Last Sunday I shared with you on the subject of experiencing God, and I'm very glad to hear during the communion that the Lord is working in your midst, and someone actually did experience the Lord's dealings, and it's a great beginning. The sister shared about having a boil, and it worried her a great deal, and Monday being a holiday, no doctors were available. So she had no choice but to trust the Lord, and then to experience the Lord's gracious working in her life. Now that's a great beginning, to experience God.
Sometimes I look around the church, and I look at people, and something seems to be missing. Maybe you know in your own life that something is missing. Missing is that there seems to be a lack of, what shall we say, a lack of enthusiasm. A lack of fire. There is a sort of lack of spark in the eye. How else can we put it? Something is missing. And maybe you came to church hoping that you're going to get something. Well, you won't be disappointed if your heart is open to the Lord. But I don't see how it is possible for anyone to get a spark in their hearts, and in their eyes, unless they have experienced the Lord in some way.
Why do we talk about experiencing the Lord? What's important about that? Well, how else do you know that God is real? How else do you know that what the Scripture says is true? Do we believe in the Bible because that is God's word? And if somebody asks us, how do you know it's God's word? Well, God said so. Where did he say so? In his word. So you know God's word is God's word because God's word said so. In philosophy, this type of reasoning is called a tautology, which is simply repeating the same thing over again without having said anything new.
You see, if we believe in God because the Bible tells us to believe in God, and we believe in the Bible because God tells us to believe in the Bible, then the Bible is telling us to believe in God, and God tells us to believe in the Bible. They both come from the Bible. On what then does your conviction rest? How do you know that this is the word of God? You must first know it's the word of God before you're willing to accept that God has spoken to us in it. How is this Bible reliable? How do I know it's true? Or am I reading fairy tales here? Wonderful stories, inspiring, just like Reader's Digest. Reader's Digest is written to inspire people, you know, give them some spark. And the only stories in Reader's Digest you'll particularly appreciate are the ones that say "true story," real life drama. You know, this is real. This is not fiction. But how do you know the Bible is real? If you don't experience it to be true, you might as well be reading a fairy tale. You might as well be reading a storybook.
You know, Melbourne has a great map book called Melways. So, when Helen and I come to Melbourne, it's very simple. All people have to do, as the co-workers did, is give me a copy of Melways. Here is the map of Melbourne. Ah, beautiful colors, wonderful print in here. Now, we need that, and with that we can go all over Melbourne. You see, so my wife is studying Melways. She has become an ardent student of this book. So, when we need to go from where we are staying to the team's place, no problem, you see. She sits there and tells me, "Here we turn left, now we turn right, we go forward, another few lights, we're going to turn left."
How do we know that Melways is right anyway? Well, I know it's right because I finally do arrive at Byron Street, and not at the other end of town. Now, if I fail to arrive at Byron Street, there are two possibilities. Either my wife doesn't know how to read a map, which of course is a possibility, and the other thing is that Melways is wrong. One or the other has to be wrong if I don't arrive at Byron Street. But, when I do arrive at Byron Street, the wonderful thing is I discover my wife knows how to read a map. And, even more importantly, the map is right. I got to this little road, in this big city of Melbourne, without missing it. I zeroed in with the accuracy of a missile onto Byron Street, thanks to Melways.
Likewise, how do I know this is right? Well, we have both the same two problems. Either you don't know how to read the Bible, which is also a great possibility, or the Bible might be wrong. How do you know it's true? Well, just like Melways, read it and follow the instructions. If the instructions prove to be wrong, maybe it's wrong. I see no value in blind belief. Do you? Do we become Christians simply because somebody else told us the Bible is true? We don't know why, but my friend, he usually doesn't tell lies. So, if he says the Bible is true, maybe it's true. But maybe he, even in good intention, is wrong. I believe in the Bible maybe because my pastor said it's quite a good book to read. What about if my pastor is wrong?
In other words, as long as your faith is secondhand, you believe because somebody else told you, it's okay, just go buy the book. But can that bring conviction? Can you speak of it with zeal? Does it give you any excitement? But if you have put it into practice, and you find it's true, then there is a spark in the eye. This really works. You can really get to where you want to go, and to more important places than even Byron Street is. You follow the instructions. I wonder how you look at the Bible.
Some people go to theological seminary, and they regard this as a book of doctrines. You study this doctrine, and that doctrine comes under the term of systematic theology. Quite an impressive term. We like words like "systematic," and the long word like "theology" that you stumble your tongue over. Systematic theology, sounds good to me. But systematic theology is not going to get you to where you want to go, if where you want to go is to God. It tells you lots of important things. I don't deny that. I spent enough time with that myself. But to me, the Bible is not a book about systematic theology. The Bible is a guidebook in life that tells me how I come to God.
"I am the way." The Lord Jesus says we need a way. We need to have a direction. We need to know where to go. But the all-important question is, is this the right way? And how do I know it is? Now sometimes people are very good intentioned. I sometimes travel widely, and I go to various places, and I ask the way, "How do I go to such and such a place?" And he says, "Okay, now what you do is you turn left, and after three rows you turn right, and then after another two turns you turn left." And then, at the end of this, you say, "What did he say? I can't remember this anymore. I can't find it, it's too complicated." Have you been to a Bible study, and you've been given so many instructions, at the end you said, "I can't remember what he said. How do I go anywhere?" Well, that's the same problem here. We must have clear instructions, and the Bible is very, very clear. And if we follow those instructions, we will find out for ourselves whether the word of God is true or false.
