Is God in this place? This is a church, but is God here? Is he here because it's a church? Is God here in a church but not in the park outside? More importantly, do you know whether he's here? Listen quietly for a moment. Listen and see if you can hear God. Can you? Look around. See if you can see God. See if you can taste him. See if you can sense him.
If God is not real, what are we doing here anyway? Maybe there's some interesting TV program we could be watching at the moment, or maybe, in order not to lose your TV program, you've already got it videotaped. To me, the all-important question is God, and the question of how you know him. Is there some way that you sense him? For me, the thing that worries me so much is that there is a lot of talk about God, especially in church, but so little contact, so little knowledge of him.
I wouldn't want to embarrass you by asking you to raise your hands — those of you who really find yourself in touch with God, communicating with him. I don't mean occasionally. I don't mean through some incident that happened which you can interpret to mean that God did something. Somebody else might interpret it differently, isn't it? The person who doesn't believe in God will say, "Well, that incident doesn't necessarily prove God." Can we say, like the apostle Paul, "I know whom I have believed"? Are you able to sense his presence? In most cases, the answer would be no, to be honest.
There are times when God makes his presence so powerfully felt that nobody can escape the reality of his presence. In my whole life experience, I've experienced that only once in a group, that is. Some sixty people were gathered together. When you've been through one such experience, you'll never forget it again — when God's presence surprised us all by suddenly coming into our midst, and every person sensed that presence. You could sense it. You could sense that he was there. It is as though you could stretch out your hand and touch him. This capacity of people to sense God's presence is something very remarkable.
But sometimes God's presence is not sensed. In fact, most of the time, not. Especially in a large number of people. Every one of us of the sixty people present was simply so gripped by his presence. I don't know how else to describe it. People's tears were running down their faces. There was no psychological build-up to this coming of the Lord into our midst, which was in England, in the south of England, at a Chinese church conference, a meeting — no build-up, not even something as nice as today: the worship, the singing, all this. There was no build-up whatever. We just came into the meeting and the presence of God came.
Tears began to run from people's faces. People began to confess their sins. All sense of time disappeared — it's a remarkable thing. You're suddenly transported from time into eternity. This meeting went on, and I don't even remember what was happening in the meeting apart from tears running down people's faces. The one next to me, the other one — everyone's crying. All of them, somehow the presence of God gripped their hearts. Everyone sensed his presence.
But why is this kind of appearance, as at Pentecost, not the regular thing? I could immediately see what happened at Pentecost — that's the kind of thing that happened at Pentecost. The Spirit of God came down and the whole congregation was transformed. Nobody was even chairing the meeting, because the person who tried to chair it just gave up. He knew the Holy Spirit had taken over, and that was it. The Spirit of God was working in one heart after the other. But why is this not the regular thing? Why does it happen so occasionally? Why is it that so many Christians rarely, rarely experience the presence of God?
Is God not around? Is he not in this room? If he is here — and he certainly is here — then why don't you sense his presence? That is the question of the greatest importance. Everything else in this world passes away, and all that will remain in the end is God. When heaven and earth has passed away — not to mention our little lives, our little careers, our studies, our jobs, our future, our families — everything will have passed into history before too long. In the end, God — only he remains. He that does not have God has nothing worth having. Have you got God? Do you sense his presence? Are you able to sense that presence? Is it very mysterious? Is it some kind of mystical experience? How do you know that God is real if you don't experience him? Does somebody else say so? Because the Bible says so? How do you know the Bible is true? The Bible says indeed, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am in the midst." All right — if he is in the midst, how do you know? How do you know the Bible is true if you don't experience it? Is the problem on God's side or is the problem on our side?
On whose side is the problem when it comes to not experiencing or knowing? Because the word "knowing" is the biblical word for experiencing. The Greek word "know" does not mean intellectual knowledge; it means experiential knowledge. "I know God because I've met with him." That's called knowing, which we call experiencing. Certainly the problem is not on God's side, so the problem has to be on our side. So today, what I need to try and get at is: what is the blockage? What is the problem? We can use words like "sin," which are very general, very vague — "You have sin in your life, that's a blockage." That's absolutely right. But there is sin which we don't even know to be sin, and until you deal with that — and I'll put aside theological words and cliches used in the churches — I want to get at the heart of the matter.
