I suggest today that we are here, according to the camp theme, to talk about vision. Spiritual vision, I presume, is what we are talking about. Spiritual vision is the vision of spiritual things, which means eternal things, as distinct from temporary things, transient things, earthly things, material things that pass away, which will soon be no more. Amazing. Life passes at an astonishing speed.
Just ask the gentlemen who are over 60, and they will tell you. You are now maybe 30, 20, 40. You've got a long way to go. Not so, my friend. I'm nearly 70 this year.
I will be 70 this year. And I can remember, you know, just to my youth, not long ago, the things I did. It was just a few blinks of the eye away. The amazing things, when I have trouble walking around these days, I remember the fact that I used to walk in the Swiss Alps. I would set out early in the morning and walk the entire day, without eating, without drinking.
It was self-discipline. I was a very disciplined man. And it was a way of toughening myself up.
In Switzerland, as I told you, is a soft, easy-loving, people love ease, easy country, prosperous, rich, and I didn't want to become another, you know, what do they call it, couch potato or something. No, no, sir. I was going to be a disciplined soldier of Christ. And I did the most outrageous things.
And I see people today going on hikes, and they are wearing specialized boots on their shoes, on their feet. I look at the price of those boots. Well, I couldn't have afforded even a pair of slippers. I look at these boots, I couldn't afford a thing. I had nothing.
I was walking in the mountains. I mean mountains, not meaning the little path here. I'm talking about the Alps up there, where people are wearing mountain boots, and you're supposed to wear mountain boots. Does that mean that because I could not afford mountain boots, that I would leave these wonderful trails in the high mountains to these mountaineers, equipped with wonderful, you know, wooden jackets and all this fancy stuff, and these rucksacks, which had all kinds of devices. Well, since people are rich.
I came from a well-to-do family, but by that time, my dad didn't want to know me anymore, because I'm being the only son, and he would hope that I would really be something in the world. And here was I, determined to be a preacher of the gospel of all things. So, I think he was completely... Anyway, eventually he got mixed up in another religion, another branch of Christianity that I don't bother to name. And my mother was equally fed up with me for wanting to be a preacher, so I was basically disowned.
So, whether the family has money, had nothing much more to do with me. But I went to visit my mother, as you know, as I told you, she was in the sanatorium, and fighting for her life, initially. So, I visited there in Switzerland. By the time I got there, it took me so long to get there, that she was actually out of hospital, and resting at home, minus one lung. Well, that meant that, of course, I went walking in the mountains, with ordinary clothes, just like I would be wearing now.
They thought, they said there's a crazy thing to do, because the weather can change very quickly in high altitudes. It can be very warm, very hot in the afternoon, in the sunshine, freezing cold at night. And I had nothing on me except a thin jacket.
I wore a pair of ordinary walking shoes, and not with a smooth sole. I remember the look that the mountain walking people looked at me. They would look me up and down, and walking up here like this. Well, nothing was going to stop me, and I had studied the map. I would go from point A to B, and it would have taken me probably 12 hours of walking.
I would start out in the morning, I would arrive at night at the other end, and I would have this long walk. I brought no food, no water. So, this was the way that I learned to walk with God. The Lord took care of me. I felt neither hunger nor thirst along the whole way, and had a wonderful time of communing with the Lord.
But this was the way I proceeded. And what I want to stress today is just a point. That when you're being softened up by the kind of life you're used to in this part of the world, you don't make a soldier. You can't make a soldier of Christ. At least you won't endure it for very long.
I knew this point. I wonder how many of you are disciplined enough with yourself. I always appreciate those who go into tough sports in order to keep themselves in some sort of shape. I did cycling at one time, just for the sake of toughening up, because somebody had an old bike in Switzerland. And I looked at this old bike.
It didn't have a single gear on it. It's one of those old bikes that you ride around in China. It's no gears at all. It's very heavy stuff, made of some kind of heavy iron. And since that was the only bike available, I said I'll do four days of non-stop toughening up cycling.
And I hadn't cycled for years. The last time I cycled was in China. It was our normal mode of transport in China. I rode all over the city of Shanghai end to end on bicycle, of course, because that was the cheapest way. You don't have to buy gas.
You don't have to buy a bus ticket. And I would cycle from one end of Shanghai to the other because the church was at the other end from where I lived. So I had to cycle literally from the west end to the east end.
And you know how big Shanghai is? It is an enormous city. With today's population, maybe somebody can update me, but I think it's in the region of 20 million people. I think there are more people in Shanghai than several times the population of Hong Kong. It's a gigantic city.
I cycled routinely back and forth across the city. But I had stopped cycling for a few years after coming out, and I was afraid that I was weakening as a result. So since this bicycle is available, what I did was, the first day, I tackled the outs with a bike with no gears on it.
Now, of course, I'm not in that condition anymore. And when I cycle, even in my area, when there's a little hill, I puff and pan to get up the hill, even with gears. Now, you can't buy bicycles here without gears. I don't think they even exist. All bikes are equipped with gears.
Either the minimum is three gears or goes up to, what is it, 24 gears or something. Most have 21 gears nowadays. If you're less than 21, you belong to the dinosaurs. So, I took this bike with no gears on it. In those days, not all bikes are gears.
And I cycled out to tackle the Alps. I wondered how many of you would have liked to come with me, say, come on, let's go. We'll crisscross Switzerland on bike. And I think you take one look at that bike and say, yeah, but not with this one.
So, anyway, the first day, I went from North Switzerland to the center, right into the center of Switzerland, right up to Altdorf. Altdorf is famous for the man called William Tell, who shot an apple off his son's head with his crossbow. You remember that story? Well, you will know that. Because the Austrians were in charge of Switzerland at the time.
