“The power of Jesus' love”

Luke 6:10-19.

Jesus said, "Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand." Jesus came to save sinners. People did repent and confess their sins. But one disciple closed his heart, hiding his sins until at last his own sin killed him. But the others created a new world. Thousands of men followed them. Joy and peace and a new love functioned in the new society.

There is power with Jesus which is above atomic power. Man uses this power for destruction. Jesus uses His power to bring peace and good will to society. Money does not make us happy and does not give us good will. You can pray throughout the night to bring heavenly power to earth to heal and to transform the wicked. The more we know of God, we find we cannot hate our brother. When you start loving your brother, you begin to share his burden. The love of money brings you down to hell. It hides all the angelic potentialities in you.

There was a man called Dr. Jekyll. He wanted to bring out all the evil in himself. He discovered a drug which, when he drank, he shrank into an ugly Mr. Hyde. In that form he beat a man to death. When he finished his crimes, he would drink another drug and be transformed into the respectable Dr. Jekyll. Thus he played with himself. This procedure repeated many times. After sometimes even without the medicine, he would just turn into Mr. Hyde. The police started searching for him. One day while in a park, Dr. Jekyll turned into Mr. Hyde unexpectedly. He hurriedly got the transforming medicine through his friend and became Dr. Jekyll—but one day this medicine was exhausted and he was Mr. Hyde forever. He hid in a room. He wept and wept. One day the police broke the door open. In the meantime, he drank some poison and died. We are doing things prompted by our evil nature. There is a medicine to bring back our angelic nature. That comes to us by looking at the Cross. We must not exhibit the “Hyde” in us. Jesus called Simon and transformed him into Peter. How many of us are Peters? God has a great purpose for you. The rivers of living waters must flow from you. Why do you hide yourself and your sins? You are already in hell. God wants us to be in Heaven. The work of salvation is completed and available to you. Will you be an angel? Now you may be a Saul but you can be a Paul. Satan prevents you from becoming an angel. Jesus' prayer is mighty and marvellous to change us.

St. Thomas came to India, a difficult place, and was a blessing. Abraham became a blessing. You must become a blessing.

—N. Daniel

“Come to Jesus for rest”

The lives of people are so complicated today that they defy any easy solution. The problems of men simply gnaw at their hearts until sudden sickness or even death overtake them. Highly educated men too have not learnt to overcome these emotions and passions, which run away with their better sense and ruin their families.

Has God got a solution for our problems or is He only a sentimental emblem, a picture to hang on your wall? The Living God has categorically told us: “Come unto Me and I will give you rest.” This is a promise to you and to me. Either this promise is true, or it is one of the greatest falsehoods ever uttered. But let’s be careful now, for He who uttered these words, the Lord Jesus, is the One in whom there is no shadow of turning. The Bible says of Jesus, “who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). So it’s He, the Saviour, the sinless One, who spoke these words of invitation and promise: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Within my own personal knowledge, I have seen and met thousands and thousands of people who tested these words of the Lord Jesus and found them true. They went to Jesus when all seemed lost, when their little world was blown to bits, when they knew there was no hope for them, and they found Him to be true and He gave them rest.

Among this number of men and women, young and old, who had found peace, rest, and forgiveness in Jesus, were men whom their loved ones had given up as incorrigible, irretrievably lost, and even those who had been on the verge of suicide.

Come unto Me, all ye that suffer under your heavy load of sin and guilt, and I will give you rest. The call is to all who are sorrowful and shaken by repeated shocks, the nervously exhausted, the weak in body and mind and the despairing. “Come unto Me,” the Saviour is calling you.

Once a college student wrote to me, “I have committed every conceivable sin, is there hope for me?” He had indulged in sexual perversions, which had left him weak and distraught. He seemed to despair that he was too far gone. I wrote, “Yes, there is hope for you, when you repent.” The Lord Jesus touched this boy and peace and forgiveness of sins were given to him.

I begin to wonder if some people are really serious in undertaking pilgrimages to all sorts of places. Some go to Bethlehem for Christmas. A place, however sacred, cannot meet your deepest soul-needs. It’s “a Person” you need—the Saviour Jesus, who beckons you, saying, “Come unto Me”.

