Transcription
Well, Dan, the title for tonight is "Gotta Tell Somebody." It was interesting to hear how Irene couldn't keep quiet, telling somebody.
And when I think about the title and how we have to tell somebody, it puts me in mind of an experience we had upon the property that you had for several years, if in the Rocky Mountains. What did we call that? Did we call it the property? I think at one point you had a dream of having a little retreat center, something there; bring your own breakfast. How many acres was up there? Thirty acres, and you had an Aspen Grove. And I remember when you first—they had finished a transaction for the property—and we went up there to check it out. We were trying to honeycomb all the—all the acreage. We went down to the little ponds down along the river, and then we came back up. And as we were coming up through one particular aspen grove, remember we saw a moist area with ferns and lush plants growing in dark dirt? Looked like a spring, looked like a spring, but that there was no water. So we started talking about whether we might find water if we could dig down. And we went and rummaged up some shovels from the—from the cabin, and we dug. I don't remember about how deep that hole was; maybe it was a couple of feet deep. And as we kept digging down, down, down, though the dirt got moister, moister—they got more and more moist—and finally we saw some sort of just like little rivets of water at the very bottom. And you said, "Why don't we just go for a walk some more and come back and see what happens?" Do you know what happened when we came back? Well, it was rising; water was there. It's about half full, wasn't it? So we figured that we'd been gone about two hours and we had checked it, and it was half full. So we figured if we wouldn't be gone for two more hours and come back, it would be overflowing. But when we got back, still half full—it hadn't gotten any higher. So we puzzled over it for a bit, and then we finally wondered if maybe the problem was that the pressure from the water, the weight of the water in a half-full hole, was so heavy that the little riblets couldn't put any more in, and so it was just holding it there. And we went, got a pipe, and we rammed that pipe through the side of the hill—because this was on a slope—to where it penetrated; the pipe came through into the end of the pond. You remember what happened? Do you remember how much water came out from the pipe? Yeah, through the pipe once we penetrated that puddle that was in the hole. I remember later, but not right away, Sam. Well, it—it started coming out, trickling out, and the water in the pot—in that little hole—it dropped until it came down to the top of the pipe. And once it got to the top of the pipe, it didn't go any lower, but the pipe kept having a steady stream of water pouring out the other end. That's what she remembered. Then we went and got the—the bucket; we got that six-gallon water container, and we held it underneath, and it was producing three gallons a minute, just bubbling out of the wok—out of the ground there. But it wouldn't produce any more than a little puddle until it had an outlet. And I'm thinking of that—"Gotta Tell Somebody"—could it be possible that there's a limit to what God can put into me as a Christian if I'm not willing to overflow or bubble over? This is a miniature of the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee; Sea of Galilee, fresh and with fish and life—life in it—but the Dead Sea has no outlet and therefore is dead. So do you suppose the Christian witness is something that God gave for our sake? Yes, yes. So that we would not die. But what about all those perishing millions that will die if we don't tell them? Well, listen to tonight's topic; you're gonna speak about that all right. Well, I'll get out of the way so you can get started.
Before coming to Walla Walla, I checked around a little bit, did some research, and found out who the most miserable person was in Walla Walla. Would you like to know who it was? I hope they're not here tonight. Most miserable person is the one whose attention is focused most in upon themselves; that's what makes them miserable. I also found out who the happiest person is here in town, and you know the answer already. Happiest person is the one whose life is most outward bound in terms of reaching to other people. You don't even have to go to the Bible to discover this; all you have to do is read Ann Landers or Dear Abby, and you'll find the same thing; people writing in, and they're miserable, and what's the response? "Why don't you get out and become a dues-paying member of society and forget about yourself, then you'll find some happiness." And that's true; that's the way it works. John Bunyan wrote a little verse: "There was a man and some didn't count him mad; the more he gave away, the more he had."
