| HOME | Sermons | Books | Store | Chat | Forums | Friends | FAQ |
| HOME | Sermons | Books | Store | Chat | Forums | Friends | FAQ |
It is one of the greatest joys of my life to write the introduction of this book written by my son. You ill find in him a person who always has time and love for his mother, wife, children, church family, and young preachers.
This is the Jack Hyles I have watched grow from boyhood to manhood, giving Christ first place in his life and always having a great love and burden for lost souls.
My son and his work have always been very dear to me through the years. My prayer is the Lord will use this book to strengthen Christians and give them a closer walk with Him and to help many find Jesus as their Saviour.
May God continue to use Jack’s ministry in reaching others for our Lord.
May, 1965
Mrs. C. M. Hyles
“Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” --Ps. 85:10
“Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.” --Matt. 26:48, 49.
“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blesses are all they that put their trust in him.” --Ps. 2:12
One of the most beautiful statements in all of the Bible is the one I read a while ago, “righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” A dozen more sermons on the same Scripture are boiling up inside me.
One of the most beautiful romances in the world is the romance between righteousness and truth. They had been separated for four thousand year; when they got back together, they had to kiss. What a reunion!
A kiss is very interesting thing. You will agree with that! I have always loved to kiss under proper conditions and proper people. A kiss of affection between members of the family certainly is a good thing and I would advise every family to teach boys and girls the expressiveness of kissing their mothers and fathers. Why, When I was a boy I never went out to play without kissing my mother good-by. I never came home from the ball diamond without kissing Mother again.
In the Bible a kiss is certainly an interesting study. In Exodus, chapter 4, verse 27, when Moses and Aaron met each other in the wilderness, they came to the mount of the Lord and there they kissed each other.
First Samuel, chapter 10, verse 1, says when Samuel came to anoint Saul as the first king of the people of God, that he anointed Saul with oil, then he kissed him.
When David and Jonathan, the sweetest friends in the Bible, humanly speaking, had been united after separation for a lengthy period, the Bible says that David and Jonathan kissed each other.
Joseph had been away from his brothers in Egypt for many, many long years. When his brothers came to him he, unknown by them, provided provisions for their lives, then came that glorious day when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers. The Bible says that Joseph kissed his father and his brothers.
Esau and Jacob had come to the place of reconciliation. Esau had forgiven the trickster Jacob for having cheated him out of his birthright and out of the blessing of his father Isaac. When Jacob and Esau were united again, the Bible says there they kissed.
When Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus´ feet, the Bible says that she kissed Him on the feet.
When Paul left the city of Ephesus in Acts, Chapter 20, the Bible says the people clave unto Paul, they loved him so dearly. He had been their pastor for three years, three blessed, glorious, wonderful years but he longed to go back to Jerusalem, so he resigned his pastorate there. The Bible says they clave to him. They threw themselves on his neck and kissed him good-by.
When the prodigal son returned from the far country, “having spent all,” his father said, ‘Put a ring on his finger, a robe on his body; let´s kill the fatted calf, and put shoes on his feet,´ and then it said that he “kissed him.”
In writing to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul said, “Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.” In writing church at Rome, the apostle admonished that they greet “one another with an holy kiss.” Again in writing to the church at Thessalonica the apostle admonished these people to greet one another in the services with an holy kiss.
Now bear in mind what that means. In those days when you came in and sat down by somebody in church you kissed him. Now wait a minute. Don´t do it --yet! There was also another difference in those days. In the early church the men and boys sat on one side, the ladies and girls on the other. Like we shake hand, they kissed each other. The men would kiss the men; the ladies would kiss the ladies. it was a sign of affection, a sign of fellowship, a sign of tenderness, a sign of love when you greeted one another with an holy kiss.
In I Peter, chapter 5, verse 14, Peter speaks about greeting “one another with a kiss of charity.”
Now the message this morning is on “The Kisses of Calvary.” We have enumerated at least ten places in the Bible or more where kissing was acceptable. But on the cross of Calvary there were three kisses that I call to your attention for our message today: the kiss of reconciliation, the kiss of hypocrisy, the kiss of salvation.
As we approach the subject of kissing, we think of romance between a husband and wife, or the love between a mother and a son or daughter, or the love between a father and his son or daughter, or the love between brothers and sisters. My only sister and I always kiss hello and good-by. When we say good-by there is weeping and tender words of expression of love, but we always kiss. One of the saddest things about the age and area in which we live is the seeming belief that kissing and affection is a sign of emotional instability and weakness. It is not a sign of that, but our not wanting to kiss or otherwise to show affection is a sign of deadness and hardness and the fact that we are ashamed to express our feelings one to the other. Certainly there ought to be in the heart of every Christian a feeling of closeness, affection and tenderness. And this, “Well, we don´t kiss much since we got married” --I wouldn´t say that in public if I were you. “We feel it but we don´t show it.” No, if you felt it, you would show it.
People across the country have often asked me, “how about the North and the South?” The South has a reputation of being wild and woolly, and they don´t feel much. The North has the reputation of feeling it deeply and not saying much about it. All over the nation they say, “You have pastored in Texas and in Indiana--what do you think about it? Do you think the Southerner says it and doesn´t feel it, and the Northerner feels it and doesn´t say it?´ No, no, I don´t think so. I have noticed Northerners when they sit on a tack, and I have noticed Southerners when they sit on a tack. A Northerner jumps as high when he is stimulated properly as the Southerner! Don´t hide behind your geographical location for you coldness of heart and deadness of soul and the fact that you don´t express love. Actually, people who love express it. People who feel it say so. People who are stimulated properly also respond properly.
Now let us notice the three kisses of Calvary. Two of them are beautiful, one of them tragic.
I will read for you again the verse that I read a little while ago, Psalm 85:10
“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
Now when did righteousness and peace kiss each other? When did this wonderful reunion take place? When did righteousness see peace and peace see righteousness? When did they embrace, and kiss? It said that truth came up from the ground and righteousness looked down from Heaven and there righteousness and peace met each other and in a tender moment of embrace they kissed. Righteousness and mercy or truth have kissed each other. now peace and righteousness walked together for many millenniums. In Heaven, peace and righteousness walk together. Oh, what a blessed walk it was for perfect peace between God and His creatures and perfect righteousness to walk together. There was no sin in Heaven.
Let me say this: the degree that you have of sin is also the degree you have of unrest and lack of peace. If you live righteous, you have more peace, and the more righteous you get, the more peace you will have.
And so in eternity peace and righteousness walk together. In Heaven with the angels they were such close friends. Peace was never without righteousness, and righteousness was never without peace. God made man. He put him in the Garden of Eden, and once again in the Garden of Eden peace walked hand in hand with righteousness. Righteousness was there. Peace was there. Adam and Eve were without sin. There was no sin originally in the Garden of Eden, and because there was no sin, there was peace. And so hand in hand, oh, the sweet fellowship that peace and righteousness enjoy. They loved each other, they walked together and it was always a wonderful relationship.
But the day came when our lovers were forced to part. The day came when peace and righteousness got a divorce. The day came when peace and righteousness no longer could go with each other. Why was that? Sin came in the Garden of Eden. When sin comes, peace must leave. When righteousness is sinned against, then peace can stay no longer. The reason you don´t have peace in your home, you don´t have righteousness in your home. Listen, you are not going to build a home with liquor in the ice box and sexy magazines in the magazine rack and the Beetles on your record player and fussing and cursing and lying and cheating and immorality. You are not going to build a home like that and have peace.
People all the time come to me and say, “Brother Hyles, our home has no peace. WE can´t get along. Our children are at each other. My wife and I can´t get along. What is the trouble?” And in every case it is one word--SIN. When you get the righteousness problem settled, peace will go with righteousness. But when righteousness leaves, peace cannot stay any longer.
And so in the Garden of Eden the Serpent, Satan, came and said to Adam and Eve, ‘If you will eat this fruit, ye shall live and be as God. Oh, I know God has said ye shall surely die, but if you eat this fruit, your eyes shall be opened then. You don´t know what you have had until you have had a fling with sin. You don´t know what joy you can have until you do what I say.´
The Devil always says that. The Devil always comes to young people and says, “You don´t know what you are missing until you take a fling in sin.” I´ll tell you what you are missing when you are not in sin. You are only missing brokeness and heartfelt weakness and sadness and misery and unhappiness and unrest. Always when you go into sin, you leave peace. And so in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve reach out and took the forbidden fruit. As is always the case, the woman did it first! Eve took the forbidden fruit, then she took it home to Adam. Now if Eve had been home baking biscuits, she wouldn´t have seen the Devil in the first place. If Eve had been home sweeping the floor where she ought to have been--. Adam was home washing dishes!
Did you hear about the henpecked husband? He went to the doctor and said, “Doctor, I´m henpecked.”
“Well, what is the matter?”
And the husband said, “I have to cook all the time at home.”
The doctor said, “Well, why did you come to me?”
He answered, “I had the most horrible dream.”
When the doctor asked what his dream was, he said, “I dreamed I was on a boat with twelve gorgeous girls.”
“Oh,” the doctor said, “what is so bad about that?”
He said, “Cooking for twelve people!”
Adam was home cooking some hot rolls and washing the breakfast dishes. Eve was out in the garden when she should have been home taking care of the household, and Satan tempted her. She took the fruit, she brought it back to Adam, Adam ate the fruit, and for the first time man had sinned against God. When man sinned, righteousness and peace could no longer walk together.
Now any time righteousness and peace must go, peace is the one that ought to go. It is better to have no peace and be right, than have peace and be wrong. I am sick at my soul of politicians talking about appeasing Russia and appeasing communism and people co-existent. Brother, you can´t be in the same room with a rattlesnake and have peace or co-existence. What happens? We have gotten to the place where we would rather have peace than righteousness. We are not willing to fight for truth any more. We are raising a soft, mealy-mouthed, shallow generation. WE would rather be red than dead. God give us some people who would rather be right and have war, than be wrong and have peace.
Oh, the greatest thing in this world is righteousness. And so when sin came in the Garden of Eden, peace and righteousness no longer could go with each other, and so peace left. For four thousand years peace and righteousness were separated. Why? Sin had come. Righteousness could not accept peace. Peace wanted to come back but righteousness would not allow it. Peace could not come back unless righteousness had been satisfied. Righteousness could not be satisfied unless payment for sin was made. So righteousness says sin must be paid for. Righteousness says sin must be condemned. Righteousness said no man can come to God unless the sin question has been settled.
So peace says, “Can I come back?” Righteousness said, “No, I want you back. I love you dearly. We walked together in Heaven. We walked together in Eden. I want you back, but I cannot receive you back, peace, until I have been satisfied.”
What happened? God Himself came to the world in the form of a man. His name was Jesus Christ. For thirty-three long, lonely, homeless years Jesus lived a life of perfection and righteousness on the earth. Then at the end of those thirty-three years Jesus Christ went to Calvary. On the cross of Calvary the righteous One, Righteousness, was crucified. Righteousness took sin upon Himself and Jesus died and He said, “It is finished.” What he was saying was: Righteousness has been satisfied, righteousness had been met, now peace can come home and , brother, you talk about a happy reunion!
Peace looked at righteousness and said, “Can I come back now?” Righteousness answered, “Yes, you can. I have been satisfied now. The payment has been made. Jesus had died for the sins of the world.” The sins of all the world were laid upon Him. Righteousness said, “Peace, won´t you come back?” Peace said, “Would I!” Peace looked up from earth and came out of the earth (that is the resurrection of Christ) and righteousness looked down from heaven (that is the holiness and justness of God the Father) and peace and righteousness ran and threw arms around the cross of Calvary and at Calvary they hugged and they kissed.
Now after four thousand years those lover had been reunited. That, dear friends, is the kiss of Calvary. god´s justice has been satisfied. God´s holiness has been met. In Jesus Christ and in Him alone can peace and righteousness walk together.