And they tried, like all oppressors, like to make life difficult. So when Tell and his son came out of the Austrians and said, okay, you can pass if you can shoot the apple off your son's head with your crossbow. So, the apple was put on his son's head. And William Tell aimed and shot the arrow right out of his head.
This was made him very famous, of course. Anyway, that was his village. I stopped there for the night. It was a long ride one day, right to the center of Switzerland. But the next day was even tougher because the next day I had to scale the Alps, go straight up on a bike with no gears.
And to be very honest, there were stretches. It was impossible for me to paddle because that was the old road, not the new one. The new road is a highway that flies over the Alps and you are not allowed to cycle on it anyway. It's a motorway. You don't cycle on highways.
The old road was the one that zigzag, zigzag like this up and up. And I tried at some stages, no matter how strong, you just can't go up with no gears on that. But I tried as far as I could go and often, what I did is I finally picked up this heavy bike, put it on my shoulder and you know when it's zigzag, I cram straight up past the zigzag, see, so that it saved me a bit of time.
I don't go around the bend but straight up climbing over the lower area with the grass and higher up would go rocks and so on, right up to the high pass, a pass which would go right over to Italy, the Italian side of Switzerland. I can tell you that coming down on the other side on the zigzag road, I was going faster than the cars was, I was just going full speed down there and just overtaking car after tar after car just sipped around the bend all the way down to Lugano. Lugano is the town near the lake just on the port of the Alps on the Italian side. And then all the way west, let's see, west to Geneva. you know, I love young people who love challenges, who like to take on something really tough and say, that, I'll go for it.
Because why? The gospel is for people who don't just look comfort and ease but look a challenge in the face and say, I'll go for it. I'll take that on. That's why the gospel is usually the younger people respond better. Old people say, oh no, come on.
This is too tough. This is too difficult. The day of challenges is over, you know. That's it. But the young people, at least some.
In my time, we had in Shanghai, I did another thing which was again for self-discipline and self-training. I decided to cycle from Shanghai to Suzhou. Nowadays, by train, Shanghai to Suzhou at high-speed train, it takes probably about a little bit over an hour, I guess, if that's the case. In those days, there was not even a highway. There was a mud road.
A mud road going through the back country and you circle over here, there, everywhere, and mud tracks. So I decided to cycle from Shanghai all the way to Suzhou. It took us from morning, from early morning to early morning of the next day, almost 24 hours of cycling. Again, no sleep along the way. We had a snack along the way.
Now, I was going out with a friend and said, let's two of us, let's do it. Let's cycle to Suzhou. I said, okay, let's go. And then when two other boys in the high school heard about it, they also want to go.
Actually, not two other boys. One was my boxing teacher. He was a school boxing teacher. He was a muscular man. I think I mentioned to somebody, a V-shaped body.
Oh, that was the kind of body that you look at. You know, he sits on the bicycle, you look at him at the back. It's something to behold. He goes up like that in V-shape. So, he was a boxing teacher and then there was another young fellow who was more like a stick.
He was just, he was just in bones. And I looked him up and he came to me and said, I'm going with you guys. I looked him up and down and I said, we are going not across the street, not across the city. We are going to Suzhou, you understand? He said, I understand.
Suzhou, yes, okay. I said, you're really game? He said, I'm game. Let's go. And I said, what kind of a bike do you have?
He said, well, I have a balloon wheel bike. I don't know if any of you know what a balloon wheel bike is. It's a very thick bike, big tires. It was used by paratroopers. They dropped it from the sky and it's an all-terrain bike.
It's very thick wheels. So, the bumps is minimized and it has no gears, of course. most people drove and arrived with no gears over there. So, actually, his bike proved to be the best because the road was so bad, it was just, you know, it was like firing a machine gun for 12 hours. Your wrists were just completely worn out. It was just banging the whole way through this thing.
I mean, none of your nice, soft, smooth country roads, nothing of the kind. I mean, you need a mountain bike for that. But, of course, we didn't have mountain bikes in those times. Is the Christian life tough enough for you? Or maybe it's too tough.
Let me tell you, the Christian life is too tough for those who have no stomach for hard things. The Lord put it another way. I'm just using my own illustration. The Lord put it another way. There is a broad road, wide, and smooth, and the crowds walk down that road.
And there is a narrow road. Narrow roads are not smooth. They are rough and bumpy. They are country roads, mountain roads. These are narrow roads.
You go up in the mountain, like the one I climbed, there are no roads at all. There are no paths even. How do we go from one point to other? Well, it's very simple. You come to one point and you look for a splash of paint on a rock, maybe, you know, 20 or 30 feet away.
And then you look at that splash of paint and you walk in that general direction. And when you get to that one, you look around to see where is the next splash of paint. And then you walk on like this to the mountains.
That's how you walk in the mountains. There are no paths. very narrow. There are no paths in the mountains. Very rough. That's why I said yesterday that the gospel divides people into two types.
The one kind that goes for the comfort and ease of the broad road where all the crowds go. The crowds do not go on a ride from Shanghai to Suzhou. There's nobody except crazy people like me and the other four of us who go on this kind of roads. The crowds do not even go onto the mountaintops climbing those jagged mountains because that's not where crowds go. That's where people who take challenges go.
How many of you would care for a ride across Switzerland even with geared bikes nowadays? I challenge you, take a gear bike and try to do the trip I did with no gears and at the end of it you'll say how did this crazy guy do it? North of Switzerland near Basel down to the center of Switzerland out off I can tell you the route and you can follow look in the map on it from out off to Lugano Lugano to Geneva Geneva back home. How many hundred miles? I'll leave you to figure that one out.
Four days. Yes, you can say okay, you were tough like steel which I was in those days. I have all these memories now just to remember since I can't repeat those things anymore. But the thing is this all I want to say is it takes a certain kind of person who listens to the call and answers. people who are not afraid of difficulties.