People want a formula, a sentence or two of magical words, which will do the trick and bring relief, or they ask for a charm, a relic or talisman, which they may wear round their arm or neck, to give them a sense of security. They are prepared in their distress to make costly offerings, to win the favour of some mythical person or even some self-styled god-man. They are even prepared to join a church, as they would a club, in the fond hope that that may solve their problems.

No, my friend, it’s to a Person you must go, you must go to the Saviour who loves you and welcomes you, saying, “Come unto Me.”

Some time ago, I received a letter from a young man, who wrote saying that he had divorced his wife and was looking round to find a suitable girl to marry. His marriage broke down completely. His wife seemed to have no room at all for Jesus. From the continual tension, both of them had suffered nervous breakdowns too. I wrote to him, “No, God is able to bring your wife back to you. The Lord Jesus does not want any man to marry, when his wife is still alive, it amounts to adultery. Keep the door open for your wife to come back.” He paid heed to my words. He began to seek cleansing and deliverance from his sins and the powers of darkness and also to rebuild his broken home.

The Lord heard our prayer. This week it was such a joy to me to hear from that young man that he had married again the wife he had divorced, and that they were now living together. This family is living in the heart of Europe, where marriage bonds have become very weak and where the flesh seems to reign supreme. Now he wants me to go and preach in some of the towns in his area.

It’s the Lord Jesus who has built the home of these young people, who had become nervous wrecks by not making Jesus the centre of their home. The words of Jesus are not vain words, “Come unto Me and I will give you rest.” How true are these words!

No one can give rest to a man deep in his soul, not even your father or mother, but only Jesus. He has the power to give you that deep settled rest, as He has the power to forgive your sins.

Without your knowing it, there is a guilt complex in you. The unforgiven sins in your life set up a disturbance and restlessness in your sub-conscious mind. Guilt in the sub-conscious mind soon produces disease and such diseases overwhelm you; doctor and psychiatrist cannot help.

“Come unto Me and I will give you rest” is no smooth, soothing formula, which just sounds religiously refreshing at a distance. You need this rest and so do I. In fact, life without this sweet rest and peace is not worth living. It is a hollow, painful, boring existence.

“I will give you rest” is a promise which does appear to be too good to be true, but notwithstanding it is real. Millions have tasted this peace and rest, which Jesus gives, and you too my dear listener must taste Him.

—Joshua Daniel

“On sin and temptation”

Billy Graham was one of the most famous preachers of the twentieth century. David Frost, a well-known broadcaster, interviewed him over the course of three decades.

One day, Frost asked him: “What sort of temptations do you feel?”

Graham: The Bible says that Jesus Christ was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. There are three main temptations that man has. There’s the lust of the flesh. There’s the lust of the eye. And there’s the pride of life—in other words, ego. All three of these are temptations that Satan comes to us every day, tempting us in a thousand different ways and coming at us from different angles, but always using those three main avenues. This is what he used on Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. This is what he used on Jesus in the Mount of Temptation in the wilderness. And he hasn’t changed in tactics. ... and man is still falling for the same old arguments.

Frost: Which of the three does he go at you most with?

Graham: All three of them. ... Now, it doesn’t become sin to be tempted. Sin is when I yield to the temptation.

Frost: So it’s not the thought necessarily ... it’s the commitment.

Graham: It’s the mulling over the thought and sort of going over in my mind and saying, “My, I would enjoy...”

Frost: It’s the enjoying the thought.

Graham: Yes, that’s right. ... That’s the sin. And that’s called in the Bible evil imagination. And that was one of the sins that led to the destruction of the human race.

Or, as Graham once said, “A thought enters; we pamper it; it germinates and grows into an evil act.”

When asked about the public falls of a few famous names, he said: “We are all tempted. I think if they had realized what was happening and turned to the Lord in the deepest part of their lives, they would not have fallen. ...”

“In what ways have you yielded to temptation?” Frost asked.

