Today I'd like to give forth some words of exhortation to our brother Boon, Sister Stephanie, Sequoia, and Kerry. And although these words are addressed in particular to them, they are not addressed exclusively to them. I trust that the Lord has something to say to all of us through these words.
My charge to them is that they will be faithful in the ministry of the word of God without compromise — without compromise in the least degree, no matter what the consequences to them will be personally. And believe me, the consequences will be very costly, as I myself have experienced. For anyone who is determined in this age, in this generation, to preach the word of God without compromise, believe me, you will pay a very high price. I have gone ahead in this path. And you will be surprised who your enemies will be. Not the unbelievers, but the established church, the established institutions of the world, to which the church, especially in North America and Europe, have become firmly wedded.
In Europe, for example, the church is fed by the government. It is paid by the government. It is paid by the taxes of the people. It is a state church. It is therefore in the service of the state. Their pay is in the highest category that anyone can earn in Europe, in any profession — no matter whether it be the medical or legal profession, none can exceed the income of the state church pastors, whether in Switzerland or Germany or Denmark or Sweden or Norway or anywhere. But when the church is allied to the state and serves the interest of the state, you are going to have problems when you preach the word of God uncompromisingly.
The situation is not much different in North America. Not much different, even though we do not have a state church. But behold, a Canadian flag is flying in the church. Without even noticing it, the state is here. I have nothing against the state. I am not preaching rebellion. But very subtly, church and state begin to be interwoven and their interests become interrelated. When you go into a court of law in North America, what do you swear on? On the Bible. It boggles my mind to think that every unbeliever that goes into a court in this country puts his hand upon the Bible and swears by this book. And the majority are unbelievers. Once the church can no longer see where its true loyalties lie, then I tell you that compromise becomes essential to maintain the interests of the church.
But more than that, there are very human, psychological reasons why we cannot handle the word of God. We don't even have to talk about the world and the state. We just talk about ourselves and our own nature. My nature, my flesh, my carnal being, rebels against the word of God. You don't believe it? That's what I'm going to try to prove to you today, in a short while. And that is the reason for my exhortation to them: never compromise.
When I first began my ministry in Montreal, coming over from my pastorate in England to minister in Montreal, my first words to the congregation in Montreal was this: I said to them, "I will preach the word of God here without compromise. And if none of you like to hear the word of God in this uncompromising way, and if you all leave this church and never come back again, I promise you, I will still continue to preach this word of God without compromise." Even if you can't stand it, you don't want to listen to it, and you don't want to come back again. And believe me, many people left, never to come back again. Did I change my message because I want people to come? No way. As God is my witness to this day, I maintain: I have one commitment, and that is to preach the word of God as he requires me to preach it in all faithfulness. Whether anybody wants to accept it or not. As Paul says, "We do not preach as pleasers of men." Our message will not please the carnal man. But to those who seek the truth, they will be drawn, even by this repulsive — let's not mince our words — by this repulsive, demanding, almost tormenting word of God. Because they will realize that only this word can set them free. And those who want to go to churches where they have a message so nicely suited to their tastes, will find after many years that all they have been doing is being lulled to sleep or left wandering in the wilderness.
My conscience would not allow me to do a thing like this. And I cannot stand before my God on the day of judgment if I did something like this. And the apostle Paul would not, for any reason, compromise the gospel.
Let me read to you a few verses from the apostle Paul to show you that is why God used this great servant of the Lord. Let me read to you, for example, from 2 Corinthians. In his second letter to the Corinthians, he writes this, 2 Corinthians 2, verse 17: "For we are not peddlers of God's word like so many." Like so many. So many people are simply peddlers of God's word. They are salesmen of God's word. They are there to sell God's word. Peddlers are hawkers, are salesmen. They are there to sell God's word for profit. As Paul says in Philippians, in his usual uncompromising way, he says, "Their God is their belly." They sell the gospel to fill their own belly. The gospel is a very marketable product — provided, of course, you dilute it, compromise it, change it a bit here and there. It becomes marketable. And how many have made their profit from the word of God? "We," he says, "are not peddlers of God's word like so many. But in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence."
