As you may know, we had a camp, going to say summer camp, but in Malaysia it's always summer. We had a camp in Malaysia during Christmas time. And this was on the west coast of Malaysia called Port Dickson. I think those from Malaysia, just Christina, will know Port Dickson very well. And during the time of the camp, I occasionally, when I could find some time, read the newspaper, because I like to keep always up to date with what's going on in the world.
And I read that near Port Dickson, just outside Port Dickson, amidst all the other world news, I saw a very tragic story. And I kept thinking about the tragedy of this story. What was the story? It was a story about a father and a son. And the father is an excavator. He operates a big excavating machine. I think you'll see here, the big thing with a spade going down, digging holes in the ground. He was operating this kind of excavator. And these kind of big excavators, they can dig very deep holes. He was working at the site of a mine.
That day, his son, who was 13 years old, decided perhaps to go and watch his daddy working. Now, in this mining site, clearly there were lots of big holes where they had been digging in the mine. And so, that afternoon, it must have been a very happy afternoon for the boy. He didn't have to go to school. And he could go and play in the site where the mine is and watch his daddy working the big machine.
So as the father was operating this big machine, after lunchtime, he started his work again. And his boy was playing around the site. After a while, and I am trying to reconstruct the story from the newspaper, he must have heard his boy screaming even above the noise of the machine. He realized there must be a big problem. He jumped out of his machine to go in the direction of where the screaming was coming from. And he rushed towards one of the big pits, the holes that the machines had been digging. And this pit was filled with water, because when it rains, the water gets caught in these pits. The newspaper tells us that the water was 13 meters deep. That is, the water is 40 feet deep, much deeper than this building.
As he rushed there, he could see his son was drowning in the pool. He quickly took out the things in his pockets, threw off his watch. He took out his wallet and dove in to save his son.
At home, his wife, the mother of the boy, is waiting. At 6:30 in the evening, father and son had not come home. So they realized something was wrong. And so they informed the police. They rushed to the work site. And they found the big machine was still running. It hadn't been switched off. He had jumped out of the machine so fast, he never thought of stopping the machine. They searched around. Where are they? Eventually, they found the father in the pool. Dead. Gone. He was already dead. Where was the boy? They had to bring in the frogmen, the people who wear tanks and go underwater. There in the deep water below, 35 minutes later, the frogmen found the body of the boy.
What is tragic about this story? Well, you think about it. It was such a happy day. Especially for the boy, 13 years old. He never thought it would end in death. What kind of feelings must have been going through the father's mind as he saw his son drowning down there in a deep pit of water? Looking at the facts, it was clear. Of course, he would do anything, anything to save his boy.
Could the father swim? I really wonder. Maybe he could swim a little bit. Maybe he couldn't swim at all. But in his desperation, he dove into the water. 40 feet deep. In his desperation to save his son, he didn't think whether or not he was able to save his son. He died, and his son died. Of course, we understand the father's heart. He couldn't just stand there and let his son drown. There was nobody else around to help. He couldn't think of anything else to do. So what could he do? He jumped in. In the end, he could neither save his boy nor even save himself.
To save a drowning person, you have to know a bit more than swimming. Because, as you know, when a person is drowning, he grabs everything. He is panicking. And he can easily drown you even if you know how to swim. That's why you have to be trained not only to swim, but you have to be trained to save other people who are drowning. Otherwise, they will drag you down. Sometimes the person who is drowning is in such a panic that the experienced lifesaver will have to knock him out first in order to save him.
When I think of these things, and I thought a lot about this tragic incident, I sometimes think about us as Christians. I think about the churches today. If we ourselves are not even in the state of being saved, how can we save others? I look around among brothers and sisters, so-called, in the churches, and I see many so-called Christians who don't even know what it is to be saved. I blame the church. But I appreciate their heart. They want to go out to evangelize. They want to tell people about what they know of the gospel. They themselves have not even made the choice that means to walk in the way of life, and they want to tell people about the way of life which they don't even know. What's going to be the outcome of all this? In the end, not only are they themselves not saved, they are going to cause other people to be drowned, at least not being able to rescue them from sin.