Graham: “I suppose ... in almost every way. I have yielded, primarily in my thinking processes. I have never committed adultery. ... I think God kept me. ... And I think God Himself has protected me. But there were times when the temptation was great. ...”

Frost also asked him to what temptations he thought he had yielded.

Graham: I suppose that I have yielded to temptations of pride, though I’m not conscious of it, but I think I have. I think that is the number one sin that a man can have is pride. That was Satan’s sin. That’s the greatest sin. Idolatry and pride and they go together. ... [T]oday, I feel the opposite. I feel like I’m nothing but a worm crawling along the floor and shouldn’t have any recognition from God at all, except judgment ...

Frost: You say in the big theological sense we’re all sinners.... Can you think back, in addition to that, to little sins, too? ...

Graham: Of course. I mean, all of us, I think, can. I think of a time ... that I told my father a lie. ... And this was, of course, before my conversion to Christ. And I can think of all kinds of little things. Now, they would be little things compared to today’s things, but this is not what God is alarmed about and what the Bible is about. Those are only symptoms of a disease that’s deep inside. The real disease is a disease of blood pollution that we call “sin.”

Did Billy tackle the subjects of sin and temptation with the same gusto as before? He replied: “I’m preaching the same gospel I have always preached. If anything, I am stressing more and more the cost of discipleship. I do not know of a single moral issue that I have not spoken out on at one time or another—everything from racism and apartheid to nuclear armaments and peace. ... There is a difference between sin and sins. There is sin (singular), which is the heart of our spiritual disease, and there are sins (plural), which are the fruit or signs of the disease. If I spent all of my time on sins (plural), I might never be able to get at the root cause, which is sin (singular). The Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross to deal with sin, and not just individual sins.”

On the topic of sin and evil, Frost asked Billy: “Have you ever met anybody who you’ve thought, There is an evil man?”

Graham: No. ... I really do love everybody. ... And I have seen pictures of Eichmann and Hitler and people like that, and I’m sure there are thousands of those like that today that I believe are dominated by evil. ... I think there’s a supernatural evil power that’s dominating them. And in Jesus’ day, they would call it demon possession.

However, he also stated: “[W]e’re all born with a tendency to evil. I mean, we all have the seed of evil within us, of hate and lust and greed, and that’s called original sin.”

He said, “Everything comes from the human heart, and our hearts have been corrupted by sin. And the only answer to sin, in my judgment, is Christ.”

It was in the inspired Word of God that one could find a foundation for behaviour.

His bottom-line answer about sin was: “Our fellowship with [God] is broken when we tolerate sin in our lives.”

“Reality Check”

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”—Jesus Christ (John 3:16).

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly”—Jesus Christ (John 10:10).

“Place of heavenly healing”

Amy Carmichael became a well-known missionary in India in the early twentieth century, who, together with others, cared for vulnerable children in the Dohnavur Fellowship; she was fondly called “Amma”, meaning “mother".

On the evening of 30 January 1921, a group of eight stood looking over the plain; villages and temple towers could be seen, and a fortress of Islam lay beyond the hill. There was no medical mission then in this part of British India that was especially seeking to reach those practically unaffected by the Gospel.

As they looked upon the plain, now in shadow, and thought of the pain that existed there, hidden away in little shut-up rooms in little shut-up towns, of the need of those Christless hearts, it was as though there swam into their view a Place of Healing. The place would be served by people who loved their Lord and served the sick; they would love one another fervently, and money would have no power over them.

The thought was not entirely new. Yet that evening, they put their hope of a Place of Healing into words and wrote it in their log-book, and signed their names to pray for its fulfilment. “The vision is yet for an appointed time: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry,” was the word when, again and again, it was delayed. Through a certain feeling, they knew it was a spiritual vision.

Prayer was also offered up for a man for the general leadership, one to whom the same heavenly vision had been shown so that he could not be turned back from it or caused to doubt what he had seen. There were times when they seemed to be asking for too much. What often helped was what Andrew Murray had once stated: “I am full of confidence that God is, in His own way and time, step by step, going to unfold to us the blessing He has in store, and the kindness He is going to show us. So you can think with such a prospect, I feel as if I have but one lesson to learn better, and I am learning it, just to sit and adore and say to Divine Grace, that there is nothing I cannot expect His wondrous kindness to do.”