How many preachers of God's word do you know — how many do you know — who are like this? Who refuse to use sales techniques? You go to a Christian bookstore today and I feel ashamed to look at the books that are being sold there. Some of the books. You know what is being sold there? Sales techniques of how to sell the gospel, how to propagate the gospel, how to have an "evangelism explosion" or whatever it's called. Peddlers of the word of God. Now, I don't want to question their motives. It's not for me to judge the motives. Maybe they think that this is the way to preach the gospel. But look here. We do not use sales techniques.
Look a little further on to chapter 4, verse 2. And what does Paul say here? "We have," he says, in chapter 4, verse 2, "we have renounced the shameful things that one hides. We refuse to practice cunning." Now, in selling things, you have to be cunning. I had once somebody coming to our house wanting to sell us a vacuum cleaner. Oh, by the way, they described this vacuum cleaner — it was a piece of technological wonder that could do just about everything. And they were telling me, "Now this vacuum cleaner can do this and can do that, and compared to the vacuum cleaner you have, I mean, this is..." Wow, I thought about it, and it's so convincing, and there were some demonstrations to show me how marvelous this vacuum cleaner was. I said, "Yeah, this sounds good, but wait till tomorrow. Give me one day to think about this." And as I thought about it for another day, I saw through every trick in there. Cunning. Very, very cunning. And the demonstrations were calculated to deceive, until I thought them through and analyzed them a little bit, and I realized that this was all cunning. This vacuum cleaner could actually do very little more than what the vacuum cleaner we had. But it was guaranteed to do marvels at the price of that time of something near $400. Well, ours only cost about $100. I thought at $400 it must be able to do an awful lot more. But after I finally analyzed it a bit further, I saw through the cunning. It couldn't do much more.
Paul says here: "We refuse to practice cunning, or" — notice these words — "to falsify God's word. But by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God." Notice previously he said "in the presence of God." Now it's "in the sight of God." And he says that there are many who do this kind of thing, who peddle the word of God, who falsify the word of God. It's alarming.
As though all this were not enough, let's read on a little bit to Galatians, a little bit further on. Galatians chapter 1, let me read this to you too. And this is what the apostle Paul says here, chapter 1 and verse 7: "And there he says, not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ." Daring people who want to pervert the gospel of Christ. The word "pervert" in the original is the simple word which means "to change." By compromise, by falsification, the gospel has been changed. It has been changed. It has been changed in very many ways. We thought that it was the Pharisees, the hypocrites, the Sadducees, the religious leaders of Jesus' day who did this kind of thing. I think you have known enough about TV evangelism of recent time to know about the perversion, the change, the falsification of the gospel.
In Matthew chapter 15, I will read this to you also so that you see where we are going in this message and why I want to stress this to those who have received the laying on of hands. I don't want to read the whole passage because it's too long. I'll read only verse 6. And this is what the Lord says to the Pharisees and the religious leaders of his day. So he says to them: "For the sake of your religious tradition, you make void" — you make void — "the word of God." That means to make empty the word of God. What you have done is you have emasculated the word of God. You have emptied it of its contents. You have weakened it. What is left when you make something void is that the shell is still there but the substance is gone. You have the form but not the substance.
Now how do you go about emptying the gospel of its substance? How do you empty the word of God of its substance? Paul is so concerned about this question that he keeps coming back to this theme again and again. Let me read to you just one last word. There are lots more, but I'll just read to you this constant concern — whether it's in the Lord's teaching or in the apostles' teaching — of the changing, the perverting, the emptying of God's word which is going on all the time to a greater or lesser degree. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 17. Let me read this also to you. Chapter 1 and verse 17: "For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom." In this context he's talking about human wisdom, human apologetics, human argumentation. He says, "I don't want to do this with human wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied" — here the word "void" — "emptied of its power."
But unfortunately today, that is precisely what has happened. The gospel has been emptied of its power. And you listen to soothing messages coming across from the pulpit which would go better in the chambers of a psychiatrist, in the counseling room of a psychologist, than should come from a pulpit. Messages like: "You are wonderful people. You are lovely people." The techniques of salesmanship begins with flattery, with the exploitation of the ego, with telling you what wonderful people you are. Sinners? Who wants to talk about sin? No, you are wonderful people. You make a little bit of mistakes, and for those little bit of mistakes, God has provided a great solution upon the cross. I'm going to tell you nothing soothing. Nothing at all that is soothing. I'm going to tell you like it is.