My heart is filled with compassion and sorrow. I want to tell you the truth. I have no critical feelings towards these people, any more than I have a critical feeling towards this father. He tried to do what he could. And many Christians try what they can. But that does not prevent the end from being disastrous.
I was thinking about this father and the son. If the father had been a little bit more calm and had the presence of mind, instead of doing something he should not do because he couldn't do it, namely to save a drowning man, there was another power that he didn't use. We can say, alright, you are sitting there calmly reading the newspaper, of course you know the answer to the problem. That's true. That's why I said we are not criticizing him. But had he remained calm and thought about it just for a little moment, perhaps he could have saved his son as well.
You see, in the panic, it was too late to make the right decision. You are sitting here calmly in these days in the camp. You have the time to think carefully. Once you go back to your job and to your work and all the pressures are there, you don't have time to think anymore what is proper to do in the circumstances. Even worse, if you leave it to the last moment, you will not be able to make the right decision anymore.
Some people, when I was in Malaysia recently, asked me, what do we do about this particular case? There was a question that was concerning a woman. She had been listening to the gospel, maybe attending some camps like this for at least 12 years. And then, one day, she found she was dying. She hadn't died yet, she was dying. And then, enduring this critical condition, she gained consciousness for a little while. And of course, you see the family members, like the father trying to save the son, rushed to their mother and said, "Please, please, now is the time to make your commitment to the Lord. Now is the time to be saved before it's too late. Do you believe in Jesus? Do you commit your life to Him?" All she did was nod her head.
But they saw that there seemed to be some kind of belief. "If you believe and are baptized, you shall be saved." She sort of believed. She didn't make any confession, she nodded her head. But now she's not baptized. What to do? The Lord said, "If you believe and are baptized, you will be saved." She seems to have believed, but she hasn't been baptized. So they rushed to the pastor of the church. "You know, she believed, but she's not baptized. Can you baptize her?" The pastor said, "She's still alive?" No, she's dead. The pastor said, "You want me to baptize a dead person? Sister, no way. I'm not going to baptize a dead person. I can't baptize a dead person."
"Please, pastor." You see, unless she believes and is baptized, she only got one half, I think she got one half. I don't know about the other half. The pastor said no. "This pastor is unreasonable." Run to the next church. And this is a true story. I'm not making it up. It's really true. They rush to the next church and say, "Pastor, please, please baptize my mother." The pastor said, "She's dead? You want me to baptize a dead person? No way." Oh, please. Mercy. The Bible doesn't teach anything about baptizing a dead person.
And so they rush to another church. Really desperate. And you know what? This pastor agreed to baptize the dead person. I think this must be a record of all time. I've never heard of it. I think he just could not say no to all these begging relatives. So he went to the hospital and put a few drops of water on her head. Maybe the idea was just to comfort the relatives so they stopped crying their eyes out in front of him.
There are two ways. And if you leave it to the end, you will not be able to decide. Someone said to a Jewish rabbi, "Is it alright if I repent of my sins before I die?" The rabbi said, "Oh yes, fine." Then he asked, "So when do you want to repent?" He said, "Well, I just said before I die." And so the rabbi said, "Yes, that means you better repent today." Because you don't know what will happen to you tomorrow, so you better get right with God today. There is wisdom in those words.
There are two things. We all must make a choice, but we also have, as Christians, if we have made that choice, the responsibility to save others. We are not saved just for our own sake. We didn't come to ask this question, "What must I do to have eternal life," just so that I can have eternal life. But it is absolutely clear that you cannot do this unless you yourself have made the choice, unless you clearly understand how to transmit that life to others.
Now, let us come back to this realization that we are in a sad situation in the church today. We remember yesterday we said that the rich young ruler asked the question but he didn't want to hear the answer. The church, we saw, listened to the answer and also didn't like it. They were even more brave, more daring. They decided to change the Lord's answer. Let me say to you that to distort the Lord's teaching intentionally or unintentionally will result in total disaster.
For example, if we simply say that to be saved is a matter of believing in Jesus, which is what the church usually says, that statement, is it true? Is it false? Or is it partially true? As you know, a partial truth is much more dangerous than falsehood. If your son, or your mother, or someone else is dying and said, "What must I do to inherit eternal life," and you say, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved," is that statement true, false, or half-true? It all depends whether you understand what "believe" means. And most Christians don't know what "believe" means.
