- From the Editor -
|
Dr. Dennis Corle
|
|
Come After Me
Dr. Dennis Corle Editor/Publisher “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) Matthew 16:24 says, “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me,...” What does it mean to come after the Lord Jesus? The first thing He said is this: I must deny self. That does not just mean that I deny myself some things. It means that I deny myself, and I’ll explain that in a little more detail in a moment. Then He said, “Take up your cross.” The cross is bearing the reproach of Jesus Christ. It’s not something that falls on me by chance. It’s something that I willingly do. It’s not a hardship that comes upon me by chance and I say, “Well, okay. I’ll bear this cross.” No, Calvary was not by chance. It was by design. Jesus went to Calvary on purpose. He suffered on purpose. It wasn’t something that fell upon Him by chance. It was something He willingly picked up. Cross bearing is something that you do on purpose, by choice. I am to take up my cross willingly, and follow Him. Probably one of the best illustrations you’ll ever find of this following Jesus or coming after Jesus is the life of William Borden. In 1904, William Borden graduated from a Chicago high school. He was the heir to the Borden milk company and graduated a millionaire. When he graduated, his parents sent him on a trip around the world. Borden was a Christian. When he got into some of the countries in Asia and the Middle East, he saw the poverty and the sadness and the lack of the Gospel. Being the kind of Christian he was and the kind of charactered man that he was, he wrote home to his parents and said, “I’m going to give my life to prepare for the mission field.” When he sent that letter home, he wrote in the flyleaf of his Bible, “No reserves.” I withhold nothing from God. I give myself 100% to God. He wrote down, “No reserves.” Nothing held back at all. He went to Yale University to train for the ministry. He finished his training there and continued his education at Princeton. At some point during his schooling he learned that if he entered missions work, his inheritance, or a great part of it, would be forfeited. Again he wrote in the flyleaf of his Bible, “No retreat.” He said, “I will not retreat. I made up my mind. I’m pointed in the right direction. I’ll keep going that direction until I meet Jesus. I won’t back up.” After finishing his schooling at Princeton. He sailed to China. He was going there to work with the Muslim people. He stopped off in Egypt to learn some of the languages. He was there less than a month and contracted cerebral meningitis. Within 30 days he died. On his sickbed, he opened his Bible, knowing that he would not live. He opened his Bible up and in the flyleaf he wrote, “No regrets.” “No reserve. No retreat. No regrets.” Although he never made it to China, he had no regrets. Living unto Him will never cause us to regret, even if we never achieve for Him what we planned and dreamed. Those statements are a good commentary on what it means to come after the Lord Jesus. The Bible says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1) I’m to give myself, my body, my all to God. The Bible says that it’s my reasonable service. Somehow we’ve gotten the idea that God owes us something, and He ought to save us and take us to Heaven, and give us no responsibility. His responsibility is to us. Someone said, “I just don’t see how a loving God could send a sinner to Hell.” Let me go a step farther than that. I don’t know how a holy God could let any of us go to Heaven. I’m not puzzled about how unsaved people go to Hell. I’m puzzled about how the grace of God works allowing a bunch of sorry rats like us get into Heaven. I know what I was. I know what I am. I know my imperfections. I know what’s wrong with me. Yet, the grace of God is sufficient. God saved me. Thank God He did. God owes me nothing. If I serve Him seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for the rest of my life, I’ll never begin to scratch the surface of the debt that I have to God Almighty. No reserve, nothing held back, everything in His hands. In I Corinthians 15:31, conveying the same thought, Paul said, “...I die daily.” Do you know what he said? “I do not acknowledge myself. I deny myself.” If I die, then I’m not going to have any feelings. I’m not going to get my feelings hurt because a dead man has none. If I die to self every day, then I’m not going to be tempted. All that Paul was saying was “On a daily basis I deny myself.” He didn’t just say, “I deny myself some things.” He said, “I deny myself.” That is the same word that is used when Peter denied Jesus. They said, “You’re one of them.” Peter said, “I don’t know the man. I deny that I know Him.” So when the Bible speaks of denying self, it’s a little deeper than just