Water baptism what does it mean to me by GW North (1977)

How about this? What does it mean to you? I wonder if I may start by reading in the
scripture in what may be to you a peculiar place to commence to read if one wants to
speak about these things. In the gospel according to Matthew, not the last verse, not the last
chapter I mean, but in chapter four. In this great chapter you will know we have the account
of the temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ in the wilderness. Jesus was led up of the
spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days
and forty nights, he was afterward and hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said,
If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. And he answered and said,
It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the
temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down. For it is written,
He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up,
lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again,
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high
mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him,
All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto
him, Get thee hence, Satan. For it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him
only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveeth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto
him. Praise God. I don't know in passing whether if you had gone through a severe period of
temptation, the next thing that you met in life was these words, John has been cast into prison,
written in the next verse. I don't know whether you would have liked it and thought, well now
that's the last straw. Even the friend and what not, and who you may say, he was his very cousin
in the flesh, through the line of flesh through which he came, thrown into prison. Well, well,
well. I don't know what you would have felt under those circumstances. I leave you to work it out.
Think back over the pattern of your life so far and see what's happened to you after you've been
through a very dark, depressing period of temptation perhaps, and have been buffeted
and cast about, and then you hear the bad news and you say, well if there be a God,
why does that happen to me? You see? Or I can't understand this, or what's, I know, I've heard it
all poured out upon occasions through the last 40 years. These sorts of things. Do you know what
Jesus did? Well, read on and you'll see, but not tonight. I wonder if you have wondered at times
about this great statement of Satan. He took Jesus up on this exceeding high mountain and he
showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and you may think that's a
wonderful miracle, and you may be prepared to think that the devil can work tremendous things,
and so be very wary about things like that. But of course, you know, when you're dealing with things
in the spirit, you must expect this. You must expect it. For only very recently, I don't know
whether I've said this publicly, I'm sorry if I have, I've talked to so many people and I'm
getting older than I used to be, I can't remember when I said it, but recently I heard a church army
captain giving a testimony over the air, and he was one of these men who had died. He was a man
who'd come back from the dead. He was being interrogated by an interviewer very sympathetically.
This man had died, and he'd died in hospital, and the doctors had certified him dead, and they'd
taken him down onto the cold slab of the mortuary and had laid him out, and were busy about other
things, and time passed. I don't know how long it took, it was, but to the attendant's surprise,
he turned round and saw this man sitting up. I don't know what you would have done under the
circumstances. I don't know whether he'd been dead three hours or three days or anything like that,
but he'd been certified dead by all the doctors. It was all right. This isn't a sort of a cooked-up
thing, and he'd just come straight back from the dead, and he's serving the Lord. But one of the
things he said interested me tremendously, and it was this, that when he left his body, which he did,
he saw all his life in a moment of time, every moment he'd ever lived. Think of it. This is his
testimony. He saw Jesus. He saw all his life in a moment of time. What if you saw all yours,
and really saw it in the presence of God? Well, he's serving the Lord, and he gave his testimony
to encourage doubting, trembling souls that really belong to Jesus, and pass over the word
of comfort that it was all right, because he'd been there and had come back. He hadn't been raised
from the grave, but he had apparently died and come back from the dead. What a tremendous thing.
I don't want to discuss other points of it. I just want to say that when you read these things
then in Scripture, that the devil showed the Lord Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in a moment
of time. Well, there it is. And Jesus saw them all, and the devil offered them to him. And there
was a time, you know, when I used to think, well, they weren't the devil's to give. But Jesus,
he never challenged him. He didn't say, no, they're not yours to give. They're mine.
He never banded words with the devil, because he realized something that you have to realize,
and strangely you most may think it is tied up with what has been happening here tonight. And
that is this, that the kingdoms of the world and all that are in them, they have been usurped from
Jesus. There came an occasion in the Garden of Eden, of which the Scripture speaks very plainly,
and it says this. Perhaps we'll go right back to the book of Genesis and read it. I have already
been making reference to this as we've been going through. In first chapter, before we reach Eden,
in verse 26, we read this. God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over
all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in
his own image. In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them, and God blessed
them. And God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it
and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth. Amen. And that was God's intention for man, that in his image
and in his likeness, man, not just one man, but man, should have the dominion
in aerial realms, in the water realm, and on the earth realm, and man should have this great place
of being the Lord of creation. That was what God intended. But you see, through the folly
of the deception that Adam allowed to be practiced upon him through his wife, originating
in Satan, he handed over everything to the devil so that the devil came in and took what rightly
belonged to man. Now let that sink deeply into your heart, for behind that
lies this tremendous thing that we've been talking about tonight and we've been witnessing.