What I'm driving at through these messages, last week and this, is I would like to have a church full of people who are firsthand people, people who have firsthand experience of God. When people talk to you of this kind, there is a spark, there is a dynamic. "I know whom I have believed." When I was a young Christian, what made a deep impression upon me was meeting a servant of the Lord called Brother Yang, in China. And he was full of the experiences of the Lord. And he could share with me, not one instance, not two, but he could go on for hours, telling me of the things that the Lord has done in his life, giving me one example after another of what the Lord has done. And he got more and more excited as he went on sharing.
You see, the Bible has called us to be witnesses. We speak about witnessing for Christ. What have you got to witness when you haven't got any firsthand experience? Anybody knows in a court of law that you cannot be a witness unless you are, in fact, a firsthand witness. That is, you are an eyewitness, you saw what happened. You can't be a witness about an accident when you haven't even seen it. You don't go to the court and say, "I heard on the radio that this is what happened." You can't be a witness like this. You have to have been on the scene, you've seen it, and then your witness is valuable.
But most Christians, when they talk about Christ to other people, "My uncle said this, and my brother had this experience, you know, and my sister, she had this remarkable experience." And what about you? "Me? Well, I'm just reporting their experiences." Well, you're a news reporter, but you're not a witness. If you want to be a witness, you must have experienced the Lord himself. Now, I am not preaching an experience-centered message. The center of our message is Christ. I'm speaking though, that Christ cannot be real to us, and we cannot be witnesses to him, unless we have experienced him, either deeply in our lives, as well as in the events round about us.
Now, what I find remarkable is that so few people have much to witness to about the Lord. And that's very disturbing to me in a church. Often, when it comes to sharing at the communion, or sharing at prayer time, you'll notice that many people have difficulty sharing a firsthand experience. That's why I was very encouraged to hear sister share about her experience with a boil, and others who have experienced the Lord's dealings with them personally. But often, there isn't anything to share on a firsthand basis. That's very disturbing.
I call the Bible, I call this a manual of action. The Bible is very exciting to me because it is a manual of action. Now, you know what a manual is. A manual is something that tells you how to do things, or what things you should do. A car maintenance manual tells you the things you need to do to maintain the car in good condition. And some of us who are used to driving old cars, we find that these manuals are very important, so that we know what are the things we need to attend to in the car. If we follow this instruction step by step, we can do a lot of things. We can fix all kinds of problems in the car. We can change the radiator, we can change the water pump, we can change all kinds of things. We can even give it a tune up, we can keep the car in ship shape, and so on. A manual is very important. That's what the Bible is: a manual of spiritual action.
Now, action, of course, is what leads to experience. You don't experience anything by sitting in an armchair and gazing at the ceiling. Unless, of course, a fly happens to land on your nose, and then you have the annoying experience of driving the fly away. But you don't have any profound experience by sitting there doing nothing. When you go out to do something, then you begin to experience things. This is the reason why missions are so important, and why in our IT training nowadays, we incorporate a mission project in it. The idea is to put into practice the things you learn so that you can experience the Lord.
Every time we go on mission, because we are in action, we experience the Lord's amazing doings. It is quite remarkable. Sometimes I go out with a team, and take a team along, sometimes into China, or some other place. It's amazing how you constantly experience the Lord. You are startled by what the Lord will do, how he protects you, how he moves ahead of you. But when you sit at home, much of the time, nothing happens. That's why I have said the other day, that sometimes you can experience the Lord more, sometimes even in four days of mission, when you are serving the Lord in an active way, than four years sitting at home doing nothing. Manual of action.
Now, the Bible is full of instructions. If you want to experience the Lord, look again at the Bible. It isn't a piece of literature to read. Everything is action. Look at the Sermon on the Mount. Look at the instructions the Lord gives. Put it into practice, and you are going to experience the Lord. I keep on experiencing the Lord precisely for this reason: that for me, the Bible is a book of action, which tells me what I am to do every day. It challenges me, and sometimes it's way beyond what I can manage. But by the grace of God, I say, "I will try, and let him enable me, with all my weaknesses, to do it."
You thought of such a thing as turning the other cheek? It's contrary to my nature. I don't turn the other cheek to anybody. I mean, you give me one hit on this side, I give you two back. I always give back with interest. You know, you give me three, I give you six. So, I turn the other cheek? No, no. So the manual of action is, the Lord is saying, try it and see what the Lord will do. See what the Lord will do. Oh, that's difficult. Alright, I take the challenge, I try. And then the Lord does amazing things. The other person has changed, the other person is transformed. Physically, I might have knocked him down. I win the fight, I lose a man. But turning the other cheek, I lose a fight, and I won the man. He becomes a friend thereafter, forever.