Now I deliberately chose a few examples which are a little bit let's say foolish to others a little bit excessive a little bit crazy because that's a bit like the gospel is. A person who is willing to give up his fishing business as the apostles did Peter and John able to give all that up to follow some unknown creature who recently emerged preaching about what? The vision of God the kingdom of God and nobody even heard this message before and this person comes along and you are going to abandon everything to follow him and he's telling you he's telling you you follow me and you end up getting crucified like I am going to get done and this fellow is already talking about his own crucifixion what kind of people must it take? God must be looking and Jesus selected his disciples he is looking for a certain type of person yesterday we talked about the call of the disciples because it was through this type of person that the mission can be accomplished when I got home and Helen said to me you said that maybe only one or two might respond to the kingdom of God maybe only two or three it must be very discouraging for the hearers I said I am only speaking the truth as I know from experience I don't preach with any false imagination that everybody here will rise up and say hooray I'm going to go and follow God I've been too long in the work I know what kind of people follow and what kind don't I look at people I know this one is a potential that one no sorry I'm very blunt I told heaven this is what Jesus said the road that leads to destruction is wide and many there be that go that way but the road that leads to life is exceedingly narrow and few few is his word not my word what is a few few is few one two three four that's few if there are 100 that's not few few relative speaking to the proportion of listeners we are talking maybe one or two percent but this one or two percent are the ones who turn the world upside down the others will accomplish nothing and today you've got to decide which side of the line you're on on the broad road the narrow road the many the few to be with the few requires as I said a certain kind of attitude a certain kind of vision that keeps you going not just for that short distance but all the way to the ends whenever I preach I am preaching just to the few I know that the others are asleep either mentally or physically spiritually somewhere they're asleep they're not with it at all they don't even want to be with it I'm very disturbed about these chairs in this camp you know I think these chairs are designed for sleeping they're not designed for listening to the word of God that's the reason I don't like to preach in the in the Montreal church the downstairs churches are almost as comfortable I mean the seats are almost as comfortable as these but have you seen those sofas upstairs in the chapel I thought to myself what is this place who designed a ridiculous place I'm sorry I'm very blunt you see how I'm blunt I make all kinds of any but this is a church or is this some kind of asylum where you all come to sleep those gigantic seats I fall in there and I wonder you know it's even hard to get out of the seat you sit in there and the seat sucks you in holds you there and your eyelids begin to get heavy who blames you if you fall asleep in that kind of a chair and what have they done they've removed all the nice hard seats that keep people awake and they put all these sofas in here comfort and ease do I need to prove my point here it's too easy to prove and those of you who haven't seen those seats look at the chapel in Presbyterian College where we have our services that is why I asked to move downstairs at least those seats are not as comfortable as these at least they look a little bit more like the kind that should be there that's still too comfortable you don't produce soldiers out of this kind of an environment I'm not surprised the American army with a country that comes of this kind of comfort and ease they have to make soldiers by drilling them with an almost ruthless hardship in order to make soldiers out of them otherwise this bunch of people couldn't fight anywhere when they went to Vietnam they ran into soldiers people who knew what it is to take the greatest hardship and so they realized that if they're going to fight the Vietnamese who are really soldiers trained up to take the toughest kind of life to get by with a handful a mouthful of rice and go without food for that matter or eat some leaves in the jungle to fight this kind of man you had to produce soldiers that couldn't match this kind of person and therefore they've made their training tougher and tougher and rightly so because otherwise you'll never win a single war with people coming from this sort of background the Swiss army had to do the same thing they went to the greatest extremes to produce soldiers they were made to swim across river with full army pack weighing 80 pounds can you swim a river with 80 pounds of stuff on your back you'd be happy if you can drag yourself across they made to tell you the truth a couple of soldiers died by drowning I heard there'd be more than that to drown by the time they were rescued they were too late they simply couldn't make it across the river with 80 pounds of equipment on their back and the army made no apologies for the drowning of those soldiers you want to be a soldier in the Swiss army you totally will toughen yourself up to do this do we have an army of the soldiers of Christ who can endure the hardship of the narrow road can you make it I doubt many many can don't even have the mental quality to do it like all those armies including the American army they had to train them mentally to change the way they think until they can endure being shouted at by officers they are deliberately insulted and shouted at to reduce them to the point where they will obey any command did I say something to you about democracy yesterday remember the will and the power of the people you know one thing democracy would not survive one day without an institution in which there is absolutely no democracy it depends for its survival on a non-democratic institution and you have guessed by now what that has to be right there is no more autocratic and ruthless organization in the world than the army including the American army and any army for that matter and the German army was one of the finest fighting machines fighting for somebody like Hitler and why were they respected because of absolute obedience and loyalty if they were told hold the place to the last man they will stay there and fight to the last man the allies knew it and what a price they paid to defeat the German army that is the thing but there is absolutely no democracy in an army you don't you go and vote to say am I going to go to fight the enemy and attack this point today and then the captain draws his men say what do you think guys shall we attack this point of course not the order comes from above attack you go no matter the casualties losses your business is to take it to take that strong point interesting isn't it democracy cannot survive except with the support of a powerful non-democratic institution in fact very few institutions are really democratic because if they were the whole country would collapse what I mean well let's take the big industry take a big industry like General Motors biggest car manufacturer in the world how does General Motors run oh you just go there and vote whether you like to work today or not how many cars are we going to produce let's have a vote let's discuss today is a bit hot today we'll reduce our production to 2,000 cars tomorrow the weather is better maybe 3,000 cars today I don't feel so good let's we all go for a picnic and forget about General I mean the company will go bankrupt we'll collapse a company whichever company you work in is that a democratic institution can you do what you like do they vote your opinion there you must be kidding no company can the CEO gives the instruction this is the way we're going to plan the production this is what every man's job is you like to strike fine we'll see there are laws against striking too if it's within reason fine and not reason you're out my friend you see democracy doesn't work your economics your economy would fall apart your big businesses could not run could not work at all it has to have military discipline to some extent not as strong as in the army but it has to have discipline if that country is going to survive take away those props and your democracy is gone how large is the army you find out hundreds of thousands of men not one bit of democracy in it and every man will do his duty as he is commanded they are sworn to do that the army is sworn to do that to pledge absolute obedience and loyalty and that in a democratic state if democracy was strong enough you wouldn't need the army but it needs the army to survive well when it comes to that there is a lot more freedom being a Christian I can tell you as a Christian soldier it's a very different type of thing as we'll come to in a few moments the kingdom of God as I've said contrasts with the kingdom of this world man centered