Behind all this, there comes the great plan of God. So when the devil came to tempt Jesus,
he did. He offered him all these great kingdoms of the world. But Jesus wouldn't have anything
from the devil as a gift. Nothing. And here then lay the great secret. The great thing is this,
beloved, and this is what you have to discover. I don't know whether you've discovered it, man,
and of course when I say man I mean woman as well, that in you there has been a great deception
and a great usurper in you. And that's how you've been living since you were born.
And here has lain the root of all your troubles. Everything. Now I know there are environmental
troubles of which Jesus spoke when he said to his disciples, in the world you shall have tribulation.
Jesus never promised a bed of roses with no thorns on it. When you were in the earth,
he never promised that you would bathe yourself in asses milk like Cleopatra. He never promised
you that you would fly about and have no troubles at all. To the contrary, Jesus said that his
children, when they were his children, born again, children of God, he said now while you're in the
world you will have tribulation. But on the other hand he said in me you shall have peace.
Now there is the great distinction. Troubles come to the children of God just as they come to the
children of the devil. Not the same troubles, but nevertheless the environmental troubles come.
For instance, if you are one of these people and you have to pay five shillings in the pound income
tax, well so does everybody else, whether they're Christian or not. They have to pay twice as much,
three times as much for a cabbage, just the same as anybody else. They have to put up with whatever
government sin, just like everybody else, and they mustn't join any organized rebellion against it
either. They're not allowed to become outlaws like shop stewards want them to become,
and you bear that in mind.
I tell you when you come under the domination of the Lord Jesus Christ there's no bending
righteousness to suit your pocket. You understand that? In fact, he set you the example when he
went as a lamb to the slaughter, and when he stood dumb before his shearers,
and when instead of blinding the people that were looking at him who blindfolded him,
or smiting people to the dust that they should dare to raise their hand to pick up a stone to stone
him, or all the other things, or even raise his voice to contradict the lies that were being
told about him. He never did it. He gave his back to the smiter and his cheeks to them that
pluck up the hair. He is not a social reformer. He is not a mere do-gooder.
Do-gooder. Understand it. Not a mere do-gooder. I'm not saying it isn't right to do good,
but he's not merely there. Jesus Christ said that in the world you'll have tribulation,
and praise the Lord because God uses it. Listen, tribulation worketh patience. It's a tool in the
hand of God. It's not a stone thrown at you by the devil. If you will abide in God and be taught
the things of God and learn to go under, you see, you must never believe these people who say you
should never go under. What you must not believe is that you should go under permanently, you see,
because a Christian, if I may use the term, is a cork, and it comes up again.
Always. I don't mean that you should plunge into despair and darkness. I mean if the waves
and storms go o'er your head, as Wesley would have us see. If tribulation comes and one thing
after another follows as though a very peck of the hounds of hell are on you, my beloved,
you go through them like a hot knife through butter. That's what you do,
because the devil has usurped through man's folly the position that Jesus Christ ought to
have in the world. And you're not surprised then that Jesus disowns being the God of this world.
He is not the God of this world, despite what deceived and ambitious clergymen may try to pray
out Sunday by Sunday. The Bible shows them that they're untrue. He is not the God of this world.
I don't know whether men prefer to read their books about the Bible instead of the book,
the Bible itself. It's amazing, you know, you can write something down and believe what you've
written, and if it be wrong, you're believing that which is wrong. But the tremendous thing about it
is that God is not the God of this world. The world rejected and crucified its God,
made manifest in the flesh. God does not hold himself responsible for ecological discharge.
I nearly reminded Brother about that when he said he put chloroform, sorry, not chloroform in the
water, but what he said he was going to put in, chlorine, that at least it wasn't an oil slick
if you were being baptized in the sea. God doesn't hold himself responsible for
plane crashes, train crashes, starving orphans, people working rebellions. He's not responsible
for what's happening in Ireland, people being blown to pieces, and he's not responsible
for the extra money they're going to put on your income tax this year or anything like that.