They don't know how to swim any more than that father knew how to swim when he tried to save his son. They don't know the way to eternal life. They don't know how to inherit eternal life. If you ask them, "Do you believe?" Oh yes, yes, I believe. And since I believe I have eternal life. My friends, it's not that simple. I'm saying this today because you wonder how do you reconcile with the message you have heard with what was said yesterday in the Lord's teaching.
Let me put the question like this. We must think very, very clearly on eternal matters. We must not be like this father who in a panic, in a rush, doesn't know what he is doing. I have discovered in my task of teaching people the word of God that most people are very poor thinkers. I found that many people don't know how to think clearly. Their thinking is very muddled. Now in some things, if you are muddled, maybe it doesn't matter. But in the matter of life and death, especially eternal life and eternal death, you cannot afford to make a mistake.
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved." How many times have you heard this? Ask the man, or ask yourself if you are the one saying it, what do you mean by believe? Give me a definition. Let me ask you about this rich young ruler. Did he or did he not believe in Jesus? Don't say no so fast. Think carefully. Did he or did he not? Look carefully. There are three accounts. Put them side by side and look carefully.
If you didn't believe a certain person, would you have approached him in the way the rich young ruler did? He didn't come up to the Lord Jesus and say, "Well, you know, I heard something about you. Tell me, how do you think I get eternal life? Give me some opinion of yours, I will consider your opinion." Look at his attitude. He comes humbly to the Lord Jesus. He tells us in one place he even kneels before the Lord Jesus. He has the greatest respect for Jesus. He trusts this great teacher.
He is the only person in the Gospels who addresses the Lord Jesus by a unique title. He calls Him "Good Teacher." He doesn't just mean that you are very good at talking. He knows that Jesus is good. He knows that the Lord Jesus is a good teacher. Do you think he believes in Him? Would you come to any preacher and say "good preacher" unless you trusted him? And when the Lord Jesus said to him, "Only God is truly good," do you know what that means? Did the rich young ruler say, "Oh excuse me, I said the wrong thing"? No, he didn't take back his statement. "You are the good teacher." The teacher come from God.
Let me ask you again. Does the rich young ruler believe in Jesus as good? Certainly he does. So he believes in Jesus. Who dares to say he doesn't believe in Jesus? It may be that he believes in Jesus more than most Christians do today. He trusts Jesus. What's the point of calling someone good and coming in this way unless he trusts him to be the one speaking the truth? That's what good means. You speak the truth. So if believing in Jesus is to be saved, he's already saved. What more do you want?
Ah, of course, you've been reading your Bible. You know in the Bible you need more than that. You've got to believe that Jesus died for you and rose again. Let me ask you: did the disciples, did the apostles believe that? Of course not. Because Jesus had not yet died and He had not yet risen again. So how can you use that event to measure the thing? In fact, when the apostles were told that the Lord Jesus was going to die and rise again, the Bible tells us they didn't know what He was talking about. In other words, the rich young ruler believed in Jesus in the same way as the apostles did. So he believed.
Ah, yes, but you say it's a different level of belief. Now you're catching yourself in the problem. I asked you what you meant by belief. Now suddenly you tell me there are different levels of belief. Now tell me at which level do you become saved? Supposing we are doing an examination on believing, and how many marks do you give the rich young ruler? You say, okay, we give him 45 marks. And how many marks do the apostles get? Okay, they just passed, 55 marks.
Well, I'm sorry, but I don't read in the Bible that you have to get 55 marks before you can be saved. When you tell people "Believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved," why don't you tell them "Believe in the Lord Jesus 55% and then you're saved"? If someone says, "I believe in the Lord Jesus," and you say, "Fail, not yet 55 marks." Well, then they ask you, "Please tell me, how do I get to 55 marks? Be my tutor. Tell me how to pass the exam." Now you begin to see that we might be ending up talking nonsense.