Let me give you an example of how the gospel is emptied of its power. Because, as I said, our carnal nature cannot stand the word of God, which comes across like a sword cutting — as the book of Hebrews says, a two-edged sword piercing into your heart. But remember, it cuts in order to heal, like the knife of a surgeon. No tumor will be soothed away by nice music alone. A tumor must be removed with the knife. And the tumor of sin must be removed with the sword of the Spirit.
Let me give you one example of how offensive the teaching of Jesus can be. See if you can face it. Luke chapter 14 and verse 27. Let me read this to you and see if you can stomach this one. Luke 14, I read at verse 26: "Whoever comes to me," the Lord Jesus says, "whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, cannot be my disciple." Hate? "Cannot be"? Jesus cannot speak of hate. He only speaks of love. Hate? Misprint. What have you got in your Bible? Have you got "hate" there? Let me tell you that there are some Bibles that have actually changed the word from "hate." At least the one I am using hasn't changed the words. I have read versions where the word "hate" has been removed and changed to "love less" — "if anyone loves father or mother more than me." Yes, that is found in Matthew. And we hope that Luke is the Lord saying the same thing. And Luke is saying the same thing as in Matthew. You like this saying? The Lord says, "Unless you hate father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children, everybody, including your own life, you can't be a believer. You can't be a Christian. You can't follow me." Oh, that's too much. I can't cope with this. Loving Jesus, gentle, meek and mild — he couldn't be, he couldn't have said this. He did. And I'm not about to dilute it.
You know, in Taiwan once I preached exactly on this verse, and everybody was offended at me. I'm guaranteed not to be invited back again. My job is to put myself out of business. They will not invite me back again. Unfortunately, next time I go I probably will be invited back. I don't know why they are so tolerant of my message.
The Lord says, "Unless you hate" — but here, of course, we understand the word "hate" is not an emotional word. It is a decisive word. "Hate" here means "to reject," and cannot be diluted to mean anything less than "reject." Unless you are prepared to reject everything and reject your own life. Keep this charge upon you, even during the training, as those who are in training can testify. They are under duty-bound to reject anything I say that is not in line with God. Of course I also have some sense of humor. If you don't know me, you might think this guy is very serious. He never has any sense of humor. And what I mean by sense of humor is sometimes I deliberately say something entirely wrong, and then I sit back and wait. And then I carry on and I say some more things that are wrong. Nobody says anything. And I carry on and then I say, "Everything I said up to now is wrong. Why didn't any of you say anything?" "Oh yeah? You said something wrong?" "I said everything was wrong. And I was waiting for you to correct me. And none of you did." That's where your failure is. You must realize that what I said was wrong. But you didn't see it. And in future, be careful. Be alert. This is just a test. Next time, you know, if I really did say something wrong, jump on it.
Now we can understand why the gospel is often emptied of its content. The reason is: we can't swallow it. The medicine is too bitter. The good medicine is too bitter to the taste. And therefore we have to dilute it. Sugarcoat it. Make it acceptable. But once you do that, you have changed its potency. You have reduced its effect. Or completely cancelled its effect.
Now continue to look at this verse. Let us go to chapter 8 of Mark, which actually says the same thing. Because just now we were looking at Luke 14. And you see what the next verse in Luke 14 says? It says there in verse 27, after speaking about hating or rejecting all those who are dear to you, including your own dear life, he goes on to say, "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Now the same thing is said in Mark chapter 8. And we will now just stay in Mark chapter 8 so that you don't have to be flipping around your Bible the whole time. In Mark chapter 8. And these same words here appear in verse 34. I particularly want to concentrate on the references to the cross. Because it's precisely on the point of the cross that the gospel becomes bitter in our mouth.