And he's not responsible for these things at all. The God of this world is responsible for it,
and he's the devil, and he is working in this world, and you will own, if you're honest,
that it's a terrible mess and the antechamber of hell.
That's what you will have to confess. But, beloved,
glory be to God. This was all a usurped position by Satan. The great triumph of God
is that he came down into the world, and this is why he came by a virgin birth,
and this is why he came by a virgin birth, so that he didn't come picking up the sin nature
that is inherent in every man and woman. He came into the world by the virgin birth,
and he lived in his own creation, and he died at the end of 33 and a half years,
and he dealt with things as his father wanted them to be dealt with, in order to bring men and women
unto a salvation where they should be taken over completely by God, where they should be owned by
God because they have been bought by God with the precious blood of his Son,
where they should be owned by God because they have been baptized into God by the Holy Spirit,
where they should be owned by God because they are indwelt by God by that same Holy Spirit,
where they should be owned by God and used of God in his service, and should be in the great life
and glory of God whilst they're living on this earth, until he takes them home unto himself.
And the end of the world is not predicted in the Bible or prophesied in the Bible.
Don't please take them as prophecies and predictions. They are statements of fact.
I know that prophecy, true prophecy, is a statement of fact, but you do wrong
if you say that Jesus Christ predicted that and predicted the other and prophesied this
and prophesied the other. You will nowhere find that any writer in the New Testament says that
Jesus Christ prophesied anything. To the contrary, he says it's the testimony of Jesus that is the
spirit of all prophecy. That's contrary to the thinking that Jesus predicted anything.
He didn't predict it at all. He stated in time what is going to happen,
dependent upon nothing. What a glorious thing it is. So let's get right out of this
rudimentary and totally banal approach to the words of Jesus Christ. God came into the world
and said it's going to be so and so, so and so, so and so, so and so, going to be wars,
rumors of wars, famines, desolations, fears, terrors, moon turning into blood, sun,
doing all sorts of things. That's what he says. Amen. He predicted nothing. He told us everything.
Keep that very clear, will you? And that will enable you to think concretely
as you're going on with God. And the Lord, as I say, he didn't contradict Satan. He didn't say,
well, now this isn't yours to give. He accepted the fact that the devil has usurped the authority
of God and it has pleased God to allow him to remain in this position. And he's going to
bring greater glory out of all this than if it had never happened. That's the wonder of God,
that he can take the absolute collapse of everything and he can do something radical and real
in your life. Now, one other thing connected with this that you and I have to understand
is that whether you know it or whether you do not know it, inside you from the moment you've been
born and developing in your life, there has been a total deceiver who has usurped the place of Jesus
Christ in your life. That usurper was there from the moment you were born.
The true owner and true indweller of your life also comes in by birth, but not by the first birth.
He comes in by the new. I wonder if you've realized this. You've wondered all the things
that have gone on in you. You look back through your years of puberty and down into your childhood
and go back into your boyhood and your girlhood and you wonder about all these things that have
taken place in you. These terrible things, these great storming things, these tempestuous things,
these vile things, these selfish things, these things that have gone on and gone wrong,
got twisted and perverted and turned upside down until you've not been able, if you've ever been
decent in your life at the time, to think that you could ever continue to live with yourself like it.
That's what you discovered. I hope that some of you discovered it long ago and have got the thing
altered, but that's been the tragedy, that there has been that dwelling in you that you've never
been able to distinguish it from yourself, though at times you've said things like this,
there seems to be two persons in here. One, I'm all right, and then there's this that,
yes, you know the story, with some people it's worse than others. Scientists do their best.
They come up with a term like schizophrenia or something like that. It sounds very nice.
If you've been to university, you've swallowed the praise, and it's fine. We talk about it,
just all it means. Technically, we can appreciate and so on and so on,
but my beloved, do you not see that this is the great trouble with everybody?
And this was the thing that God had to deal with. You've been going along and you've been living
your life, and many a one, our sister said it as plain as ending tonight. She didn't say it in this
language, but she gave a testament of how at a certain time she'd come to Jesus and He'd forgiven
her, and she'd got into the, what we might call the usual evangelical stream, and I don't mean
that in any wrong sense, because I was in it myself once, and out you're saved to serve,
and so you go on the streets, and you believe the Bible, and you detest, usually, if you're
in evangelical stream, you detest all Roman Catholics or Roman Catholicism, because you
don't know any better, and it may even be fed in you that it should be given to you.
