Contrary to what most people might assume, the important thing about the day of Pentecost was not that the Spirit had come. The important thing was that Jesus had been exalted. He said Himself, in that last great day of the feast in Jerusalem some time before, that whoever believed in Him out of his inmost being there shall flow rivers of living water, but this spake ye of the Spirit, which they that believed in Him ought to receive. The Spirit had not been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. The glorification of Jesus brought the Holy Ghost.
Now we ought to be able to get a hold of that instantly, that wherever Jesus is glorified, the Holy Spirit comes. He need not be begged; He comes when the Savior is glorified, when Christ is honored.
The verse I want to get particularly to is this one: But Peter stood up and lifted up his voice. He stood up and lifted up his voice. Peter here stands for the whole church of God. Peter was the first man to get on his feet after the Holy Spirit had come to his church. And as far and as long as the church has been the true church, and wherever it is the true church, the individual believes the Lord’s Word. Peter had believed the Lord’s Word and he received confirmation in his own breast.
I wrote a series of articles that became a little booklet. In it, I had one chapter in which I said: the difference between faith as it was found in the New Testament and faith as it is found now is that, faith in the New Testament produced something and there was a confirmation of it. Faith now is a beginning and an end. We have faith in faith but nothing happens. They had faith in a risen Christ; something happened, and that is the difference.
Here was Peter standing up and he lifted up, and that was the business of the church. Peter became a witness as the church is a witness on earth as things in heaven. The church is a witness of powers beyond the earthly and the human. It is a source of great grief to me that the church is trying to run on its human powers. Peter testified that something beyond the human and beyond the earthly; some power that lay beyond the earthly scene, that was interested in us men and women; and not only that, but was working in men and women and willing to enter us and make itself known to us.
The kind of Christianity prominent today does not know where it is and is trying to run a heavenly institution after an earthly manner. Now if this church is to be a church of Christ, a living organic member of that redeemed body of which Christ is the Head, then it’s teachers and it’s members must strive earnestly and sacrificially and with constant prayer do a number of things. Let me name them for you; the church and all the churches of all the denominations that are gospel churches, whether we are all a part of the same body.
If we are to be that kind of church, then there are certain things that we must do. Not nibble at, but earnestly strive to do, sacrificially and with constant earnest prayer. We must strive to make our practices New Testament in their content. Nothing dragged in from the outside, but we must teach and do New Testament truths, and we must constantly go to the grassroots.
The founders of this great North American continent took over a wilderness and made it into a civilized continent. How did they do it? They did it by going out with their axes, cutting down the trees first and making houses, and then planting corn and potatoes and other vegetables and grains; and when they planted, they didn’t go back home to bed and sleep until time to harvest it. They fought the intrusion from the wilderness from the day they planted their corn and the rest of their crops, until they harvested them and had them safely in their log barns. The wilderness encroaches on the fruitful fields requiring constant fighting.
As a farm boy from the state of Pennsylvania, I know how we used to have to do; plant your corn, then cross your fingers, pray and then get your shotgun out; because the crows would have your corn if you did not do everything that was possible to do. Now it is the same with the church.
One of the old saints said, “Never think for a minute that there is a time when you won’t be tempted, and he is tempted the most effectively who thinks he is not being tempted at all.” Just when you think you are not being tempted, that is the time when you are being tempted the most effectively. Therefore, it is with the church. We lean back on our own laurels and say that may be true of some churches, but it is not true of us. We are increased with goods and have need of nothing. However, I want to remind you that you have to fight for what you have. This little field of God’s planting has to have plenty of shotguns and plenty of watchmen driving off crows. Not only crows, but also bears and foxes and groundhogs and all sorts of other creatures, to say nothing of the little insects that destroy crops. You have to keep after them. You have to keep your field healthy. There is only one way to do it and that is to keep it true to the Word. Keep the Word in it, constantly going back to the grassroots and getting the Word into the church.
And we must not only do this, but we must also earnestly, sacrificially and prayerfully strive to be empowered with that same power that came upon them; Whom Peter said God has shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. And to live the life of heaven here upon the earth. And to put loyalty to Christ first at any cost. Now that is a church and nothing else is a church. I personally want to be a member of that church. I’d rather be in a little room over a barbershop on a side street somewhere with twenty people meeting and singing off key some old hymn of Zion than to be a part of a great going concern that is not New Testament in its doctrine, in its Spirit, in its living, in its holiness and all of its whole texture and tenor.
We must be New Testament, and of course such a church as that need not expect to be relatively popular. But certain truths will follow it if we make our church that kind of church. Certain people will follow it. Its people would be a joyful people. When the Holy Ghost came upon the Moravians in 1727, that October, that morning when they were having communion. They said when they went out of that place scarcely knowing whether they were on earth or had died already and gone to heaven. And that was the characteristic of the Moravians for a hundred years. The characteristic was joy, they were joyful people. They were not a happy people in the sense that they worked up their happiness, they were a joyful people. The joy came from within.