and man centered does not just mean democracy it means totalitarian authority in the form of the army this is also the reason why so often democracies are taken over by the army South Africa and South America this has gone on and on nonstop a person is rooted into power and then he is thrown out by the army the army takes control and nobody can do anything about it because you cannot fight against the army so some general or other just takes over control the arm you see democracy cannot protect itself without the army that is a tragic that's why in fact there is no true democracy anywhere when it comes to that the kingdoms of this world claim to have this and that in fact in reality it doesn't and cannot work like that the kingdom of God God is in control and let me tell you he is no dictator he is no tyrant he is one who takes our best interests into account like a father that's why we who walk with God call him father a father is head of the house he is in charge but he is not a tyrant if he is a good father but he does look for qualities if you had a son what kind of son would you like to have some guy who fooled around all his time who has no self discipline who spends all your money who gets into accidents who does every what kind of son will you like and what kind of son does God look for that should be easy to understand there are fundamentally then two types of people in the world and the Lord Jesus in all his parables makes it very clear he says there two kinds and one who can say for example are like sheep and the other like goats he can say there are wheat and there are tares it goes on like this through the scripture and in this room there are two kinds of people you are one or other category and you should know which side of the line you are on what are you there is one kind that does the will of God and they know they are doing it because they are committed to doing it and they are the kind that doesn't do God's will and pitiful a lot are those in the middle who neither know whether they are going to do God's will and spend the rest of their life trying to sort that one out and as long as you haven't sorted it out then you can be sure that you are not doing God's will that is called the decision that we have to make now let me talk a little bit more! life in the kingdom I have said something about life in the world but I want to continue before going on to consider the attitude with which you look at the gospel even as I preach it you are going to find two sentiments arising in you that's why I told you yesterday that I'm not a popular preacher because I preach the word of God and the word of God is offensive or foolish depending on your attitude that's what the apostle Paul said what we preach is the power of God the power of God the salvation he says in 1 Corinthians 1 that power is foolishness to some and a stumbling block to others how does it appear to you is it foolish is it stumbling block your reaction and I said that you may not have many do not have the prerequisites to see the vision and that's why I'm laboring this point there's no point talking about a vision you can't see because your response to this message is oh I haven't heard this kind of thing it is offensive it is disturbing it is even worse Matthew 7 6 the Lord says do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before pigs now when I was a young Christian I thought that's very offensive it's offensive you hear that saying something and over the years I began to realize it is so true he says if you throw what is holy to dogs you throw your pearls before pigs you know what you're going to get as a result they will trample these things on the foot and then they will turn and put their attention on you and tear you to pieces that's the Lord's words not mine Matthew 7 6 we will tear you to pieces it will generate so much anger and hatred how many times did the apostle Paul go out to preach salvation of God remember what he preached he didn't preach curses upon people he preached salvation and what he got in return was he was stoned so many times and one stoned and left for dead beaten how many times lashed how much did he suffer he says he's got scars all over his body to prove his faithfulness to Christ why do people do that to somebody who did not come and say bad things to people just told them about the salvation of God come and do God's will and you get stoned for that interesting I've been attacked many times in my time this time with stones of words designed to tear you apart slander you in everything call you every name under the sun oh wonderful and that by the so-called Christians by the way here we can see that there is something worse than just negative I don't like this message I don't like to listen to this it's offensive to my values I was brought up in a society the value of these things and therefore reactions some people ignore you that's the kindest thing they can do to you and others will tear you to pieces can you take it never mind cycling across Switzerland or Shanghai to Sudro and all this can you take hard words unfair words unfruitful words and say nothing in return I have never spoken back or slander those who slander me no I don't do that because I have one who will take care of all those accounts it a few times but now if you have the attitude which says whatever the truth is I am prepared to do it no matter what other people think you don't do it for other people's sake you don't get you don't commit your life to God because of family pressure or what not not at all you must do for one reason only that you yourself begin to see the vision and you take the step forward I wonder if you can do that and then wonderful things happen wonderful things happen sometimes I just wonder how to share with people the incredible journey of walking with God I feel that they miss so much and they have so little oh they have big house they have nice car that's nothing it's all passing away they have nothing that's worth having when I look through the long years of walking with God and all that I have experienced of him I wouldn't exchange even one of those things for a car or house or anything else it is so amazing to know God communicate with him now let's go back again to the kingship of God it's an old word king we don't use kings nowadays never mind the headship of God the rulership of God give him whatever name the presidency of God the chairman provided he's not there by election Israel was the only nation to begin with that was a theocracy the only nation on earth that was ruled by God and God led Israel let's remember through somebody called Moses and God called out Moses a relatively timid man quiet man rather like Timothy in the New Testament where Paul had to tell him you know that God didn't give out the spirit of timidity but of boldness and that took a lot of doing with the apostle Paul he called out this man to lead the nation of Israel on a challenge that was really extraordinary and which makes my cycling across Switzerland look like sheer peanuts because he was going to march these people through the desert through the land of promise he was going to march these people several hundred thousand men a total population of two million what kind of a challenge is this two million people to march across the desert where there are no 7-11's along the way where you can buy yourself a nice cold drink no McDonald's or Kentucky fried chicken along the way and not even a road through the desert wastes 7-2 million people no wonder if you can read the exodus and forget about your Sunday school ideas of it and read again what an extraordinary challenge it couldn't be done just the logistics if you sit down to calculate this whole situation how much water would 2 million people need in a single day and water is the one thing you don't have in the desert I've been in that desert I can tell you I think the first group of those in the first training I went with them into the desert I said you have a good look at this desert and how would you like to spend one night here in this howling waste of a desert freezing at night burning during the daytime you alone would be hard enough to walk through it not take 2 million people with their children and their livestock and what not and what not and march these 2 million people through now the point of all this is this God was king God was in charge and the first thing that happens when you walk along the way not doing your will but God's will is what happens miracles happen now when I was a young Christian that was still a story to me I've since walked a long way in many deserts with my God I've been without income without food frequently without a cent in my pocket I have to trust God for my provisions and my God is real you see as I said yesterday the more you do God's will the more you experience him and the more you experience him the more you I
# Vision of God's Kingdom (2) - Part 2
The more you do God's will, the more you experience Him. And the more you experience Him, the more you do God's will. There becomes a spiritual cycle that grows with intensity. Do you hear what I'm saying? Is God real to you?