Now, if you go on through the Scriptures in this way, you will find so many things to do. And if you kept busy with the Scripture, I think you'll be so busy you've got no time to do anything else. You'll become, you know what you'll become? A full-time Christian. Not necessarily a full-time worker, but a full-time Christian. And I don't know how many full-time Christians there are around. We've got lots of Christians who are Christians on Sunday, or part of Sunday anyway. The rest of the week, they are something else. On Sunday, they put on their Sunday clothes, and they come to church, and for one day, they are Christians. But a full-time Christian is a person who looks at the Bible: "What's there for me to do today?" Hmm, okay. You flip anywhere, open the Bible, and see if there isn't something that you've got to do. If you try reading the Bible this way, you're going to find your life is going to get very challenging, very exciting.
A few days ago, I shared about our projects that we have in our church. I tried to share the vision that we have. The three main areas of outreach: reaching out to the Muslim world, over one billion people; to the Hindu subcontinent, one billion people; and to China, almost 1.3 billion people. How can a church with a few hundred people, a thousand people, reach three billion people? I mean, this is a pipe dream. This is ridiculous. But that's what the Christian life is about: try the impossible, ask for the impossible, do the impossible.
That is where faith comes in. If you do what is possible, who needs faith? When you do what is impossible, then you need faith. And what is a Christian who doesn't have faith? It's interesting that we like to define faith as something in the past. That is, you believe what happened before. You believe that Jesus died. Good, that's good, except that's in the past. The past is important. But is that saving faith? Saving faith has only to do with the past? Not as I read it in the Bible. When the Lord Jesus speaks about faith, he says what? He said, take on the impossible. "All things are possible to them that" what? "That believe." Faith has to do with the impossible. And the impossible is what is in front. Our faith must stretch from the past into the future. If you believe only in the past, you only have half of faith. I doubt if half of faith is going to save you, not at least what I see in the Bible. Faith has to do with the future.
I would like to see a church that gets not only other Christians excited, but the whole world excited, because they take on the impossible. I wondered what those sitting here on Thursday were thinking when I was talking about three billion people to reach. I said, this guy is a dreamer. Look around you. How many people have we got? We're going to reach three billion people? I guess 2,000 years ago, when the 12 apostles set out to conquer the world, I guess the people in Jerusalem thought, "These are not cases." I mean, with 12 people and a few other disciples, I mean, maybe 120, maybe a few hundred. They want to conquer the world? They're out of their minds. Well, within less than two or three centuries, they conquered even the mighty superpower of the Roman Empire, when the Emperor Constantine surrendered the Roman Empire to the church. Superpower. There was only one superpower in the world of that time, and that was Rome. There wasn't any other superpower. Nobody else could challenge the might of Rome. The feeble Christians did the impossible. They challenged, and they won.
Where is our faith? Where is the faith? We are saved by faith, indeed. What kind of faith? The faith that only hangs on to the past, which costs you absolutely nothing and gives you no experience of the reality? Or a faith that translates into action into the future? The Christ who died on the cross is the Christ who rose again, the Christ who reigns. Do you know only the one who still hangs on the cross? Or do you know him who rose from the dead and lives today, and reigns into the future? As the Scripture says, where does it say? 1 Corinthians 15, he reigns into the world, that everything will be subject to him. Everything will come under his lordship. He must reign. Now, he must reign until everything is subject to him. That is a different kind of Christianity than what we are used to.
I am saying to you, the challenge of my message to you, the challenge indeed of the word of God is: Do you, or don't you, want to know that God is real? Are you satisfied with a Christianity that is a list of propositions? "I believe one, I believe two, I believe three, four, five," and then finish. That's it. I have the whole creed, and I am in order now. Or are you one who lives by the book, and every day as you live it, you experience God's reality? And then you can witness for him. And when you witness for him, there is a sparkle in your eye. There is an excitement in your heart. It is truly wonderful.
And then finally, you can say with Paul, "I know whom I have believed." Not just "I believe whom I believe." That is tautology. Tautology is simply repeating the same word. "I believe what I believe." Whether it's right or wrong, I don't know, but I believe it anyway. But when I say, "I know what I believe," "I know whom I have believed," I am speaking — the word "know" is experience. I know the reality of it. We need a church like this, brothers and sisters. We don't need a church full of people who just want to believe the right doctrines. And it's good to believe the right doctrines. But we need dynamic in this age. We are fast running out of time. We are approaching the year 2000, and who knows when the Lord is coming. And his coming may be sooner than we think.
We are running out of time. And I look around in the church and people are full of problems. "I got this problem and I got this other problem." And all these inward-looking people occupied with their never-ending problems, bound to themselves, enslaved to their own difficulties. What wretched people that Christians have become. God wants to set us free from ourselves. How? By knowing that he is real. And how can we know that he is real? Here it is. Open your manual. Wherever. Flip it open wherever you like. Anywhere in the New Testament you like. Flip it open. It doesn't matter where. If you like to play games, move your finger around and boom, put it there and look what you got. Never mind. You'd be surprised. Oh, that's what I have to do? Oh, too difficult. Switch another one. Another one. This one is still too difficult. Let's try another passage. Well, then you'll know what I'm saying. I'm saying.
# Experiencing God (Part 2) - Continued
Put it away. Forget it. Go occupy yourself with gardening. Always whatever it is that interests you. Unfortunately, those things will not have any eternal meaning. But I have always said, either God is true or he's false. If he is false, let there not be a Christian in the church. We don't need people who believe in what is false. I follow God because he's true. And if you ask, how do you know he's true? I can tell you where you would like me to begin. I can begin from the beginning. And you will sit there till tomorrow morning and I haven't finished telling you yet why I know God is true. And you will say, "Wow, yeah, that is really something."