Let me start from an unlikely position to try and illustrate what I'm saying. Before I came over to Australia, I heard part of the news. I'm sometimes too busy to hear the whole of the news. I caught some report of a news item — this was not some international piece of news. I had missed part of that, and I was listening to some local news. I think that was back in Canada two or three months ago. The news had to do with, in that particular item, this young girl — young, meaning about 18 years old or so. The report was about her saving three people in stormy, rough sea conditions.
These three men had apparently ventured out surfing — very popular in Australia and some parts of the United States. They went out surfing, and the result of it was that something happened in the change of weather: they were caught and were unable to get back to shore. The coastline of the United States, as in Australia, is very long, and you don't have lifeguards everywhere, and the best surfing places are not necessarily places where there are lifeguards. You go out to the more dangerous, more challenging waters. You expect that these men are indeed able to swim — after all, you don't go surfing if you don't know how to swim. But the weather conditions were too much of a challenge, and they were unable to get back.
This 17- or 18-year-old girl, who was a good swimmer, happened to be passing by, watching the scenery. She saw these people struggling in the water and realized that they were not going to make it. What did she do? She dived into the water without thinking about herself. She was not even there for swimming, so she wasn't even dressed for swimming — just whatever clothes she had, she dived in. Never thought about herself, didn't stop to reason — "Well, these guys brought this on themselves. This water is too dangerous. They wanted the challenge, and now they couldn't meet the challenge, and they're going down. These are all men, I'm a girl." All kinds of reasons could be given, but no. She risked her own life, dived into those treacherous waters, pulled the first guy out. Looking around, the second one was pretty soon going under — she went out again, pulled that one back in, and rescued all three.
Well, now you know why it was on television. This was really remarkable. She was a good swimmer, but that was not the main point. The main point is that she risked her life for three men whom she didn't even know, were not related to her, and she was just passing by.
What was the point of the story for me? I echo with her and admire her in many ways, because I wish we had this kind of people in the church. By the way, she may have been a Christian — I don't know, but of course, news media don't tell you whether the person is Christian or not. Very likely she was, but it doesn't matter in this case. The point is, she said almost in the words of Paul in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, "That was my reasonable duty, my reasonable service." That's the kind of thing that anybody who could do it should do. I thought, she knows the Bible better than most Christians. Maybe she is a Christian. But she saw it as nothing heroic, nothing exceptional — that's what she should do.
Why did this story touch me? Because it puts me to shame in regard to Christians. In my heart there burns a concern, a fire for those who perish, who are going down, who are fighting against the spiritual waves and are losing the battle. They are being swallowed up by death day by day, and I'm thinking in particular, of course, of China — 1.3 billion people who are not unrelated to us. They are our fellow countrymen.
People are dying, and what do I see? I see that they are dying at the rate of 20 million a year. People are dying all the time. Last year alone, about 20 million people died from all causes — old age, car accidents, medical errors, you name it. I say "medical error" because I saw in the newspaper in Singapore that one third of deaths in the United Kingdom in that particular year was caused by medical errors — given the wrong prescription and so forth, not proper treatments. Smoking is one of the main causes of death in China, causing cancer and all kinds of other related illnesses. Last year alone, one million Chinese people died through smoking-related diseases. That means last year, more people died in China than the entire population of Australia. These people will never hear the gospel again. This coming year, another 20-some million will die, and the next year another 20-some million. They are perishing in those waters of the world.
Does anybody here care about this? Anybody care? No skin off your nose — not your business, right? Whose business then is it? It wasn't that girl's business. She wasn't the lifeguard. She could not have been sure that she could have rescued those men. After all, these men were probably bigger than her, and she had to drag them through powerful currents to get them back to shore. She risked everything for three unknown guys. I admire her. I wish we had people in the church like this. People in the church — what do they live for? Do they care? China is far away. Who cares? 20 million more die, then 20 million — so what? And what about 1.3 billion unsaved people? Whose job is it to save them? Answer this question honestly.
# Walking with God in These Last Days as Noah Did (Continued)
We do not know how much time there is. You know, I had a dear friend. In fact, I felt burdened about this and very pained, and still feel it after the event happened a few months ago. I read in the newspaper and heard on the news that a plane had gone down in Manila Bay. It crashed, killing more than half the people on board. It crashed on takeoff. It was only going a one-hour flight north of Manila. It crashed on takeoff and killed more than half the people on the plane. I read the news and said, "There is another accident, more people dead." Until I got an email which said, "Your good friend has been killed in that crash in Manila." He, his wife, and his son. Out of a family of four, only his daughter was left.
