by G. D. Watson
If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25
If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.
Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.
Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.
God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done; this to teach you the message of the Cross, humility, and something of the value of being cloaked with His nature.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.
So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.
God will take you at your word. If you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. Settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven, the high calling of God.
What a gem this sermon is! I am glad that you shared it with us. I have placed a link on my site to come here to listen to his sermon. I did find new things in his teachings and found them invaluable. This sermon along with Paul Washer’s sermon is copied onto my hard drive. I believe I will be able to learn something new each time I listen to it. Thank you, Mike.
Sarah,
Yes it is. I have a deep desire in my heart for this type of preaching to become prevelant in our churches again. Let’s agree to pray for God to wake up HIs people to these truths.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
It is the most profound truth of all. If a person who dies without Christ spends FOREVER in hell, what else matters? Jesus Himself said, “What should it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”. If we could bring 100 people out of hell and give them ten years on earth they would not be welcomed in our churches because they would seem too passionate about eternity and not interested about this life. The discription “a hell, fire, and brimstone preacher” used to be a compliment, today it is a mocking, if you can find one!
Rick,
I still consider it a compliment. My Grandfather Ratliff was one. My mother said that he could singe the hair off of the people he preached to.
Some very close to me still think that it produces false salvations based on fear. I don’t buy it. What we must do is balance this type of preaching with careful observation of those professing salvation. We should never blindly take anyone’s word for it. We do no one any favors if we let people think they are saved when all they have done is taken out fire insurance.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
I followed your link from Slice and started reading your blog! I love this sermon; I was watching it on sermonaudio.com just a few days ago!
Corinne,
Welcome! Yes, that sermon is like a cold splash of water in our faces. We need to have a healthy understanding of Hell to really understand how awesome our salvation really is.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Glad to see Tim’s sermon posted here! We just uploaded an improved and clearer video for this sermon here:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?sermonID=52206203622
I have also included a high quality MP3 of this sermon on my podcast, found here:
http://upp.mypodcast.com/2007/05/Hell_is_Necessary_by_Tim_Conway-15545.html
In Christ,
matt haney