Jesus said: “But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things
shall be added unto you” (Luke 12:31). He also said: “For unto whomsoever much
is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much,
of him they will ask the more” (verse 48).
God’s great object is to raise the status of man. He is a fallen man and
God wants to raise him up and make him work with the highest mind. Man was not
made to be a sinner. He was given a free will and opportunities to rise to
God’s likeness. The world was made to be under the supreme command of divine
nature. Man’s spirit was to be influenced by the Divine Spirit and this Spirit
was to guide his intellect. Jesus succeeded in making His disciples like that.
Peter said unto Jesus: “Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee;
what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you,
That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall
sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the
twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:27-28).
“Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
God has in mind great things for us. “Fear not, little flock; for it is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Jesus, Luke 12:32). There are
different levels of life in the world. There is the plant life, bird life, and
animal life. When we go through a medical college or an engineering college, we
come out with the mind of a doctor or an engineer. God also wants to lift us to
a higher level and to a higher consciousness. The lower consciousness of fear
goes away. But a higher consciousness of power and authority comes into us.
“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give
you the kingdom.” It means you have the citizenship of the kingdom of God. What
is the difference between a member of the Royal Family and an ordinary man? It
is the consciousness of a kingdom and the training of a royal family. You get
the consciousness: “I belong to God. This sickness has no power over me. This
sin has no power over me. I have power to help my neighbour.”
When Jesus was awakened from sleep in the midst of the storm, He was
surprised at the lower consciousness of the disciples. “Why don’t you have
faith?” He asked. Know your identity! Know your place with God!
In order to effect this transformation from a lower nature to a higher
nature, Jesus died. We carry with us two kinds of sins: 1. Hereditary sins, 2.
Our own sins. The former is cancelled by the death of Jesus the moment you
believe He died for you. The latter is cancelled by your own confession and
repentance.
Jesus lifted Peter, John, and Paul to the higher-kingdom-consciousness. “Yours
is the kingdom,” Jesus said. Once you have this consciousness, you cannot tell
a lie. These are contradictory. A lie is due to fear. It is a negation of faith.
Remember you are a royal priesthood. “Sell that ye have … provide yourselves … a
treasure in the heavens that faileth not … neither moth corrupteth.” What is it
you are doing when you pray? You are conversing with a King. A King’s mind
comes into you when you converse with Him. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in
earth, as it is in heaven.” God is hearing your prayer. If you keep on praying
you will see marvellous things happen. First the kingdom must be established in
your heart and then in others. This is the meaning of “Thy kingdom come.” You do
not want that lower nature any more.
When you belong to this kingdom, you have greater responsibility than
that of an ordinary man. “Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He
cometh shall find watching” (Jesus, Luke 12:37). Being a royal personage in a strange
country, where all around you are foreign evil forces, you must be watchful.
Slowly the lower consciousness tries to creep in. The fear of death or the fear
of something else must not be pressing upon you. “God is with me, all will be
right with me” must be your faith. All should be right! You also must be right.
You are a functionary in the kingdom and you must be watching.
“And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his
lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in
due season?” (Luke 12:42). There are people who need to be very faithful. They
are those who are preparing meat and drink for others. In this kingdom we are
given many gifts. Some have the gift of preaching. This carries with it the
highest responsibility (1 Corinthians 14:3,12). Ask for such gifts. Healing is
a very striking gift and so also is speaking in tongues. The devil can give
tongues too. But the devil cannot give messages that will convert and edify
people. The devil cannot purify a heart. The devil can create a mental belief in
God but not a heart belief.
“And [Jesus] said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for
a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth.” “Beware of covetousness.” It is a great gain to seek the kingdom
when you are young. But learn obedience that you may be a full member of the
kingdom. You have to prepare food for others. If you are faithfully doing this,
you will be a great blessing. You must help and love your relatives—not in
word, but in truth—by giving them the right message at the right time. The Holy
Spirit will be giving you a number of messages.
When I was a student, the Lord used to fill me with messages. “Give to
every man that asketh of thee.” When anyone comes to you, do not send them away
empty. You must be bold to give them a message from God. Jesus says here: “He
will make him ruler” (Luke 12:44). Some people hold themselves back. “I cannot,”
they say. No, God will give you the message. When you are employed, people around
you will look to you for a message. You must learn to preach while you are
here. You must be full yourself and must give to others. Can you tell a man: “God
has given me this to pass on to you?” You must be definite and be able to give
them the truth of God.
Be faithful. God will use you all over the world. Be watchful. Prepare
yourself to feed others. Jesus said: “Yours is the kingdom.” He who goes on
distributing divine bread, will get everything he needs in this world. Have you
got a message to shake the world and change the world? Then all the wealth of
the world will also be yours for the building of His Kingdom.