Do you want peace? Peace in your heart? Are you tired of tranquilizers? Of Psychiatrists? Of misery? Are you tired of worry? Of fretting? Then come to Calvary. At Calvary righteousness and peace kissed each other, and were reunited.
Ah, these reunions! I recall when my first furlough came when I was away in service. My mother and I had been close. Just the two of us lived together. Daddy was gone, my sister was married, and I was the only thing Mother had. Boy, when I´m all you´ve got, you haven´t got much! I was all she had and I went off to service. The first furlough came. I rode the streetcar. Maybe you don´t know what a streetcar is now. I got off the streetcar, on my first furlough, at Bryant and San Jacinto Streets in Dallas, Texas. We lived about a block and two houses from the streetcar line; I looked down and there was my little mother up on her tiptoes looking to see if I had gotten off the streetcar.
When she saw those paratroopers walking down the steps of the streetcar, she took off running. She ran as fast as she could. I had run ten miles a day in the paratroopers, and I was as slim and trim as I am fat and sassy now, and I ran as fast as I could. I had done ninety push-ups with a field pack on my back and I was as hard as rocks; yet my little old mother met me more than half way. Ah, she was glad to see me!
She took me home. “Son, this furniture--I put it back where it was when you left. Son, I´ve got your favorite meal cooked.” In those days it was veal cutlets, green beans, sauerkraut, thickened gravy and biscuits. Ah, you can´t beat that. Glory to God--that´s eatin´. There it was on the table. We sat in our little kitchen, little apartment, and ate the food.
When it came time to go to bed, there was sweetness, tenderness, caresses, kissing. Why? Because her boy had come home.
Oh, you talk about joy! For four thousand years peace and righteousness had walked apart; for four thousand years righteousness could not receive peace back because righteousness had not been satisfied. Then when one day on the cross Jesus said, “It is finished,” once again righteousness said, “Hallelujah! Peace can come back!” Peace came to righteousness and on the cross they kissed. Once again thank God, man can have peace because Christ has become his righteousness. Now they are together, they have kissed. Now man can come himself and do some kissing at Calvary.
We have noticed the first kiss of Calvary; let us look at the second. Not only was there a kiss of reconciliation when righteousness kissed peace, but the second kiss of Calvary was the kiss of hypocrisy. Judas Iscariot was watching, like the serpent he was, out there in the Garden of Gethsemane, with soldiers behind him. Jesus was praying in the garden, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as though wilt,” and saying the great prayer recorded in John, chapter 17. Jesus is overlooking the city of Jerusalem, He is in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas lurks outside the garden. Judas says, ‘I´ll show you the one by kissing him. When I kiss Him, come and get Him.´ Judas Iscariot went out and while our Lord was in Gethsemane, Judas did the most dastardly act ever done by human hands or lips--he place the loving tenderness of a kiss on the brow of the Saviour and in doing so, the motley crowd of soldiers came and led Jesus away to be crucified.
Judas was kissing Jesus but there is one mistake Judas made. He should have kissed Jesus. It was right to kiss Christ. Psalm 2:12 says, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry.” I´ll discuss that in a minute. We are commanded to kiss Jesus Christ. That means kiss the feet of the Son; come and throw yourself at His feet and kiss Him. Man has been commanded to kiss the Son, BUT man cannot kiss the Son until righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Judas made the mistake of kissing the Son without the meaning of Calvary. he kissed the Son short of Calvary. If that day when Jesus was on the cross, lonely, forsaken, betrayed, suffering, crucified, deserted by man and God the Father--if Judas had come up then and meant it and thrown himself at the feet of the crucified One and kissed the kiss of affection and faith and trust, he could have been saved. But Judas mad the mistake of kissing Jesus without reference to trust in Calvary.
Now that is the kiss of hypocrisy. Maybe you have made an effort to kiss Jesus. Maybe you have gotten religion. Maybe you have joined the church. But if you have kissed anything--I don´t care what it is--and are trusting anything short of Calvary, then you are a kisser of hypocrisy. There is nothing short of Calvary that can save you. The mistake that Judas made was kissing Jesus short of Calvary.
That is the reason that joining a church can´t save you. That is a kiss short of Calvary.
That is the reason living a good life and being a good friend and a good husband and a good neighbor can´t save you. That is a kiss short of Calvary.
When you are sprinkled as a baby and they say that conveys some kind of mysterious salvation to you--that won´t take you one step toward heaven. That is a kiss short of Calvary.
Being confirmed as a twelve-year-old and learning the catechism of the church when you have never received Christ in believing faith won´t take you to Heaven. That is a kiss short of Calvary.
Going into the baptistry and being baptized won´t save you. That is a kiss short of Calvary.
When you go into a little room and confess your sins to a man, which is a waste of your time and his and your money, that is why it doesn´t do any good. You are kissing short of Calvary.
Coming and taking the holy communion and trusting that little wafer and that juice to save your soul won´t do it. It is a kiss short of Calvary.
Joining the church in a Baptist revival won´t take you to Heaven. It is a kiss short of Calvary.
All the good deeds and the good works and all that you do religiously won´t take you to Heaven. It is a kiss short of Calvary.
Judas, the mistake you made was to kiss the Saviour short of Calvary. And Judas lies in Hell this morning, Judas burns in Hell, Judas suffers the pangs of Hell this morning. Why? He kissed the Saviour short of Calvary. Judas is in Hell because he didn´t kiss Jesus at Calvary. Judas was a church member, yet he is in hell because he trusted something short of Calvary. Judas was a preacher, yet he is in hell because he trusted something short of Calvary. Judas was an apostle, but he is in Hell because he trusted something short of Calvary. Judas followed Jesus, but he is in hell because he trusted something short of Calvary.
“Preacher, my church believes....” I wouldn´t give you a dime for what your church or mine believes! The only thing that matters is that you can only kiss the Son at Calvary. The only place you can kiss the Son is at Calvary. Anything short of Calvary is a kiss of hypocrisy and you will end up in Hell thinking you were going to Heaven.
Now I call your attention very quickly to the third kiss. The first kiss was when righteousness and peace kissed--the kiss of reconciliation. Number two was when Judas placed the kiss of hypocrisy on the Saviour. Number three--the kiss of salvation.
In Psalm 2:
“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.”
Three kisses on Calvary: The kiss of righteousness and peace, the kiss of betrayal and hypocrisy, but oh, thank God, there is the third kiss--the kiss of salvation.
Jesus is dying. He speaks about it in the Psalms. His apostles have forsaken Him and fled. his followers are scattered. His Father looked on Him and saw Him in sin and turned His back on the Son. Jesus hangs on Calvary and the psalmist said when righteousness and peace had kissed, then any poor sinner may kiss the Son, any poor sinner may come to Calvary and kiss His feet.
What does that mean? It means the kiss of trust, the kiss of faith, the kiss of committal.
And he goes on to say, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry.” When you have not put your faith in Christ, it angers God. When you reject Jesus as your Saviour, it angers God. And yet when a person says not to Calvary, the Bible says God is angry and His wrath is kindled. Then he says, ‘Blessed are those that put their trust in Him.´ Blessed are those who have kissed the Son.
Now today, you are in one of these two groups. Either you have kissed Him short of Calvary, or you have kissed Him at Calvary. Whether you kissed Him short of Calvary or at Calvary determines where you spend eternity. If you have kissed Jesus short of Calvary, if you have joined the church but have not been born again, you are lost. If you have been baptized short of Calvary, you are lost. If you have taken communion or sacraments or the Eucharist short of Calvary, you are lost.
And if you have come, ever, in your life to Jesus Christ and seen Him crucified at Calvary and heard Him say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” “It is finished,” and then righteousness looked from Heaven and peace looked from earth and they ran to each other and embraced and kissed; righteousness said, “I´m satisfied--now we can come back together”--if you have ever seen that, my precious friends, and come to Jesus Christ in believing in faith and said, “Dear Lord, I trust You. I kiss the Son, I believe in the Son,” then God said He will take you to Heaven when you die.
Are you kissing short of Calvary this morning? Are you kissing short of Calvary? Let me illustrate:
I am going to confess something that breaks my heart. I am going to confess something that will classify me as a awful, awful wretched sinner. Before I was married, I stole a kiss from Mrs. Hyles! Isn´t that awful! One time, maybe twice, but that didn´t mean I was married. I´ll say this: I was older than most of you kissing kids are and that didn´t mean I was married. I mean that when the preacher said, “Wilt thou...” and I willed it and I said, “I will,” and he said, “I now pronounce you as husband and wife,” brother, that kiss meant something. Why? We had satisfied the laws of the land.
Now you can kiss the Son, but unless you have come and committed your life to Jesus Christ, as I gave my life to Beverly Slaughter and she became Beverly Hyles, all the religion and kissing you have done is not worth a dime. It is faith in Jesus Christ. I thank God for that day when I looked up at Him and said, “O God, I in faith receive Christ,” and I kissed the Son and I have been blessed in these years, for the Bible says, ‘Blessed are those that put their trust in Him.´
Have you trusted Him? If you died this morning, would you go to Heaven? Do you know you have put your faith in Him? Have you kissed the Son? Are you trusting Christ in Calvary? Have you trusted something short of Calvary? If you have, come to the cross this morning, see Him die, see peace and righteousness embracing and kissing. Kiss the Son and you become a child of God. Shall we pray.
PRAYER: Our Father, bless the message. Bless the truth of it. O God, today may we see that in Jesus Christ on the cross God´s righteousness has been satisfied, His justice has been vindicated and now we can kiss the Son. Bless those who are kissing short of Calvary and may they come to Calvary and kiss the Son because righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Why did God make men? Why did God let man sin in the Garden of Eden? These and other questions I hope to answer. “That he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26)
Near the end of the Civil War it is said that Abraham Lincoln took a tombstone to a typical grave of a soldier, and placed the tombstone on the grave with the words: “My Substitute.” The particular body and grave represented all the others who had died in the Civil War.
This morning I take you to our tombstone on which we would engrave the words: “Our Substitute.” I take you to Calvary, a little hill on the northern side of Jerusalem, just outside the city walls, a conspicuous spot. Nearby runs a highway. This place is called in the Bible a place of the skull, perhaps because the little hill is shaped like a skull. Other have advanced the possibility that it was called the place of a skull because it was the place where many had died and their bones lay around the foot of the cross. Whatever the purpose was, it was called Calvary, which means the place of a skull.
The streams of ancient history all end at Calvary, and the beginning of all the rivers of modern history starts at Calvary. The eyes of Old Testament days looked toward Calvary; the eyes of modern civilization look back to Calvary. Calvary is the hub of the world. Geographically, it is in the center of the world. Theologically, it is in the center of all Christian preaching and religion.
Think today for a minute. How many people right now on the Lord´s day are thinking of Calvary? I suspect that more people are thinking this very day, this very hour, of Calvary than any other single subject. Truly Calvary is the hub of history, the hub of our speaking; Calvary is the center of poetry, art, sculpture, religion. Calvary--authors have tried to pen the beauty of this word:
Years I spent in vanity and pride,
Caring not my Lord was crucified,
Knowing not it was for me He died
On Calvary.
Still another:
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel´s vein´s;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
Another said:
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff´ring and shame.
The most popular song ever written--it leads the gospel hit parade and has for many, many years--is “The Old Rugged Cross.” Said the author--
Oh, that old rugged cross so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for me.
And so Calvary is the center of history. Now what is so important about Calvary? A Man died! Men have died before. A man died on a cross! Thousands have died on a cross before. What is so important about Calvary?
The liberals say He died to show us how to die. The modernists say He died as our example. No, they miss the hub entirely. What is the purpose of Calvary? What is it all about? I want to answer or attempt to answer this question by answering five other questions that are very basic, and then taking you to the purpose of Calvary.
Why did God Make Man?