Well, as we consider the Christian witness and outreach tonight, we go first of all to the Gospel Commission found in Mark 16:15, where Jesus said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." It's an invitation; it's a command, but it's more of an invitation of privilege as we will notice we go along, because God's purpose for our witness and our involvement in the gospel is found in Mark 8:35: "Whosoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it." What did he mean by this? If my primary purpose for being a Christian is to get myself to heaven, I probably won't be there. If my primary purpose for being a Christian is to reach out and tell someone else about the good news, then we can both be there; that's the way it works. And this is the reason why God gave us a part to act in the witness and sharing, reaching out to others; it is for our sake, for our sake. So what happens if we sit back and give a dollar to some international radio program or some TV ministry and let the professionals do it? We are the losers. God has always had as his purpose for the Christian witness doing it for our own good. Well, that would be selfish of me if I decided that I was going to do it for my sake. So we have to look deeper than that for the reason that we get involved, and here it is: If I get involved in witness and service, it is because I can't help it. If I have a genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus, I am going to want to reach out and tell someone; it's a spontaneous, natural desire. So I don't get involved in—in God's purpose for my witness to save me; I get involved because I can't keep quiet. If I have tasted and seen if the Lord is good, I will have something to tell. But because the majority of professed Christians in the church do not have a relationship with God day by day, then the church has had to resort to bad methods of trying to get the church to work. One of them is described in a song that you probably have sung many times: "Brightly beams our Father's mercy from His lighthouse evermore, but to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore. Let the lower lights be burning, and send the gleam across the way; some poor, fainting, struggling seaman you may rescue, you may save." But notice how it gets heavy in this other stanza: "Trim your feeble lamps, my brother; some poor sailor, tempest-tossed, trying now to reach the harbor in the darkness may be lost. Let the lower lights be burning." Well, in the song, our attention is usually on the lower lights representing us, and we forget about God's lighthouse evermore. The song gives the impression that someone is going to be lost if we don't—well, and reach them, and I am seriously questioning that tonight, even though it is not a popular thing to do in a church where we have tried to get people to move and to witness through guilt and trying to tell them that if we don't, people are going to be lost. It's not popular to come in with a new idea, but we're way overdue on a new understanding of witness and sharing and outreach.
Well, how and to whom are we to witness? Here we have an interesting statement that Mark 5:19, that Jesus said unto the demoniac, "Remember, on the other side of the lake, go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and has had compassion on you." The demoniacs had been delivered from a terrible demoniac experience among the tombs, and now they were clothed—because Jesus had clothed them—and in their right minds, and they wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus didn't let them go with him. He said, "Go home to your friends and tell them about great things the Lord had done for you." We're at a Christian high school, Christian Academy, and that was pastoring the church there, and we came to our annual student week of prayer or week of devotion, and we decided to do something different that year. We had the students choose the speakers by popular vote, and so they chose them—who they wanted to hear speak during that week of prayer. Well, it so happened that several of those they chose weren't even Christians. We got together with them, and we said, "Now you're all going to talk about the same topic; the topic is 'What Jesus means to me,' 'What great things the Lord had done for me.'" And we gave them a little bookmark ribbon with this text on it: "Go tell of great things the Lord had done for you." Those students went home and began to think. Later, they got up and told how that they didn't have anything to say about what Jesus had done for them, and they decided they better seek and find what he had done for them in the process, and they were converted and became born-again Christians and gave a tremendous witness during that week of devotion. But it was based upon this same principle: "Go and tell what great things the Lord had done for you." Now, if we go and tell, several things are going to happen. Romans 1:16, the Apostle Paul describes it: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes." We are going to see the power of God at work, and that's an exciting thing, so we can plan on that if we become involved in Christian witness. Here's another one: Psalm 126:5 and 6: "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy; he who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing shall doubtless come again with bringing his sheaves with him." So we're going to have a joyful experience of results in terms of people responding and bringing the sheaves to the Lord. Matthew 10:32 is also a wonderful promise for those who become involved in reaching out to others: "Therefore whoever confesses me before men, him I also will confess before my Father who is in heaven." Jesus says if we will witness for him, he'll witness for us. Isn't that a tremendous thing to think of, Jesus confessing our name before his Father in heaven?