I was stunned and shocked for more than one reason. One thing was that I was the one, in our student days, he came to me to ask how — well, we met and he asked me how I came to the Lord, how to become a Christian. And I led him to the Lord. He was a brilliant student at Cambridge at the time. We became great friends. He later took his doctorate in physics. His son was also a doctorate in physics. Both were killed. His wife was a nurse, and she too was killed. I was stunned by this. I said, "Lord, what is this? What is the purpose of this? What is the message? Why did this all happen?" I hadn't been in touch with him for a very long time. Since I moved off to Canada, we were basically out of touch. At one time he wanted to serve the Lord, but he never got there. I don't know if one dared to say that had he served the Lord, this thing might not have happened. But that's between him and God.
The point I'm trying to get at is this: never did he or his family dream that in the space of a few moments, their time on earth was cut short, wiped out. It was gone. He was in good health. His son was only in his late 20s. Suddenly it was over. You think you have a lot of time? Not necessarily.
The main message I want to get to you today is precisely because of the shortness of time and the coming of the Lord. What are the indicators of his coming? What I have to say, with the part of the message that I began with, will become clear as we go along. Let me read to you a section from Luke chapter 17, verses 26 to 30. Here it speaks about Jesus himself, the Son of Man. Verse 26 says, "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man."
Notice very carefully what is said: "As it was in the days of Noah." I think all of you who have been to Sunday school know the story of Noah, so I don't have to go into detail. What was happening in the days of Noah — that will be the same kind of situation that will happen in the days immediately before the coming of the Son of Man, that is, of Christ. So what kind of terrible situation was there then? Actually, when you read it, you don't see anything terrible at all. They were eating and drinking — "yum yum, sik sik" in Cantonese — eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage. So what was the problem? This sort of thing was going on until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all these people who were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage.
It goes on and says in verse 28, "Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot" — that is, in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah — what were they doing? They were committing terrible sins, right? Do you see it there? No. What does it say again? They were eating and drinking, buying and selling. Did you buy something today, or yesterday? Dear me — maybe you don't dare to buy anymore. Planting and building. But on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them. It will be like that on the day that the Son of Man appears.
Like what? Well, you said so. Did you have lunch today? So you were eating. Did you have a drink? So you were drinking. Looks like you're in trouble. And what about planting and building? Were you planting something in the garden? Were you building or buying a house of some sort? I guess most of us don't know how to build houses, so somebody else has to build it. But they built it because you want to buy it.
Is there something wrong with eating and drinking? I mean, we'd all starve if we didn't do that. Do you understand what Jesus is saying? Can you grasp the point? When we look at the passage in Genesis 6, the story is told somewhat differently. I'm wondering why Jesus told a very well-known story and drew a different point from it. When you read the Bible, you have to be very discerning and watchful to see whether you understand not just the words there — we all understand what eating and drinking means — but the spiritual level. What is Jesus trying to say? Surely he is not saying no one should eat and no one should drink. If that is not his point, what is his point?
In Genesis, especially verse 11, it says, "The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." Strange that Jesus makes no reference to that at all at this point. He does say something about that in Matthew 24, but says nothing of it here. Of course, it is a matter of historical fact that the 20th century has indeed been a time filled with violence, and it looks like we're going to have violence very soon again, according to the news. Wars and rumors of wars seem to be the order of the day. But that does not seem to be the main thing.
Then in Genesis 6:5, it says, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually." That seems to give us the impression that they were committing all kinds of horrendous sins, but not one of them is named. We don't know what these evil thoughts are that fill their hearts and minds. And Genesis 6:3 says, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever."
Let us understand this thing, because it has to do with my first point: the awareness of God, the capacity to know God, to sense his presence. That is the point. We make a fundamental mistake in thinking that the reason why that generation in Noah's time was wiped out was because they did every manner of evil such as nobody else ever did. Well, if that were the case, it was time to have destroyed the whole human race during the Second World War, where six million Jews were gassed to death or put to death in various ways, another four million non-Jews, including Christians, killed by the Nazis — ten million people exterminated. How much evil do you have to tolerate before God acts?
If we want to talk in terms of killings and bombings — what about the First World War, when they used mustard gas, chlorine gas, and whatever else to gas everybody to death? Those who didn't die were blinded. How many million died on the fields of Europe in the First World War? That was not enough for God to intervene. We had a Second World War in which many more millions died, and we won't even talk about how many died in China alone — tens of millions, countless millions.