That it should be so. I'm sad to have to say this, but it's true, and I can remember the
great Winston Churchill standing up once saying how perphorbably he hated the Catholics when he
was a young boy, because he had a nanny in the family that was a absolute Protestant,
so dear old Winston or poor young Winston, whatever it means, he grew up to hate all the
Catholics, you see, like red rags to a bull to him, and some bull he was. But you see,
I suppose that age helped him off that stupid pedestal, but there it is, and
that this is the way we go. Our sister was saying it, and then there came a time when she really
met herself, see, and though she'd been believing, and though she'd done so much, and here and there
where she met herself. Her understanding was her enlightened. There you are, and she stood.
Amen. Praise God. Now that's the place you've got to come to.
You've got to come to the place where you see what's wrong with yourself,
and not by some book written by some scientist,
but by the blessed, of course, he might be a scientist, but he mustn't be writing
from a scientific angle, I beg your pardon. He must be writing as from a place where he's
met the Lord Jesus Christ and sees truth absolutely clearly,
and can tell you, and here's the great book, beloved, that's been shouting it out through
all the centuries, that this whole world and everybody living in it, until they come to that
place called Calvary with understanding and humility and repentance and faith,
they are as everyone else under the dominion of Satan.
That's it. Under the dominion of the devil.
Now, beloved, here then is the great and glorious truth for our hearts to face,
and when these dear people went down into that water tonight, they were testifying to the fact
that they had come to the place where they saw that they must go, that the old, old thing to
which they'd been joined and the old state in which they'd been living so that they could not
recognize themselves apart from it, had come to an end, and that it was being buried sort of in
an enactment before our eyes. Praise the name of the Lord. The Scripture speaks of it as this,
knowing this, that our old man, that is our old self, has been crucified with Christ. Alleluia.
Amen. Paul describes the dreadful struggle that goes on in people.
Also, he said that there was that he discovered in himself which in his highest and his best moments
he hated. In his mind he served the law of God. It was beautiful to him. He loved it. He admired
and adored it, and he sought to live it with all his power, and despite his best efforts,
with the law of God written in his mind and in his hands he would have had the book,
I dare say, if there was a book to be had. But, beloved, he knew that in himself he discovered
that he was so thoroughly rotten through and through that he described it as he was carrying
round with him a dead body. That's how he described it. He said, oh wretched man I am,
who's going to separate me from this body of sin and death? He could see it. He was like a man
dragging round a corpse. He wanted to be good. He said, the good that I would I couldn't do. I
tried to do it. He came to this degree of enlightenment that he saw the good. He wanted
the best. He was reaching for the highest. He could not do the good, nor have the best,
nor attain to the highest. He couldn't do it. He prayed about it. He would have read about it.
He would have believed about it had he not seen in his old scriptures these gray men that fell
into line with God, and as far as they were able went through with God, and he saw what an utter
and total failure he was. Jesus Christ who'd been on the earth and had died and had been buried
and had risen again, though at first Paul didn't believe that, no self-respecting Pharisee would
have believed that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and neither do Pharisees believe it today.
Of course they don't. He rose from the dead, and Paul didn't believe that, and what hopes had he,
what hopes had he, except this, that Jesus Christ lives today because he is risen from the dead
as the new man that has to enter into you and take the place of that old man with which you
have been indissolubly so far joined throughout your life. He has to come into you, right into
your whole personality. He has to come into you entirely. He has to come in, and he proposes to
do it upon the ground, A, that he has hung on the cross and died as you in your identity and
identification with that old life, that old manhood. He hung on the cross, and God came and
did it, and God encompassed your misery, and God encompassed your sin, and God encompassed your
failure. God got hold of your old personality. God did a miracle that reached back through time
and forward through time. Bless God he reached me. Amen. God encompassed a miracle that embraced
heaven and hell. God did a miracle that embraced the earth and embraced the sea and embraced the
air. God did a miracle that reaches the north and south and east and west. God did this great
miracle. I tell you that what God did on the cross and what he did following the cross when
Jesus was as everybody thought tucked away in a little hole in a hill and a stone rolled over it
and sealed in his grave and that's that with a guard placed around it to see that no deceivers
called disciples came along and stole his body that when God did that and Jesus Christ rose from
the dead with the ease of God and I suppose walked out over the prostrate forms of his guards there.