I think very few people know God in a real way. And because you do not know Him in that way, you would consider it crazy. Just you alone, never mind two million other people. To go through a desert, even in this day and age. Don't believe it, try the Sinai Desert.
Even for two days and see how far you'll go. No water. You'll carry all the water you like. It's all on foot, by the way. No helicopters, no cars.
No four-track special vehicles that drive in the sand. How long would it take you to walk the shortest route across the Sinai? Find the shortest route you can, try it on foot. Going into there with just the water you can carry. And the food you can manage to eat and see how far you'll go.
Not very far, I'm afraid. You see, we read all this and we don't understand. You cannot bring supplies for two million people. That will last for very long. Neither food nor water can last that long.
God wanted to show when He is King, you will lack nothing. As long as you do what His will is, you will know the reality of God's. It is too wonderful for words. I've taken up this challenge. The Lord has given me this challenge.
And He has never failed. I shared with some of you before, I had a dream. And my dream was because China is open to the gospel in certain ways today.
And how are we going to get the gospel into China as fast as possible in the shortest amount of time? And one thought, of course, came to me is radio. We need radio. We need to get... I said, Lord, would it be according to your will that we can try to get the gospel into China by radio?
And I still recall how I came back to Montreal once and I talked to a person in our church who was a professor at McGill who was in the electrical engineering department. I asked him about radio transmission. He said, well, I'm not in that field because he is in generators, not in transmitters. So that's a different field.
He said, but I know a professor who is specialized in that field. And so he introduced me to this professor. And the first thing the professor asked me is, do you have a lot of money?
I said, no, I don't. He said, well, do you want to talk about broadcasting? You are talking millions. We are not talking here small money. He said, without millions, you can talk about broadcasting.
And so he made suggestions like hiring, renting time from CBC, World Radio and so on, broadcast from Canada and so on. He didn't know whether CBC would rent the time or not, but he said we could inquire. So I had to leave that for the time being until one day somebody, a co-worker said to me, oh, I've just been approached by a Christian radio station that wants to sell their station broadcasting into China.
I said, really? And I thought, I remember the professor saying, you need millions. How much are they talking about? Uh-oh. One million U.S.
One million U.S.? Where do we have one million U.S. to come from? We don't have rich people in our churches. How are we going to raise those funds? So, so we have, that is another challenge.
Is your God real? Now I thought, if this is your will, Lord, what is a million dollars, right? For God, is that a big deal for us? It's no big deal. Is a million U.S. a lot of money for you?
Of course it is. Especially when you have not even a fraction of that amount to come up with. And you know what, what was our reply to it?
Because this, this radio station was desperate to sell. They were in debt. They were desperate to sell. And they wanted to sell to people who love the Lord because it's a Christian station and they love the Lord.
And they were selling it at a fraction of a price. Because as the professor said, the radio station cost millions. And that station originally cost five million dollars. some years before.
But they were willing to settle for a million. So they said, what's the answer? Are you going to take it? Oh, you look in your pockets and you wonder, can't be done. But I have known my God for all these years.
Is God real? Real enough to put a million dollars on the table? Do you think so? What would your answer have been? And I said, yes.
We'll take it. Then we'll see what the Lord will do. Well, it's wonderful. So since the year 2000, the radio station has been broadcasting into China four and a half hours every day.
The word of God goes out and can reach more people in a single day than most of us could possibly do in a lifetime. Four and a half hours a day. And we had more challenges beside that.
First of all, we had no radio engineer who knew anything about operating a radio station. No idea how to operate the station. Looks like there's a lot of problems with the translation system going on. So, yeah. But I guess we have to move on.
So, that's why I say, unless you know God is real, it's not possible even to live this Christian life as it is meant to be lived. Did we, did you in Montreal find that somebody passed you a bag which says donations for radio station? That's the normal way churches would do things. Collect funds. Raise funds.
We got 25, more than 25 churches that passed the bag around and collect funds. We never do that. Nobody was, we saw a bag passed in front of them to collect their funds. I trust in the living God. I asked no one to raise 8 million Hong Kong dollars.
How much did you give? Probably nothing. Or not much. And where did the 8 million dollars come from?
It's wonderful how God works. In fact, God went ahead. There was a, a brother who, who had this, uh, total savings of over 3 million Hong Kong dollars. And about two years before that he had come to me and said, I want to sell my apartment which is worth 3.5 million.