Well, this brings us to a question that is often asked when we consider this topic: Will someone be lost if we don't witness? Will someone be lost if we don't witness? And when people ask that, I say, "Yes, you," and that's true. If I don't become involved in outreach, my experience is going to become dead, like the Dead Sea, and that's the reason God gave us the privilege of outreach so we can have a living, vital experience with him. Now, in Titus 2:11, there is a tremendous statement that we ought to remember: "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." Do you believe that? Oh, people say, "We know the grace of God surrounds the earth like the air we breathe," so everybody has the grace of—No, it says, "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." Really? My wife and I traveled to China several years ago, and we had a group of about 30 people. And one of the first things that hits you when you reach inside the borders of China is a fantastically crowded population. China, geographically about the same size as our country; our country has 300 million people; China has 1 billion, 300 million people, which means that if you want to experience what China is like, you bring in 1 billion more people into our country—goodbye the Nevada desert. How could you do that? It's amazing. They're so crowded that someone said, "If you were walking downtown in Shanghai in the middle of the day and you fainted, you wouldn't even fall down for three blocks." And so you ask yourself, "Where has God been in terms of this enormous population of people? And what is God going to do yet with these people? What is he doing now?" And here you get to Titus 2:11: "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." Really? Which leads to this question: Is it possible to worship God by another name? And as we wandered around China, we began to study the book of Acts; Acts 17. And in Acts 17:23, Paul said something very interesting to these people in Athens: "For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: 'To the unknown God,' whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." Notice Paul didn't say, "You people are worshipping the wrong God," no, he said, "You're worshipping God by another name, and you're doing it in ignorance; let me tell you about the God that you are worshipping." Is there a difference? Yes. Which leads you to believe that in these giant countries where people have never heard the name of Jesus, that it is possible for them to be sincere worshippers of God by another name. And that's why it says the grace of God has appeared to all men. Well, someone says, "How can anyone be saved without Jesus?" Acts 4:12 says, "There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." That's true. People in giant countries who have never heard the name of Jesus, and heathen who will be in heaven someday, even though no one came to tell them about Jesus—worshipping God by another name—it's still Jesus that saves them, whether they ever heard his name or not. That's true. But worshipping God by another name—while we were wandering around in China—began to remember a book I had written by a man named Punt. He had shaken up the evangelical Christian world with a new concept, and his idea was this: The Christian Church has always believed that we are born lost until we choose to be saved. He reversed it: The Christian Church should believe that people are born saved until they choose to be lost. Really? Is that too much? Listen, John 1:9: "That was the true light which gives light to everyone that comes into the world," speaking of Jesus. Jesus is the light that lightens everyone that comes into the world. Now here is the premise: God does not hold us accountable for being born on the wrong planet. You can read several texts in your outline that you have with you in your hand on this. The Bible teaches that God has never held it against us that we were born on the wrong planet. After all, we didn't have any choice about getting born here, did you? We didn't. So we're born on the wrong planet, and we're born sinful; the Bible is clear on this. I believe in original sin, but I do not believe in Augustine's doctrine of original sin, the famous Catholic father who took the position that we are born sinful and held accountable for it as a result. The Catholic Church, which follows his teaching and his premise, came up with a number of things that are not biblical; infant baptism among them, trying to save people who are held accountable. No, I believe that we are born sinful, but we are not held accountable for it, and that has to be good—good news.
Now the character of God is at stake here. Let me just present to you two facts, two facts and one conclusion based on those two facts. Number one: God is love. Do you believe that? God is love? I was teaching a class at Christian College and Pacific Union College, and the first day in class I said to the students, "Do you believe that God is love?" "Oh, yes," "You're sure?" "Yes," "Are you real sure?" "Well, God is the kind of a being who will take a man up to the top of a mountain and show him the promised land and then kill him." And this opened the door, and little by little these students began to share some of their questions and doubts. But it has been at least a theoretical premise of the Christian Church that the Bible teaches that God is love. Now here comes number two premise: God is responsible for everyone born in this world. Do you agree with that? It's not the devil; God is the author of life; he's the only one that has immortality, and he is responsible for everyone born in this world. It isn't even father and mother; God is responsible for life; there is no life without him, even the child of the prostitute; God is responsible for that life. Well, if we accept these first two premises, we come to another premise which I think is inevitable: If God is love, and if he is responsible for everyone born in this world, then he would have to—in order to continue being a God of love—give everyone that's born an opportunity for something better. Does that make sense? You have everyone an adequate opportunity. Now I'm not saying equal opportunity; you know that those of us in the Christian countries have much more opportunities than those in heathen countries to understand the plan of salvation. But God would need to give everyone an adequate opportunity; enough light to accept something better. Then, if this is true, everyone born in this world is born saved until they choose to be lost. Now, of course, sometimes we get bogged down with an old—old wives' tale that the children are saved or lost up until the age of 12 by what their parents do. There's no substance to that; you cannot find any support or evidence for that biblically; it just isn't true. Everyone is born saved until they choose to be lost, and before the age of accountability, it's good news that God loves that person and wants them saved, even little babies, if you please.