Last week I also said most Christians do have experience of spiritual things, but unfortunately, their experience is of the negative kind. You know the kind that you're used to already. You did something wrong and your conscience bothers you. And the Holy Spirit is convicting you. And you feel that you are being nagged to death by the Holy Spirit. "Oh, I can't do anything right. I did it — no, that's wrong. And I said the wrong word today. I have to confess again." And all day long is a matter of confession. "Lord, I'm sorry I did this wrong. Lord, I'm sorry I did that wrong." Why is the Christian life nothing but this kind of negative experience?
But you know that God, like a good parent, is saying to the little child, "No, don't touch. No, don't go there." It's no this, no that, no everything. Oh, they don't know. So the Christian life is "no, no, no, no." And many people's concept of the Christian life is just like that. They grow up with the "no" Christianity, the negative Christianity. You're not allowed to smoke. You're not allowed to drink. You're not allowed to — what — wear a bright tie. You're not allowed to wear short skirts. You're not allowed to wear fancy shoes. You mustn't put any makeup on your face — very unspiritual. You must not use any perfume, also, especially not expensive perfume. And you must not put fancy decorations on yourself so that you look like a Christmas tree. You're not allowed to do lots of things. Oh, this Christian life. What are you allowed to do anyway in the end?
I remember a friend of mine became a Christian. And somebody said to me, "What's happened with this guy? Since he became a Christian, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he doesn't do this, he doesn't do that, he doesn't do anything. What does he do?" I said, what kind of an impression of being a Christian has this fellow given? If we're going to witness for the Lord, the only witness we gave is that we are a very burdened and enslaved people, not allowed to do anything.
He asked me, "Are you allowed to smoke?" I said, "Yeah." He looked like, "What?" "Yeah. Why not? But I don't like to smoke. It's not good for my health." "Oh." I said, "That's right." "Are you allowed to drink?" "Yeah." "Oh, yeah? You allowed to drink? Why does he drink?" I said, "Well, maybe he doesn't like to drink. I don't know. But, of course, we don't want to get drunk, do we? But who said we can't drink?" "You mean Christians are free?" "What about lipstick? You can put on lipstick?" "Well," I said, "I don't put on lipstick." "No, I mean the sister." "Oh, the sister. Well, she can put on lipstick if she likes. It's up to her." "Oh, really? Wow, you're very broad-minded." I said, "Why should I be broad-minded? I didn't see in the Scripture you're not allowed to put on lipstick, unless I've missed something in this manual of action somewhere." "Oh." So, you're a free man. Of course I'm free. But I don't use my liberty in such a way that harms myself and harms other people. You're free to do anything you like, provided it harms neither yourself nor anybody else. But that is liberty. What is liberty? Liberty doesn't mean I go out to shoot people.
So, we give so much the negative Christianity, isn't it? It's so negative. It's so boring. So uninteresting. Who gets excited with this kind of Christianity? But so much of the Christian life is like that. But the Lord can change the negative to the positive. What is the positive? The positive, of course, is to experience the mighty things of the Lord's work in our lives. It gets you so excited. I can tell you stories about what the Lord has done that will really make you sit on the edge of your seat. Yeah? And I'm not kidding. I think I've shared many things. But what you have heard me share is just the drop in the bucket. God is so exciting. Does that sound unspiritual to say that God is exciting? Why? He is exciting. That's the truth of the matter.
We need a church with some dynamic in it. I would like to see young people in the church do great things for God. I would like to take them on a mission to India, to Nepal, to places in China, to see how Christians worship, to see the things that happen there. Wonderful. Wonderful things.
Well, what must we do? What can I say to you that will really get your heart on fire? Now, I don't want to give you the impression that all this is very easy and very cheap. It isn't. That's why last week I also said I spoke something about the union of wills. And that sounded a little mystical to you, perhaps. What does it mean? It simply means this: this book, which I have called the Manual of Action, is all about the will of God. It's all about his will. Every page tells us something about his will. And union of wills means that I, of my own will, choose to do his will. I accept his will and I do his will. And that is the union of wills. When he says, "Go and preach the gospel to every creature," I say, "Yes, Lord, I will go and preach the gospel to every creature." You say, "Wait a minute. Every creature? We're talking about five billion people and I'm only one of me." That's all right. We make a start. You preach to one other person, you've already made a start.
I've always made it my point to let my will be conformed to his will, to do his will. And that's what it says in John chapter 7, verse 17: "If any man's will is to do his will, he will know whether I speak from God, whether I speak the truth, or whether I speak some teaching of my own." Do we want to know? You see, that leads us immediately to experience. If you will today, and say to the Lord, "All right, you have revealed your will here to me, I will do it," I promise you, you will experience God. And you will know for yourself whether this is truth. And then there will be the fire and the dynamic. And if I say to you, "Hey, come with me to India." "Oh, India? Why India?" "Because they need the gospel. And that's the way the Lord is leading. You are going to experience God."