By the way, how many marks have you got? Are you sure you got 55 marks? Are you sure that your faith is greater than this man here? I ask you to go to the churches and say, "Ah yes, now you believe in Jesus, right?" He says, "Yeah, right." But you only got 45 marks. So you failed. Do you see what's happening here? He says, "Why did I fail?" Because it says here that the difference between the apostles and the rich man was this: the apostles gave up everything to follow the Lord Jesus, and the rich man didn't.
But now, are we just talking about the difference of marks? Or are we talking about a totally different kind of faith? Let me ask you, how many in the churches have sold everything and followed Jesus? How many of them are on the level of the rich young ruler?
# What Shall I Do to Obtain Eternal Life (Part 2, Side B)
Hopefully. What kind of... Next time you tell somebody, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved," you better think carefully what that means. The apostle James put this in another way, as you know. You say you believe in God? Congratulations, let me shake your hand. Why? Because Satan also believes. If we are saved by faith, why is Satan not saved? The Bible tells us that he also believes. We have a wonderful time playing games with the Bible, isn't it? It's just wonderful, I just enjoy this conversation.
Now you know that sometimes when I discuss the Bible with other Christians, they are so confused at the end, they don't know what's happening. The confusion is because they have intentionally and mostly unintentionally distorted the Scriptures. Because when you distort the Scriptures, you only confuse yourself. In the end, when you cross-examine their answer, cross-examination is a legal term where a lawyer cross-examines the person on the witness stand, when you cross-examine their answer, they are so confused, they don't know what the answer is anymore.
Let me come back briefly to one of the confusions concerning the passage of the rich young ruler. I am sure you are already very used to hearing the standard answer. When the Lord Jesus said to the rich young ruler, "Sell all you have and give to the poor," the preacher will tell you to comfort you, so that you don't all run out of the church and leave him standing by himself. And then he has no more offerings to collect. I believe you are very familiar with this standard answer.
So when the Lord Jesus said, "Sell all you have and give to the poor," the preacher said, "No, no, no, don't be scared. Don't go away. Stay here. Otherwise, I can't collect the offerings. I'll explain it to you. Explain it very reasonably to you." The answer is very simple. What the Lord Jesus wanted to say is, you just have to have a different attitude from before. That sounds really normal. It's an easy way.
So does it mean I don't have to sell all I have? Of course, you don't need to. You see, the Lord Jesus is just using extreme language. You only need to use some very extreme words to say it. So what you have to do is this. You see, you just in your heart say, "Well, I don't love money very much." Yeah, well, of course you love a little. I mean, who doesn't love money a little bit? Well, what about the preacher? You don't love money? Well, if you love money, how can I not love money? I mean, you're the preacher. I'm not the preacher. So I have the right to love money a little bit more than you. So you see, it's only a matter of attitudes. Does that sound familiar to you? Of course, you've heard this one before.
Now, if you start messing around with the word of God like this, when I ask you a question, what does "believe" mean? You will be utterly confused. All I have to ask this preacher who says this kind of thing is, please answer me one question. How come the Lord Jesus didn't think of giving this very clever answer that you just gave? I mean, you as a preacher, obviously, you are a very clever man. And the Lord Jesus never thought of this kind of answer.
When the rich young ruler said, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" How come the Lord Jesus himself didn't think of saying to him, "Oh well, you see, all you have to do is have the right attitude." And then what would happen? The rich young ruler would be following the Lord Jesus by now, just like you and me. So why was he sad? Why did the Bible say that he turned away feeling very sad when he heard the answer of the Lord Jesus? But that is precisely not the answer that the Lord Jesus gives. Let's not fool around with God's word. If we try to suggest that the Lord said something that he did not say, we are guilty of dishonesty before God. Of course God is concerned about our attitudes. But we cannot use this attitude to wipe away the requirement that he laid down here. What do we mean by saying that I have the right attitude, so I don't need to sell anything?
Why do people keep on wanting to twist the words of the Lord Jesus? Why do they want to do this all the time? As I said yesterday, it's like a fish bone sticks in our throat. We can't swallow it. This is what the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. He says, the things of God, the way God does things, the way God says things, is foolishness to the natural man. It is sheer foolishness.