The first question is: Why did God make man in the first place? What is it all about? Did you ever wonder why you are here? Do you ever wonder why God made man such as we? Why did God make man?
The answer is very simple. God made man to fellowship with Himself. This is so important, yet we miss it. You know, God is like us! People oftentimes wonder, “What is God like?´ The answer is very simple. God is like us, except that He is not sinful. But in the nature of God, the attributes of God, the personality of God, He is like us because the Bible said that man was made in the image of God. If God is like us He is a God of emotions. He is a God of anger, a God of love, a God of compassion, a God who desires fellowship. Who among us wants to hermitize himself and live somewhere alone without fellowship with others?
So it was with God. God, being a God of love and fellowship, had a desire to fellowship with a creature. So God made Himself a race. From the dust He made Adam, from his rib made a woman, and God made them for fellowship with Himself.
The worse condition man can know is not to be loved. I cannot get away from the story about Charles Sumner who on his deathbed said the worst thing about it was that he had never heard anybody say, “I love you.” None of us wants to live alone. All of us want fellowship. All of us want to be loved and want to love others.
So it was with the great heart of Almighty God. God wanted the creation to love Him. Oh, He had the angels, but God wanted creation to love Him, so He made man in His own image so He could fellowship with man. how many times have I said, If you are not in fellowship with God, you are not fulfilling the divine purpose for your life. God made you for Himself. You were not made to sin. You were not made for Satan. You were not made to go away from God. You were not made to stay home from church. You were not made to leave the Bible out of your life. You were not made to turn prayer away. YOU WERE MADE FOR GOD. You who do not fellowship with God and walk with God are living without fulfilling the ultimate purpose that every man was made for--fellowship with his Creator.
Why Did God Let Man Sin?
The second question I would ask leading up to the purpose of Calvary: Why did God let man sin?
That question has been asked of me by thousands of people through these years. “Preacher, I believe in God, but why would a loving and kind God let man go into sin?” Let me make one statement quickly: God could have kept man from going into sin. But God chose to make man where he could sin. Now, why would God do such a thing? The answer is very simple. God wanted someone to love Him, but He wanted us to choose to love Him. If there were some discovery made where you husbands could take some serum, put it in a needle, stick it in your wife´s arm and she would have to love you, not a one of you would want that. You would not want her to wake up in the morning, walk in like a robot and say, “I-love-you. I-love-you. I-love-you.” You want your wife to choose to love you.
God made a race because God is like us--He wants love. God does not want the love of someone who has no will. He made a race because He wanted to fellowship with that race and wanted someone to love Him. God, the great heart of love; God, the great source of love; God, the great giver of love; God, the great lover. he could love like no one could love, and wants to be loved like no one ever wanted to be loved. God said, “I want my race to love Me because they want to love me.” So God gave us a choice to love Him or not to love Him. And do you know what? Man did love Him. Man loved Him and man fellowshipped with Him. Oh, how happy that made God!
This morning Mrs. Hyles drove the great big car and I drove the little bitty bug and we came to church. When we left she said, “Who is going with me?” I always hope somebody will choose to go with me. Becky said, “Mother, I will go with you.” I said, “Oh.” Linda said, “I´ll go with you, Mother.” “Oh.” Cindy: “I´ll go with you, too.” “Oh.” David said, “I want to go with Daddy.” I didn´t mind that a bit. Something in me wants to be loved. Everybody wants to be loved. None of us get too much loving. We are made in the image of God and if we want loving, think how much God wants love. God gave us a choice.
How happy He was when every day Adam and Eve would fellowship with Him. The purpose for God´s creation had been fulfilled. Adam and Eve were walking with God. Every day they had had fellowship. God would come and walk in the cool of the garden with Adam and Eve. how sweet was their fellowship. how wonderful was their union. God made man to love Him, and man did fellowship with Him. How happy that made the loving heart of God. That was the purpose of creation. Then came sin.
Every morning God came to the garden where Adam was and God would call, “Adam, Adam!” Adam would answer, “Yes, Lord. Here I am. Eve, the morning has come; let us go talk with the Lord.” Oh, the sweetness of fellowship! We know a little bit about it. We have never seen it, yet we know what it is to fellowship in our hearts with our Creator, our Maker. God would talk, then Eve would talk, then Adam would talk. Adam would say, “Lord, I love you today.” The Lord would say, “Adam, that is what I made you for. I love you, too.” and Eve would say, “God, I love you. I love you!” Oh, the sweetness of fellowship as they enjoyed the fragrances and delicacies of Eden´s garden.
But one day God came walking in the garden. “Good morning, Adam. Adam, it is the Lord.” There was no answer. “Oh, Adam! Adam! It is the Lord.” Still no answer. Adam and Eve had hid themselves behind the trees and made a covering of fig leaves. The Lord said, “Adam, you sinned, didn´t you? You listened to Satan, didn´t you? You did wrong, didn´t you?”
Oh, listen. God is like we are. All of the sorrow that a mother has had, and the breakage of heart of a wayward son, the agony of the heart of a mother; add to that all the broken hearts of the wives whose husbands have left them, and broken fellowship, and divorce; add to that all the broken hearts of fathers whose sons have gone into sin; add to that all the broken hearts of little children whose fathers and mothers have left them; add to that all the brokenness of fellowship the world has ever known--and you come a little close to the broken heart of our Heavenly Father. he had made man to fellowship with Him. That is what it was all about. Man has broken the fellowship with God.
You love your wife but if she came to you this morning and said, “I´m leaving; I´m running off; I´m not going to live with you any more; it is all over,” not a one of you men but what would have a heart that was broken and crushed because of that broken fellowship.
If one of you ladies had a husband come this morning to say, “I love another,” and he went off to live with another, oh, the broken heart that you would feel because of broken fellowship.
We are made in the image of God. If God can love greater than we can love, then cannot God´s heart be broken? The fellowship was broken and God was heartbroken. he was grieved because man had left Him. Think of the heart of God. And the reason God did not make man so he could not sin is that God wanted man to love him. This morning if you are out of fellowship with God, if you are not a Christian, if you do not know that you are saved and you do not walk with God, you grieve the heart of the Heavenly Father such as no one has ever been grieved before because no one can love like God can love.
Why Did God Not Just Forgive Man´s Sin?
God did not make man for fellowship with Himself. God did not let man sin. The third question, Why did God just not forgive man´s sin then? Why didn´t God say to Adam and Eve, “Come on back, you are forgiven. Let´s restore our fellowship”? God could have done it. Oh, yes, God could have said, “Adam, come on back.” God could have forgiven man without man being condemned to hell. God could have just have said, “Adam, come on back.” But wait a minute. Why did God not just immediately say, “All is forgiven. Come on back and fellowship is restored”? Because God is just, as well as the Justifier. One of the divine laws of God is that sin must be punished by expulsion from God Himself. When Satan sinned in Heaven, God expelled him from Heaven. When the angels sinned with him, God expelled them from Heaven. God is a God who is just and God´s justice demands that sin be punished.
On the upper pages of the Edinburgh Review in Edinburgh, Scotland, for many years, there was a little slogan: “The judge is condemned when the guilty is aquitted.” If God had not punished Adam and Eve, He would not have been just, He would not have kept His word of the divine law that the soul that sinneth it shall die. God would have fallen from His throne. In order to be God and to be just and as a just Justifier, God, with a broken heart, had to condemn man. God didn´t say, “Okay, Adam, I hate you. Go on to Hell.” No! No! God loved Adam. God made him and God wanted him. God´s righteousness is so wonderful and His justice is so perfect that God had to demand that sin be paid for.
Why Didn´t God Just Let Man Go To Hell?
The fourth question. Why didn´t God just let man go to Hell then? Ask any mother the answer to that. Ask any mother from whose body came her little baby. It came from her body. It was flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood, bone of her bone. She nurses the baby before the baby can nurture itself. Ask any mother what lengths she would go to, to reclaim any child of her own.
So God looked down and His heart was broken. Now I want you to get this. God is like we are, and God loves. He loves like we love but He loves so much greater than we love. And God is heartbroken like we are heartbroken, and God wants fellowship. The purpose of all of it was a hungering God who wanted a people for Himself. God looked down and saw His people in sin and He said, “I have to demand a penalty for sin. I must demand a penalty for sin.” God could have said right there, “Okay, I´ll let man go to Hell.” God could have said right there, “Okay, man had the choice, he chose to sin.....”
People often ask why does a loving God send anybody to Hell? God never did send anybody to Hell. God never sent a soul to Hell. If you burn in Hell, if you die without God, if you someday suffer the torments of the unredeemed and burn in hell without God, don´t you blame God for it. God has done everything from Heaven´s glory to earth´s gory. He even said good-by to His Son and sent Him to die on the cross, and turned His back on His Son. God never sent anybody to Hell. And if you go to hell it will be because you look at God´s provision for salvation and trample under your feet His precious blood and His plan and mark your own pathway toward Hell.
God doesn´t want you to go to Hell. God loves you and God looked down and said, “I could send them all to Hell, but I don´t want to. I love them. I made them. They are My creation. I recall how I used to fellowship with them as we walked in the Garden of Eden. I want that fellowship again. I miss the sweetness that I had with Adam. I miss the days with Eve. I miss the walks in Eden´s garden. I miss the fellowship. I miss the ‘I-love-you´s´ they used to give me.” God said, “I´m not going to let them go to Hell, I´m going to give them a plan whereby they will not have to go to Hell.”
And that leads us to the fifth question.
What Did God Do To Keep Us From Hell?
What did God do to keep us from Hell? Why did God make us? For fellowship. Why did God let us sin? He wanted to give us a chance to love Him. Why did God not just forgive us? He could not within His justice and His divine nature of righteousness. Why didn´t God let us go to Hell? He loved us too much.
Then what did God do to save us? Listen carefully. it is all summed up in Matthew 27, the verses we read a while ago. God let His Son go to earth and to Calvary. Dying on the cross. Hanging between Heaven and earth, Jesus looked up and cried, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” They said, “He is calling for Elijah. Elijah can´t help Him.” No, he wasn´t. He was crying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Now what was He doing? In those words He was fulfilling the purpose of Calvary.
Number one. Sin must be paid for by you or by an innocent substitute. Now the priest can´t save you because he is not an innocent substitute. That is why Jack Hyles can´t save you. I am not an innocent substitute. The church can´t save you because the church is composed of people who need saving themselves. You must pay for your sins or there must be found a substitute who does not owe for sin, who is perfect and sinless. And this substitute is found in Jesus Christ Himself. And when this substitute, the Lamb of God, was hanging on Calvary and said, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” there were four things He was doing.
He was bearing our sins. God could never look upon sin and be God. Jesus Christ took your sin and my sin, and paid the price in full. Jesus said, “Put your sin upon Me.” All my sin. All those old dirty words were heaped upon Jesus. All the times you drank and cursed and swore and left God out of your life--all of them were heaped upon Jesus Christ. God said, “Hear ye! Hear ye! The court is in session.” Jesus Christ stood before God. God said, “I see You, Jesus, My Son, as a sinner. I see You becoming sin.” All of our sins were on Him and God hits the gavel of eternal justice and says to His Son, “Guilty! Guilty!” And the guilt of sin means separation from God. God turned His back on His Son and His Son bore your sin and my sin.
You take your choice. Either you bear your own sin or let Jesus bear your sin. Either you stand before God today and God will pronounce judgment upon you, or accept by faith what Jesus did for you on Calvary.
Yesterday morning I was in the basement in my little makeshift office studying. My daughter, Becky, came running and said, “Daddy, come quick! The Jack Ruby trial is on T.V. from Dallas.” I rushed to the television set and watched the trial. I have never seen any more drama than I saw in that courtroom where I had been, in a building I had passed thousands of times. I saw there a judge I had seen myself many times, and a district attorney whom I had talked to. They brought the judge in the room, the jury came. They handed the judge the paper and he opened it. I said to my little girl, Becky, “This is drama.” That judge opened that paper and said, “We find Jack Ruby guilty and sentence him to death in the electric chair.” I thought of the pomp, the drama, the bigness of it all.