Years ago, I had a friend in London. And he was a good Christian, brought up in the Brethren church. You know the Brethren? They are people who are very serious Christians. And I felt the Lord speaking to me to bring the gospel to Ireland. I had this — you know, when the Spirit of the Lord leads you, when your will is to do his will, you are going to know what I am saying is not mysterious at all. You are going to experience it for yourself. And you will feel your heart being pulled in a certain direction. And the Lord was pulling me towards Ireland. And I don't know why, but I had this concern to bring the gospel to Ireland. I was in London, in England at the time. And that means going all the way across England and across the water into Ireland.
So I said to my friend, "I'm going to Ireland to preach the gospel. Would you like to come with me?" He looked stunned. "Ireland? Ireland?" I might as well have said I was going to the moon, because he looked so surprised. He said, "That's a long way away." I said, "Yeah. You have a motorcycle, don't you?" "Yeah, I have a motorcycle." "You get on your motorcycle, I get on my motorcycle, and we go to Ireland." "Motorcycle to Ireland?" He said, "Oh, this is so far away." So, what's the problem? He was used to only running around London on his motorcycle. And going across the country seemed to be exhausting — right across England, across Wales, and then into Ireland. I said to him, "You go and pray about it, and I'll talk to you in a few days' time." A few days later, he said to me, "I'm going to Ireland with you." I said, "Yeah, I knew you were coming." He said, "You knew?" I said, "Yeah." "Oh." He said, "How come?" I said, "Well, the Lord was telling me a few things about this."
So, he went with me to Ireland. He had been a Christian who grew up in the church all his life. And you know, he never experienced the Lord. To him, the Lord is somebody you believe in. That's all. You just believe in him. People tell you, "I believe, believe, believe." "Do you know he's real?" "Well, I believe in him." "I didn't ask you whether. Do you know he's real?" "Ah, well."
So, to Ireland we go. In three weeks, his life was totally changed. He experienced God day after day after day. He was shattered. He was — I think the word "shattered" is not too strong. When we finished our mission in Ireland after three weeks, we got on the boat in Ireland, the boat crossing over to Wales. He said to me, "Brother, can we just stand here on the deck of the ship and give thanks to God?" I said, "For what?" He said, "For all the things the Lord has revealed to us along this trip." His life was totally transformed. You see, for me, I had been experiencing the Lord for years, so nothing of it surprised me. I thanked the Lord for it. But for him, this was a revolution. He had never seen the reality of God in this way. He was simply stunned. God is so real. He was shocked.
And then, you know what? Manual of action. He decided from now on, "I do God's will. No more my own will. God's will." And God has some exciting things to do with him. You dare to let God do something with your life? You think about it. Maybe most people are not very exciting Christians because they are just chicken. I don't know if that's the expression here. They have no courage. They dare not see what God is going to do with their lives. Yes.
This friend, this dear friend of mine, he was from a very poor family. He could not afford an education. His father was killed in Singapore by the Japanese during the war. He grew up without knowing his father. His father was a Red Cross worker who was dragged out of a car when he was carrying out a mercy mission and shot by the Japanese. He never knew his father. His mother had to bring him up and struggled to survive in those very difficult years, both during the war and after the war, when he was very small. And so, though he was quite bright, he couldn't afford an education, so he was working in a wind tunnel establishment. You know what a wind tunnel is? It's a research facility in which you test the aerodynamics of wings and aircraft and things of this kind. And he was just a technician setting up these experiments.
So, after the return from Ireland, he said, "Yeah, the Lord is real. I'm going to follow the Lord." He said, "What should I do?" I said, "Well, you just attend carefully to what the Lord wants you to do. He's going to tell you." He said, "Really?" I said, "Yeah, just listen." And one day he came to me. He said, "You know what? The Lord wants me to go to university." I said, "Oh yeah, good. And the trouble is, I've not done any of the entrance exams. No A-levels, no O-levels. How am I going to go to university? And I have no money to study any of these." I said, "Okay, do the impossible." He said, "What's that?" I said, "You just look to the Lord, open the books, read it, take the exam." He said, "What? People spend a couple of years on O-levels, several more years on A-levels." Do they do O and A-levels here? No? No. Maybe it's just university entrance exams.
So, he took the exams. His results were not very good, but he passed anyway. But the Lord was beginning to move him. The amazing thing is that he even passed the exams. That's the amazing thing. And then, he began to learn to follow the will of the Lord. What the Lord wills, he will do. And he was learning to be sensitive to the will of the Lord. So, having passed his university entrance exams, he went in London to a college of the University of London that I hadn't heard of. I don't even remember what it's called. I didn't even know such a college existed in the university. And he applied there to be accepted. The reason he applied to this unheard-of college is because he dare not go to one of the big colleges like University College or King's College. He had to go to some unheard-of college hoping that there would be not so much competition to get in. And he was rejected.
And he came home the day after the interview when he was told he was rejected. And he came home smiling, beaming. Oh, I said, "You've been accepted?" He said, "No, I've been rejected." I said, "Then why are you looking so happy?" He said, "Because I know God is going to do something." I said, "Wow, he's learning fast. He is really learning fast." So, I said, "What do you think God is going to do?" He said, "This is what I see. If God doesn't want me to go into the smallest and most unknown college in this university, it means he wants me to go to the best." I said to him, "That's good thinking. Very good." Finally, he knows what faith is, to take the challenge of the impossible.