This is not psychology. The Lord Jesus should have gone to one of the modern institutions and studied psychology. I mean, he is a promising young man. Intelligent. Capable. That's why he is rich. Even when he is young, he is a ruler. To have this man in the church, who is so wonderful. And what do you do? You drive him out of the door. You tell him you have to do this, you have to do that. He says, okay, I give up. Bye-bye.
But this is not psychology. When I preached my last message in Canada, at the camp, somebody said, some Christian from another church said, this pastor doesn't know psychology. The reason why he thought I didn't know psychology is because I preached the words of the Lord Jesus. "Except a man take up his cross and be willing to suffer, he cannot be my disciple." Well, maybe there's some truth in this, he thinks. But you don't have to say it, man. You say it, then people will run away. This pastor doesn't know psychology. Maybe I don't know psychology. But I know the way to life.
The strange thing is that after this good man had said these things, only a few weeks later he died. He thought that this kind of answer is stupid, it is bad psychology, it is foolishness. I thank God I am willing to be a fool. When I first started to preach the gospel in Montreal, there were only three people. It's a new church. I said to them, "I will declare to you from this first message where I stand. I will preach the word of my Lord and my King with no compromise. And if every one of you leave this church and don't come back again, let me tell you this: I will stand here and preach the word of God as He wants me to preach it. No difference."
And since then I have seen the transforming power of God change the lives of people one after the other. I don't want to be like that father who couldn't save his son. I don't want to be in that situation in which not only the preacher cannot save the other, the preacher himself will perish.
You know, teaching the gospel is sometimes like what the doctor has to say to a patient. A patient comes in and, I am sure Howard is familiar with this situation, he has serious heart trouble. And the doctor, having examined him and established this condition, says to the man, "Now from now on, no more ice cream. No more black forest cake. No more fatty pork. No more Kentucky Fried Chicken. No more butter. No more sugar." And the patient is sitting there listening and said, "What do you want me to do? You want me to starve to death? All the good things I like to eat and you tell me I can't eat any of this? This is foolishness. I thought I was coming to a highly qualified doctor. And the only thing he can tell me to do is not to eat ice cream, plus all the other good food I want to eat."
That's the way the preacher feels. Here comes a sinner. And you now tell him that he must put aside all the things he loved before. And he says this man is a fool. This doctor is no psychologist. You see there it is. You have to make the choice. Just like this patient. Do you want to live and not eat all of these things, or do you want to eat all these things and die? You take your choice.
So let us be very clear about this thing one more time. The Lord Jesus has made it perfectly clear to us. You cannot have the world and its riches and soak yourself in it and gobble it up and also have eternal life. You just take your choice, whichever you want. Anyone who tries to ignore this teaching and thinks that he will get by, he is the fool.
A deep impression was made in my mind when I was in North America. I remember a TV preacher. There are a lot of TV preachers in North America. They make a lot of money. That makes a good incentive to be a TV preacher. I should try that sometime. And then on the TV, this preacher was supposed to be expounding Matthew chapter 7. And as I listened, I realized that he was preaching a gospel which is exactly the opposite of what the Lord Jesus is teaching.
What he was saying is this in the verse in Matthew 7: "Give and it shall be given to you." He was talking not about love, not about mercy. He was talking about money. And so on the platform, with all the TV cameras focused on him, there was a big basket. I mean big, not some small thing. A huge basket there on the platform. And it was full of green paper money. Full of American notes. And as he was saying, "Give and it shall be given to you," he picked up this money and he was holding it up. And all the green money was hanging down. And in the TV cameras, you can see every eye was looking at money, hoping the wind would blow some over here. Of course they made sure that no wind was blowing.
And every few minutes he was saying, "Give! And it shall be given to you." And as I was looking at this on the TV, I thought, this is the gospel? The idea is of course, give to our organization. Give to our church. And look how God will bless you. He will bless you with buckets of dollars. Who was this? This was Jim Bakker. You read about him in the newspapers and in Time magazine. You know how much this man received in six months? According to Time, he received one million US dollars in six months. None of us, I mean not even the rich young ruler can compare with this. The standard joke is that even his dog had an air-conditioned kennel. I think some of us would like to apply to be his dog. Many cars, Rolls Royces and things.
