evidence available and he will still not believe. Believing has to do with the will. I have read so many documented cases of healing with medical records to back it up — and I tell you, I'm not talking about one or two. I looked at stacks of these things, without exaggeration, where people have been healed of every conceivable disease. And I myself have been used by the Lord to heal as well, but I will not speak about myself. I will talk about those with all these records. There, you would think that if you want to knock down argument and anyone who is impartial to evidence, you place the evidence there and say, "Look at it, look at it, with these amazing things here." And now you wouldn't need to do anymore — the whole world would believe. The fact is, they can read all this and they will not believe. They could not refute the evidence; they will still not believe. It is a matter of the will.
That is what the Lord Jesus made so clear in Luke chapter 16, the last two verses, for example, where you remember that the rich man who had ended up in Hades, who refused to give food to poor Lazarus, and he said to Abraham, he said, "Look, let me go back to my brothers. Let me go back to life on earth and I will make them believe. I will convince them of the truth of God." And what did Abraham say? "Oh no. If they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they will not believe even if the dead rises again." They will not believe. That's true. It's true. You see, it has to do with the will. A person who will not believe the word of God as spoken by His servants will not believe even evidence before their eyes. It is simply the reality of the matter.
And that kind of evidence is available, as I said. The medical records are there to back it up. I have challenged people before. I have mentioned in one message, for example, numerous cases of people who are dead and came back to life with medical evidence to back it up. And I have challenged people — go there, because those people are still there who were dead and are alive, and talk to them face to face if you want to experience the reality, and interview them personally. "Did you die?" "Yes." "And you came back to life?" "Yes." "Can I look at the medical records?" "Yes." Would you then believe? No, you wouldn't even bother to go. Nobody took me up on my offer. Anybody here would like to take me up on my offer? You see, you in your own heart know that even if it's true that he died and he rose again, that God raised him up and the medical evidence proves it, you still wouldn't believe. See, and the Lord Jesus knew it right away. He said, "You wouldn't believe." It is a matter of the will. And yet there are people who say, "Let the mosquito drop dead in front of me and I believe." You must be kidding yourself. Does anybody?
So there it is, my dear brothers and sisters. I think our time is gone. I have to close here. I hope you understand the central message. What we need today is not some more experience of this and that wonder happening — though of course these things will happen, and as I said, I am the last person to deny it. I am the one who has experienced a great many of these things. But I also know that it has to do with the fundamental question of the Christian life: am I prepared to so let my will harmonize with God, and let that harmony become ever more perfect. And let me assure you, when that happens — when that happens — you will experience wonders. And at that time, moment by moment, He continues to do amazing things, and I just worship Him from the depth of my heart. And I just wish that every one of you could experience Him. But the pathway to it, I stress again, is a costly one. It is the one of total harmony of wills — yours with His. Let us pray.