Well now, brethren, listen to me. I say when we give God His place in the church, when we recognize Christ as Lord, high and lifted up, when we give the Holy Spirit His place, there will be a joy that is not worked up. It will be a joy that springs like a fountain. The Lord said it should be a fountain, an artesian well that springs up from within. So that will be one characteristic of a Spirit-filled church. There will be a joyful people and it will be easy to distinguish them from the children of the world. I wonder what Paul would say if he came down and looked us over; up and down the aisles and looked us over. Then went down to a theater and looked them over. Then went to a hockey game and looked them over, then went down and looked at the people shopping, then went out on the street and wherever crowds were, and then came back and looked us over. I don’t think he would see very much difference really.
A church that is Spirit-filled will be useful to the race of man. We ought to be useful to the race of men. Some claim preachers are parasites. The Communists say we are, and a lot of others. They say we are social parasites, that we do not turn a hand to earn anything; we just live like a parasite.
Back on the farm, our dog used to come in flapping his long ears and whining. My father would say he has a tick in his ear and they would hunt for it. A tick is a little flat insect that jumps on a dog’s ear and drinks blood until he is a puffed up, full of dog blood. You have to pull that off and the head pops off and it gets sore. It is a mess.
Anyhow, they say we are parasites; we drink the blood of society and do not produce a thing. I have seven children and sixteen grandchildren. That is not so bad. The scripture says to me that the ox that works in the cornfield, you feed him, it says. That is my version. It says to feed the ox so; they do not get me down talking about like that. I know how God does things.
If I was driving a truck, for instance, how could I preach sermons on Sundays? So the Lord says, “I have a lot of truck drivers, you get me a room and get quiet there and read and sing and get up sermons and talk to the people and I’ll talk to you.” I am not worried about what they say about us being parasites.
I believe the church ought to be useful to the whole community. Because we are here, everybody ought to be better. You can help the neighborhood where you live; you can help this neighborhood, and the neighborhood should be better because we are here. And we do not need to apologize; they owe us money, they owe us a great debt. They can rob us but we keep the crime rate down, nevertheless.
If you have more God-filled, Spirit-filled churches you could have less cops on the street. Be sure of that; where there is Godliness there is less crime. A Spirit-filled church is useful to the neighborhood, useful to the sons of men, even the ones that are not converted; and it will be influential among the churches. I would like to see this church become so godly, so Spirit-filled, that it would have a spiritual influence on all the churches in the whole city. That everybody in this city, every church in this city, would have to take off its hat and stand at attention. I am not unspiritual in this because Paul told some of his people, “your Godliness and faith is talked about through all Asia Minor.” It is entirely right that I could hope this in you, that I hope that we might become so Spirit-filled, walk with God, learn to worship and live so clean and so separated that everybody will know it and other churches in the city would be blessed because of it.
When Luther had his reformation, the Catholic Church was forced to clean up just because the moral pressure from Lutheranism forced the Roman church to clean up. And when Wesley came and preached, the Anglican Church was forced to clean up some of the things that were wrong with them. That is not to speak unkindly of my Anglican friends because I have many of them. It has only to say that in those times they needed some help. Methodism was a spiritual force that compelled them to do something about their own condition.
There is no reason why we could not be a people here so filled with the Spirit, so joyfully, singing His praises and living so clean in our business and home and school that the people would know it; and other churches would be forced to straighten up and clean up and begin to pray for something too, because we’d set the standard for them. Whenever you have a Spirit-filled people, you have a people that can live well and die well. “Oh, these people die well,” they said of the Methodist. “Behold how these people die,” said a man as he looked at the martyrs in the old Roman days. If you live well you will die well.
Old Balaam wanted to die the death of the righteous, but he would not live the life of the righteous. If you are going to die the death of the righteous, you must live the life of the righteous. And a Christian ought to be able to die well; they should be able to do that if nothing else.
There are some who won’t feel at home in a church like that; and if you’re hope is to have everybody and his brother on his mother’s side to just come sit around and glow, just put that out of your head, brother. It just will not happen that way. Not all men have faith. There are just some people that do not want that kind of church, and I will name them now.