Well, some people come along and say, "Well, can't we have a part in someone being saved?" Sure, but does that determine their eternal destiny? No. If I don't do my part in helping someone be saved, God will give them another opportunity from another angle. Let me illustrate: Let's say that I am walking from Los Angeles to Loma Linda—Promised Land—as I walk along, you come in your car, and you pull over, and you stop, and you say, "Where you're going?" I say, "I'm going to Loma Linda, the Promised Land." You say, "Get in; that's where I'm going." Now you have a part in me getting to Loma Linda; you also save me some blisters along the way, and you help me get there quicker, but that's where I was going. Now let's change the picture: I am walking from Los Angeles to Las Vegas—the other place—you come along in your car; you say, "Where you're going?" I say, "I'm going to Las Vegas, the other place." You say, "Get in; that's where I'm going." Now you have a part of me getting to Las Vegas; you saved me some blisters along the way, only to get more blisters later, but that's where I was going. I tried this out on some of my CLO Gian friends, and they said, "That's not good enough; you have to stick in the plot." Let's say that I think I am going to Los Angeles, but I'm actually headed for Las Vegas. Well, the Bible already answered that: Christ is the light that lightens everyone that comes into the world; he's going to let me know which direction I'm going. All they said, "But suppose that you are on your way to Loma Linda, and someone comes along and says, 'Hey, I'm going to Las Vegas; it's more fun; get in; I'll take you there.'" Well, the Bible already has an answer to that: First Kings 13, about the man who went to prophesy against the altar, you remember, and he was told not to return the same way he went, but an old prophet heard about him and sent word that he also was a prophet and he's supposed to come and eat at his place. You know the story. If someone decides to go against God's will, it's their choice and their responsibility, and they cannot blame the old prophet or anyone else; it's their responsibility. So I think the bases are covered, and it is possible for me to have the joy of having a part in someone else being saved in God's kingdom, and that's good news. In fact, that will make heaven a little better place to be when we run into people that we might have had a part in being there as well, don't you think? Sure. In fact, that'll be one of the unique joys of heaven, and stars in the crowns are going to be very real, representing people who were saved as a result of our efforts. So reaching out because of Jesus in our own lives is a real privilege, and I am the loser if I don't get involved in that. I have discovered that there are many people who have been converted—genuinely converted—and then lost it not long after they became Christians. Why? And if you read it carefully, it was because they did not get involved in witness and sharing and outreach. If my Bible is boring, and if my prayer life is blah, even though I have been converted at one point, it's probably because I didn't get involved in the one thing that God designed to keep on our knees and keep our Bible reading and our prayer alive and vital. And what a privilege to be able to reach out and tell what a wonderful friend we have found in Jesus.
Sometimes people get worried about choking other people with their religion; they don't want to do that, and I don't like that either. I've—I've gotten letters from people, you know, who have some friend in the town where I'm pastoring, and they say, "Would you go visit this person? They live out in such-and-such a country road. Don't tell him I sent you." What am I supposed to do? I go out there, and I tell him, "I'm just visiting everyone in this country road, and you happen to be next." Who am I supposed to do? I was pastoring in Los Angeles, White Memorial Church, where we have a big hospital and medical students at that time, and I got a letter one day: "Go visit so-and-so; don't tell him I sent you." So I went to so-and-so, and I said, "Ah, I came to visit you because someone told me to come visit you, and don't tell you that they sent me." And they said, "Oh," and it many—they knew about her already. And I have talked to his medical students who were afraid to share their faith because they didn't want to choke other people with their beliefs, and I have told them, "Don't worry about that. If you are telling them about what a wonderful friend you have in Jesus, if you are there trying to choke them with your church beliefs, that's another story, and you better wait on that. But if you're there to tell them what a wonderful friend you have found in Jesus, I have never heard anyone yet that was charged with choking their religion down someone's throat with that approach." In fact, most people are impressed by it and received that. A friend of mine went into a gas station one day, and the proprietor came out and says, "How is Jesus treating you today?" And my friend went, "Lulu," he didn't know what to say, but he decided that that was a good question, and it forced him to think about Jesus and like he hadn't that day. And when you do join the fraternity that becomes involved in telling what a precious friend you've found, it makes all the difference in the world.