Our understanding of sin is always in terms of murder, robbery, rape, and so forth. That is sin to us. Let me tell you, God is concerned about something much worse than that. Is there something worse than that? Yes — "yum yum, sik sik." What? That's worse? The point here is not that eating and drinking in itself is the problem. What we must understand is that what God hates is the kind of life that is simply preoccupied with the things of this world. There is nothing wrong with eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. But there is something wrong when these things exclude God from your life. God is pushed aside because you're more busy eating and drinking, buying and selling, looking for the best. Your focus of attention is on yourself.
Everything is "me," "mine," all this self-centered stuff. The church and the world is filled with self-centeredness. That is the whole problem. That is what Jesus wanted to tell us. Don't think that Jesus says he will come again just because there is violence on the earth. There will be violence because self-centeredness produces violence. It produces war, gassings, chemical warfare, biological warfare, nuclear warfare. Man, in his self-centeredness, does all these kinds of things. Violence is not the root cause; it is the symptom of something deeper. It is a symptom of a world in which we all live our lives for ourselves. Self-centeredness is the sin. If you don't understand that, of course, you can't see why Jesus said what he said. He is saying that man is becoming ever more self-centered, and the result is that when it reaches a stage that only God knows — enough is enough with all this self-centeredness — he will come suddenly, in the hour you don't expect.
Now the problem with self-centeredness is that it can be masked to look like something pretty good. It looks nice. Who doesn't like to be at a wedding? Everybody is happy, everybody sings, everybody has more eating and drinking, more buying and selling. It goes on and on in an ever-increasing widening circle. What you and I need to be saved from is this self-centeredness. Pardon me for saying so, but sometimes when I listen to sharings, it seems all so unbelievably self-centered — it's all "me" and "my" and "my this" and "me that." When is God the center of our lives?
In the time of Noah, why was Noah saved and the others were not? Why was Noah allowed to go into the ark with his family and the others were not? The answer is given very simply: "Noah walked with God." That is the thing about Noah. That's what made him different. He walked with God. Anybody here walking with God? I didn't say, "Did you believe in God?" I'm sure if I asked you to raise your hands who believed in God, a lot of hands would go up. I said, is anybody walking with God? Do you even know what it means to walk with God?
We know that Enoch walked with God and he was caught up — raptured. The end-time rapture is not a new thing. There's a lot of rapture going on in the Bible. Enoch got raptured. Elijah got raptured. The effect, the result of walking with God, can be very dramatic. What is it to walk with God? What is the first and primary condition? You will not taste God. You will not hear God. You will not experience God until there is such a fundamental, radical change at the root of your life where there is no more "I." Did I say "no more I"? Yes — no more I. That is achieved, if I can put it this way, through the power of the Spirit in very, very few people. That is why there are so few people who experience God.
I know God is in this room. I know his presence. Do you? All the time it is my life habit to commune with him and listen to him. Even what I am saying to you now, I don't say because I put this all together for this message. Many times I have prepared a message and the Lord said, "Scrap it. I have something else I want you to say." I have scrapped part of this message because, as I am listening, I am changing the message and doing what he wants me to do. But in order to be able to do this, I have to be able to hear. I have to be able to listen. You learn to listen when you walk with God.
The thing that disturbs me enormously after all these years of teaching the Word of God and teaching people in full-time training is that whether in the church or even among those in full-time training — and I may be very frank and honest about this — there are not many who have learned to walk with God. The reason for that is because it's very difficult to walk with God. Why? Because we cannot get rid of the "I."
You talk to people and what do they talk about? It's "I," "me," "my" — always. The whole life, the thinking goes round and around about that self, that ego. No wonder the psychologists see that the ego is the center of man. They have recognized that long ago. You want to handle a human being? You start with his ego. And that is the very thing that cuts you off from God. That is why Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ. I now no longer live." The "I" is gone. "Not I, but Christ lives in me." Not I. How many times have you heard that verse? But have you ever implemented it? If we read the Bible and talk about it and we don't implement it, what does that make us? Hypocrites, isn't it? And how can we blame people when they say the church is full of hypocrites who know how to talk and don't know how to live?