Alleluia. And when he rose and then went up home to father, I tell you beloved that he did it as
the new man and the proposition of God in this mighty engulfing power of the Holy Ghost is to
penetrate the innermost core of your being and the deepest recesses of your heart and the furthest
reaches of your mind and imagination and seek out that old used upper and slay him dead in you.
That's the power of Calvary and that's the core of the gospel
and that's what it's all about. It is not one life long tissue and issue of forgiveness upon
forgiveness upon forgiveness until they say well let's get him up here he's making a mess of it
let's get him home it isn't that it is that God proposes and he is able and the Holy Ghost has
come in the name of Jesus Christ he has no name known like say Jesus he's just called the Holy
Ghost for he has come down this blessed Holy Spirit and he has come in Jesus name and until
that Holy Ghost comes into you in the name of Jesus then the work of Jesus cannot be wrought
in your life as it ought to be wrought. Amen. What Jesus Christ could not do when he was on
earth as a man he could only do risen and glorified and enthroned in heaven for he came down
on this earth beloved to work the miracle here in terms of blood and of death and of sacrifice
and of erupting from the dead again and coming back he came down to do this great work and then
passing out of this realm should be able to do exactly the same things in you by the power of
the Holy Spirit he couldn't do it when he was on the earth he couldn't do it he couldn't do it
as a man blessed be the name of the Lord he could only do it that is as a man in the flesh on the
earth he could only do it when he rose up there back to his place I want to tell you beloved this
is the greatest miracle that God could ever do making a new world is nothing
he's going to make a new universe the Bible says it all talks about Armageddon's and
vials and all this whatnot and healing the blind and giving the lame their ability to walk these
are as nothing compared with the fact that God can come into you and separate from you everything
that is vile and filthy and unacceptable to God he'll come and do in you what dipping in water cannot
do and taking communion won't do but if you take it unless it's done it will only damn your soul
so leave it alone until you're in until you know the glory and the wonder of this work that God
has wrought for this is the whole secret beloved it's you coming nakedly as you are
it's you seeing yourself it's you understanding the work that Jesus Christ has done on your behalf
it's you coming down there on your hands and knees it's you coming down there broken out of all your
rebelliousness and all your grumbles it's you coming down there getting lower than your knees
there getting lower down than ever it's possible perhaps you think for you to get something like
Paul had to undergo on the road to Damascus when God smashed him down into the dust of the road
amongst the serpent's food that's lower than the swine's food at which the prodigal son would have
fed himself and he went down there in the dust as though God had said to him upon your belly shall
you go as though he was talking to the devil for listen that thing inside you is has been spawned
from hell it's the child of satan and this is why God took such extreme measures
he didn't come he never tried to forgive it I have said this and I want to say this faithfully in
the name of God until the Lord takes away breath from me to preach it is not true that God forgives
God forgives sinners he does not he will forgive a sinful man all the sins he's committed but the
man has to die the sinner must die that's the commitment of God to the cross sinners must die
here and isn't it marvelous that God took it out of his son for you you get the benefit of the death
he got the agony of it you get the blessing of it he got the misery and the curse of it
this is God's great transaction with you you've got to die man and woman and that's the end of it
and if anybody has told you any different from that they have lied to you
there is no escaping once Jesus Christ said he would take your place and he meant it once
he took your sin upon himself in order to expiate it he himself had to die
die and because you couldn't die to meet Christ's requirements because you've been so rotten
and so thoroughly sinful and saturated in the world which is the devil's own kingdom he died for you
amen and because he died for you I tell you you died he did it
he died for you that's right so there's no excuse there you can't say oh I can't die I can't that
then you're telling God you're not true Lord you said that with you nothing's impossible
you're telling me a lie I don't believe you you better come honest
you'd better come honest daylight honest for there's going to come a day when everything
will be more brilliant than all the arc lights that have ever shone on the shows and shams of man
and you have to understand this
amen blessed be the name of the Lord listen
in my place condemned he stood
Lord sealed my pardon with his blood hallelujah what a savior that's right not to let me off
this is the erroneous notion that people have got because he died that's let me off you never
believed a bigger lie he died to make sure you should die he's your guarantee of dying
and unless you die you can't rise again
no resurrection for the undead may I say that for the living then those who refuse to die
I mean they say quote unquote so I suppose I'm right dead and undead
beloved that's what we've been on about tonight
that's what baptism's all about it isn't a weird fancy that a queer group get