I want to give it to the Lord's work. He says, where can I put it? I said, nothing at the moment. Nowhere to put it at the moment that I can suggest. So why don't you just keep it until the time that the Lord will draw upon that money?
And the next year he asked me, I waited one year already. When can I? He was very anxious to, to, to offer this 3.5 million. I said, well, sorry, nothing has come up yet. So why don't you just hang on to those 3.5 million until something comes up?
And it was about a year and a half later. And he asked me, what about the 3.5 million? I don't want this money hanging around, you know. You know, in, in, in Hong Kong, you put money in the bank, you get no interest. It's about 0.5% or some, some incredible amount.
They, we just, just, you'll get nothing for that in the bank. So by that time, I said, yes, there is something now. Would you like to put it in? It's a radio station that we are going for. Oh, his eyes brightened up.
Finally, he said, finally. And then amazingly, other people approached me. I have 1 million, I have 2 million. and, we had to pay up for this radio station within one year. We had to make three payments. If we miss any payments, we forfeit all our purchase rights and we lose the money we, we hadn't paid, we had already paid.
In other words, if we had already paid three installments out of four and we failed to pay the fourth installment, you lose the entire thing because you are in breach of contract. So, you had to trust the Lord that the money would be there for each installment. Without publicity, nobody heard any publicity from us. We raised no funds. We had no gimmicks.
Nothing. Amazing how God works. I stood there as a witness to this whole thing. The wonder of God's power. no human methods used. How real is your God?
Now, when Israel had God as king, miracles were happening. What was happening? Well, when the people needed, two million people needed water to drink, can you imagine how much water was needed in the desert? And you don't know what Moses did.
He was told, strike the rock. And water will gush forth. Struck the rock and the water came out. Rock up. Water out of rock?
How much water do you need? Gushing out like a river because you need two million people not just to drink but to wash themselves too, you know. That's amazing. What about food? Come down in the form of manna.
In the morning, it was there on the ground. Pick it up. You can cook. You make bread or pita's with it if you like. Whatever you want. it's all there you can eat and very nourishing too.
Eat that and you'll find. Forty years. Forty years God supplied the water. God supplied the food. You think it's a fairy tale?
You think our God is a fairy tale? But if you do then this message is not for you. People said, how practical is God? When I'm hungry does He give me food? Well, He sure does.
I experienced that for nearly three years. I can speak as one who knows. It's too bad when you're in comfort and ease and the government looks after all your needs because you don't need God to provide anything for you. You are sick and have no money and no God. You're really in trouble.
But when you have God you lack nothing. Provided that provided that you are always truly doing His will. Now by doing His will is not temporarily doing His will.
It does not mean thinking that you are doing His will. We are very good at deceiving ourselves. We have to check ourselves all the time. What do I mean about thinking doing His will? There's the difference between religion and spirituality.
I said yesterday I have no youth for religion and neither do you to be very honest. Do you know what's the difference between religion and spirituality? Which one do you have? There is a world of difference. To be spiritual is to be in touch with God.
To know Him. Whom to know is life eternal. Do you know Him? If you don't know Him you don't have life eternal. That's the biblical words.
To be saved in biblical language that is to have a relationship with God you have to know Him. Now you don't have to know Him in religion. In fact hardly anybody in religion knows anything about God. They know about Him knowledge wise. They don't actually know who they are talking about.
You see religion is a human system mostly of culture. You go to a church you look at the architectural style. Is that style in the Bible? Of course not. It's a human style.
If you are in the West you have Western architectural style. If you go to the East you have churches in Eastern architectural style. It has nothing to do with Bibles nothing to do with God. It's just our style. We like to build a building in this style.
You can have a church like this with log cabins up there. It doesn't look very fancy. It's a log cabin church. It's still a church. It's just a building.
You can have any kind of style you like but that has nothing to do with God. And then you have all kinds of ceremonies and rituals. Now we have certain ceremonies too right?
We have to start with what is it 40 minutes of singing or 10 minutes of singing. I go to a church that sings from beginning to end and I wonder if there is a message to be heard in this church. I'm just singing song after song and they are singing on the platform there is a group there and the people down here are also singing sometimes and then it's up on the platform and this thing goes on and I said I'm here one hour is this going to be the end? Is the pastor just going to say okay here is the closing prayer and we can leave? In the end there was actually some sharing.
We are not preaching but sharing something and I can't remember what was shared. Every church has its own tradition. The charismatics seem to think that singing is about everything there is to it. And creation with a bit of message and a message as I hear sometimes on TV is all about how you can get rich.
Follow this principle. Abraham's principle. Abraham was very rich. So what you do is what I call the gospel of Abraham.
They didn't preach the gospel of Jesus Christ they preached the gospel of Abraham because Jesus is poor and Abraham is rich. Who wants the gospel of Jesus? We want the gospel of Abraham. That's the way to be rich. He had countless herds and flocks and so on.
Yeah well we can translate that into property or cows or whatever. Gospel of Abraham? In which generation are we living nowadays? That's Christianity. That's religion.
So I don't want to name names in this thing but you just turn on the TV and you'll hear all you need. Oh the other big deal is healing. Whatever sickness he's praying for you on the screen I see right now that somebody has a cancer there and the cancer is here and there. Well you'll never be wrong because somebody has that cancer you can be sure and I'm praying for you right now and then that cancer is going away and you only have to believe it and somebody has a problem with his right eye and now I'm praying for you and well somebody you can be sure out there has a problem with the right eye if you're speaking on the TV or radio.
I mean at this time I'm just tired of these religious gimmicks and this nonsense because then of course at the end is you know that to keep this program on the air we need your generous donation please remember us and we'll give you a little booklet free of charge when you send in the money. We don't do that in our radio station. We don't do that. No. On the contrary we ask if anybody wants this message we will send it to you in print if you like or over the internet if you like whichever way you do.