As long as that "I" is still dominant in me, the consequence is I can't commune with God. So whenever the "I" in me starts acting up, my communication with God is cut off immediately. It's gone. I can pray as hard as I like. I can plead. I can do whatever. No use. God is not going to listen to me — not until this big "I" in me, that self, is dealt with. I'm telling you something which is very practical. You either practice it or you don't. Never say after today's message that you don't know how to walk with God.
The first step is a long way. Walking is a matter of distance, and we'd have to develop this some other time. But the first step — and all we have time for today — is that self has to go. Then you find that the barrier of communing with God is gone. Otherwise your praying is going to be a religious exercise. You take the prayer book and you pray fervently. What is "fervently"? Fervently means try to put a bit of emotion in there. I'm sometimes very worried when people say, "Everybody looks miserable. Why don't you stand up and put a smile on your face?" How do you do this? I can't smile if I don't have the joy inside. I have to have joy before I can smile. We can't act it out.
One thing more, of course, is that we cannot get rid of the "I" in our own strength. It's not as though I can crucify myself. Have you tried crucifying yourself? You can't do that. You might manage to put the nail in one hand. How do you get the other hand? Maybe we have a lot of one-hand-crucified people who mean well, because they try to kill themselves with their own effort. This is not something we can do with our own effort. That is the reason why we cannot save ourselves. We can't crucify ourselves.
So what happens is, we have to let the Holy Spirit deal with this "I" in us. Are you willing to let that happen? That is a big question. Once you're willing, when you say, "Lord, here I am. You crucify me with Christ," then I can say, "I am crucified with Christ. Now I no longer live." What freedom! Have you ever known the freedom from self? I'm afraid few people do. Just to be free of yourself — that great burden gone, the thing that gave you all your illusions, the thing that gave you false desires, pursuing after the wind. When God comes, he sets you free. "When the Son sets you free, you are free indeed."
So many people are in bondage to their emotions. I see many Christians — you know, this weather in Melbourne is remarkable. For those of us who visit here, and this is my third time, it is a mystery, this weather. One moment it is sunshine, a little later it's cloudy, the next moment it's pouring with rain, and after that the sun is out again, and it goes on and on through the whole day. I thought, what kind of weather is this? But then, we know Christians who are like that, isn't it? One moment they're shining and happy, the next moment they're so down — what happened now? Then the tears are pouring down their face, and after that they're smiling again. Very unique. But that is what happens when you are controlled by your emotions — blown this way and that way. To be free from all of this, that is a great part of freedom, apart from the freedom from sin, the root of all sin: selfishness. Deny the self.
To talk about sin and the need to deal with sin will forever be utter superficiality until we get to the root of the whole business. The most deceptive thing about the self is that you can look very righteous, behave in the most religious manner, be kneeling on your knees practicing religion — and you don't know God. My professor at the university, when I was doing theology — we call it in England "divinity," I'm not quite sure why — I remember one day this professor, because we were one-on-one talking with each other, and we were studying a passage in the Old Testament, and he looked up at me, a man of 60-some years, a great scholar, a person who has published probably dozens of books and learned articles, known throughout England as a foremost Old Testament theologian — he looked up at me and said, "You know, after all, there may be a God." I nearly fell off the chair. "Maybe a God" — and you're a professor of Old Testament? What are you doing here? An ordained minister of the Church of England, a professor of theology — what are we talking about here?
Here is a man who spent his whole life studying the Bible. It wouldn't be false to say he really knows it through and through. Some time ago, out of sentimentality, I was somewhere in the United States and I saw a copy of his book on sale. I thought, well, I used to be his student, and I don't even have one of his books, so maybe out of sentimentality I'll buy a copy, just for old time's sake. But here is a man who spent his whole life studying the Bible, and he doesn't know God. Can it be that you have been reading the Bible since Sunday school days and you think you know God? At least he was honest. After all that reading, the knowledge was in the head, not in the heart.
Going to church all your life is not going to save you, and reading the Bible all your life is not going to save you either. You've got to put that into practice, which he never did obviously, and therefore he did not know God. Do not think that Old Testament professors or New Testament professors or theologians know God. They know about God. It doesn't mean they know him personally. That is my constant fear: that you may be in this church and you don't know God, and you don't even know how to know him. But I have told you today, and I don't know whether you can face the challenge.