—N. Daniel
“The Lord opens the eyes of the blind”
“The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind” (Psalm
146:8).
He was an unforgettable person: short, stocky, heavily
built. He became blind in his early childhood and eminent eye surgeons said
that he would never see again.
It was through Dr. Jayasingh [one of our
Fellowship doctors, a Christian and well-known surgeon], that he first heard of
the love and salvation of Jesus. He was gloriously transformed within. His life
became radiant as hope lit up his life. Soon his eye began to see dimly. We
called him David.
The last time I saw him, he was standing about 30
yards away from the car. I was in a hurry and was getting into the car wanting
to get to my meeting on time. David was too late to catch a bus which would
take him to the meeting. I called out, "David, do you want to go to the
meeting?" You can’t imagine how he dashed to the car, like a sprinter. No
blind man dare run that way. I asked if he could tell the colour of
my shirt and of my trousers. He could, and we were thrilled to see his eyesight
restored.
But the main thing is that in David’s short life on
earth (he died in his early thirties), God gave him spiritual sight and he
carried the Good News of Jesus to many whom I could not reach. The story of
healing and the leap from despair to hope and happiness gripped the attention
of many.
How true is the Word of God, which says, "The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind (Psalm
146:8). Who can open the eyes of the spiritually blind? Who can send light into
a darkened understanding? The Bible says, "It’s the Lord who opens the
eyes of the blind."
When the Lord Jesus called the religious leaders of
His day, blind men, they asked in astonishment, "Are we blind also?"
(John 9:40.)
Of course no man likes to be called a blind man.
Educated men feel that education and this space age have really opened their
eyes. But alas what blindness has befallen men today. Materialism has blinded
them. Their values are so perverted that they appear to enjoy the total
spiritual vacuum in which they live. Of course it is an illusion. To be upon a
rudderless ship, however beautiful its appearance and interior decoration,
without compass and chart would be the most nightmarish and fearful experience
that a man can know. What is the good of a house loaded with things and a bank
balance which weighs you down with a consciousness of bigness, blinds you so
that you cannot see where you are going, and ties you up with cares so that you
do not have a moment of peace?
Eternity is not something to be played with. A man who
does not make certain where he is going to spend eternity is no more than a
madman and a blind man.
Men are blinded too by pure, ugly, uncontrollable,
raw, animal lust. No woman is safe these days in high society circles. Why talk
of the slums? Slum ways have overtaken the societies. The immoral and unclean,
the wreckers of homes and the breakers of families are lauded as the most
fashionable in the land. Alas what blindness such a preoccupation with the
flesh produces.
Social kissing is a most unwholesome development at
parties and social gatherings, for the ballroom is already the moral graveyard
of many a deflowered damsel and divorced dame.
It’s unpardonable and wilful blindness which
neglects the family and stays out late, while the children cry themselves to
sleep, night after night. No wonder so many rebels, drug addicts, and
anarchists fill the land. The broken home produces an unceasing flow of
candidates for the prison, the nervous disease hospitals, and the funeral
homes.
A blind leader or preacher multiplies the number of
widows, orphans, and the heartbroken in the community.
When you go to the Lord Jesus, He opens your blind
eyes and you see your own sinfulness for the first time. A recent letter to me
said: “There is no sinner like me, there never was and there never will be
anyone so wicked as I.” Now that is the light of Jesus. Why should Jesus die
for us if we were all such good and gracious persons? No, if you still think
you are a very good man or woman, you are deceiving yourself.
I notice that men who in company are extremely
gracious to their wives, snap at them at their dinner tables, and threaten them
with awful imprecations. That is simply your wicked heart. And what an awful
blindness it is not to know your own heart.
I have to deal with murderers. Today I was reviewing
the case of a murderer who had beheaded his wife in public. The Lord Jesus
opened his eyes in prison when the Word of God was preached by some of our men.
I have met another murderer who simply could not see that murder was sin. He
was that blind. Yet Jesus opened his blind eyes too.
The kid-loving sinner, with the practised smile
and the pleasing manners, is the one whose eyes it seems most difficult to
open. He believes doggedly and hypocritically in the old myth which says: “We’re
basically very good people and we are all the time improving.” No. It is sheer
blindness which makes you think that you are pretty good. That’s what I used to
say by way of bluff. But when Jesus opened my eyes, I saw my wretchedness for
the first time and my eyes were opened too to look at the cross of Jesus. The
light and love which shone on me from the cross of Jesus removed the veil and
the darkness from my heart.