And where did he go? He went to Imperial College. Now, some of you may have heard of Imperial College London. Anyone who does science will know Imperial College London. It's equivalent to MIT in the United States. So, there he goes. And he was later on joking about it, because they were all queuing up for interviews and he was queuing up for the engineering department. And he said, "I peeked over the shoulder of the guy in front of me to look at his university entrance examination results. A, A, A, A, A, A, A." He thought, "I look at the guy at the back. A, A, A, A." Only people with A's are there to apply to Imperial, you know. And he looked at his own: C, a D, E, C — hardly a B anywhere to be seen. And he thought, "I'm in the wrong queue. I'm in the wrong place. You know, I'm wasting my time here." But he said, "God can do the impossible." Ah, great. This is so exciting. Isn't the Christian life exciting? This is really something.
So he stuck it out in the queue. A's in front, A's behind, and C's and D's around here. And so the interviewers came by, and I think the interviewer must have thought, "This guy has guts, you know. If for no other reason we have to accept this guy, it's because he's got guts. He dares to stand in this queue." And you know what? He was accepted. And he doesn't know why. So that's why I'm saying maybe he got accepted simply because he had the courage to stand there.
Well, he graduated, and not too badly, with second-class honors. It was not too bad. But when he completed his studies, I said to him, "Well, what does the Lord say to you now?" He says, "I'm serving the Lord." I said, "So what happened to your engineering?" He said, "That was just to test me. The Lord gave it to me to see whether I will stand true to his will. And now I'm waiting on his will, and the Lord tells me, go serve him."
You see how it is? His whole life began to change. He began to experience the Lord, and the more he experienced the Lord, the more excited he got, the more wonderful his experiences. He had so many things to share. That mission, only three weeks long, completely turned his life around. Because then he knew that the God he simply believed in — now he knew who that God is. "I know whom I have believed." I'm still in touch with this dear brother. I wish that you could know him.
The union of wills. I will to do his will, no matter what the cost, because the cost in the end is not even worth talking about. Paul said, "I have suffered the loss of all things, and I'm so sorry to have lost it all." Right? Misquotation of Scripture. "I suffered the loss of all things, and I counted as rubbish." I didn't even think I had lost anything. When you lose rubbish, do you think you suffered a loss? No. Paul had a tremendous education, a brilliant mind, dropped the world behind him. He didn't consider it as loss. The loss was about as valuable as the loss of garbage, because what he gained is what mattered.
I wish you could experience the Lord. I wish this whole church would catch fire. People today are seeking experiences of the wrong kind, I have to warn you. Sometimes we want this experience, someone to speak in tongues. I have nothing against tongues. No problem to me. But, the danger with tongues is you don't know whether it's from the Lord or not. Anyone of us who have dealt with tongues knows this. We have co-workers in our teams who speak in tongues, who have had this kind of experience. I have no problem with that. But, it is far better to have a kind of experience that you're sure you have experienced the Lord. That is the really important thing. Don't go for fads. Go for the real thing, the deep walk with God. And that always involves doing his will, day by day. And in the process of that, you will see how real God is.
Our time is fast running out and I must conclude presently with prayer. But, I would like to show you, for example, that particularly in seeking the Lord's will, of course, it involves the matter of prayer. And here, many Christians don't know what to do. How do you pray? Do you have to kneel down, put your hands together, close your eyes, bow your head, and then say the Lord's Prayer? And having said that, you wonder, "Well, what else do I do after that?" Now, when you learn that the whole point is the will of God, it changes the way — not only how you look at the Bible, but the way you pray. Because prayer then becomes simply one question: "What is your will that I may do it?"
You know, Paul learned that secret in his first encounter with the Lord on the Damascus road, in Acts chapter 9, you remember. His first prayer was, "Lord, what do you want me to do?" That is prayer. Prayer in its essence is calling to the Lord to ask him to tell you, "What do you want me to do?" And from then on, he began his Christian life, because when you ask, "What do you want me to do?" you have opened your will to his will. It's not a question of repeating the Lord's Prayer in some artificial mechanical way, or some other thing from the prayer book. It is all the time looking to him for instructions. And when you do this, you begin to listen for the answer. If you keep on talking, you're not going to hear what the Lord says. If you pose a question to him, and then you attend, listen to what he's going to tell you. How does he answer you? I'll leave you to find out for yourself. He has his way of telling you. He talks to different people differently. But prayer is basically then the readiness to do his will.
If you're not willing to do his will, don't bother to pray. I may speak very bluntly. I'm a very blunt preacher, as you know. I don't mess around wasting time with formalities. The fact of the matter is, if you don't wish to do his will, don't bother to pray. God is not your average slot machine, where you want to get a cold drink, you put your five cents in, or whatever it is, you press the button and you get your Coke. He's not there to say, "Protect my dad and my mom and my aunt and myself, and do this and do that for me." He's become better to us than a Filipino maid. He can do everything for us. We hire him so that he can attend to our needs. That is prayer. We turn prayer into a ridiculous thing. No wonder the world says, "What is this Christianity? These people shamelessly want to make use of God." It's time that the world knows we are a people who do his will. And prayer is asking him, "Lord, what do you want me to do?"
And that becomes a mental habit. You learn to think like this all the time. The question is not what I want God to do for me. That is how most Christians think. "I want him to do this and that for me. I want him to help me to pass my exams and get my business going and solve this and that problem." That is prayer? That is an insult to the Lord. He will do all this. Yes, he will do it. But only when we come to him first and say, "Lord, here I am. I am ready to do your will."