denying myself some things. Some folks will deny themselves some things. Others will deny themselves some wealth. Others will deny themselves certain sins. Others will deny certain pleasures. The Bible teaches that if I’m going to come after Jesus, I’ve got to quit worrying about what I think, what I want, what I feel, what I like, and die to self. Get self out of the way, so I can be something for God. To deny self is to refuse to acknowledge self, to refuse to be identified with self. God wants to use my body. I’m not supposed to use His power. He wants to use my body. I want you to know something. God wants to use your body for His glory today. He lives inside the heart of every believer. If you don’t know Him as your Saviour, you’re not on your way to Heaven. You’re still on your way to Hell. You desperately need to be born again. The purpose for salvation is that God might get glory through my life. When you deny self, you won’t say that you’ll do anything but that, nor will you set limits based on your own comfort level. There is no reserve. What are you reserving? Are you reserving sin? Are you reserving your will? Are you reserving pleasure? Are you reserving other things for yourself? There is an area you have not yielded to God. Bill Borden came after Jesus. He said, “No reserve.” Nothing held back, everything released to God. By the way, that’s what salvation is. Just taking your hands off everything and saying, “Lord, I can’t do it. You’re going to have to do it. I can’t save myself. You’ll have to save me. The church can’t save me. Baptism can’t save me. Good works can’t save me. Religion can’t save me. You’ll have to save me.” If you don’t, you’ll die and go to Hell. If you trust anything but Jesus Christ and Him alone to get you to Heaven, you will not make it. Until you exercise saving faith you cannot do anything that pleases God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him:...” Faith is dependency upon God and expectancy from God to the point that the Word of God is enough. If you’re ever going to get saved, you’re going to have to come to the place where you see yourself as a hopeless, lost sinner and trust Christ as your only hope of Heaven. There is only one reason I’m going to Heaven. Because I realized I deserve Hell and the only hope I have is Him. I turned to Him and received Him, not Him plus the church, not Him plus baptism, not Him plus confirmation, not Him plus catechism. I trusted Jesus Christ and Him alone. I said, “Lord, if I go to Hell, it’s not my fault. I’ve trusted You. I’m depending on You. If You can’t get me there, I’m not going to go.” No reserve in getting saved; if I’m going to come after Him, I live with no reserve. I recall reading the story of F. B. Meyer many years ago. As a young Christian, F.B. Meyer was wrestling with the will of God. The Holy Spirit of God was tugging on his heart strings. He realized that the Lord wanted him to yield his life. God wanted to make a great preacher out of him, and finally did by the way. F. B. Meyer wrote this statement down. He said that one day as he was having his prayer time, the Spirit of God began to deal with him about yielding every room of his life to God without reserve. Meyer said, “Well, Lord, I’ll yield every area, but this one. Please let me keep the key to this one room. I want to keep this one room for myself. All the rest You can have, except this one room.” He said that as he wrestled with God in that matter, pleading with God to let him keep that one area for himself, to do what pleased him, that he felt the presence of God growing cold. He felt the Spirit of God slipping away. He cried out in despair, “Oh God, I’ll give You all the keys. Don’t depart from me. Don’t let that sweet presence slip away. I’ll give You all the keys,” and he did. That’s what God is looking for. He will not abuse it. To many of us sinned with reckless abandon when we were lost, but live a very reserved Christian life. We don’t trust Him with our hearts and lives. God help us! When I was in Bible college, I led a man to Christ in Louisville, Kentucky. I liked his spirit and attitude. When he came to get baptized, Dr. Wallace said, “Ed, have you received Jesus?” He said, “Yes, I have.” He said, “You do want to follow the Lord in believer’s baptism and live for Him, don’t you?” Ed’s answer was this, loud and clear. “I want to get all of it!” No reserve, I want it all. Whatever it is, I want to do it. I want be it. That’s no reserve. That’s what God intended for us. No reserve. I like the song, “All to Jesus I surrender. All to Him I freely give.” We sing that all the time, but most of us don’t mean it. It doesn’t have an impact on our lives. We’re not totally yielded to Jesus Christ. We have not forsaken self. I’ll prove it if you let your feelings and your desires decide