My mind wandered out to that day when Jesus Christ shall stand before you and you shall stand before Him and if you are not a Christian, He will say, “Guilty,” and the punishment will be eternal separation from God Almighty. Jesus took death for you on the cross and when He said, “My God...why hast thou forsaken me?” He was taking your sins and my sins and bearing them on the tree.
The second thing it meant was, He was suffering separation from God for you. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden they paid for that sin by being separated from God. They ran from God. Sin can never stay in the presence of God. That is why you don´t pray because you don´t stay in God´s presence enough. When you sin, it separates from God. You don´t come to church on Sunday night because sin makes you not want to come where God is. You don´t read your Bible because sin separates from God. God said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” And the price for sin is separation from God. When Jesus died on the cross and said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and God turned His back on Him, and Jesus was by Himself, without the Father, He was suffering your separation from God. Now you take your choice. Either you put your faith in Christ and accept the provision of God, or you yourself must be separated from God forever.
The third thing He was doing, he was suffering your Hell. Not that He actually went down into the lake of fire and suffered in Hell, but He suffered our Hell for us. I know that whatever Hess is, Jesus suffered it. I know that all the punishment of Hell, Jesus suffered as your Substitute. Now you have your choice. Either you trust His suffering your Hell, or you go to Hell yourself. Now you take your choice. You mark it down, if you never bow your knee to God, if you never say, “Lord God, be merciful to me a sinner,” and become a Christian by faith in Christ, if you do not accept His payment, you must pay for it yourself and you must go to Hell forever and forever.
You say, “Brother Hyles, you are ruining the worship service.” You need some worship ruined. You have no right to worship God and turn you back upon His Son. Your worship is idolatry if you are not a Christian. You come to church on Sunday morning and want some smooth feeling, some asthetic feeling. You want to have worship with God, yet you have never put your trust and you faith in His son. It´s idolatry and heathenism. The only worship is those that worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Jesus Christ is the truth and either you accept the payment that He paid when he dipped His own soul into Hell and suffered your Hell, or you will have to suffer it yourself. Jesus said, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” He was bearing your sin and my sin. He was suffering your separation from God and my separation from God. He was suffering your Hell and He was suffering my Hell.
Not only that, He was suffering the sum total of what every sinner would ever suffer in Hell. All of it. Jack Hyles deserves to go to Hell. If I were to go to Hell, all the suffering that I would ever suffer in Hell was put on Jesus. All the suffering that Jim Lyons would ever suffer in Hell was put on Jesus. And all the suffering that Charlie Hand would ever suffer in Hell was put upon Jesus. And there with all the sins of the world, God´s Lamb, our Substitute, our Sacrifice, hung.
Bad enough to have the world laughing at Him. Bad enough to be hanging nude on the cross. Bad enough to have nails and spikes in His hands and fee, a crown of thorns on His head. Bad enough to have them slapping Him and spitting in His face and laughing and mocking and jeering and plucking His eyebrows and His fingernails. It was bad enough, but oh, the Father was still there. And I think the Father, who is a loving Father like we are, said, “Son, the time has come.” And the Son said, “It has to be done, all right, I´ll do it, Thy will be done, not Mine.” And the Father said, “Son, I made a race thousands of years ago and I love them. I made them to love Me. I made them to fellowship with Me, but they sinned. And Son, I´m just and I can´t let them come back unless they pay the price. And You are the only one who is sinless that has ever walked the earth.”
Then Jesus said to the Father, “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” He followed, setting His face like a flint toward Calvary and there suffered the price that you and I deserved to suffer. He suffered our Hell. He bore our sins. He took our punishment. He became our Substitute.
Now He looks to us, His race whom He made and with whom He had fellowship, a race that had fallen, And now a race that He has redeemed. If we will come to God through Jesus Christ by faith, that fellowship can be restored, and for all eternity we can know the communion that Adam and Eve had with God in the Garden of Eden.
May God help you to turn to Him who alone is the just Justifier.
(Preached at Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada)
“Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.”--Eph. 5:18.
If next Sunday morning the pastor of this church were to come to the platform and it was obvious to each member of this church that the pastor had been drinking alcohol and was inebriated, someone would stand to his feet and make a motion immediately that the pastor not fill the pulpit that day. The Bible is very plain about this matter. Ephesians 5:18 says very distinctly, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess.”
If tonight when the songleader approached the platform to announce the opening hymn you had noticed a bleary, glassy look in his eyes, an unsure step, and a heavy leaning on the platform, and if those in the front row could smell alcohol on his breath, the moderator would have said, “I make a motion tonight that this songleader not be allowed to lead the singing in this meeting.” The Bible is so plain about that. It says in Ephesians 5:18, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess.”
If next Sunday morning in your church someone came to your pastor about 10:00 o´clock and relayed the news to him that a certain superintendent was drunk in the department, he would be horrified. The Bible is very plain about that. It says in Ephesians 5:18, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess.”
If a deacon in your church drinks liquor and you find it out, you would (at least you ought to) dismiss that deacon from the deacon board. The Bible is very plain. “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess,” says Ephesians 5:18.
If a Sunday School teacher came to church drunk Sunday morning, you would say, “You´ll not teach the class this morning.” The Bible is very plain in Ephesians 5:18, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess.”
My precious friends, there is something else in Ephesians 5:18. Who am I to say that it is less important than the other: “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, “ and the dual command is, “But be filled with the Spirit.” Now if I understand the Bible, it would be an equal sin for the pastor of this church to come to the pulpit next Sunday not filled with the Spirit of if he came to the pulpit, drunk with wine wherein is excess. It would have been as much a sin for the songleader to come tonight not filled with the Spirit as it would have been for him to have come drunk with wine, wherein is excess. For a departmental superintended or a teacher or a pastor or any deacon or officer of the church not to do his work in the anointing and energy of the Holy Spirit would be a sin equal to that of doing his working the energy of alcohol, drunk with wine wherein is excess.
The same verse in the same chapter in the same book in the same Bible gives the same emphasis to these two commands:
1. Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess,
2. But be filled with the Spirit.
Now I want to speak tonight on the subject, “The Fullness of the Spirit.” I beg your leniency. I was preaching on baptism recently in the State of Arkansas, and one fellow said, “I wonder what his position on baptism is?” I heard him say it, and I stopped to say, “When somebody asks, ‘What is your position on baptism,´ I always say, ‘My position on baptism is this: I stand up straight and lower them back like this. That´s my position.´”
Now please do not crucify me on this first night. I beg your leniency. By the way, I am Baptist. I heard about a good Baptist lady who was in a Catholic hospital. The nun gave her a little doll and said, “When you pain gets excruciating, rub the doll and that will help.”
“Oh, no,” said she, “I am not a Catholic. I am a Baptist.”
“Well,” the nun said, “if you do get in pain and get a little worried about yourself, rub the doll anyway.”
“I won´t rub this doll--I don´t care how much pain I get in.”
The nun said, “I´ll leave it here just in case you change your mind.”
So the little lady about 2:00 o´clock in the morning had the pain hit her, and again she looked at the doll. “Oh, I couldn´t do it. I am a Baptist,” she said. Finally about 3:00 o´clock in the morning an unbearable pain hit her. She reached for the doll, and with trembling hands she looked up to Heaven as she rubbed the doll and said, “Dear Lord, don´t let this crazy little doll fool You. I´m still a Baptist at heart!”
Now I am a Baptist. BUT I am a Baptist who believes in doing the work of God in the energy of the Holy Spirit. We are in desperate need of reflecting this blessed person of the Trinity in our churches. I´m afraid too often we have made Sunday morning God the Father´s service and Sunday night God the Son´s service. We dare not sing about Jesus on Sunday morning. We dare not witness of Jesus on Sunday morning. He is not dignified enough for the Sunday morning service, and so we relegate Him as a second-rate Sunday night attraction. And I am more afraid we have not put the Holy Spirit anywhere. Because some have perverted this blessed truth, we have left off the teaching of the Holy Spirit altogether.
Now tonight if you are a Pentecostal, I speak to you on the subject of BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. If you are a Nazarene, I speak to you on SANCTIFICATION. If you are a Wesleyan, I speak to you on PERFECT LOVE. If you are a Quaker, I speak to you on OVERCOMING POWER. If you are a Presbyterian, I speak to you on DEATH TO SELF. If you are a Baptist, I wan to speak on WHAT WE AIN´T GOT THAT WE DESPERATELY NEED IN OUR CHURCHES.
Now I am not talking about talking in tongues. I am not talking about getting sanctified. Whatever you believe it is--I´m talking about getting that power in your life and upon your ministry. As a kid preacher I used to walk in the pine thickets of East Texas over those old sandhills and say, “Dear Lord, I read a book about this and I want to talk in tongues.” I´d read another book, and I´d say, “Lord, I want sanctification.” I´d read another, and say, “Lord, I want perfect love.” I didn´t get a thing. Then one time I said, “Lord, I don´t know what it is, I don´t know all about it, I don´t know all the theology--all I know is I´m not going to have a powerless ministry. I´m not going to go to my pulpit Sunday after Sunday in the energy of the flesh. I´m not going to settle for anything less than a supernatural enduement from Heaven.” And when I quit worrying so much about the theological explanation and the practical acceptance of it, God gave me a little bit of that which I wanted.
Tonight we are utterly powerless, and helpless unless we are living our ministry in the energy of the Holy Spirit. This doctrine is a Bible truth. I like what Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., said:
“I had rather a fellow say, ‘I seen,´ who has seen something, than say, ‘I have seen,´ when he ain´t seen nothing.”
And I would rather you be a little wrong and have power than to have all the i´s dotted and the t´s crossed and not have the power of God.
I. It is Bible Truth
In Acts 1:4 we read the words, “wait for the promise of the Father.” In Acts 1:5 we find “baptized with the Holy Ghost.” In Acts 2:4 we find “they were all filled with the Holy Ghost”--fullness of the Spirit. Luke 24:49 says,”...endued with power from on high”--enduement of power. In Acts 1:8 we find the words, “The Holy Ghost is come upon you.” In Acts 2:17 we find the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. In Luke 11:13, and in Acts 2:38, 39 we rind the gift of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 5:18 we find the expression, “be filled with the Spirit.” Whatever you care to call it, whatever you care to term it, whatever you believe about its teaching, whether you believe in a gradual process of being filled or whether you believe in one filling and that´s all, or whether you believe, as I do, in many filling over and over and over again--whatever you believe, I´m concerned tonight about your going home and getting on your face before God and saying, “O God, I will not be a powerless preacher. I will not be a powerless teacher. I will not be a powerless singer. I will not be a powerless Sunday School worker. I will not be a powerless deacon.” I´m concerned about Baptist people getting the breath of God and divine unction upon our ministry.
I like what the old colored fellow said down in the South: “Lord, give me the unction. Give me the unction.”
A fellow asked, “What is the unction?”
He replied, “I don´t know what it is, but I know what it ain´t, and it sure is terrible without it.”
Lord, give me the unction--that´s what we need. We need something akin to Wesley when he walked with God. We need something akin to George Whitefield when he would come home with blood dripping down his face after he walked with God and preached the Gospel. We need something akin to George Fox who stayed in a trance for 14 days. We need something akin to Savonarola who sat in his pulpit in a trance for five hours. We need something akin to David Brainerd who walked with God and left his kneeprints on the soil of the northwestern country praying for God to send revival. We need desperately a new anointing upon our lives and ministries in our Baptist churches.