as opposed to having water sprinkled on you when you're a baby what did you know about that
nothing nothing you know all about this though that's the real thing
amen isn't it of course it is monkeying about with what God has put in the Bible
foisting it upon us as religion
Jesus Christ went down into the waters of Jordan of which Jordan there was a man years before
centuries before who said I'm not a barner and papa rivers of Damascus better than all the
waters of Jordan and he wouldn't go down in the waters of Jordan and so he never got delivered
and healed he lived a leper still his leprosy clung to him that old hated life clung to him
but he would feign have died away from or had it removed for him and he went back in a haste of
temper because he wouldn't go down into the waters of Jordan and the little man said to him he said
well master if the prophet had told you to do something great you would have done it wouldn't
you and of course I suppose he said yes and I suppose he thought if I suppose I better go
back and do what I'm told by this slave of mine so he went back and he went into Jordan
and when he came out his skin was like a little child God wants to make your inward self as white
as a little child you've got to go down into death I don't mean into this tank chlorinated
or un-chlorinated doesn't matter much but I do want you to see this it represents the vast sea
of the love of God it represents that great covering sea in which all has been drowned
the old man has been laid to its final resting place and the waters of the sea have overflowed
and the love of God has done everything about it and that's what it's all about
that's what it's all about it's a testimony to the fact that at last the usurper has been dealt with
in your life it's a testimony to the world that you are associating yourself with Jesus
Christ not at the river Jordan but at Calvary I didn't go down into the waters
oh I see it now that I didn't just to follow Jesus Christ in baptism I went down into the waters
because they spoke of Jesus Christ baptism into death and resurrection
Jesus Christ had to be baptized into death and through death into resurrection where he says
see see look at me now look at me as yourself did you see me with all your sin placed upon me
placed upon me did you see me identified with thieves criminals rogues lechers lepers vagabonds
the off scouring of the world nailed on a cross out there did you see me identified with that
did you see me die as that now see me risen I identified myself with you in that that's you
now have a look at yourself look at me this is you I've dealt with it's the most glorious tender
loving presentation of the of the grace of God to your soul that you will ever meet in your life
if this grace of God and see the water is changed now as I say whether it's chlorinated
or unclorinated whether it's fresh or whether it's salt the water has been changed now
it's the blessed Holy Spirit that God poured out from above it's in the Holy Ghost where the great
transaction is done it's in the Holy Ghost where the blessed once for all act is commemorated and
held for the Holy Ghost is down here on in Jesus name as though it was Jesus down here
and you are now being invited to be baptized in the Holy Ghost as though you were being baptized
into Jesus isn't it all simple isn't it all lovely isn't it all plain this is what God is
saying to you that you can come by this blessed grace of God into such a life where you're rid
of this old usurper you've got your eyes opened wide and he's gone and Jesus would never turn
round to you as he had to turn in days of old speaking to them and saying you you're of your
father the devil and the deeds of your father you will do he was a murderer from the beginning
man you may have thought you've been living I want to tell you you were murdered
isn't it true now listen you say you've got like two personalities two natures
warring inside you don't think it's God and the devil don't you believe that some people think
you sort of get baptized in the Holy Ghost and really fully saved by Christ and you're left with
two warring natures inside you and try to verify it from scripture deceiving themselves and all
those that will listen to them not God he doesn't do that and you've been you've been here you
recognize it before you're born again not afterwards amen amen you only get born again
by going through the cross and the death and the resurrection coming up into into that glorious
life you may be you may have been 20 years on the road to it calling yourself a Christian
or trying to I don't know here then is the tremendous thing beloved that you have being
brought to this place where you didn't know anything all this great warfare going on inside
split your homes split your family split your own lives split everything ruined everything
now you better be honest man and face up to it Jesus Christ is your savior and your only salvation
you've been utterly deceived trying to convert the old man
and any device that the devil can cook up
there is a place of death
complete that's why Jesus said on that mountain he said he said to the devil when the devil said now
look if you're the son of God you just command these terms that they may be made ready said
I'm going to put it this way you I want to sort of bring out the truth that I see here he didn't
say he said you don't know anything about it devil
man real man doesn't live by breath alone
he lives by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God
you're trying to tempt the wrong man
that's what you're doing devil trying to tempt the wrong man