Never do we ask for a cent from anybody. There's the world of difference you know. Religion takes money to continue. Spirituality doesn't require it. When you need it God will give it.
You don't have to ask anybody for it. There's a world of difference between one and the other. You can be a pastor in a church and you don't know God. The church is full of pastors who don't know God. They are my biggest enemies because I show them up all the time.
But they have no business to be a pastor when they don't know God because the only kind of pastor I see in the Bible are people who walk with God who know the living God. Don't think you go to a Bible college you get yourself a degree of some sort or other and that qualifies you to be a pastor. It qualifies you for nothing. You've got to know God. And if you came to this camp and you left without knowing God it's a pity.
You're not likely to hear another message very similar to this anymore. because no pastor who does not know God will preach this kind of message. There's nothing to preach about. He doesn't know God. How can he preach that? So he has to preach religion.
I went into a church once in Hong Kong and I got a lecture on biblical theology. Goodness, I thought to myself I looked around and I wondered does anybody know what this man is talking about? Well, because he doesn't know God what is he going to preach? He has to preach something that sounds religious and he opens a book on theology and he says I tell stories. I went into another church and I heard stories from beginning to end.
Very nice, interesting stories. Moral stories. At the end of it when he finished and I thought oh, those are nice stories and then I thought to myself and so what was his point? What was the central point? What is he getting at?
I asked Helen, did you get the point of the message? He said no. What were those stories trying to tell us? I thought there must be some kind of, you know, something that threads them together. If there was something I missed it and he never said what it was.
So religion becomes a means of entertainment telling moral stories. As somebody said all religions are the same. They just tell you to be a good person and to a great extent that's right. All religions on that level are basically the same. You're going to be a Buddhist it tells you to be a good man.
You want to be a Muslim it tells you to be a good man. He says, what religion doesn't tell you to be a good man? Did any religion tell you to be a bad man? Certainly not. So what is the difference?
Christianity is no exception. Either you know God or you don't. And you know that is why Christianity is collapsing.
What did I say? I said it's collapsing. You know why? Because as the religion is there it can grow larger in number and influence because of its social structure. People join a religious organization for all kinds of personal reasons.
I'm reading a book by a doctor who tells you how to live a better life to stay young. You see? And what does he say?
One of the things he advises is go to church. I said what? Yeah, but he didn't say go to church so that you know God. Go to church to be healthy. I said be healthy?
What do you mean go to church to be healthy? Why? Because you have a society of a caring society where people are nice people generally speaking not always but generally speaking and they are there and show you walk in and Sunday and say hi are you? Haven't talked to you a long time? Are you well?
And so on. Somebody shows some caring to you. You know? If you stay at home who cares about you? Your existence of an interest to no one.
But you come into church and at least for a few minutes alright? And of course many people are in a hurry to rush home for their lunch or supper or whatever it is but they might even spare five minutes to talk to you. And some of them have little groups and then you can join in there and you have a support group.
Support groups are very important. They support you emotionally. They support you in one way or another. And so a church can grow without any spiritual content.
Just like Alcoholic Anonymous or whatever whatever it is support groups you need. But what I say he was dying because why? Fewer and fewer people within the church actually know the living God. Fewer and people actually know the living God. That is the tragedy.
I don't want to build this type of church. I would like the church to be very small and every man a true soldier of Christ. Every man really knowing his God. Every man committed to doing his will. I wrote and gave the messages on totally committed because there is only one kind of Christian this Bible is concerned about here.
People totally committed to God. And that message goes down well with some and not well with others. This book totally committed was taught in a message was taught in Indonesia in one church a church that was dying and when the message was taught there it caught fire. Brought on a revival in the church. And the co-worker wrote back and was so shocked he said not even one of our best teachers she went there and taught this church totally committed and the church revived and the pastors changed and the whole situation changed and she wrote back and said what am I supposed to do now?
I thought what's the next step? Where do I go from here? She was quite panicky. Once the Lord started to work the same thing happened to a church in China I read the Chinese edition because when somebody a young man passed it to the leaders of the church they read it they caught fire. You put it here nobody wants to look at it.