Brother, if program would save the world, we would be in the millennium tonight. If plans and pulpits and copied sermons and homiletics and hermeneutics and apologetics and exegesis would bring in the kingdom, the wolf and the lamb would be lying down together tonight in the Holy Land. If our plans and programs, our education, our formality, our pomp, our depth would bring in the kingdom, we would be right in the midst of the kingdom tonight.
I´m saying that the program is no good unless it is anointed by the Holy Ghost. I´m saying the personality and pomp and all the rest of it is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal unless it has the holy breath of God Almighty and unless our labor of love is done in the energy of the Holy Spirit of God.
Oh, to preach in His power! Oh, to preach when there is that sweet, fresh settling of heavenly dew upon the congregation! How awful it is to preach in the energy of the flesh. Stories fall flat, words fall flat, poems fall flat, illustrations fall flat--all because we preach in the energy of the flesh. O God, breathe upon us in these days and cause us to seek His power.
Billy Bray was one of my favorite characters. He was a little old Cornish coal miner who got converted and shouted everywhere he went. Everytime you met Billy Bray, he would shout, “Hello! Amen! Hallelujah!” And if you didn´t say, “Amen!” he would think you were not saved.
Somebody said, “Billy, don´t talk like that. And you´re singing all the time and you can´t carry a tune.”
Billy said, “Hush. God would just as soon hear a crow as a nightingale. I´ll sing all I want to sing.”
“Billy,” he said, “shut your mouth.”
“If I shut my mouth, my feet would still shout. Every time my left foot hits the ground, it says ‘Amen!´ And every time my right foot hits the ground it says, ‘Well, glory,´ and I can´t help myself.”
Billy had the breath of the heavenly dew upon him. He had this unction upon him. He had this anointing upon him. And from that moment forward, Billy Bray was aflame for God, walking up and down the streets witnessing, preaching whenever he had opportunity, testifying to all he cam in contact with--because he was anointed with the Holy Spirit.
Somebody said to him, “Billy Bray, you´re going to die.”
He said, “You mean I´m dying now?”
“Yes.”
“Glory to God! I´ll be Home by the morning!”
“Billy, what if you go to Hell? What if you had been mistaken all these year?”
“I´ll just shout all the way to Hell. I´ll say, ‘Glory! It was wonderful to think I was going to Heaven all those years!´ I´ll just praise the Lord because I thought I was going to Heaven, and I had a wonderful life. If I go to Hell I´ll say, ‘Amen! Glory to God! what a wonderful life it was!´ And if the Devil walks up and says, ‘Billy, you can´t shout like that here,´ I will say, ‘I´ve got to shout! It´s in my bones!´ And if the Devil will say, ‘You´ve got to get out of here,´ I´ll say, ‘That´s what I´d like to do anyway, old Devil, if you don´t mind.´ And I´ll just should all the way to Glory! Praise the Lord! Glory to God! I´m saved!”
I´m not saying that everybody who shouts, “Praise the Lord!” has Holy Spirit power. I´m not saying that everybody who says, “Hallelujah” has the anointing. But I am saying that there needs to settle upon the Baptist churches and others a new breath of God that will give us joy and conviction and tears and something supernatural transpiring in our public services. It is Bible truth.
II. It Is an Old Testament Truth
But I hasten to say that it is also an Old Testament truth.
Jacob in Genesis 32:26 wrestled with the angel and said, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.” Isaiah saw the seraphim take the coal from off the altar and place it upon his tongue, and he said, “Woe is me! for I am undone.” Ezekiel wept in the bitterness of the Spirit. Elisha got Elijah´s mantle and received a double portion of blessing. Judges 6:34 says, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.” First Samuel 16:13 says, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon David.”
How did Gideon win the battle over the Midianites with a few little folks who lapped water like dogs? how did Gideon win the battle when he put the fleece out and God miraculously delivered the Israelites from the Midianites´ power? How did David slay a lion? How did David kill a bear? How did David with a stone kill Goliath? How did Saul win his battle? How did Samson have his power? In the energy of the Holy Spirit.
This truth has been from the time that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water in Genesis 1 and God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. From that day until this, everything that has been done by God Almighty through God´s men has been done in the energy and power of the Holy Spirit.
If revival comes in your church, it will come when we cease to work and let Him work. As A.B. Simpson used to say:
“Once it was the blessing, not it is the Lord;
Once it was a feeling, now it is His Word;
Once His gifts I wanted, now the giver own;
Once I sought for healing, now Himself alone.”
“All in all is Jesus, of Jesus I will sing,
Everything is Jesus and Jesus everything.”
III. It Is a New Testament Truth
John the Baptist said, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire” (Luke 3:16). Luke 4:1 says, “Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost....” Acts 4:31 says, “They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” What I like about this is that the work Jesus did, He did in the energy of the Holy Spirit, as a man filled with the Spirit and not as God Himself. He wanted to be our example. He wanted to set a pattern for us. So the work that He did, He did in the same power that God used to do the work in the First Baptist Church of Hammond yesterday morning. The same power--the power of the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus preached to Zacchaeus up a tree, to the thief on the cross beside Him, to the woman beside the well, they were saved because He worked in the energy of the Holy Spirit. He did not perform a miracle, He never opened one blind eye or deaf ear as far as the Bible records, He never caused one lame person to leap with joy, one dumb person to speak, one dead person to live until He went into the baptismal water and was anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
Yesterday morning when those 32 people came to Christ in our church in Hammond, five of them deaf but hearing the message through the deaf interpreter, it was done, bless God, in the same power that was used to save the little lady beside the well in Sychar. Think of it! We have at our disposal the same blessed power that Jesus had--the energy of the Holy Spirit.
In Luke 11 a fellow comes at midnight and says, “Friend, wake up!”
The fellow gets up and shakes himself. He opens the window and says, “Yes? Yes?”
“Say, listen, a friend has come to me in his journey and I have nothing to set before him. I need three loaves. Would you let me borrow them, please?”
“Come back in the morning. We´re all sleeping now. Come back in the morning.” He puts the window down and goes back to bed.
This fellow starts home but he decides he can´t go home.
“I´ve got a friend and he wants bread. I can´t holler back up there, but I can´t go home either. That friend´s hungry. I´ve got to have the bread and I don´t have any.”
Again he calls, “Friend! Friend!”
The friend wakes up, his wife wakes up, Johnny wakes up, Sue wakes up. He raises the window, “YES?”
“Friend, I know it´s going to make you mad, and I hate to bother you, but a friend of mine in his journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him.”
“I told you to come back in the morning. I´m trying to sleep. My family´s in bed.” Again he slams the window shut.
The fellow starts home. “I can´t go home. My friend is waiting. He´s expecting me with some food. I´m going to go back--I can´t go back. That fellow would kill me. But I´m going to do it. No, I can´t do it. I´m going to go home. I can´t go home.”
(Oh, that reminds me of a preacher on Sunday morning with people sitting before him, and he with nothing to set before them. The people say, “Give us three loaves. We´re hungry.” And we go many times to our sermon outline books and our homiletics books. We go down deep and stay down long and come up dry, and the folks stay hungry. Oh, we need to go to God all week long, day after day and say, “O God, lend me three loaves for the people in my class, or my church, or my department have come to me and I have nothing to set before them.”)
The fellow cried again, “Friend?”
He wakes up. His wife wakes up. Johnny wakes up. Sue wakes up. He raises the window, “YES?”
“Friend, I can´t go home. I can´t go home. I know you are mad at me. But I´ve got to have some bread.”
“If you will not bother me any more while I sleep, I´ll give you a bakery. Just go home and leave me alone.” And so he gives him the three loaves.
The teaching is this: He would not give it to him because he asked him, but he gave it to him because of his importunity. The word “importunity” means much asking, begging. God give us a ministry where we´ll know what it is to ask God for Sunday morning. May God give us churches in Canada, in Indiana, in Texas, in California, around the world, that have preachers come before them on Sunday with warm bread they just got from Heaven´s bakery!
I often read the life of Bud Robinson, a Nazarene preacher, He believed in sinless perfection. He was wrong in his doctrine, but he came more near being sinlessly perfect than I do. In one of his sermons he tells this story:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I was in the hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, and the ‘holy father´ came up to my room. The priest said to a fellow on the side of me, ‘Is there anything you want to confess to me?´ Oh, I have never heard such language as that man done confessed.”
“Then he went to the fellow on the other side and said, ‘Are there any sins you want to confess to me?´ Oh, I had to shut my ears, that man was confessing so many wicked sins.”
“Then the ‘holy father´ came to me, a born-again Christian, and said, ‘Uncle Bud, any sins you want to confess to me?´”
“And I said to the ‘holy father,´ ‘Put your ear down. I´d like to confess just one thing to you.´”
“He said, ‘All right. Confess´”
“I said, ‘Put your ear right down close to my mouth, please.´”
“And the ‘holy father´ put his ear right down close to my mouth.”
“And I said, ‘”Holy father, “ put your ear right down to my mouth, please.´”
“And the ‘holy father´ put his ear right on my mouth. When the ‘holy father´ put his ear right on my mouth, I opened my mouth good and wide and said, ‘GLORY TO GOD! I´M SAVED AND SANCTIFIED AND FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST AND ON MY WAY TO GLORY.´ Last time I saw the ‘holy father´ he was running down the hall.”
Brother, let us all make up our minds that we´re not going to fight the battles of Catholicism, Modernism, New Evangelicalism, Neo-orthodoxy, Liberalism, etc., without the anointing of the Holy Ghost upon our ministry. I trust some preacher will go home from this meeting, get out by himself and say, “By God´s grace I am going to spend less time doing the little things and do the big things for God. I´m going to pray, I´m going to PRAY, I´m going to PRAY.”
I was in Phoenix, Arizona, preaching a sermon on the power of God. I said, “Why don´t you pray constantly for God´s power?” I was pricked with conviction. I said to myself, “You don´t pray constantly for God´s power.” That was a year ago. I promised God before I left that service that night that I would spend every conscious waking moment when I was alone asking God for power. I´ll say I have not kept that promise totally. But I will say I started praying driving down the highway. “O God, give me power.” On the airplane I say, “O Lord, give me power, Lord, give me power.” Before I preach I say, “Lord, give me power. Oh, give me power of the Holy Spirit.” I have seen a tremendous change in the blessing of God upon my life.
God help us. We are so afraid somebody is going to call us fanatical-- and it might be one of the biggest compliments we ever had.
Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. In Acts 9:17, Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit. From the time the Holy Spirit breathed upon the waters in Genesis 1 till this good hour, it has always been through the energy of the Holy Spirit that God does His work.
IV. It Is an Historic Truth
Not only is it an Old Testament truth and a New Testament truth, but it is also a historic truth.
We love to speak about the great men. Oh, how I love to walked with them in their lives. WE talk a lot about George Whitefield and Moody and Billy Sunday. I´m reminded that every time Billy Sunday preached a sermon he opened to Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me....”
For centuries this teaching of the anointing of the Holy Spirit with supernatural power was as common as Sunday School talk is today. Savonarola prayed in a trance for five hours in his pulpit and God´s power came upon him. George Fox, burdened about his sins and powerlessness, went to a priest and said, “What should I do?” The priest answered, “You ought to get married.” Another advised, “You ought to join the Army.” Still another priest said, “You ought to try tobacco and hymns.”
George Fox went alone. For fourteen days he fasted and prayed. (Let me stop to say this. This matter of fasting oftentimes is not a ritualistic thing. If we want to have the breath of God upon us, sometimes we must forego the conveniences and pleasures of the world.) He stayed in a trance for fourteen days, and the power of God came upon his life.
On October 3, 1730, John Wesley had a meal with George Whitefield and sixty other preachers. They prayed all night. At 3:00 o´clock in the morning John Wesley said, “There has come upon me the blessing of God and for the first time I know what it is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
All day June 20, 1736, before his ordination service, George Whitefield had a feeling he should not be ordained without the power of the Holy Spirit upon his life. he said, “I´ll not be a preacher unless God gives me the power of the Holy Spirit.” Later he said, “On my knees that night when Bishop Benson laid his hand upon my head there was such a yielding to God´s blessed will for my life that then and there I knew for the first time that by faith I had been filled with the Holy Spirit.”