Then God opens a man’s eyes “to see wondrous things in
His word” (see Psalm 119:18). When you study the Bible before you go to work,
God begins to speak to you and opens to you His loving plans for you.
Running to seek the help of astrologers or engaging in
idolatrous practices fill your soul with darkness, which makes prayer
impossible. The living God will dispel that blindness which makes it so hard
for you to see Jesus. All over Europe too you can see this blindness
which keeps men from Jesus. Money and acquiring things they understand only too
well, but only a historical Jesus is known to them, not the Living Christ.
Dear listener, let Jesus open your eyes and your whole life will then become so beautiful and meaningful. I am praying that you too will say with the blind
man of John 9: “Whereas I was blind, now I see.”
—Joshua Daniel
“Reality Check”
“Jesus, thou
Son of David, have mercy on me.” Luke 18:38.
“Bitterness to Hope”
New York’s
crowded, restless, lonely streets were haunted by street fighters, gang
leaders, and drug-addict teenagers who stabbed each other. In that same city,
David Wilkerson preached the Gospel, the good news about Christ at church, on the
street, or in a wretched, abandoned basement serving as a clubhouse. He proclaimed
God’s love, Christ’s death on the cross to atone for our sins, and God the Holy
Spirit’s power to work wonders in the world. In Brooklyn, New York, a centre of
hope was established by the name of Teen Challenge.
David’s
mother, Mrs. Wilkerson, also loved to share the good news of Jesus. The souls whom
she was concerned about were the ‘beatniks’; these young people belonged to a
subculture in the 1950s and 1960s that had rejected society’s traditional
values. One day, David went to his mother who wished to speak in a little park
crowded with young people. A concerned policeman warned Mrs. Wilkerson not to
“overdo it”. “This crowd,” he said, “can get pretty rough.”
One of the
‘beatniks’ there was Betty. “She’s so terribly mixed up,” Fay, a helper, told
David. Betty had tried Zen, Buddhism, hypnotism, psychoanalysis ... and now
this.
“What’s she
looking for?” asked David.
“The same
thing they’re all looking for—help.”
Not long
after, David heard the sound of chords; it was Betty on the back of a bench,
tuning a guitar as several people stood around her. After waiting for silence, her low honeyed voice appeared to rise from the
earth as she strummed, thumping the heel of her hand on the guitar. The song
spoke of a great loneliness:
Got no more home than a do-og,
Got no more ho-ome than a dog;
Well, I lost every friend I ever had.
David’s
mother was now standing beside him: “Don’t you wish we could put a gospel hymn
in that girl’s heart?” Betty’s song was one of misery—the story of her life.
She
remained in David’s thoughts and prayers.
When David
saw her next, she was coming out of a chapel at the Teen Challenge centre. There
was an air of serenity about her, and gone was the bitterness driving the song
he had heard.
“God bless
you, Betty,” David said, “You’ve found peace, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she replied,
“I’ve looked for it all my life, without knowing what I wanted. If someone had
told me I was trying to find peace for my soul I would have laughed in his
face.”
“Or spit at
him,” Betty added, “I was a pretty rough character.”
Betty told
the story of how she had ended up at this centre of hope and recovery.
One night
it had rained and David’s mother and Fay did not go to the park. Betty realized that she refused to turn to the Saviour they preached—but couldn’t live without Him!
Not caring about the rain, she told David, “Something pulled me to the park and
I went. I sat on a bench.” She sat all night.
Wonderfully,
a feeling of peace and rest came into Betty’s tormented heart. It was time for
a fix (drug dose) and she didn’t want it! At the age of five, her father had dumped
her on a doorstep. She had gone between foster homes, abused or angry, and
hated men. She had been so scared that night.
“I was too
proud to kneel down to Jesus,” Betty admitted, “but I needed Him. Oh, how I
needed Him!” Her voice grew stronger, her eyes brighter.
When
daylight came, she could not return to her old life, and had ended up at the
centre.
After Betty
was saved, David had to help his mother establish a ‘chapel’ in the area. More
such young people had to be saved from hell and see that salvation was
possible! Together with an estate agent, David went to have a look.
One street
was especially crowded. Squeezing past a group of people, David had to turn and
look down into the blackness behind. He could see a basement store, and the dirty
reflection of his feet in a jagged piece of glass still in a window frame.
“Is this
place for rent?” David asked.
“You don’t
want that dive?” The agent said.
David
wanted to see. When he walked down the steps, it was as if he were standing in
a well, old papers, broken bottles, and dirt from the streets lying around. David
was standing where evil had been subdued.