You see, when you twist the gospel, how can anybody who is a preacher of the gospel, who reads about the rich young ruler, preach this kind of thing? It's sickening. But let me tell you also this: sins don't come alone. Sins come as a crowd. If you commit one sin, you will soon commit a second, a third, a fourth, they all come together. And so finally this scandal came out that he had been fooling around with some women as well. And even in a very tolerant and corrupt American society, they could not stand that one, so they kicked him out. But I tell you something interesting. He's coming back again. He's going to start preaching about the money falling down from heaven again. Well, at least from his hands coming down. What kind of gospel is this?
The church is in a mess. Not everybody is as extreme as this man. But unfortunately, there are a lot of those who stand in the middle. Not as far as that, not as far as the Lord's teaching, but in the so-called reasonable middle. I have still so much to say, and our time is almost done. Let me try to close with a few important points. I beg of you clearly to grasp the teaching of the Lord Jesus on this matter. The Lord Jesus will say to them, and I can assure you, He will say to them the words in Matthew 7: "Depart from me, you evildoers. I never knew you." And they will say, "Lord, Lord, we were preaching your gospel, even on TV." And the Lord will say, "Depart from me, I don't know you." Will He say that to us? Yes, if we also dare to twist His word.
Let me close with the last few minutes. What kind of faith is saving faith? Let's just answer this question before we close. There is only one kind of faith that saves in the Bible. It is called transforming faith. There are only two kinds of gospel you can hear today. One is true and one is false. And in these last days, listen carefully. Because if you accept the false gospel, you are going to end up with these kind of people whose only interest is to get the money out of your pocket. There are some who are only concerned to get you into the kingdom of God. And those are not many around.
The answer is in our passage. The camel has to go through the eye of the needle. What does it mean? It's impossible. We saw yesterday. Not even a fly can get through, never mind the camel. The kingdom of God, the gate into the kingdom of God, the Lord Jesus says in Matthew, is extremely narrow. That's why he compares it to the eye of a needle. By the way, many people even in English don't realize that the term "eye of a needle" just means the hole in the needle. The kingdom of God, the gate is very narrow, and the Lord Jesus says it's very hard to get in. It's not only hard. It is impossible. For you and for me, for everyone, it is impossible. That's why he says it is impossible with men.
It is the faith then, not just to believe this and believe that, it is to believe that God can do the impossible. Not so fast. It is not just that you believe that God can do the impossible, but that He can do the impossible in you. That He can so change you and so transform you that you, by His amazing power, can get into the kingdom of God through the eye of the needle. Just to put it in another word, the salvation the Bible talks about, this matter of inheriting eternal life, is as the Lord Jesus says, a miracle. Only God can do it.
The strange thing about many churches today is that they preach about faith and grace, but when you examine their doctrine, there is neither faith nor grace. What they mean by faith is simply this: believe this and believe that, believe Jesus died, He rose again, believe this and that, and if you say yes, yes, yes, I believe, that is saving faith. That is not saving faith in the word of God, let me assure you. They talk about grace, but when you examine their teaching, there is no grace to talk about. Where is the grace? When you ask them to tell you, in your teaching what is grace, there is no meaningful answer. The answer simply is that God loves you, that's grace. That is not the whole truth as far as the Bible is concerned.
You know, even in the human courts of law, you are supposed to put your hand on the Bible when you testify and say, "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." But we find the church may be sometimes telling the truth, but it is not the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So I would like you to understand that the faith by which we inherit eternal life is a faith which by the power of God transforms you and me. I gave a Bible study of this in Hong Kong, and I hope that, the Lord willing, it will be ready to be published in the coming months so that you can read it. But through the whole Bible, the only true Christianity, the only true Christian, is the transformed Christian.
For example, Paul says in Ephesians, that once you were darkness, but now, now what has happened? Now you are light. Now that is really transformation. It is the difference between day and night. It is the difference between darkness and light. It is the difference between truth and falsehood. It is the difference between being dead and being alive. You, the Bible says in John chapter 5 and also in 1 John, have passed from death to life. That is transformation. Not just you believe this and you believe that. Satan believes everything. The problem is he is just the same as he was before. But once you are changed, something amazing happens. You become a new person as the Bible says.