You know the story of Dwight Moody. While in an eastern city, he was overcome with the power of God, for which he had prayed so long. One day the power came upon him while he was on the street, and he had to go to an upstairs room of a dear friend and say, “Lord, withhold Your power till I can get alone with You.”
George Mueller was in the house of friends. He saw Christians on their knees for the first time. George Mueller was so impressed about seeing Christians praying on their knees, he said, “I am going to go alone and pray on my knees.” And on his knees he went and the Holy Spirit´s power came upon him.
Charles G. Finney said the night he was converted the Holy Spirit´s power came upon him for soul winning. Peter Cartwright said when he preached his first sermon in Atlanta, Georgia, the Holy Spirit´s power came upon him. Christmas Evans was riding his circuit on horseback. That old one-eyed preacher, whose eye was put out from witnessing the first day he was converted by the same crowd he had gone with in the world, got off his horse and on his face said, “Lord, I can´t be a powerless preacher any more.” Such power came upon him that he was never the same again. As old Christmas Evans died, preacher gathered around him and said, “Mr. Evans, what can you say for us on your deathbed?” He said, “Young men, preach the blood in the basin. Preach the blood in the basin.”
That´s our need, dear friends. New buildings? That´s wonderful, but that´s not the big need. You know it. I know it. Good sermons? That´s wonderful, but that´s not the big need. Organization? I believe in it. If you read any of my books you will find I believe in organization. But that´s not the big need. Trained workers? Oh, yes, we ought to train our workers. We spend an hour and a half every week on Wednesday night training our workers. I believe in training, but that´s not the big need. Good voices? Great delivery? That´s wonderful, except that Jonathan Edwards read everything he ever preached and his eyes were so bad he had to put the print right close to them. he read in a very weak voice--and the power of God came upon him. The power of God is the greatest need.
The greatest need we have in our Sunday School is for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The greatest need we have for our churches is for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The greatest need our ministry has is not polish nor dignity--it´s for God´s supernatural power to settle upon His people.
V. It Is a Twentieth Century Truth
Then I hasten to say not only is it an Old Testament truth, a New Testament truth, an historic truth, but praise God, it´s a twentieth century truth.
I would never stand before you as an example. God knows I would not. There are preacher here tonight who were preaching before I was born and were doing a better job before I was born than I am doing tonight. But let me say this: I would have to say that that which God has done through this simple little preacher must be in the power of the Holy Spirit.
I was a introvert boy, barefooted, a poor country kid with hand-me-down clothes when I trusted Jesus in the back yard of the Fernwood Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. I was timid and cowed, with no ability, and sucked my thumb until I was almost 14 years old! My first sermon lasted five minutes. I preached on Peter, and petered out in five minutes. Then all of a sudden one day when I was in college a professor came back to me and said, “Are you a preacher?”
I had been in school about one week. I said, “That´s a hard question to answer.” (I had preached five minutes.) But I said, “Yes, I am a preacher.”
He said, “Would you preach for me next Sunday?”
Oh my! No outlines, no sermons, no illustrations--if I had had an illustration, I would not have had anything for it to illustrate. I didn´t know a thing, but I said, “I´ll do it.”
My wife and I went out that Sunday morning to a little country church just south of Marshall, Texas. She was scared to death. Five minutes was all I had ever preached. I got up to preach. I preached five minutes. I preached ten minutes. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes. My wife was sitting out there with her mouth wide open and thinking, “Can any good thing come out of this?” and I preached.
All of a sudden the blessing of God came on my soul and I really felt that somebody was helping me besides myself. I was preaching. I didn´t know a verse, didn´t know an illustration, didn´t know a thing--a little old country preacher. I said, “This is the greatest thing in the world. Lord, to preach in the power of the Holy Spirit is the greatest thing in the world.”
When I finished a fellow walked up to me and said, “Here is your check.”
I said, “What for?”
He said, “Twelve dollars.”
I said, “Not what for--what for? What for?”
He said, “For preaching!”
I said, “You get paid for this?”
He said, “You sure do.”
I said something to him I am so sorry I said. “I´ll never take a dime for preaching the Gospel as long as I live.” I´ve changed there a little bit!!
I want to say this. For God to take a little country preacher like that and let him see people saved Sunday after Sunday--glory be to His name! In these seventeen blessed years I could count on the fingers of my right hand the Sundays that we have not seen folks saved. My little girl Becky is eleven years old. Becky has never lived a Sunday without seeing somebody saved. Only two Sunday nights--God gets the praise for this--in eleven years has my little girl Becky not seen her daddy in the baptistry baptizing to close the day. Oh, who could do that? Who could do that? Me? Not on your life. Was it my ability? Oh no! No! A thousand times no. Only the power of the Holy Spirit could do that. You may have it. You may have it.
I read last week about the Scottish revival and how all Scotland said, “Knox is coming! Knox is coming!” There was such power that there was preaching sometimes 6 and 7 services even in Presbyterian churches on Sunday. I say, “Lord, do it again! Do it again!”
I read about the New Hebrides revival and how seven men went on their faces before God and prayed all night every Thursday night. Thursday night after Thursday night, all night long they prayed. One time they got up at four o´clock in the morning and walked out to go to their homes. The lights were already on in the area. Vehicles had stopped beside the road. people had gotten out of their vehicles and were kneeling and confessing their sins. They saw lights all around the villages and heard people crying, confessing sin, and asking God to save them. Revival broke out. There were 7 or 8 services every Sunday in every church on the island.
I say, “Lord, do it again!”
You know, my precious friend, that unless something happens, our generation will never see revival. Somebody told me that Canada has never seen revival--I don´t know if that is true. But please tell me, if Canada sees revival, who is going to be responsible? You tonight must seek God´s face.
Let´s face it, brethren. Go home and look in the mirror. The hope for Canada is not is Ottawa or in London or in Washington. The hope for the nation and the world and the continent does not lie in guarding Cuba tonight, though I think it is a wise move. I say the hope lies in the burning bosom of gospel preachers like you and like me, in a Bible-loving, Christ-honoring people.
May God help us not to be drunk with wine wherein is excess, but to be filled with the Spirit.
“When I consider thy heavens, the work of they fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and has crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of they hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yeah, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is they name in all the earth!”--Ps. 8:3-8.
Several thousand years ago David looked up one night and saw the stars. Perhaps he did not know that the earth was 8,000 miles in diameter, containing 198,980,000 square miles. Perhaps he did not know that there are 264,000,000,000 cubic miles on the earth, and even though the earth is that size, Saturn is 995 times as large and Jupiter 1,281 times as large. Perhaps he did not know that though the earth in all its immensity is so big, the sun could contain 1,384,462 earths. He looked up at the stars as I have done so many times.
I am still childish enough to take an occasional walk and look at the stars. “Star light, star bright, first star I´ve seen tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight,” I´ve said many times since I was a little boy. Or, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are; up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky.” I love the stars. There´s a fancy and a blessedness about stargazing that I love.
When I was a boy, I preferred the sun. I hated to see that evening sun go down and darkness come. When I got about seventeen, my fancy turned strangely from the sun to the moon. In a most peculiar way, the sun lost its fancy; I loved the moon. But now in these years of baldness, bifocals, bridges, bulges, and bunions, I have come to enjoy more the sedate quietness of the stars! I´m satisfied many of you would testify the same.
David looked up at the stars one night and quoted those words that were inspired of God: “When I consider they heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which the has ordained; What is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
God Sent a Man to Teach Me
Man is somebody. I hope in this message to elevate the dignity of man to those of us who call Christ our Saviour. I will build this message tonight around and experience that happened to me and teach you a lesson that God taught me when I became pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. I am not a big preacher; I make no pretense at being one. I was reared a poor boy, extremely poor. When I was called to preach, I thought I would never preach to a hundred people at one time. I had no idea I would ever pastor a church of any size at all. I still consider myself a small preacher. In fact, I think all preachers should stay small preachers in their own sight. Our position is big, but we ought to be small.
When I was called to the First Baptist Church of Hammond, the Lord taught me this lesson the first days in my office. I was unpacking my books one day when the secretary said, “Brother Hyles (and I like the word Brother), someone to see you.”
I thought perhaps the mayor had dropped by for a visit. Maybe the Chamber of Commerce had come. I straightened my collar and my tie and buttoned my coat. I said, “Show him in.” The door was opened a little bit and I looked out the crack. Our offices each have a main door to the hall and then there are connecting doors between the offices also. I looked out the crack in the door and saw that it was not the mayor at all. It was not the Chamber of Commerce chairman. It was what we would call a bum off the street. I had never seen a man like him.
Our church is located downtown in Hammond, a city of 125,000 people. We have many transient people coming by, but this was one of the filthiest persons I had ever seen. He was a character. He had on an old dirty, greasy cap, the kind that has a bill and snaps at the front. His hair was long--it came down like mine did when I was a boy and had mine cut by putting a bowl on top and chopping around the edge. His face was dirty, filthy, and unshaven. His collar was yellow with filth; his shirt was dirty and torn; his trousers had patches on the knees; his shoes were slit over each toe to allow room for a wide foot.
I looked at him, and said to the secretary, “I´m sorry. I´m busy. I cannot see him.” I went on unpacking books. My office was a mess. I had much to do. I had appointments to keep. I had people to meet. I could not see him.
She looked at me and asked, “Brother Hyles, are you sure you don´t want to see him?”
I said, “Send him in. I´ll see him.”
After talking to him for awhile, I gave him a meal ticket and an old suit of clothes. I tried to get him on his way. But I witnessed to him about the Saviour, as I think every preacher of the Gospel ought to do. I told him how he could be saved. I found he had never been converted and was of a Catholic background. I told him about Jesus.
I love to tell the story,
For those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting
To hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory
I sing the new, new song,
‘Twill be the old, old story
That I have loved so long.
After I had told him the story of salvation through Christ, I said, “May I ask that we kneel and pray.” We did. As we went to our knees, he made the usual cross and bowed on his knees like a little boy at the altar. He put his hands under his chin and laid his cap beside him. I asked him to pray, and he prayed the sinner´s prayer. I feel he was saved, and he had a blessed experience.
But before he prayed, I prayed. While I prayed God taught me the lesson that He wanted to teach me on the first days as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond. I knelt to pray, and --I will be honest with you--the odor was unbearable, nauseating. As that fellow bowed and closed his eyes, I looked at his old greasy cap; I looked at his long, touseled hair; I looked at his dirty and unshaven face; I looked at his yellow, filthy shirt; I looked at his baggy, ragged trousers; I looked at his split shoes, and thought. “This is the most miserable wretch I have ever seen in my life.”
God Created Earth and All Things for Men.
All of a sudden, just as if God Himself had written the eighth Psalm on the wall of my study, I saw it there. I began to think about this man. Here was a man made in the image of God. He was a fallen creature, to be sure; a depraved man, to be sure; a sinner by nature, that´s right. Yet here was a man who has been the object of God´s love from eternity to eternity, from the making of man in Eden until that day when we will sing, “All hail the power of Jesus´ name.”
I realized here was somebody. I thought as I looked at that dirty, filthy man, that this was the object of God´s love. The first thing that hit my mind was this: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
The reason God one day spoke and lilies covered the fields was for this man. The reason God one day bade the water above be separated from the water beneath was for this man. The reason God raised the trees like great spires in the sky was for this man. The reason God raised the mountains like great pyramids on the horizon was for this man. The reason God dotted the land with lakes like heavenly teardrops was for this man. The reason God made the birds melodious choirs to sing through the heaven was for this man. The reason God made the stars for midnight chandeliers was for this man. All of God´s creation was for one man.