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# Preach the Gospel Without Compromise (Part 2)
But once using the word cross, never. And through all of his teaching, he speaks about his own death for us. He will die for our salvation, for the atonement of our sins. But in speaking of all this, he never once refers to the cross. But having finished speaking about his own death for us, he now speaks about our death with him. And that's where we come to verse 34. That's the context. In all preaching in the Bible, you must look at the context. Having spoken about his own death, he immediately relates his salvation that he will accomplish for us to how we are going to receive that salvation. And it can be done in only one way: that we take up our cross. If anybody preaches anything else to you, he has preached to you a lie. And I say this categorically, and I know that there is no one capable of contradicting me from the word of God. They might not like it, but nobody can contradict it. It is the absolute truth.
This means that anyone who preaches about the cross of Christ without talking about the cross that you and I have to bear has preached a lie, because the two cannot be separated. They are one and the same if that salvation which Christ accomplished for us is to be effective in our lives. If you don't follow this, you will find that salvation doesn't work in your life. Does it work in your life? Do you experience the power of God's salvation in your life? The answer, I can guarantee you, is no. You can testify from your own experience. Tell me yourself. It is no. Unless you yourself have been crucified with him by taking up your cross. There is no other way.
And the apostle Paul preaches exactly the same thing. Most of you will know Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20 very well. What does it read? We know it all from memory. There the apostle Paul says what? "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I physically am still alive, but not I. Christ now lives in me." You see, by rejecting myself, I have Christ. By keeping myself, I don't have Christ. I am dead. Christ lives in me. Amazing. Paul speaks exactly the same thing.
And then in Galatians chapter 6, he goes on. Verse 14, there he says: the effect of Christ's cross upon him is this. You can read it for yourself in Galatians 6. That through him, "I glory in the cross of Christ." Why? Because of that cross, what happens? "I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me." Is that true in your life? Be honest. If I ask you to raise your hands and ask you, "Is this true in your life?" — I wonder how many of you, in good conscience, dare to raise your hands. But if you dare not raise your hands, and you hope to be saved by the cross of Christ, you have got yourself into a delusion. The cross of Christ has been emptied of its content by a preaching which separates the cross of Christ from our association or identification with it by our taking up the cross.
So the first principle is this: the cross of Christ and our cross that he has called us to take up can never be separated.
Secondly, understand this. He is speaking about a cross that we must take up. It is not a cross that happens to us, like some illness that happens to us and we say, "Oh, I've got my cross to carry." No, no. Notice the active form. The cross here is something that we, of our own free choice — but only by the enabling of God's grace — we take up deliberately. It's not something that happens to befall us like some car accident and you're crippled and you say, "This is my cross." You see, today the church uses the word "cross" and the world uses the word "cross" in a sense which is not the biblical sense at all. That's another way in which it's been perverted, changed, emptied of its content. "My mother-in-law is my cross. I have to bear with her every day. She gets on my nerves. She's a pain in my neck." Maybe she's a cross to you, but that's not the cross the Lord is talking about. The cross is not something that happens to you that you can't help. Here it is something that you either take it or you leave it. And most Christians leave it. "Just give me the cross of Jesus. I will sing the praises of the cross, just as long as you don't ask me to be crucified with him. That I don't want."
Now, the third thing we have got to understand about Mark chapter 8 is that the cross separates us from the world. It creates a partition. We read this in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, and this is important enough that I'll read it to you. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 17. And this is what the apostle Paul says: "Therefore, come out from them and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean. Then I will welcome you." In other words, unless you separate from them, I will not welcome you. But if you separate from them — that is, from the world. The world here means that system, that whole way of thinking, that whole structural institutional organization of the world that is opposed to God or rejects God or ignores God or despises God or makes use of God, whichever serves their purpose.
And then, in verse 18: "I will be your Father, and you shall be my sons and my daughters, says the Lord Almighty." Are you listening to what the Almighty is saying? He is saying that unless the cross separates you from the world, you will not be his sons and his daughters. And we saw already from Galatians 6, that is what Paul exactly says — that the cross of Christ and the cross in which he participates, which he himself has taken up, has separated him from the world. That is the reason why Paul calls every Christian a saint. Today, Roman Catholics call saints people that have been canonized by the church. That's not the biblical meaning at all. Every letter that Paul writes, as you know, is addressed to "the saints at Corinth," "the saints at Philippi," and so on. This is the key idea of a Christian for him, because for him, the cross of Christ has separated you and me into a distinct people, distinct from the world.