Oh, I wish I could tell you more things about the wonder of walking with God. Commun ion with God does not have to be all the time with our eyes closed and on our knees and our hands together. I'll let you close with an illustration of one experience, just to illustrate the fact that the Lord may speak to us when we are not even in prayer.
I always think of that experience I had back in London in my student days. After supper I was relaxing. I was staying in the north part of London in something called the Foreign Missions Club, where poor students like myself were given a special rate and therefore could stay at low cost. And then I had to either cycle or motorcycle from where I was all the way down past central London to my college. And I stayed there for some time. And I remember one evening after supper I was just relaxing, and then after a period of relaxation I thought, "Well, I better get on with some study." And so I was just about to settle into my studies when the Lord said to me, "Get up and go to central London, to the YMCA specifically."
I wasn't praying. I wasn't having a quiet time. I was just relaxing and just about to start my work. And just as I was about to start, the word of the Lord came to me: "Go to central London." I was somewhat surprised by this. I looked at my watch. It seemed to be getting a bit late by this time. I think it was somewhere around — I don't remember exactly the time — maybe half past eight, nine o'clock. And from north London to central London is a long way to go, even on a motorcycle. But the Lord said go, and so off I went.
I went down to central London all the way wondering, "What does the Lord want me to do at this time of the night? What am I supposed to do at the YMCA?" Now our church had its Sunday worship in the YMCA in London at that time. And I knew there were some brothers and sisters living upstairs in the YMCA, so I began to reason to myself, "Maybe some of them are in trouble, they have difficulties, so that's why the Lord is sending me there to help them out." Because when I asked the Lord what I was supposed to do there, I did not get an instruction. But as you learn to walk with the Lord, you will always know that you take one step first and then he tells you the next step. He doesn't tell us everything at the same time. We must learn to follow one step at a time.
So finally I arrived there and was asking the Lord, "So what do you want me to do?" You see, that's the question we must always learn: "What do you want me to do?" I stood there wondering and I thought, maybe he wants me to look up some of those people from the church who — a few brothers upstairs who might have some problems. Some I couldn't find, and the one or two that I found had no problems. So I stood there in the lobby of the YMCA rather puzzled. Kept asking the Lord, "So those people here have no problems. What did you send me here for?"
And as I stood there, my eye looked towards the main entrance into the YMCA, and then suddenly somebody came in through the door and the Lord's voice said, "There is the man. Speak to him." I'd never seen this man before. I don't know who this person is. So I approached him and I said, "Well, can I help you?" And he said yes. And then he asked me some questions. And then I discovered that he was a government official from Taiwan, apparently assigned to some conference in London. And he was in London only for those two or three days, exactly that short time. He had just arrived. He had only another two or three days left in London before he had to go back.
And then, to make the story very short, during that time he came to the Lord, just in that very time. And afterwards he said to me, "It's so amazing. I came all the way from Taiwan here to London, and here I meet you, and the question of the meaning of life, the whole direction of life has been answered, because you came to me at the door and asked me if you could help." And indeed, you see, there is the wonder of walking with God.
And so when you read the Bible, and you read there about Philip, and about the reaching out to the eunuch, doesn't it sound surprising to you, that the Lord sent somebody to meet the eunuch in the desert, and that person turned to the Lord. He was reading Isaiah, he didn't know what it meant, then he was pointed to the Lord. When you have such experiences, and you read the Bible, you know it. You know from your experience, this is true. As I told you, the Bible is true because you experience the same thing yourself. Everything in there is for you to experience, to confirm for yourself the reality of God. It is so wonderful.
I don't want to give you the impression that the Christian life is easy. It isn't. It is tough, and we often have to go through trials and difficulties as our sister Sylvia was sharing today at the communion. And it's amazing that she pointed to the very verse I was going to conclude on today, in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 4, that in all our afflictions, God consoles us, comforts us, so that we ourselves, being comforted, can comfort others. You see, when we are under suffering and affliction, we consider that a negative experience. But I said earlier that God can change the negative experience into a positive one. And then you experience the wonder of God's doing. That is why eventually you are not afraid of any kind of experience. You are not afraid of problems. When they threw Paul into prison, what did he do? He was singing praises in prison. And you know what happened? An earthquake came and shook the whole place apart. Now, earthquakes are not uncommon in that part of the world. The point of the miracle is not that an earthquake appeared in a place which never has an earthquake. But the point of the experience is the timing of the earthquake is when his servant is in prison, and it is used to shake him free.
I want to conclude then. You know that the last time I was here some three years ago, and I went back to Hong Kong, I was very exhausted from not just the trip to Australia but because of the enormous amount of work that has to be attended to. And as our work continues to grow, the number of churches increases and the number of co-workers increases, it means of course that the workload increases. I was very exhausted. And on top of that I had to deal still with almost ongoing consultations and all sorts of problems. And I was exhausted to the point that I was almost not able to function anymore. I was feeling a sense of distress. Feeling — I don't know if you have ever been so tired that your hand shakes, you can't sleep properly anymore — you are really in bad shape. And I was in bad shape, I can tell you.