That place
became a ‘chapel’, one which rose on the site of a former nightclub called the
Den of the Forty Thieves. That Den was one of the worst attractions. Now God
was there, desiring His lost children to come and pray where they once had revelled.
God had pointed out this shabby
basement. The Lord was about to make His presence known in the area.
The place
was dubbed the ‘Catacomb Chapel’. The catacombs had provided refuge for the
early Christians in Rome when their lives were endangered; and when David
remembered standing down in that dreary well at night, he began to see how the ‘chapel’ might serve as a spiritual refuge for those ‘beatniks’. It was a safe
place and they could find redemption.
Some time
after in that ‘chapel’—with many disturbed people present such as Eddie, a drug
pusher—Betty stood in the middle of a crowded, hushed room. David remembered
another time he had heard her sing, but now she was singing of joy. With a deep
feeling that no hurt could shut out, Betty sang:
Jesus is my shepherd,
I am just a lamb.
Although I’m not a prize sheep,
He loves me as I am.
A song of
misery had become one of hope through Jesus Christ.
—See David Wilkerson with Leonard Ravenhill, Twelve Angels from Hell.
“What the Bible Means to Me”
Can a true Christian be a true sportsman? This is the question I have faced
in my life. The impression gained by the youngster reading today’s newspapers
and magazines would be that sports offers one everything. They seem to read:
“Sport is most important. Devote yourself to it. Sport will bring you fame and
renown.” Yes, that may be true to some extent. But the Bible says: “But seek ye
first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be
added unto you” (Jesus, Matthew 6:33).
Sport has its place in life, as do business, family, home, pleasures,
recreation, and many other things, but they are all so temporary. The Bible
puts sport in its right perspective. “For bodily exercise profiteth little: but
godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now
is, and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8). God must come first and then
all these things slip into place. The Lord Jesus told a parable about a rich
man who was a successful farmer and then sat back in retirement. Then God said,
“Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall
those things be, which thou hast provided?” (Luke 12:20). This man never thought
of God.
After reading this, we must ask ourselves individually, “Am I rich towards
God?” The man in the parable had left himself poor in the one area that counted
for himself and counted in God’s eyes. He had not learnt the value of “Set your
affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2).
As a cricketer of the New Zealand team, I have been very fortunate, two
tours to England, India and Pakistan, and one in Australia. Yet to me,
knowing Jesus Christ as my Saviour is the greatest thrill of my life, [more] than
anything cricket can offer, or in fact, the world offers. To be in Christ’s team and have Him as the
captain of my life is more wonderful to me than any national representation.
How does one qualify for His team? Realize that you are a sinner. “For all have
sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). So you need
forgiveness. Jesus “bore our sins in His body on the tree”. The Bible says: “If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). If you do just that and
receive Jesus into your heart and life as your Saviour, He will carry you
through.
—Victor Pollard, former New Zealand cricketer.
Pollard fiercely opposed playing cricket on
Sundays, but was a determined competitor on any other day. In his 32 Tests for
New Zealand, he was an important member of a side fighting to establish itself
as a force in the game. He later became a Baptist lay preacher.
“Jesus is...”
Jesus is the Saviour—Receive Him.
Jesus is the Shepherd—Follow Him.
Jesus is the King—Serve Him.
Jesus is the Lord—Trust Him.
Jesus is the Christ—Worship Him.
Jesus is the Life—Enjoy Him!
About Us
This newsletter is produced six times per year by the Laymen’s Evangelical Fellowship International. It is printed and distributed in the US, UK, Germany, Singapore, Canada, and Australia and is supported by unsolicited sacrificial gifts of young people. For a free subscription or for other enquiries, please contact any of the addresses below.
This Fellowship is an inter-denominational missionary and prayer group working for revival in churches and amongst students in several countries. We invite every layperson to become God’s ally in changing his or her corner of the world. We train people in evangelistic work and to be self-supporting missionaries.
USA: P.O. Box 14, South Lyon, MI 48178. Phone: (248) 486-6326.
SINGAPORE: P.O. Box 320 PSA Building Post Office, Singapore 91114. Phone: (65) 63562724 (Sam).
MALAYSIA: P.O.Box 236, Jalan Kelang Lama, 58700 Kuala Lumpur West Malaysia. Phone: 012-3416203. Or contact No. 3, Lorong Beduk, Taman Sungai Bakap, 14200 Sungai Bakap, Seberang Prai Selatan, Pulau Pinang. Phone: 019- 4493115 T.K. Ong.
AUSTRALIA: P.O. Box 1072, Armadale, Western Australia 6992. Phone: 61(08) 9498 3735.
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IRELAND: P.O. Box 18 Cavan Co. Cavan.
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