Why do we need to be distinct? Because without being distinct, we are no different from any non-Christian. And if we are not different from a non-Christian, how can we fulfill our saving mission to them? Being distinct does not mean that we feel superior. On the contrary, being distinct means we are separated out to serve the sinners, to lead them gently into the path of salvation, but without compromising the word of God. Do you understand?
Now let me come to my last point quickly. I have summarized: first principle — you cannot separate Christ's cross from your cross. If you do that, you are holding on to a false idea of salvation that cannot save, and you will know it from your own experience. Secondly, we saw that the cross of Christ is something that we must take hold of by our own decision. It is not something that befalls you like some misfortune in life. You today decide to take it or not to take it. But if you don't take it, you will not see the kingdom of God. You will not experience his power. And thirdly, the cross of Christ separates you from the world in which you used to live, the world in which you used to feel at home — the world of sin, of corruption, of deceit, of falsehood, and of false religion. And most religion is false. Don't ever become religious. I have said time and again: become spiritual, but never become religious. We don't want religion. We want spiritual life. And those are two different things.
But I come quickly to my fourth and last point. Without the cross, there is no vision. There is no vision. Look at Mark chapter 8 and see the connection here. Having said all these horrible things about the cross, the Lord Jesus says this. And it comes to chapter 9, verse 1. By the way, when you read your English Bible, please understand that chapter separations are entirely arbitrary and are man-made. They are not in the original. The original Bible has no chapters and no verses. And somebody a few hundred years ago decided for the convenience of reference, they put in chapter and verse. And the chapter position here is entirely wrong, because it goes straight on to say "and." And if you have Bibles with paragraphs like mine, you will see that the paragraph just carries on, ignoring chapter 9, and actually goes straight on because the Lord is continuing his speech, his teaching. And chapter 9, verse 1 cuts it at the wrong place.
"And he said to them, 'Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God'" — notice these words — "has come with power." Have you seen it? Have you seen the kingdom of God, which has already come with power? "See" here means "experience." Have you experienced the kingdom of God with power in your life? He said some standing here will. Not all. Not many. But some. And who are the "some"? Well, follow the context. He just told you. It is those who have taken up their cross to follow him. These are the ones who, standing here, will not taste death until they experience. They will in their lifetime — indeed very soon, whenever it is they take up the cross to follow him — they will experience. They will see the kingdom of God — not in the future. Notice the past tense: "has come." It is already here with power. Have you experienced that kingdom with power? If not, I refer you back to the Lord's teaching. The reason is quite simple. You haven't taken up the cross. You are not following Jesus. You are not led by him.
And what does Paul say in Romans chapter 8? He says, "As many as are led" — verse 14 of Romans 8 — "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God." When people are preaching in evangelistic meetings, why didn't they tell you this? You are only a son or a daughter of God — you are a child of God — if you are led by the Spirit. Are you led by the Spirit? The Spirit of Jesus? Led by the Spirit of Christ? Today we are followers, disciples of Jesus. How? Because his Spirit leads us. And in his leading us, we experience the kingdom of God which has come with power. There's nothing very mysterious about this verse. Very easy to understand if you see the continuation of the text. But if you don't do this, you will taste death, you will die, and you will never experience the kingdom of God. But there will be some here — some even in this church — who will experience, or have already experienced, have seen the kingdom of God which has already come in power. And as though to emphasize his point, you see from the next verse, verse 2, there comes the whole account of the transfiguration. He demonstrates to those disciples of his who have already taken up the cross to follow him — he is transfigured in their presence, visually to show them the kingdom of God has now arrived in power in the person of Christ. Isn't that beautiful?