And one day I felt physically I couldn't go on anymore. I was just unable to cope with the burden of the work. In all our afflictions, will God comfort us? When we are there concerned with only one thing, to do his will, sometimes doing his will can impose such a stress because of the enormous workload — God, we need his comfort. And you know, it's just wonderful how God comforts us. When you read 2 Corinthians 1:4, does it say anything to you? Maybe not much. But if you have experienced what I experienced, then you know what it is.
Well, let me put it as briefly as possible. That day, in my total exhaustion, I knelt before the Lord. I said, "Lord, I can't go on. I'm just too tired and there's still so much work to do. I think I'm falling apart at the rate this thing is going." And then I turned to the word. I turned to the 27th Psalm. "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid?" And I went on looking at this, reading through the psalm and crying out to him. And then I knelt down before the Lord in prayer. And feeling so very weak, I needed strength from him. I needed comfort from him.
As I knelt there, all of a sudden, there was the sound of a mighty rushing wind. I was startled. Suddenly, the sound of the wind. It was so quiet one moment and the next moment there was the sound. Like a storm, a typhoon. And I immediately knew: the Lord is here. He declared the power of his presence, and I tell you, my hair stood on end. That was how remarkable was the experience. As I knelt there, the sound of the wind was so powerful. It was just — literally, the wind was just screaming around the whole place. And yet, nothing in the room moved. That was a remarkable thing. I looked out of the window to look, thinking there must be — you know, everything is flying around, the leaves. I didn't see anything. Nothing was moving. I was puzzled. I wondered, what is going on? And yet, I heard suddenly the bathroom door outside slam with a force — bang — with such a force that it made me jump.
You've all read Acts, of course, that on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit came down and there was the sound of a mighty rushing wind. That is the symbol of the presence of the Lord. This is not the first time I experienced it, but this time, what struck me was the way the Lord answered exactly at that moment. It went on for ten whole minutes. The wind — the sound of the wind was rushing. As I said, nothing in the room moved, but you could hear the sound. It was truly awesome. I'll never forget this all the days of my life, I can tell you.
After ten minutes, as though on signal, it was total silence. Not a sound. It was absolutely silent. I tell you, the tears just ran down my face. I had just prayed to the Lord and asked for his strength, for his help in my weakness. And his answer was: "You are weak. I am strong. Behold my power. I shall lift you up." And I received all the consolation and encouragement I needed. I felt as though I was totally transformed in those ten minutes. I felt simply lifted up by the power of his might, by the greatness of his love.
As I told you, I could go on sharing for hours of the amazing things that the Lord did. But I share with you this because that happened right after my return from Australia. And I was rather exhausted after that trip. But how precious, how wonderful was that experience of the Lord. It is just marvelous to know God, to walk with him, to experience him.
I hope I have said enough to challenge you to turn to this manual of action and live it out. Why be a Christian that is neither here nor there? Why be a Christian that is neither hot nor cold? There is no joy in it for you and there is no joy in it for anybody else. Either go all out or forget the whole thing. Christianity in the Bible is a radical thing. That's why it says there in Revelation chapter 3 to the church of Laodicea, "I wish that either you were boiling hot or that you would be cold." That is, just leave, forget about the whole of Christianity, or else the alternative is go on fire. God cannot stand the lukewarm, the people who go neither here nor there, both this way is no good and that way is no good. But he wants a people that burn with holy fire.
And now today we have the laying on of hands. And this is the word of exhortation I leave with those who will receive the ordination. Because my message is to you as well as to them. My word to them is from Psalm 40 and verse 8: "I delight to do thy will, O God." This is the word I give to those who will receive ordination today. Let this be the motto that will direct all your life from this day forth until you see the Lord's face. "I delight to do your will, O Lord."
Now in the beginning you might not find it so easy to delight in his will. But you aspire to delight in his will. And what does delight mean? It means happiness. It means joy. It is the joy of doing his will. Once you have lost the joy of doing his will, you might as well forget the ministry. There's no point continuing. It becomes a burden that you have to drag around. But when it is a joy, then you will set the people on fire who are under your care. They see that you delight in his will. No matter how difficult that will is, as I said, his grace is sufficient. That mighty rushing wind is the symbol of the greatness of his power. "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." What are the "all things"? The all things of his will, of course. Everything he wants me to do, I can do it, because his power is sufficient.
Psalm 40, verse 8 is quoted in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 7. Which shows that this verse appears then both in the Old and New Testaments. And in the context of those two passages, Psalm 40 and Hebrews 10, it says there, "Sacrifice you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me." And then it goes on to say, "I delight to do your will." Now any of you who know biblical exegesis will realize that these passages lie behind Romans 12:1, to be a living sacrifice. He didn't want the animal sacrifices. What he wanted is the living sacrifice: "A body you have prepared for me. Here I am, living for you." That is the whole secret of the matter. What is it to be a living sacrifice? It is to be somebody committed to doing his will. And that's why Romans 12, verse 2 goes on to say, "So that you may ascertain what the will of the Lord is." If you didn't know that Psalm 40, verse 8 stands behind Romans 12:1 and 2, you wouldn't know the connection. Why one moment he's talking about a living sacrifice, the next moment he's talking about the acceptable will of God? That's the connection. A living sacrifice is to live in such a way that we delight to do his will.
Let us be quiet before God in prayer.