The Lord Jesus did provide for a hospital; first, however, He led them to build a house of prayer. “When my House of Prayer is finished, I will provide for the hospital.”

Dates can be worth regarding, and so also the words that came in their ordinary reading of God’s word on those dates. On 30 January 1921, they were led to pray in a new way about this new work. Exactly five years later, he who, unknown to himself or to them, was the answer to prayer for the new work, arrived for a visit. He came and went, and they continued to wait on God, but the word reached on those two evenings was, “I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” On 25 August of the next year, a gift of £100 came for the building of the new hospital, and the word waiting for them was: “No good thing with He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

On 30 January 1928, they moved forward. One or two had already experienced a clearness of direction that allowed for no hesitation. Enquiry had begun to be made about land suitable for a hospital. However, it was important that unity in the Fellowship be reached so that together they could go through whatever might come, in peace and confidence. Rushing ahead without this could end up in disaster. A solemn time was held of considering what had already been shown and seeking to know the mind of the Lord, with a burning sense of being searched and purged too. Had the habit of the soul been so careful up till now, that it was trained to recognise the voice of the Beloved? In the overshadowing of His Presence they found rest to their souls, and in His book they found sure direction. God granted His word and they rose from their knees pledged in faith; sometimes that plunge of faith, led by the Lord, must first be taken, as when the Israelite priests had to enter into the River Jordan before the waters parted en route to the promised land. On 20 January a letter had come from a friend, and Amma read it to the whole Fellowship. The writer suggested that the word “dipped” in Joshua 3:15 means “plunged”: “We too have so often to make a plunge, not just the slow, cautious step but the plunge in faith, and then things happen.”

A gift large enough to cover the purchase of the land required was the first confirmation of that afternoon’s leading, and by faith the required plots of land could be purchased over the course of time.

Moreover, according to God’s promise, a doctor was provided to lead the hospital work.

“I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the LORD.”

One day at the bazaar in a Hindu town, a burly bazaar man said, “You are going to have a hospital at Dohnavur—so we hear,” and he smiled all over his face. “You will make it Paradise.” To the two who heard it, it was so unexpected that they must have looked their surprise and pleasure. “Yes, a paradise,” he stated emphatically.

Through prayer, faith, and guidance, the Lord provided doctors, land, a leader, and useful employment for some of the children in the medical ministry of Dohnavur. It was to be to His glory and for the physical and spiritual good of those whom it would serve.

—Taken from Amy Carmichael, Gold chord: the story of a fellowship (London: SPCK), www.archive.org.

“Delivered from sin”

“Praying Hyde” was a godly, loving, exceptionally prayerful Christian who spent many years in India. On one of his first few days there, a missionary spoke out in the open air, and Hyde was told that was speaking about Jesus Christ as the real Saviour from sin. When he had finished, a man asked the missionary if he had been saved in this way himself. The question went home to Hyde’s heart—had he been asked that question, he would have had to confess that Christ had not fully saved him, because he knew that there was a sin in his life that had not been taken away. He realized what a dishonour it would be on the Name of Christ to have to confess that he was preaching a Christ who had not delivered him from sin, though he would be telling others that He was a perfect Saviour.

Hyde went back to his room and shut himself in. He told the Lord that it must be one of two things: either He had to give him victory over all his sins, and especially over the sin that so easily beset him, or he must return to America and look for some other work. He said that he could not stand up to preach the Gospel until he could testify of its power in his own life. The Lord assured him that He was able and willing to deliver him from all sin, that He had planned work for him in India. And He did deliver him! Hyde could testify thereafter that the Lord had given him victory, and he loved to witness to this and tell all of the wonderful faithfulness of Christ his Lord, his Saviour.

—See Captain E. G. Carré (ed.), Praying Hyde, Apostle of Prayer: The Life Story of John Hyde (Bridge-Logos, 1992)


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