I have had so many experiences of the Lord and his power that I have from time to time shared this in various messages over the years. But I want to conclude now. I've summed up all of this in four points. The message of the cross. I've told you how to live in the power of being a true disciple, of how you can enjoy the vision that a true disciple has of the kingdom of God. And by the way, when it says here, in Mark chapter 9, verse 1, about seeing the kingdom — that will remind you, any of you who know the Bible well enough, it will remind you of John chapter 3, verse 3, isn't it? What does John 3:3 say? That unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. There we have it. Seeing the kingdom of God has to do with being born again. But you have heard maybe many messages on being born again, on regeneration. Have they ever talked to you about the cross? If they have not talked to you about the cross and talking about regeneration, they have preached a lie. They have emptied the gospel of its content. You have to take these verses and put them side by side. How do you see the kingdom of God? Through regeneration. How are you regenerate? By taking up the cross. And that's what the Lord goes on to say in John chapter 12: "Except a seed fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies, it brings forth." There's the cross again in different words, but the same thing. When it dies, it rises again in regeneration. A seed comes back to life, and this time in fullness, in bountifulness. But first it must die before there can be a regeneration. Or Paul uses the language of resurrection: "Except you die with Christ" in Romans 6 — what happens? You do not rise with him either. Without death, there is no resurrection. Without passing away of the old, there cannot be the coming of the new. There cannot be a regeneration. The cross is the means to this. But why will nobody talk about the cross that we need to take up?
And you thought you were regenerate? I've had so many people come to me and said, "I don't know whether I'm regenerate or not." You see? They don't. But they want assurance. So what do you do? You just believe that you're regenerate. So you perpetuate the lie by some doctrine of assurance. From disaster to disaster. Do we have assurance? Absolutely. We have tremendous assurance. But we must make sure that our assurance is of the right kind — that our assurance does not rest in a delusion, in a lie, in falsehood. Our assurance rests in the truth.
Finally, I want to remind you that being a follower of Jesus is to be led by him, to be led by the Spirit. Let me conclude with two little examples. I've shared many times my own experiences of being led by the Spirit. But as part of this exhortation, I want to conclude with these two brief illustrations. I want you to know that any person who takes up the cross can experience the wonderful leading of the Spirit.
It was recently the case of a person — I will not talk about my own experience, but somebody else's experience — and I want to use this illustration from the life of every ordinary person. And you think, "Wow, you have to be a spiritual giant to be led by the Spirit." Not at all. I will tell you about the case of a cosmetic saleswoman selling cosmetics. Not very spiritual, is it? She makes a livelihood by selling face creams. And she was very tired after a day's work, and actually she had just recovered from the flu. And she just wanted to get home because she was feeling so tired. And as she was walking home, the word of the Lord spoke to her and said, "Visit Nellie." "Oh, Lord, I'm too tired, too tired. Maybe tomorrow." "No, visit Nellie." "All right, all right, Lord, visit Nellie." So she went over, and she went to Nellie's place.
Now, Nellie was a retired schoolteacher, and she was one of her customers, so she knocked on the door. Nellie had actually ordered some face cream, so she knocked on the door, and usually as soon as she knocks, Nellie opens the door, but this time there was no response. So she knocked a bit louder and waited, and still nobody opened the door. And then she thought, "Well, maybe she's sleeping, or she's gone out," and she would go away. And she said she felt herself glued to the ground. She couldn't leave. So she knocked the third time, and this time the door opened, and Nellie said, "Oh, yes, come in, come in." And so she said, "Well, here are your cosmetics you ordered, I'll give it to you," and so Nellie paid her for the cosmetics, and then Nellie said, "Well, if you're not in a hurry, come into the kitchen and sit down for a moment." So she said, "All right." And Nellie looked a bit pale, so she thought, all right, she'll go in and sit down for a few moments in the kitchen.
And then Nellie said to her, "Now, here's the money for the cosmetics." She said, "But you just paid me." "Oh, did I?" "Yeah, you just paid me. I gave you the cosmetics and you paid me just a moment ago." And then the sales lady realized there's something wrong. Something's not in order. And then she smelled something strange in the air. And then she followed the smell to its source, and she found that it led to the fireplace where there was a gas fire, and the gas was on, but the fire was not on. And the room was filling up — the apartment was filling up quickly with gas. In a few more minutes, the woman would have been gassed to death. She would have lost consciousness and would have been gassed to death. But because this sales lady was attentive to the leading of the Spirit, even though she was very tired, the Lord led her to save her life. She immediately switched off the gas, she called the ambulance, the lady was hospitalized, but she recovered. And afterwards she said, "How did you know about the gas?" The sales lady said, "I didn't know. It was the voice of the Lord that led me." Being led by the Spirit — not by some spiritual giant, but just an ordinary salesperson. Have you got this kind of experience of God in your daily living? Practical experience of the living God?