The people who put on religion as a Sunday garment, their well-pressed Sunday garment. So if this comes and we do get the help we need from God why those who merely make religion a Sunday garment, they will not like it very well. Because we will insist they live right on Monday morning and they do not want to do that. And they that keep their religion disengaged from practical living, they will not like it either You know, they will disengage their religion. Some people have a wonderful way of disengaging. Their religion is here, they are living here, and on Sundays, they go and polish off their religion. Then evening about eleven o’clock they put it on the shelf, and then Monday they go out and live like they want to live. Now nobody like that likes to hear me preach. Nobody. If you like that, you will not want to hear me preach. I won’t surrender to that kind of thing, and I won’t surrender to that kind of people; and I wouldn’t care if it was the whole Senate of the United States and the Parliament of Canada, and all the big doctors and scientists, and all the great nabobs in the whole continent said they’d come and join my church. I’d still preach the same thing because we ought to be a church of the living God and not a gathering of big shots necessarily; though the big shots can come, if they will get on their knees; and if a big shot is on their knees, they are not taller than anyone else you know. Did you ever think of that?
Furthermore, there are those who refuse to let religion endanger them in any way. They refuse to let it interfere with their pleasure or their plans. They will serve Jesus and go to heaven, are saved and cannot loose their light; so they will make it through, you know; but they are going to have fun on the way there. They lay their lives out just as a gardener lays out the garden or a woman, sometimes my wife cuts out a pattern; lays out a pattern on the table and it looks like a mess to me, but it turns out to be a dress for the granddaughter. And we lay out our lives, you know; and we say now, “it’s nice to serve thee and we love thee Lord and let’s sing a chorus;” but we won’t change that pattern any, we’re going to keep that pattern. But the cross of Jesus Christ always changes that path, always gets in there and makes a man change his life.
The Cross of Christ is revolutionary. And if we are not ready to let it be revolutionary in us, we are not going to like a church that takes the things of God seriously and let it cost us anything, control us in any way. People want the benefit of the Cross but they do not want the control of the Cross. They want all that the Cross can offer but they do not want to be under the Lordship of Jesus.
Of course, there are those who expect religion to be fun. We have just gone through a long period when Christianity was the funniest thing on the continent. You could have more fun serving Jesus than doing anything else in the whole world. It was clean too; you did not have a hangover. You go down to a corner pub, and have a good time but you will have a hangover. They say, “Do you serve Jesus, you can have all the fun you want to and you will not have a hangover.”
That kind of Christianity for the sake of fun, Christianity as an entertaining medium. The whole thing is offensive and foul before God Almighty. My brother, the cross of Christ is not fun and it never was fun. There is such a thing as the joy of the Lord, which is strength to the people. There is such a thing as having joy unspeakable and full of glory, but there is also such a thing as dying while we grieve. The idea that Christianity is another form of entertainment is perfectly ridiculous.
I wrote one time something and said Christianity would not make a form of entertainment. A fellow felt called to write and answer me. He was editor of a magazine, and wrote me up in his magazine. I said something to the effect that we ought not to see things, but that we ought to see the things that were invisible. He noticed it and wrote, “Tozer believes in going to church and keeping your eyes shut.” Well of course, he did not understand what I was talking about. Or perhaps he did understand but was lying about it. Then he said, “Tozer was all wet and ought to know better,” he said, “every time you sing a hymn you’re being entertained.”
Maybe he was, but brother, I am not. When I sing, “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound,” I am worshipping God Almighty. If you want to call that which they do before the throne when they cry day and night without ceasing “holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty” and hide their face behind their wings, if that is entertaining, then I am an entertainer.
But if it is not, and it is not, then I am a worshipper. Nobody ever worshipped God then went out and committed suicide as a hangover. Many a man has killed himself because he had just burnt himself out trying to have fun. Then a pretty young lady goes out, throws herself into having fun and before she’s twenty-five years old, she’s an old hag and has to have a retread job done on her countenance before anybody can look at her without gagging. She has simply burnt herself out. She has defeated and burnt herself out. Everywhere you go you find it.
All these pretty actresses you see and see their pictures, some of you have gone to see them, well you ought to see them when they get up in the morning. Brother they have to have a patch job done on their face before they dare even come down to breakfast. All burnt out. I love to see the grace of God in a face, don’t you?
I was among the Brethren in Christ; those clean people who have all these things and all and women have little black hats sitting up on top of their head, and their hair is done up in a bun here, and their ears stick out, and I preached for them. I was blessed, just wonderfully and absolutely blessed. They did not have a thing on but faith; not a thing on their head but hair, and a little black thing for the angels, according to 1 Corinthians. They covered their head for the sake of the angels and they were just sweet, you know. Look at them and they remind you of your dead old aunt back in Pennsylvania, or your grandmother out in New Brunswick; and you think of all the nice people you ever knew; the sweet good people you ever knew, when you look at them. You do not have to apologize for them; just nice people, the Brethren in Christ.
I could not join them but I do admire them tremendously. I had a tie on and I told the President of the college where I was, “I’m a Gentile and I don’t know whether they’ll take me in or not.”