There is something that happens to a preacher, my dear friends, and it can easily happen to a young man assuming a position in a large city church, as was my case. That something is this: Somehow we lose sight of the fact that God has called us to preach to men. We forget that the purpose of our ministry is reaching men. We are not social gospellers. I like what the old Mississippi Negro preacher said: “I´m gonna kick the Devil as long as I´ve got a foot. I´m gonna bite him as long as I´ve got teeth. Then I´m gonna gum him till I die.”
Our job is not improving society. You get people saved, and that will improve society more than all the Alcoholics Anonymous, Social Betterment Leagues, and others all put together. Preaching the Gospel of Christ will save more alcoholics accidentally on the drippings than Alcoholics Anonymous will save on purpose. Preaching the Gospel of Christ will clean up more slums accidentally than Slum Clearance Committees will do on purpose. Preaching the Gospel of Christ will save more homes accidentally than all the psychologists and psychiatrists will do on purpose. Preaching the Gospel of Christ will save more derelicts and restore more harlots and drunkards and prostitutes than all of the Social Betterment Leagues and the social gospel will do on purpose. The need of this hour, my precious friend is for churches and preachers and Christians to be consumed in the great task of reaching men with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Came to Save Men
I looked at him. I couldn´t help but think as I knelt to pray with him, Not only was creation for this man, but Jesus came for this man.
Luke 19:10 says, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” “As my Father hath sent me, so send I you, “ said the Saviour. In Luke, chapter 15, it was one lost coin, one lost boy, one lost sheep. At midnight it was one Nicodemus; at noonday it was one woman at the well; on the cross there was one dying thief; up a tree there was one Zacchaeus; there was one Bartimaeus on the road; there was one lady possessed of seven demons. Our Lord preached His greatest sermons to one person. he gave His greatest discourses to one.
When we preachers get to the place where we are nothing more than somewhat of an Old Mother Hubbard, Santa Claus and Grandma Moses, we have lost our vision of men as the purpose of the ministry of the Gospel of Christ. God give us some prophets who reap men. God give us some Elijahs, Jonathan Edwardses, Charles G. Finneys, Dwight Moodys, and Billy Sundays. God give us some weeping Jeremiahs and courageous Isaiahs who put men in their sights and seek to reach me.
When I go to a new church they often want me to do everything except preach the Gospel of Christ. They want me to pray for every dedication of a new swimming pool, pull the trigger for every beetle race in town, and hold the ceremonies for every garbage can improvement campaign. I try to let them know quickly that my job is not a social ministry--but preaching the glorious Gospel of Christ to men. So Jesus came for men.
Ah, my precious friend, keep your sights on men. It´s so easy to build denominations and forget the men. It´s easy to build churches and forget men. It´s so easy to build hospitals and forget patients. It´s so easy to build homes and forget the children. It´s so easy to build schools and forget the pupils. Our job is not reaching society; our job is not saving the world; our job is reaching that next poor sinner for Jesus Christ.
Jesus Lived for Men
As I looked at him, I continued to think: “Not only did God create the world for this old bum, not only did God send His Son Jesus for this one man, but Jesus lived for one man.
Oftentimes people say to me, “I came by to see your work.”
I´ll say, “My work is at work.”
They´ll say, “What do you mean?”
I say, “Do you want to see my work?”
“Well,” they say, “I mean your auditorium.”
I say, “My auditorium or my work? My work is not building buildings. My work is not building churches. My work is not building Sunday Schools. My work is building men for Jesus.”
When I was in Texas pastoring we had thirteen mission points or branch churches scattered around the area. One of our young men was Carmen Hartsfield, the all-conference center of the high school football team and the President of the Senior Class of his large 2,000 member high school. Carmen was also a preacher boy who pastored one of our mission chapels in a little neighborhood called Spring creek Community, five miles north of Garland, Texas. One Saturday afternoon Carmen came to our church and said, “Pastor, I need some chairs for my little chapel tomorrow.”
He had his overalls on. I said, “Take them right on, Carmen. Get yourself a big stack of them and load them on your pick-up truck.”
One of our fellows whose first name was Cortez was there that day. Cortez at that time was a very demonstrative-type person, and that means he said “Amen” occasionally. Carmen said to Cortez, “Cortez, this is too many chairs for me. Would you mind helping me load the truck, take the chairs out to the chapel, and set them up?”
Cortez said, “Well, I guess I will.” He too had on overalls.
They put the chairs in the back of the pick-up truck, drove the truck out to the little chapel in the country, and proceeded to set up the little auditorium for services the next morning.
When they finished setting up the auditorium, Cortez said, “Carmen, I´m backslidden today. I´m cold in my heart. I need to get my old heart warmed.”
My young preacher boy, eighteen years old, said, “Well, I happen to have my Bible with me, and in this Bible is my prepared sermon for tomorrow morning. If you will sit on the back row, I will preach to you. I think it will warm your heart.”
So, with his overalls on, the Reverend Hartsfield approached the pulpit to preach the sermon to one man. His friend sat back there alone. But now, my little preacher boy hadn´t learned how to preach yet. (I think oftentimes that is a tremendous advantage.) He just stood up and said, “You better get born again or you´re going to Hell. Jesus is wonderful. Hell is hot. Sin is black. Salvation is tremendous. It sure is good to be saved.”
Back in the back Cortez would say, “AMEN! Praise the Lord! That´s great preaching! AMEN!”
Carmen had preached about ten minutes with Cortez shouting “Amen” in the back, when the side door opened. And eighteen-year-old lad walked in. Now it´s five o´clock on Saturday afternoon; you walk into a little chapel where you find one overalled fellow in the pulpit hollering, “You´d better get born again or you´re going to Hell,” and one fellow back in the back row by himself saying, “Amen. Preach on. Let him have it.” How would you feel?
The stranger removed his hat and sat down on the front. Carmen didn´t break stride, didn´t even stop to welcome the visitor, but kept preaching. Now he had two in the audience. Forty minutes later when Carmen finished the sermon (he hadn´t learned that you can´t preach but twenty minutes), he said, “Gentlemen, let´s bow our head for prayer.”
They bowed their heads. he said, “Is there anyone here in this crowd who wants to be saved? Is there anyone here who does not know that he is saved, but wants to be saved?” I´ll declare if this young eighteen-year-old fellow didn´t raise his hand! Carmen said, “Now we´re going to stand and sing, ‘Just as I am without one plea.´” I´ll tell you brother, that eighteen-year-old boy came down the aisle and was gloriously saved that day.
Listen to me. Don´t ever get above reaching people for Christ. Don´t ever get to the place where you are servant for society. Don´t ever get to the place where you lose your passion for that next man who needs to be saved by the grace of God.
Jesus Died for Men
So I looked at this bum. His hat was dirty, his face was filthy and unshaven, his shirt was yellow with filth, his trousers had patches on the knees, his shoes were split and holes were in the bottom. There was a terrible odor. The Lord continued teaching me this lesson I´m sharing with you tonight. Not only did Jesus create the world for this man; not only did Jesus come for this man; not only did Jesus live for this man; but Jesus died for this man.
Why did Jesus take the spittle of Calvary? To improve society? No! He did it so that one man could be saved. Why the nails in His hands and feet? Why the spear in His side? Why the spittle upon His face? Why the slapping and backhanding and mocking? Why the sign on Him saying, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”? Why the mock reed and mock robe? Why the crowd coming by and hurling insults at Him? Why the nudeness and embarrassing moments of Calvary? Why? Why? To improve society? To bring in the kingdom by human efforts? No! All this was so that people fallen away from Christ by sin might come one at a time and find redemption and salvation through the precious blood of our Saviour who died for one man.
You´re somebody! Jesus died for you! You might be a little widow. The mailman may not stop often at your house any more. The children may not write as they ought to write. You may not be well known in your neighborhood. But you are somebody in the sight of God. You may be a poor man; you may be a small child; you may be a timid introvert--but you are somebody in the eyes of God.
God made the worlds for you. He loves you. he came for you. He lived for you. And then He died for you.
I preached this same message in a conference in Durham, North Carolina. After I had finished, the moderator said, “Does anyone have a word to say?”
A little old shriveled-up, retired preacher, skinny as he could be and looking like a peach after the frost had bit, came on the platform. (God bless him. I love little preachers.) He looked out at those people with his great protruding eyes and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, for fifty years I have been looking forward to retiring. Six months ago I retired. I´ve got my pension now. Oh, my little body is feeble and worn, and I never thought I amounted to much for God. But this morning I realize I´m somebody!” he threw his little old shoulder back and his little old skinny arms up in the air and said, “I´m re-enlisting to preach some more of the glorious Gospel of Christ!”
Hey, you´re somebody. You may be a small preacher, but you´re somebody to God. You may have a small salary, but you´re somebody to God.
Ah, isn´t it wonderful! The importance of the individual--that´s the difference between Russian Communism and American Democracy and Christ´s Christianity. It´s not the individual for the state, but the state for the individual.
I have a motto in my ministry and it is printed on the front page of my book, How to Boost Your Church Attendance: “I do not want to use my people to build my work, but I want to use my work to build my people.” That´s our job--building people, reaching people.
So as I looked at him, the Lord taught me a lesson I needed to learn.
The Holy Spirit Comes to Dwell in Men
Then as I continued thinking, “What is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” I was reminded that not only did God create the world for this man, not only did God send His Son for this man, not only did His Son live for this man and die for this man, but the Holy Spirit came in power to indwell believers individually. I like that! The Holy Spirit didn´t come on Pentecost to indwell a building or live in a sanctuary. he came to indwell the bodies of born-again people.
Dr. George W. Truett gave this illustration, and I think it is so near what I am trying to say.
Dr. Truett had a little five-year-old granddaughter who came to the office one day with him. He was trying to study, and those of you who have children know how it is. Just as he was trying to concentrate, his little granddaughter said, “Granddaddy, I want a drink of water.”
Dr. Truett said, “All right, all right. I´ll get you a drink of water.” After he gave her the drink he said, “Now honey, I´m trying to study. Would you be quiet and leave me alone?”
“Yes, Granddaddy. I will.” And she meant it. Five minutes later, “Granddaddy, could I have a drink please?”
After getting her another drink of water and thinking it would pacify her, he said, “Leave me alone, I´m busy.”
Finally a thought hit him. There was a jigsaw puzzle on his desk, a map of the world. He thought, She´s only five it will take her all day to put this puzzle together. how would she know where to put all the nations of the world? he said, “Sweetheart, would you like to put a jigsaw puzzle together?”
“Oh, yes I would, Granddaddy. I´d like to put a jigsaw puzzle together.”
He put her on the floor in the outer office and scrambled the puzzle up real good, then said to her, “When you get through, show it to me.”
Five minutes later: “Granddaddy, it´s all together.”
“You mean you put the world together in the last five minutes?”
“Yes, Granddaddy, it´s all together.”
He thought she was exaggerating, and so he walked into the room. To his amazement there it was, all put together. He said, “Sweetheart, where did you learn all this? Did you do it by yourself?”
“Yes, by myself.”
“Did you know where to put the countries?”
“I didn´t know where to put the countries.”
“How did you do it?”
She said, “Granddaddy, on the back of the map there was a picture of a man, and I just got the man right and the world took care of itself.”
Don´t Forget the Individual!
If we´ll go after man, the world will take care of itself. There´s something that happens to a preacher between the call of God when God anoints him and supernaturally calls him and the time when somehow or other he becomes a bigshot. That´s the saddest day in the life of a preacher. For many a preacher it was a sad day when he got his first blue serge suit and his first private telephone.
I looked at him and I saw his dirty cap, filthy face, unshaven long beard, yellow shirt, patched trouser, and holey shoes, I thought, “Heaven´s joy is over one sinner that repents.”