Let me give you quickly another case which relates more to preaching, and this is the point I want to come to. There was a couple whose marriage was falling apart. In fact, it had been falling apart for a long time. And the marriage had degenerated into a daily fight. Every day the fight was on. And this kind of marriage, I think many of us are familiar with. And those of us who are in the pastoral ministry, whose job often is to rescue marriages, know that one of the worst battlefields in the world is the one that newspapers don't often write about. And that's the one that's at home. The fiercest, bitterest, most intense battles.
Well, this couple's marriage was falling apart. They had two children. The husband had a job in New York, but he decided to quit the job because it meant commuting such a long way. He wanted to find another job. He couldn't find a job at that time. So, though they wanted to divorce, to separate, they had two problems: one was the two children, and the other was the financial factor — that the husband, being now out of a job, the wife felt that at least until he finds a job, she should still keep him under the roof, otherwise he had nowhere to go. But the fights continued and the battles got worse and she got more and more tired. And both of them were tired with these battles.
And so she decided to go to church. And she went to a church and there she often felt out of place, because this was a very lively church. She found the people had a lot of joy, and she dragged herself into church with a long face every Sunday, and she felt the contrast was too great and she felt very awkward, and yet she felt she needed to go to church. She needed some kind of support. Well, she tried to persuade her husband to go to church, but of course he wouldn't hear of this kind of thing. He never went to church. He was not about to start going either.
Well, one day there was a fierce fight between the two of them, and by this time, of course, they were not even sharing the same bedroom. If one slept in the bedroom, the other slept on the sofa in their living room. So whoever got to the bedroom first got to use the bed and the other one used the sofa. So that day they had a fierce fight and quarrel, and the husband got to the bedroom first, slammed the door and locked it. And so she was left outside on the sofa without even her pajamas. So she said, "Well, at least open the door and get me my pajamas." And he said, "No, you can go and sleep outside on the sofa." So she had to sleep in all her clothes on the sofa that night. And she decided that she had had enough. She was going to quit. She was going to leave. She was going to walk out. And so as she lay fully dressed on her sofa, she said, "Lord, I can't take this anymore. I'm leaving in the morning. But where am I going to go? Where to go?" And she couldn't sleep, and by morning she got up and she decided that she would just get in the car and drive. You don't know where to go — drive.
And she drove out and thought, "Where am I going to go?" And then she suddenly remembered there was a meeting that morning in the church. So she thought, well, look at the time, she could get to the church just on time. So while she was thinking of where else to go, she might as well go to church first. And she went into the church and she sat down, and the pastor began to preach from John chapter 14 — that the Holy Spirit leads us, the Holy Spirit strengthens us, enables us, comforts us, guides us, and changes our lives. And as the pastor was preaching, she was listening to this message and saying, "I really need the Holy Spirit." And suddenly the pastor stopped his message and said, "The Lord is saying something to me." And he was listening. And the pastor said, "There is somebody in the congregation here, and the Lord wants to say to you that you have been trying to change your husband for the last eight years. You have been trying to form your husband into your own mold."
Now notice — she was an occasional visitor to the church. The pastor doesn't know her. "You have been trying to change your husband into your own mold." Aren't we all familiar with that? In marriage, we are very good at that. We are all in the business of trying to change our partner to our own model and our own taste. And that's where all the trouble starts. We spend all our lives saying, "You are not the kind of husband I want. Now, in order to become the husband I want, you've got to do this, you've got to do that, you've got to change this, behave like that." And the husband says, "What about you? You've got to change a lot too." So we've got problems. I remember once counseling a marriage where this whole business went on. The husband was trying to tell me how the wife needed to be changed, and she was deficient in this. And I said, "What about you?" "Me?" The wife was too busy crying to talk. So I had to talk to him.