so that you can come into this place beloved and the devil will come to you and he's trying to
tempt the wrong man that's what he's talking about God give us grace each one to live it
I want to cease from being a baby in a manger I want to be a man
with God
that's where I want to be what do you want to be there's a life beloved that's clean and pure
and right and straight and God will do these things in your life and he'll do them if you
will let him and when you let him amen
the usurpers got to go you've been associating yourself with him uniting with him and then
at times trying to get rid of him it's been an awful marriage you found that he's the old man
you're his wife you've had to do as he said he's the old man you're an eve you've had to
do as he said he's your master and he's your lord but Jesus Christ has come to alter this
there's the new man and you become his wife you become his bride you marry him this is the glory
of it this is why you must be born again it's obvious now isn't it
the bible is very simple the truth that God has to preach to us is absolutely real it works down
along every scientific line that you can possibly think of it works down every philosophical line
that you can possibly think it works down every spiritual line upon which you can approach it
it works along the line of absolute sanity and perfect reason because it's of God and all the
rest is man's hatchings up of silly little eggs and seeds of sin sown in their own minds and hearts
hallelujah God is with us and God is sovereign and that water then let me say again represents
the blessed holy spirit oh then all you have to do my beloved is drink in this glorious spirit
oh yield to him let him embrace your entire being lose sight of everybody else come completely in
all your need now to God humble yourself accept the word of God thought seek to get feelings
running up and down your spine or something like lights flashing before your eyes nothing like that
seek unto nothing in that realm that's the realm in which the usurper within you has led you like
some little lamb with a ring through its nose all your life
and you gotta come now and let the Lord bring you right through hallelujah come out of all the
fantasy don't start doing fantasy things don't follow the old path you've been in if that way
has still left you short of this come off it forsake it you know it's wrong you've never got
there yet and you never will it's a road beloved that's filled with sand and ashes and it leads
nowhere you come under the realm of God's great word which speaks of God's absolute work for you
and expresses God's will for you it's the way for every man and woman to come
amen and you come my beloved and the coming proves that you are repentant for nobody walks
this way except the repentant and you come beloved and your coming will prove that you're
utterly repentant meaning that already before you've passed through the gateways of death
and resurrection of which i've been speaking the cross has been working upon you and the
blessed spirit of the Lord has had you as when if i may repeat again that great man Saul of Tarsus
he'd been going to Damascus and then he went down into his death there on the road of Damascus
and he'd been brought on by God a long time before that and he'd been kicking against it
kicking against it
it. I was talking with a young man I suppose it might have been a week ago
and he said he wanted to talk to me and then after he'd said one thing he said I'm afraid
to I said oh you needn't be afraid that's all right come on let's go and have a talk so he
put his name on the list and eventually it came his turn and so we got together and had a talk
and he went through so much he said I want to tell you already that God's done so much
he said well he said you know you've been talking about this death and that you've got to go through
because the devil always heightens it you know makes death worse than it is that's what's happened
to physical death it's the death it's the devil that brought this physical death worse than it is
well Jesus says it's going to sleep well that's nice isn't it I hope to go to sleep tonight I
don't see any terrors in going to sleep and I don't seem say Matthew Mark Luke and John
bless the bed that I lie on I'm not so blasphemously and stupidly childish
and if I wake up in the arms of Jesus in the morning that's fine in fact it'll be morning
tonight if it happens you see death has no terrors and hell has no sting we sing
or at least we do if we sing the right hymn books from the right hymn book
so beloved beloved you and I have to come to this great place of death and let the Lord do it
and this young man he said when you used to talk about death he said I heard you before in the last
conference yes I remembered him it was 12 months ago you see he said when you were up here 12
months ago you talked about him something inside rose up and he said no I won't
inside I won't I won't educated clever young man he's one of the best universities in the world
all right you see I won't I won't
I won't but he said when you've been preaching it this time it's all been for fine inside
I said does it happen to you he said yes yes he wasn't afraid to talk to me
he wasn't afraid anymore listen beloved you must know that the wrath of God is made known against
all unrighteousness that's why you're afraid
that's why that's what it says the wrath of God is declared from heaven against all unrighteousness
and ungodliness amen there's no hope outside of Jesus Christ for you or for anybody
none at all do you put your hope in the pound I wonder if you do I went the other day because