I wondered whether that was the reason — my dear friend, this doctor of physics — the price was too high in the end. He could make some kind of commitment to God, but the "I" was too strong, and instead of going forth to serve the Lord as he thought himself to be called to do, he didn't go in the end. The cost was too high. Cost means the self cannot pay the cost. The price is a price that challenges the survival of the self, the "I." Can you handle it? No, you can't — not without the power of God and the grace of God. But if you are willing to put that aside, marvelous things will begin to happen. Otherwise, frankly, the Christian life is not worth living. It's going to be the boring routine of eating and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage — which is very exciting for a while, until afterwards. After all, I'm a pastor, and I have to deal with failing marriages, marriage tensions, marriage problems, and on and on it goes. It's wonderful at the time. How long does it last? And after that, for face-saving reasons, especially among Chinese people, even if the marriage is not working, you have to smile a little bit in public. When you go home, then the real thing starts. Too bad for the children.
The root — let me stress again — of all problems, including the incapacity to commune with God, to walk with him, is the "I." If that is not finished, if that is not dealt with, you will never be free.
Let me close. I just want to say something on the positive side: that if you do let God take away the "I" from your life, that selfishness, that egocentricity — the only concern being, "I don't care about all those people perishing" — that will be a sure sign that the "I" is dominant in your life. You don't care. You don't care about anybody else. You don't care whether they perish. You say you believe that anyone who has Jesus has eternal life. You believe it? I might say, no, I don't think you believe it. Why do I say that? If you believed it enough, then does it not concern you that 1.3 billion people of our fellow countrymen are perishing?
You care? How is this job going to be done? Take a pen and paper or use your computer, and just do a simple calculation. If we were to try to reach 1.3 billion people in the space of four years, in which time already 80 or 90 or 100 million Chinese people have died anyway — the remaining ones, and the young ones are too small to reach — how many people would each person have to reach? If there were one million Christians available — one million, which is an exaggerated figure — to reach 1.3 billion, each person would have to reach 1,300 people within four years. Now let me ask you: if you say you're a good Christian, how many people have you led to the Lord? How long have you been a Christian? Have you been a Christian for five years? How many people have you witnessed to? Ten? Twenty? How would you be able to reach 1,300 people in four years?
How is this job going to be done? It can never be done, not just because the figures are impossible — God can accomplish anything — but because the "I" will stop the progress of the gospel. The greatest hindrance is ourselves. It blinds us to the reality, blinds us to the presence of God, cuts off our communion with him, prevents us from walking with him.
I want to close now with what happens when one is prepared to take the course and go forward, like that girl — plunge into the deep and save the perishing. I told in Sydney the story, but I never finished the ending of it. I told the first part of the story of an American brother who went out to bring the gospel to the Muslims in East Africa. He had done his PhD in theology in some college in the United States. He could have stayed home with his wife and two children and got a teaching post in some college or seminary and lived serving the Lord — still serving the Lord, teaching other people. But he chose the more difficult path. He chose to take himself and his family to a third world country, and worst of all, a Muslim country, because Muslims are very resistant and never showed any sign of being open to the gospel.
He went to this Muslim country and tried to preach the gospel, and nobody would listen to him. Quite a few people spat at him — that's one of the acts of contempt that a Muslim will show to a Christian. Why did he come all this way to be spat upon, when he could have had some honor and glory in his own country and still be said to be serving the Lord? But his heart burned for these people. Nobody wanted to listen, and one day he was so desperate that he stood on a bridge in the center of the city and said, "You people don't listen to me about Jesus — I'm going to jump into the river."
Moved by concern, compassion, fire. This guy is crazy. That's what he wanted to be — crazy for the Lord. That stopped the people, stopped the traffic. There was this Westerner standing on this bridge, threatening to jump off, so they stopped and listened to him. He preached Christ to them, and when he had finished, he jumped into the river — just to show that there was no empty threat. He was willing to jump into that foul, dirty river for the sake of Christ. Then people began to listen. Some of them still spat at him.
At one occasion, very touchingly, he witnessed to a beggar sitting by the roadside who had no legs, begging for food, begging for money. He sat down beside this beggar to witness to him, and the beggar spat at him too. Yet he would not give up. The love of Christ was such that he continued talking to this beggar day after day for several weeks. At first the beggar continued to show contempt, but gradually he changed. In the end, with tears running down his face, he lay on the ground — he could not kneel because he had no legs — and gave his life to the Lord.