So here the pastor suddenly stopped his message and said — see, he was led by the Spirit. He was one of those few pastors who was in tune with God. And that's what I'm saying to you. My exhortation is: first, never compromise in the preaching of the word of God, because only if you do not compromise, if you follow truly the Lord, he will lead you, even down to knowing the needs of your congregation. And there he said, "There is this woman here who is trying to change her husband. Now I'm going to ask you to pray for your husband, and I'm going to ask this whole congregation to pray for her husband, whoever she is." And she said she looked up and everybody was praying. She said, "They must be praying for me." And then he went on to say, "You must let God change yourself first. Let God change your husband. And you've got to do this by giving yourself here and now totally to the Lord." He never asked her to stand up. He never asked her to come forward. He just said those words.
She was stunned. She was stunned. And he was not doing any guesswork. He wasn't talking about her husband. He was talking about a wife present who had problems with her husband. She was stunned. After the service, she crept out of the church, crept back into her car. She bowed her head in the car and said, "Lord, I know you've been talking to me now. I yield my life to you. Please forgive me for the way I've dealt with my husband in the past. So much of the fault was mine." She decided to go home. She drove home, and when she arrived at the home, she saw her husband standing at the window, looking out. So she said she gulped hard and thought, "How do I carry on from here?" So she went into the house, she said hello to her husband, and then she decided that she would make a nice lunch. And then they were having lunch, and she didn't know what to say, so she and her husband and the two children all sat around the table eating in silence. Nobody knew what to say. But she noticed something different about her husband, too. Her husband kept looking at her in a sort of shy way. So she thought, "What's happening?" And then she said, "How am I going to share with him about what the Lord did in the church this morning?" And while she was thinking about that, her husband said, "You know, I've got something to share with you." And she said, "What's that?" He said, "Well, after you left this morning, I had suddenly this need to find a Bible." And he said, "I know you have a Bible somewhere, but I don't know where you keep it." So he searched around the whole house looking for her Bible, and eventually he found it. And of course, not knowing where to read the Bible, you know where he opened the Bible at? John chapter 14, about the Holy Spirit. And he opened up the Bible, and then he started reading. And he said, "You know, as I read about this, I realized I need the Holy Spirit. I realized I need to be changed."
And she sat there in total disbelief, looking at him as though — what had happened? That was exactly the verse that she had that morning. And he said, "You know, I think that I need to be changed." And she said before she knew what was happening, the both of them were holding hands over the table. She said before they realized it, the Lord just brought them together and they were holding hands. Their life was changed. They were led by the Spirit because there was a pastor who was led by the Spirit and spoke forth, addressing their needs. This is the preaching of the word of God as it ought to be done — led by the Spirit.
Our God is a living God. I have seen the glory of the kingdom, the power of the Lord. Somebody applied for the sixth training. I knew nothing about this candidate. I didn't even remember how this person looked because I did meet the person once in passing at one of the camps. The person applied for full-time training. I received the assessments from the co-workers. I studied the assessments and I said, "Lord, do I accept this person or do I not accept the person?" And the Lord said to me, "There is something in that person's life that needs to be put right." Now remember, I know nothing about that person. I know nothing about the person's background. I don't even know what the person looks like. And the Lord said to me, "There is something in that person's life that must be put right first before that person can be considered for full-time training." So I sent the message to the co-workers overseas to tell that person the message I received from the Lord.
A few days later I received a phone call all the way from Australia. And the first words the person said is, "I am shocked. I am shocked that you know something that is hidden in my heart and nobody knows anything about it." I said, "I don't know what's in your heart, but God does. I can accept you into full-time training." And this time when I was in Australia, the person wanted to share with me exactly what was it that was hidden in the heart. I said, "All right, if you want to tell me, it's fine. I don't need to know, but if you want to tell me, that's fine." But the remarkable thing that stunned the person is that I'm on the other side of the world and the Lord could reveal to me something known only to that person alone. Nobody else knew anything about this. Our God is real. Our God is amazing when we are led by him. Astonishing. And this is not the only instance. I've more than once called in somebody in training and I said, "You have committed a sin, have you not?" "Yes. How did you know?" "The Lord told me." The Christian was shocked. You cannot serve God unless you are in touch with the living God. And the way to be in touch with him is through the cross. The cross that he has commanded us to take up if we want to follow him.
I close here, and these are my words of exhortation. Serve God without compromise. Serve him in the power of the Spirit. Be in touch with him. He will tell you what you must do, what you must say. Let us be quiet before God in prayer. Thank you.