He said, “Preach to their hearts and they’ll forget that you don’t belong to them.”
I did just that and they did just that.
Of course, there are those who embrace religion for its cultural values. Did you ever meet those people? They do not know anything about a Spirit-filled life or the Spirit-filled church, but the cultural value of the church is good for them. They want their children brought up in the culture of the church. Anybody that does that, of course they are not going to be at home among God’s dear people. They want book reviews and all that sort of thing. They will not be at home, but they will be some that will be at home, and I am going to name them and then quit for tonight. I know we want to sing and I am not going to press the length of my sermon unduly. But there will be some people if we have a Spirit-filled church that practices the belief of the New Testament: and goes constantly to the grassroots and roots out everything that isn’t of God, keeps the green growing lush and beautiful into things heavenly and walks with God and obeys the truth and loves each other; we’ll rule out a few but these will be in their glory.
Now who are they?
Those who have a leading ambition to get rid of their sins. If you have not gotten over a burdening ambition to get rid of your sins, you will not like to hear me preach very often or long. You will not do it because I believe we ought to want to be rid of our sins. If I had a cancer growing on my neck I would want to be rid of that thing, and no body could come to me and say, “Now here, I’ve got cow bell here, let me shake it. Don’t you like it?” I would say, “No I do not like it, I’m interested in this cancer on my neck, have you got a cure for it?” He would say, “Let’s forget the cancer, let me give you the bell, you can jingle the bell.”
I would say, “I’ve heard real cowbells on real cows when I was on the farm and I don’t want to hear them in the church. So get them out of here and let’s talk about getting rid of your sins.”
My brother, there are some people that are overwhelmed with the desire to get rid of their sins. Those people would be happy among us. To know and walk with God. Their only ambition is to walk with God and to follow the Lamb, wheresoever He goest. You know the Lord’s people kind of know each other; they do, they know each other. You know, you may occasionally get a bad apple. Jesus had Judas Iscariot in His little flock. Mostly we know each other. When we shake hands and someone says something to you about God, you know you are talking to a brother in Christ, regardless of whether he is an Irishman or Scottish, or Englishman or American or what he may be; we all talk the same language and we are all brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Those who have learned to recognize the voice of the Shepherd; they will be at home in the Spirit-filled church. Some people have never heard the voice of the Shepherd. Oh, that voice of the Shepherd, tender as a lullaby, strong as a wind and as mighty as the sound of many waters. The voice of Jesus, that healing, musical, solemn, beautiful voice of Jesus in His church. And the people who have learned to hear that voice can recognize it are always at home, where everything centers on Him. Jesus is all in all.
In the early days of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, we were a conglomeration of everything under the sun, and we still are; we really still are. That is we have Calvinists, Armenians, Methodists, Baptists, and all sorts of people and we’re all together on one thing; Jesus Christ is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption; He’s all in all. You know the people of the Lord who have learned to hear the voice of the Shepherd; they gravitated toward that sort of place.
Then there are those who are sensitive to the invisible presence. They are not so sure who else is present, but they know the Lord is present. They are sensitive to that. You’re heart is sensitive to that, the Lord’s presence. Or are you a sampler and a nibbler. Well God help you and bless you if you are, but a child of the King isn’t a sampler and nibbler; he’s a sheep who loves his Shepherd. He stays awfully close to the Shepherd.
The only safe place for a sheep is by the side of his shepherd, because the devil does not fear sheep; he just fears the Shepherd, that is all. Now not all the sheep in Ontario would be a match for one wolf. If you give a wolf time, he could eat all the sheep in Canada. Give him time and grant he would live long enough, he could do it, because they can’t fight back you see. They just run and put their heads together and make funny pleading, beeping sounds. A wolf does not mind that and that is all God’s people can do. So our safety lies in being near the Shepherd; stay close to Jesus and all the wolves in the world cannot get a tooth in you, thank God.
Well there are some who’ve tasted of the good Word of God and felt the mysterious power of the world to come. Have you, have you? If you have not, maybe it is because you are not doing anything about it. Maybe it is because you do not want this or do not want it enough.
But if there are those in church, are you present here tonight, would rather hear the voice of Jesus than to hear the voice of the greatest speaker or the best singer in the world; would rather be conscious of the divine, than to be conscious of the greatest man in the world; is sick of his sins and longs to be holy; then I’m preaching to you, and I pray that your numbers may increase, and I pray that you’ll tell others this is what we stand for down the road. This is what I believe in: Jesus Christ, clean living; joyful, radiant, happy worship; good, sweet fellowship and kindliness; and patience and endurance and honesty; the missionary outlook and good decency and separation from all things that are wrong. Above all things, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, and learn to know the wondrous sound of the Shepherd’s voice.
That is what we stand for, that is what we believe in. That is what we are preaching.