The Christians that you know, do they look like new people to you? You say, "I knew you before, I know you now, I can't see any difference between you. If anything, you are even worse than before." That kind of faith saves nobody, I can tell you this. The rich young ruler believed, but he was not saved. Because he was not transformed. He could not go through the eye of the needle. Are you willing to let God transform you? Are you willing to have the kind of faith that says, "Lord, I can't do it. I can't enter the kingdom. I can't go through the... But please, You transform me." And then you know what happened? You will experience the power of God.
We have so many Christians in the churches today that have never experienced God. I don't know what they mean by being a Christian. They don't even know who God is. Of course they can tell you about God. God knows everything. God is love. God is kind. I am not talking about knowing about God. I am talking about knowing Him. Experiencing His power in your life. That is the dynamic of a true Christian. Only this kind of person can say with the apostle Paul, "I know whom I have believed." Why? He has transformed me.
When you get baptized, it is to symbolize, to express to you, the transformation from death to life. But why does the church not preach transformation anymore? I don't understand. It is because the cost is too high. Like the rich young ruler, he turns away. He says, "It's wonderful, but the cost is too high." So we want to sell eternal life at a discount. We lower the price. We can do that. But we can't do that.
This then is the glory of the gospel. And I have the joy of preaching the gospel simply because I have seen how life has changed. When I went back to Montreal last year, the co-workers told me that there is one sister in the church that has been giving them a lot of problems. She took so much of the time of our co-workers. All the time, problems, problems, problems. So serious were her problems that she was admitted to the psychiatric ward. She had just come out, very depressed, always depressed. She was a Christian from one of the conventional churches before. And I'm sorry to say that the people in our churches who give us the most trouble are the people who come to us from other churches.
And she had been coming to our church for some years, but because of her past church background, she could not absorb the message. She was always depressed. And so the co-workers said to me, "What are we going to do about this sister? She takes so much of our time, and she never seems to get anywhere." So I said, "Okay, let me take care of this myself." He said, "What are you going to do? We have tried everything and it goes nowhere." I said, "Well, I will see to it by the grace of God that she will make a breakthrough. It's all or nothing now. We are going to go for the breakthrough."
I went straight to the point. I said, "Let's not waste time. You've been coming to this church for quite a while now. I want you to tell me every sin that you are hiding in your heart. Now, tell me. I'm listening."
So she had to tell me some more. I said, "Come on, just get on with it. Because until you come clean, until you become pure in the heart, you are going to be forever in this condition. You will never enter into eternal life. Now get clean of the sin." So finally she told me a bit, and then the whole story came together. That she had been doing something illegal.
I asked her this question: "Did you tell your psychiatrist this that you have just told me?" She said, "No, no, no. Please don't tell anybody else." I said, "I won't tell anybody else. But you must confess your sin before God. You have been hiding this sin in your life and that's why you cannot be transformed." What does the Bible say? "Blessed are the pure in heart, for theirs is the kingdom." So finally when she confessed all this, I know that she had finally told me everything. And she said, "Can the Lord forgive me? Can the Lord help me? Can the Lord heal me?" Certainly He can. But not until you have gotten the matter clean with Him. There was a matter with property too, and there were other matters all having to do with questionable actions.
But let me tell you that when she had cleared all this with me, when she had repented before the Lord, no compromising, no fooling around with the word of God, God transformed her. After all these years, she was transformed. Some of you who have been to Montreal, you will be surprised when I tell you what her name is. You will think this is a hopeless case. Cannot be saved. No one can do anything.
After all this, I went with our team to Israel. And when I came back to Montreal, I saw a sister in the church, joy beaming on her face. And what was she doing? She was serving tea to everybody. Before, she would sit in the corner, waiting for people to hand her the tea, hand her the cakes. What was she doing? I had to look a second time. She was serving everybody. The reason I could hardly recognize her is that I never saw her smiling before. And when she was smiling all the time, I thought it was a different person.
That is saving faith. That can transform a person into a new man. Not just believing this and that. Transform. Are you willing to let God put you through the eye of the needle and experience the reality of the living God?
Thank you.