my wife and I have to go to we've got to fly out to Scandinavia for the month of July and I popped
in the other day before I came here to see someone about it and I wanted to get as cheap as I could
you're sure and so we sort of talked to and fro I said would it pay me say to take a char for
flight or a cheap flight and we'll buy the returns and we can go on the single and I'll buy a single
over there come back he said don't you do that sir I said why I said I'm glad of your advice
please tell me who said if you have to buy it in Swedish kronor it'll cost you ever so much
my money than more money than buying in English pounds because of the exchange rate so you're sure
I'm not a Jew well not not out there but I
I bought the tickets at the cheapest rate I could why
you got hopes in nothing have you eh you got hopes in your brains
listen let me tell this story I've mentioned this man it's true
I don't think I've been here since I read it no it wasn't it was at the turn of the year
I went into a home not in England and I inspected the library
and in the library I saw a beautiful leather bound book I just thick as that really was
about as long as that about as broad as this and it had it was beautifully done round with gold
and I pulled it out I was very interested in this and when I looked across the front
it just had M-O-R-A-N on it do you recognize the name Lord Moran he was Winston Churchill's
personal physician he started off as a child someone Pearson I think and he became Lord Moran
was elevated to the Lords he knew this great man of ours and in no doubt that man was a great man
I should think in his day he would have been thought to have been the probably the greatest
man in the world I would have thought so wouldn't you I mean yeah I would have thought so whatever
colour politics you may be you've got to pay homage to greatness when you meet it
whether you agree with everything or not well anyway
this man Moran wrote about Winston they used to call themselves Charles and Winston they were
buddies used to dine together wine together go together and so on and so on and there I didn't
have time to read this book it was oh you know about three times as well perhaps twice as thick
as that read probably a little over twice as thick I had never had time to read I don't have time to
read all the things I'd like to read but I did what you do you know I well I suppose you do
I dipped and looked there looked there and looked there then I turned to the last pages
which everybody does don't you what you do and I read up to when to Winston five years before he died
and then Lord Moran being a personal friend of Winston's declined to write the last five
years of his life you may read the book you could find it if I'm wrong about five let's say it was
three I'm relying on memory now but the last years of his life he wouldn't recall because of the near
imbecility to which the great man came and he was his friend his personal doctor and he refused
to expose him to the world hopes in a man probably one of the finest brains of the age
wonderful character indomitable will he beat the world on his own that is if you supported him
that's the end he came to
straight indomitable will
the rock upon which the enemy founded would you say yes
and that's how he died
Jesus Christ hallelujah invites you into his death
the mighty glorious overcomer amen who stood in resurrection and said to his servant
I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive forevermore and have the keys of hell
of hell and of death I am the beginning I am the ending
I am he that was and is and is to come the almighty
today into his grace you are invited into his love but only by his death
into his life you may come and into the glory of it and know such an ending to the old man
such a slaying in you such a finish such a peace such a rest such a fullness of joy
that it will leave you grasping for nothing because you'll realize that you have everything
amen now that is what we've been about tonight we have by the grace of God been displaying it again
this is why the Christian church will ever keep baptism there the real baptism
the real baptism because it displays unto men and devils and angels everything
amen glory be to God and all God is requiring of you is that you repent utterly of yourself
that you come now undeceived that you come seeing this matter absolutely straight
and perhaps I may add a word to what Malcolm has said what does hinder you from being baptized
I will tell you one that it's not true in your life
two that you don't believe it three that you're afraid
glory be to God you needn't be afraid anymore
there's no need for you to hold back through unbelieving anymore you now have sufficient
knowledge about it to go into it knowing what you are doing
but before you go believing that that in itself can confer nothing upon you at all
come right right to the blessed Christ the Holy Spirit is with us he's here
God will do it for you he is able
he is able by the blessed spirit to bring you right into all the glories of that work which
he accomplished on earth nearly two thousand years ago and lives in heaven to dispense
in the riches of his grace tonight
man shall not live by bread alone listen the devil said I'll give you all the kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them see what Jesus said I will give you the kingdom of God
I will give you the kingdom of God amen hallelujah
have you received it the gift of the kingdom perhaps more about that tomorrow let's pray

Raw whisper.ai

Original audio at https://biblebase.com/download/11863/