When your church raises a budget, heaven smiles. When the Sunday School breaks its record, heaven grins. When the pastor adopts the program for the year, Heaven laughs. But when on little girl or one stumbling, drunken bum comes down the aisle of a church to accept Christ, Heaven becomes a great Holy-Roller Camp Meeting, and they rejoice over one sinner that repents.
I had learned a lesson. I looked at him and all of the sudden he was twisting a derby hat in his hand. His hair was neatly combed and freshly cut. His face was clean and freshly shaven. His shirt was white as snow. His tie matched the socks. The suit was freshly pressed. His shoes were new and neatly shined, and the scent was a sweet-smelling perfume. I got off my knees that day, bowed before him humbly, took his hand and said, “Sir, I´m so glad you dropped by today. What an honor it has been to have you, a man made in the image of God, visit my office today.”
He looked at me as if he had seen a ghost. The last I saw, he was twisting that old dirty cap in his hands and he walked out the door. That was a wonderful lesson to me. I thought again, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?”
But it doesn´t stop there. One Saturday night my little boy David, who was six years old at the time, and I went to a rescue mission to preach. My wife was in the hospital, just having given birth to our fourth child. Right before I was to speak, the superintendent said, “And now my assistant at the mission is going to play the guitar and sing a song.”
Many days had passed since that morning in my office. A very neatly dressed young man walked down the side aisle. I was sitting on the front. He stood up and gave the testimony of how he had just been converted a few months ago. I said, “David, where have you seen that fellow?”
“I don´t know him, Daddy.”
“I have seen him somewhere, David.”
He stood up to play his number and sing, and it struck me. That was him! I smiled. He looked at me and I looked at him. I thought of the Psalm, “What is man that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?”
Oh, my preacher friends, that little primary child who toddles down the aisle in your church next Sunday morning with ragged clothes and long, shaggy hair is somebody to God. That old drunken bum staggering down Skid Row looking for the next cigarette thrown away by the one before is somebody to God.
If we start to reach people for Christ, we are going to have to put men in the sights of our spiritual gun and shoot at men. “What is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?”
I saw God wash the world last night
With His sweet showers on high;
And then when morning came I saw
Him hang it out to dry.
He washed each tiny blade of grass
And every trembling tree;
He flung His showers against the hills
And swept the billowy sea.
The white rose is a cleaner white,
The red rose is more red
Since God washed every fragrant face
And put them all to bed.
There´s not a bird, there´s not a bee
That wings along the way,
But is a cleaner bird and bee
Than it was yesterday.
I saw God wash the world last night
And I would He had washed ME
As clean of all MY dust and dirt,
As that old white birch tree.
-William Stidger
May God wash us and help us to go get men, reach men from house to house, knocking on doors, preaching to men, working for men, witnessing to men, giving our lives for reaching men, whether they be French or Canadian, English or American; whether they speak English, French or Spanish. may God help us always to say with the Psalmist, “When I consider they heavens, the work of they fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
How easy it is to become a Christian! Occasionally someone will say, “Brother Hyles, you make it so easy to be saved.”
I always answer, “I did not make it easy; God made it easy. I simply tell you how God made it.” I made this comment in a home recently: If my girl Becky, who is ten, ran away from home, I would want her back. It would be the easiest thing in this world for her to get back. All she would have to do is come and say, “Daddy, I want to come home,” and she would be as good as at home. I would want her to come home as much or more than she would want to return, so I would make it very easy for her to come back home.
If one of your children got lost, you would make it easy for him to come back. You would search everywhere. You would be the aggressor. You would be more anxious, or at least as anxious, for him to come home as he would be to return home.
Our Heavenly Father is the same way. Salvation, my friends, is not hard. It is simple. Salvation is not running an obstacle course and hoping you will end up standing up someday when the judgment comes. God has made salvation so simple that the smallest child who understands right from wrong can accept it and be saved. God has made salvation so easy that anybody who knows he is a sinner and knows that by faith he can receive Christ as Saviour, can be saved.
God´s Part in Salvation Is Big, Tremendous
Now, to be sure, salvation is big. We stumble over its bigness in an effort to make it complicated. But bear this in mind: All the bigness of salvation is on God´s part, not ours. All the immensity and all the working and all the business and all the complexity and all the theology and all the deep doctrine and all the philosophy of being saved is God´s part. Our part is simple.
Now, to be sure, salvation is big. Man sinned in the Garden of Eden. God made a man; He made a woman. He put them in the Garden of Eden and said, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.”
But man ate that forbidden fruit when Satan tempted and tested and deceived Eve. Eve came back and told Adam she had eaten of the fruit, that it was a tree that would make men wise, good to look upon, and it opened her eyes concerning good and evil. Man had sinned. Man was made in the image of God for fellowship with God. When man departed from God, then God made a plan to save man. Now the making of that plan was complex. The making of that plan was eternity-shaking. The making of that plan was big and magnificent. But the receiving of that plan is just as simple as taking a drink of water.
God immediately said, “I am going to make a plan.” When Adam and Eve sinned, and sin came into the human race, and man departed from God, immediately God started to make a plan. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, said, “Father, I will go to earth and become man. I am willing to become flesh. I will live a sinless life, a perfect life. I will go to Calvary. I will dip My own soul into Hell itself. I will become sin for man. If man will simply receive Me, he can be saved.” Immediately God promised that the seed of woman would bruise the head of the serpent. And the seed of woman would, of course, someday come. Four thousand years later in Bethlehem´s manger came the Lord Jesus Christ.
Satan, then, set out to block the coming of the Saviour. He set out to block salvation´s plan. Immediately Adam and Eve had a boy they named Cain. They had another boy named Abel. there was the seed of the promised Messiah. But Cain killed Abel, and the seed-carrier was broken. God gave another son whose name was Seth. From the time Seth was born until Jesus Christ came in Bethlehem, Satan did everything he could to block the coming of the Saviour.
When Jesus´ coming was finally announced, Satan tried to get Joseph to put Mary away, to stone her so the Messiah would not be born, Finally, when the Messiah came, there was no place for Him to be born, for Satan blocked any hospital, or hotel, or inn from the Saviour. So the Saviour was born in a manger in Bethlehem.
Then immediately Satan tried to block salvation´s plan in the leading of Herod to kill all the male children two years old and under. You recall how the angel came to Joseph in a dream and said, “Flee to Egypt.” Once again God had blocked Satan´s plan to thwart salvation.
Satan was not finished. He took Jesus one day up to a mountain and tempted Him in the wilderness three times, hoping that somehow sin could enter in the life of Jesus Christ. For if Jesus Christ had been a sinner, He would have had to suffer for His own sin and could not suffer for my sin. But Jesus said, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” and He took the sword of the Spirit and three times struck the Word of God into Satan. Jesus did not yield to temptation.
But he wasn´t through. You recall when Jesus was on the cross, they came by, looked up at Him, hissed at Him, and said, “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Satan well knew if Jesus Christ would come down from Calvary, salvation´s plan would be thwarted. But Jesus did not come down.
Satan wasn´t finished then. Jesus was put in a borrowed sepulcher. Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus came and got His body and placed it in a borrowed tomb outside the city of Jerusalem. The Bible says that the Roman government put guards around the tomb to guard the Saviour from coming forth. But, thank God once again, on that Easter Sunday morning Jesus came forth victoriously, and the Gospel is not finished. For Christ, our perfect Lamb, has been sacrificed, has been buried, rose again the third day, and we do have a Gospel.
It is complicated, to be sure. When a person is saved, he is redeemed. His sins are forgiven. His past is forgotten. He is made an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. He is become sanctified in the beloved. As far as God´s wrath is concerned, he is justified. He is saved from Hell, and for eternity he will live with God in heaven to enjoy the bliss of God´s prepared city forever and forever.
Complicated, isn´t it? Big, isn´t it? Immense, isn´t it? Immaculate, isn´t it? Wonderful, isn´t it? Hard to comprehend, isn´t it? Yes, it is. But I say once again, that every part of the complicated Gospel is God´s part, not man´s part. God has prepared a big meal, which is salvation. Jesus Christ was the Bread of Life. He is the Living Water. he is the Meat of the Word. He is the Milk of the Word. Jesus Christ is the great meal. Salvation has been prepared, and now God tells us, “Come, for all things are now ready.”
Man Has Tried to Complicate Getting Saved
It is so easy to be saved. Oh, complicated for God--yet so simple for man. I want to show you about the simplicity of being saved. man has tried to complicate it. God said, “Come.” Isn´t that all God said to Adam and Eve? “Come.” Isn´t that all God said in Revelation 22:17? “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”
A man made a great supper in Luke 14 (a picture of salvation), and sent his servants at suppertime to say, “Come; for all things are now ready.” I want to make one thing clear at the start: You cannot do anything to get saved except come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how Satan has tried to complicate it. Satan has tried to make more to salvation than that. People have tried to ass their own work to salvation. We want some candles in the church. We want some soft music in the background. We want to learn some confessions of faith and take a catechism. We want to do something ourselves to be saved. We want to feel something shoot in our spine and toes. We want to roll down the aisle and shout, “Whoopee! Hallelujah! I hear angels´ wings flapping.”
Now you may get saved by candlelight, but you won´t get saved by the candles.
You may get saved with soft music playing, but the soft music won´t have a single thing to do with your getting saved.
You may get saved in the baptistry, but the baptistry won´t have a single thing to do with your getting saved.
You may get saved in the baptistry, but the baptistry won´t have a thing to do with your getting saved.
You may get saved the moment you join the church, but the joining of the church won´t have a single thing to do with your getting saved.
When you get saved, you may cry, but crying won´t have a single thing to do with your getting saved.
When you get saved, you may cry, but crying won´t have a single thing to do with your getting saved.
When you get saved, you may say, “Whoopee!” But “whoopee” won´t have anything to do with your getting saved.
The way to get saved is to come to Jesus and trust Him by faith. It is the simple plan that God has made.
Now there are three things that tell us of salvation´s simplicity:
I. BIBLE EXAMPLES OF CONVERSIONS SHOW OUTWARD CONDITIONS AND EMOTIONS WITH DIFFERENT PEOPLE
“Oh,” you say, “the Apostle Paul.” We like to take the Apostle Paul´s conversion and make a big to-do about that. A light shone round about him, and Paul was thrown to his face on the Damascus road, and was blinded. All of a sudden Paul said, “Who art thou, Lord? What wilt thou have me to do?”
We say, “Then we ought to have a light shine around about us.” No, the light shining around Paul didn´t save Paul. Paul´s falling on his face didn´t save him. The blinding of Paul didn´t save him. Paul was saved when he received Christ as Saviour. It is not the circumstances that saved; it is the will saying, “I will come to Christ,” which makes one a Christian.
Now quit waiting for feeling. You may not hoot and holler when you get saved. I don´t know what you will do or what the results of you salvation emotionally will be, but I know this: The resulting feelings have nothing to d with salvation. Salvation is when a person realizes he is a sinner and Christ is the Saviour and by faith he turns to Christ for salvation. That is what being saved is.
Matthew was sitting one day at the seat of customs when Jesus came in the room. Matthew just left all and followed Jesus. No light for Matthew. No falling on his face for Matthew. Now if Matthew had fallen on his face and cried and shouted and said, “O boy! hallelujah! I´m born again!” and hugged his neighbors and his wife and rejoiced and rolled in the aisle, he would still have been saved, not because he did those things, but because he had put his faith in Christ.
The Bible tells us that one day Zacchaeus was up a tree. Jesus was coming through the city of Jericho on His way to Jerusalem. Zacchaeus wanted to see Him, but there was a great parade coming through, and since Zacchaeus was a little short fellow and could not see Jesus coming, he climbed a tree and looked down. There came Jesus. Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. I´m going to your house for lunch today.” Jesus went home with Zacchaeus and over the supper table or dinner table, Zacchaeus trusted Him. Zacchaeus was saved.
The thief on the cross simply said, “Lord, remember m