I heard the story in Boston; it was a very impressive story. Two students—college students—had gone overseas for a year abroad to study in France—in collage—our College in Cologne. During that year, they had three vacation times when they could do what they chose. So the first vacation period, they decided that they would go to gay Paree and look around there. So they got their money and their passports and got on the train and headed for Paris, but they got pickpocketed. He ended up walking; they tried to hitchhike back, were finally glad to get back to collage and sit it out the rest of the vacation. The next vacation came; they said, "We're not going to go to the tourist centers; we're gonna go on the back roads and back in the back country and see how the peasants lived." So they got a motor scooter and they got sleeping bags, and they started out on the motor scooter to see the peasants in the backcountry, but it began to rain; everything went wrong; transmission went out on the motor scooter; the motor fell out; the tires went flat. I'm exaggerating just a little for the sake of the story. When they ended up sleeping in the mud and the vineyards, they caught cold, and finally they made it back to collage and to sit it out the rest of the vacation. The third vacation time came; they said, "We're not going anywhere except for this," and they put their toothbrush in their back pocket and started walking over the hill and down into the forest; they wanted to look for someone who might need some help. Midday that first day, they came across an old, battered cabin with an old, sullen, grouchy hermit living it. It was a mess; the cabin was in shambles; the door would not work—broken hinges; the chickens were running in and out of the cabin; the debris was an inches deep on the floor; the windows you could not see out of; the yard was a terrible shape. The boys managed to communicate what little they could with the old man, and they got permission to clean up the yard. When they had finished, they moved into the house, and they began to work there. They repaired the hinges on the door, and they cleared out the debris from the floor and mopped the floor; they washed the windows; they did the dishes that were piled high in the sink. As they did, they learned just a little bit about the old man; he was waiting to die; he had no one left in the world; his wife was gone. And when it came suppertime, the boys got permission to get supper; they found a tablecloth that had been one of her favorites, and they brought it out, set the table, and they sat down to eat. And the old man had a new light in his eyes; he invited them to stay the night, which they did. For the next morning, he had a smile on his face, and the boys were happy. They continued going through the forest until they came to a clearing in the fields—hay fields—peasants around trying to get the hay in before it rained; didn't look like they were going to make it. The boys asked for pitchforks; they began to pitch hay, and they pitched hay as hard as they could, and before the storm came and night fell, all of the hay was in the barn. And the boys sat down and ate a simple soup and bread and supper with the peasants, while Lorraine found it on the roof that night. They stayed in the hayloft and the fresh hay; they had never worked so hard; they were never so tired, but they were never happier. Following day, and they went on to find someone else they could help. And as I listened to these boys tell the story with tears, they told us that that was the best vacation they had ever had. Yeah, that's the way it works. If I want to live, I have to give, and giving is what makes living worthwhile. "There was a man and some did count him mad; the more he gave away, the more he had." She kept on getting weaker, as Deirdre did today; doctors had no hope for her; she seemed to fade away; my house was filled…
With constant red, time became life, but slowly and relentlessly. Cut the crowd. Life was a teacher, some of us at home here, by the power of just his word and with vocal and enriching love. I, when it wants to see if I define man named Jesus from a town and gallery, I began to suit your city. Soon I saw the crowd, but they were rushing in to touch me and they called his name out loud. I threw myself for him, depend on my knees, I cried. I keep my daughter, even now she's close to death, but fever is uncontrolled; the world she fights for every breath. The God's given you the power, if you want your hands on her. I know that she will leave, she will, he just forgotten to go with me. When a face I saw with fear came towards me with a new design, I didn't wanna hear no, though I tried to steel myself. What trembled? What he said: "Why bother the teacher anymore? Your little girl is dead."
Then Jesus touched my shoulder and he told me not to breathe. The trailer start when he looked at me and said, "Only believe." They sent the crowds away, except his closest men; they followed on behind us as we started off. It was turn down the sound, two types of motives musicians as they strolled to dramatize, disguise my wife just sat there silently and stared through empty eyes. Then Jesus asked the motors, "Why is it that you weep? She is as dead as you suppose. The child is just asleep, only tonight." Their wheelchairs get him out of here. The 40-two lips of a man you spoken, never sound roll out with a thunder of command, and in silence they all worried for the door, wondering what the reasons were they never have come therefore. Then he took his three disciples away, let them and my wife, me to where our daughter lay. He took her by the hand. "It's Walter, child, arise." When she opened up her eyes, she walked across, they're at our sides. My wife, no doubt, and held it close unless she really cried.
Then Jesus told us both to see our daughter had some food, but as to how her life was saved, not to speak a word, not a spoon. I've gotta tell somebody. I've gotta tell somebody. Me, I've gotta tell something. But I gotta tell somebody. Geez, stiff me. I gotta tell somebody. I gotta tell somebody. Jesus stiff me. I gotta tell somebody. Jesus to me. I'm gonna tell somebody. Gotta tell somebody. Jesus tipped me. I gotta tell somebody. Gotta tell somebody. Jesus did me. I'm gonna tell somebody. Gotta tell somebody. Jesus Steve me. But I gotta tell somebody. Jesus evening Lord. Jesus, remind us what you've done for us. Holy Spirit, impress it upon our hearts. Don't let us forget salvation is free to us, but it costs you everything. Loosen our tongues, send us forth to share the good news, and help us to realize that as we do, we enjoy a deeper walk with you. What a privilege, Lord, to be invited to work with you and your vineyard. Thank you for giving us that opportunity, in Jesus' name. Amen.