This beggar was transformed, and he went back to his hometown to witness to others. They said, "They are going to kill you." He said, "Well, that's all right. Let them kill me. I'm going to come back and witness anyway." Through this converted beggar that nobody cared two hoots about, a large part of his town came to know the Lord. At first he was rejected, beaten, thrown out. He took it all. He said, "If Christ could love me to this extent — that this man is willing to sit beside me for several weeks sharing the gospel with me — what kind of love is this? This kind of love I must share with others too." It's selflessness. You see, love, true love, is selflessness. In the world, love is possessive: "I want to take hold of somebody else." In Scripture, God's love is entirely different. It is not my taking possession of somebody; it is I'm giving myself to somebody.
Then the head of the mosque heard about all this and challenged him to open debate in the mosque, thinking that the gospel is spreading and is dangerous. He invited him to the mosque to debate publicly. Of course the mosque was packed full to listen to this debate of their imam against this American preacher. In the midst of the debate, a man with a little child in his arm walked up to him and said, "Sir, my little girl, three years old or so — she's crippled. She cannot walk. She was born crippled. I heard a lot about this debate about Jesus and Islam. Can your Jesus heal my little girl?"
That was a challenge. He studied theology, but healing was not his department. He could have said, "Excuse me, but let me go get a healer from somewhere." But the crowd was looking intently. In Islam, they believe in Jesus. They believe that Jesus did heal the sick and raise the dead — that's in the Quran. That's why this man brought the child, not as an act of contempt, but because the Quran said that Jesus does heal. He wanted to see: is Jesus really the person the Quran says could even raise the dead?
He felt trapped. All the eyes of the people in the mosque were looking at him. "Is your Jesus real, or are you just talking?" He cried out to the Lord and said, "Lord, I've never faced this situation before, but your name is now at stake. What to do?" He prayed for this little girl — and nothing happened. His heart sank. The father looked at his child and saw that she was crippled as before. Nothing happened. Then he said, "Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe this particular request was too difficult for Jesus." He turned around and took his little girl away, walking towards the door.
He watched the father and the little girl, whose head was over the shoulder of the father, looking back at him — two big eyes looking at him as they were walking away. Then the little girl began to push the father away. He was holding her and wondering what she was doing. She kept pushing more and more forcefully, as if telling him, "Put me down, let me go." The father was rather puzzled, so he put the girl down — and behold, the girl stood on her feet and walked. The whole mosque gasped. Jesus is real. This little girl was walking around happily who had never walked in her life.
Would you dare to face the challenge? Here was a man who was able to see the wonder of God, experience his presence and his power, because he had put away the "I." He had put away the self. No more "I." No more "my comfort, my plans." He didn't say, "I offer my plan to God — Lord, bless my plan. I'm going to teach in this seminary. Lord, bless my plan." He said, "Not me, Lord. What do you want me to do?" And the Lord said, "Africa." Africa? How many of you would like to go to Africa? He said, "Lord, where you want me to go — Africa? Fine." What about the family? All go together.
He paid a terrible price for his willingness to put away the self and do God's will only. What was the price? Not jumping into the river. Not going through Africa. He lost his wife. His dear wife was so close to him. Could he take it? I heard him on tape, first hand, telling this account. He gloried in what God was doing until he came to the part where he told how he and his wife went to fetch their two children who were going to a school in another town. When they were coming back in this jeep, they were ambushed by Muslims who were very angry at the fact that thousands of Muslims were turning to the Lord. He had brought the gospel and life to thousands, and the Muslims were very, very angry.
As he was driving back at night, they opened up with their machine guns and fired upon the car. The children ducked down. He jumped out of the car, and the attackers left after spraying the car with bullets. He came back and found his wife dying. He took his wife in his arms, and she died in his arms. At that point, I can see how much it hurt him, because he broke down and couldn't speak any further.
So walking with Jesus is wonderful, but costly. Could you take that price? Would you be willing to accept that going there would mean perhaps the end of the family as he knew it? The most painful part, of course, was that he watched his wife die in his arms. She said to him, "Don't ever turn away from the path that the Lord has set for us and for you. Be faithful to him to the end." What a wonderful couple. No "I," no self — just the Lord. This earthly life will pass anyway, but they will have eternal life. And what will be their union in the presence of God!
Today I've shared with you the secret of this matter of really meeting with God, experiencing him, walking with him, and as a result of that life, thousands are drawn to the Lord. But you may have to pay a price. Let us close in prayer.