Totally committed these are radicals these are extremists these are nutcases. Well our time has gone it rushes by I just want to say one more time with this we're best close I have just too much material so page after page that I think I won't have time to talk about but I just want to give you the essence the essence of the Bible the whole Bible is concentrated in one thing only and that's the only thing you need to know you don't have to be a Bible scholar because only thing you need to know is this everything depends on doing the will of God and either you do it or you don't that's all there is to it you don't you're out as far as the kingdom is concerned because the kingdom is where the will of God is done you don't and doing it is not doing it according to what you think is right what do I mean by that well for example you say okay I know that God likes me to help the poor right okay so I decide that I will help the poor so every day you know every month I will give out some money to some Christian organization or Christian children's fund or something I will give some money to them I am doing God's will no you got it all wrong you have no right to decide what to do with that money you say what that's right you see that's why I told you it's not easy you have no right to do because when you live with God when you are belonging to him your money is not your own I don't own a cent in my pocket I don't I'm not an exaggeration because every cent in my pocket is God's I don't decide to say I want to give this money if I can decide what I do with it that money is mine not God's if it's his I haven't got the right to do with it what I want even if I think it might be pleasing to God to give you know ten dollars to this poor man by the roadside I have to ask my God first should I give him the ten dollars I'm willing I'm happy to give him is this in accordance with your will you see God will certainly say of course well not of course because you give him ten dollars and you walk down the road and you see somebody else in even worse condition and you don't have ten dollars to give because you already gave him the ten dollars only he knows who has the greater need you decide to give to Christian children's fund how do you know that's the fund God wants you to give it to there are lots of funds maybe he wants you to give that money somewhere else and you've given it to one you haven't got it for the other you see a Christian life is always keeping in touch with God but then you say I don't know how to commune with God you'll learn if you are willing to do his will then you have to know what that will is now if God doesn't exist you have no problems because if he doesn't exist there is no will to know isn't it so you cannot commit yourself to something that doesn't actually exist you'll soon discover when you want to do his will do you want to do it then you have to know what it is and you don't discover it just by thinking this I think what God wants that's you not him you do not play God and try to imagine that's his will what you gotta do is learn to listen listen that's the next step for which we don't have time today I have just laid the foundation that the will of God is the central element now there is nothing in the scriptures that does not have to do with the will of God what is baptism I said yesterday if I want to expound baptism I've put many messages on baptism you can get that from our church website the whole series on the meaning of baptism I would even go but it can be summarized in one thing it is doing God's will simple all the mechanics of it how it works how it actually can be spelled out in detail it can be one can write books on it or one can sum it up in one sentence doing his will now for example we don't have to be theologians to live the Christian life for example you sit in the car do you know motor mechanics probably not much I know perhaps more than most people because I've driven old cars most of the time and I've had to patch those old cars up and get them running and my old cars run very well because I know a fair bit about how to keep cars going if you always drive new cars you don't have a clue how this thing is all covered by insurance if it breaks down phone call and somebody comes and fixes it up I didn't have that kind of luxury I have to fix it up myself so I know these things but you may understand nothing about cars that does not prevent you from driving a car you can just sit in there turn the key and hopefully you know how to drive and you take the car down the road that's all you do do you know anything about aerodynamics do you know anything about jet engines presumably not like me I also don't know but that doesn't prevent me from getting into an aeroplane and flying across the world do you know the dynamics of the spiritual life most people don't but you don't need to know all you need to have is the determination by faith to say I am come oh God to do your will and I will do it you just tell me what your will is is there a risk of being hooked on religion not at all why for the simple reason is that if God doesn't exist there's nobody to be hooked onto there's nobody to give you his instructions it's like going to the car I put the key in the car and I say okay you can go now go where can't move there's no driver in the seat now when my life is like this car I hand it over to God and I say here the key is of my life you run my life now if God doesn't exist there's nobody to run your life nothing happens isn't it perfectly easy to understand that is why the person who does that and finds that God indeed directs your life knows that God is real that's the first step in beginning to know him beginning to hear his voice he says to you turn right you turn right turn left you turn left I think I've shared with you I've taken that very literally because it was a necessity didn't I share this to most of you when I went to meet my cousin once in China and I didn't have a clue of what my cousin looked like my cousin who was a professor in Hunan in China he phoned me once and said I'm coming down because I'm taking an American professor down to Shenzhen who's going over to Hong Kong and leaving and he said would you would you be able to meet me because I'll be right at the border with Hong Kong and we were in Hong Kong at that time I say yes George but listen we haven't seen each other since we were teenagers and I don't exactly look like when I was a teenager neither do you I'm sure I haven't got a clue what you look like so how are we going to meet I have no idea about how I was going to recognize him from the crowd and he had nothing and so we met and we tried to meet and he said well do it like this how about I meet you at the railway station when you come across from Hong Kong at the number one counter there must be only one counter I'll meet you at number one counter there I said okay that's fine I've never been to the station I had no idea turns out he also had never been to the station so the number one counter he just assumed we got there Helen and I got there and I went to look for number one counter and I discovered that nobody from China could even enter the railway station because only those from Hong Kong and with foreign passports could come into that station as out of bounds for Chinese citizens they couldn't come in and so of course there was no use standing at number one counter so I went out we went out to the station and out there were crowds and crowds of people multitudes of people how am I going to find my cousin in that well I will keep the story very short because I think I shared it once or twice before I don't remember then I came out there and then as I told you those of you who still remember I said there's only one thing left to do to find him in this crowd listen for instructions from the Lord I'll become a guided missal and he guides me that's wonderful as many as are the children of God are led by the spirit of God the Bible does not talk in hypothetical terms or abstract terms of when he says led by the spirit of God means led by the spirit I took it for I said there's no other way for me to find my cousin now so you instruct me I'm just listening and he led me forward and he turned this direction and turned that right direction straight on and there I met him of course I didn't know it was him but I assume must be him when the Lord said stop here look up that's where your cousin is I looked up and I saw somebody standing on a ledge because he was trying to look over the huge crowd of people trying to identify me and he got a completely wrong picture of me of course and I so he was looking elsewhere and I had no idea what he looked like so I looked up and I said are you George he says that's me he looked! I told him afterwards the story he was stunned in this day and age you can hear the voice of God you sure can but what's the secret I have no secret other than what you have I am committed to do his will in everything everything yes I shared in Hong Kong that when I go into a fast food restaurant and there's a list of food on the list I look up and down the list! and I said we have to ask God what we can eat in Hong Kong in the fast food restaurant I said you don't have to you are a free man but I want to know you say well what's the importance of that well you know that sometimes I order from the same restaurant I eat the food and I have no stomach trouble another person orders another dish and got diarrhea for the whole night does it matter yes my God cares for me he says don't take that one you take this one I take that I have no problems you do your own thing you are free man he's not going to send you to hell because you killed chicken instead of beef no our God is not a tyrant but he cares and that's why I say! Father is it alright if I take this dish I have no negative response I go ahead it's wonderful to walk with Father that's why I say I look around I say what a pity Christians live this poverty stricken spiritual life they live a life that has no direction no meaning no purpose what kind of a life would you live can you catch the vision we are talking about vision and vision depends on a living relationship with God you have that relationship you have vision you experience him that's why you have vision you don't have that you have nothing let us pray