whether you’ll do the will of God or not. You should probably sing it this way: “Some to Jesus I surrender, some to Him I begrudgingly give.” You say, “I don’t think that I need to do that. I feel... I think... I like...” What are you saying? You’re saying, “I have some reserves. I’ve reserved the right to choose. I’ve reserved the right to do what I want to do.” Let me tell you the truth, friend. You’re not coming after Jesus. I want you to notice the statement that Bill Borden made. Not only did he say, “No reserve,” when he yielded to do the will of God. He yielded completely, but he also said, “No retreat” when he was faced with adversity and loss. His was not fair-weather consecration. In Luke 9:61-62 the Lord Jesus was calling disciples. “And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first...” The words ‘Me First,’ are in total contrast to following Christ, Who said, “...not my will, but thine, be done.” That’s where most of us are in our Christian lives. “...let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit...” (or meet, or equipped) “...for the kingdom of God.” For the labor in this work. He said, “When you put your hand to the plow and start out looking back, you’re not equipped. You’re not going to make it. You’re going to make a mess of yourself.” You are going to plow a crooked row. You’re going to wreck your life because you’ve got retreat in mind. You’ve got ‘me first,’ a self-centered approach to life in your thinking. You’ve got turning back in your mind. Do you remember what it says about Abraham? In Hebrews 11:5, the great faith chapter of the Bible, it talks about Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees. “And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.” He never looked back. No retreat, not even in his mind and his heart. The Bible says, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” (Galatians 6:9) I’ve seen a lot of people start out right, and then they retreat. I’ve seen a lot of people do pretty well for a time. They go forward, but when the battle begins to rage they sound a retreat and back up to their own destruction. Speaking to a group of college students, a missionary told of his experiences on the foreign mission field. He said that on some holidays there would be people out on the streets plying their wares and they would say, “Artifacts and crosses. Crosses, crosses, cheap crosses.” Isn’t that what everybody is looking for? We don’t want to pay the price, do we? But Jesus said, “Take up your cross.” “Cheap crosses.” “Hey, give me one of those. Give me a light cross. Give me a cheap cross. Give me a cross that has no reproach attached to it.” There is no such thing as a cheap cross. Some of us do rather well until the heat is on, until persecution comes. Some of us do well until someone opposes us. Then we want a cheap cross. We say, “Oh, I want to follow Jesus on my terms.” No, you can’t follow Jesus on your terms. You will be in retreat before you get started. “Lord, me first...” is an oxy-moron. Either He is Lord, or you are first. You can’t have it both ways. If you are first and you have reserves, you will retreat in the face of opposition. I recall several Bible characters that were guilty of exactly that at some point in their lives. Peter had some reserve in his life. He was operating in the flesh, still doing, to some degree, what he wanted to do. Oh, yes, he was saved. Oh, yes, he was a disciple. Oh, yes, he was following Jesus, but at one point he was following afar off, with some reserves. It was proven when the little maid came to him and said, “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” He said, “No, not me. I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Peter would not admit that he even knew the Lord Jesus. He had some reserves. He said, “Well, I’ll go this far, but if it’s going to cause me trouble, if it’s going to get me put in jail, if it’s going to make me unpopular, and if it’s going to cost me my life, I’m not going that far.” But the folly of this kind of thinking is that if I come after Jesus I have no life to lose. I’m already dead. The knights in King Arthur’s court had to be men of valor. Any soldier that returned from battle without a scar, without a cut, without a wound that he had received in battle was sent back out. King Arthur would say, “Go get your scar.” I don’t know about you, but my Christianity has cost me something. How about you? There have been some battle scars and some wounds and painful circumstances I haven’t enjoyed very much, but I wouldn’t go back and I have no intention of going back. I’m glad I never looked back when I faced the battle. I wouldn’t trade. If you’re the right kind of Christian, it’s going to cost you something. “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” (II Timothy 3:12-13) There are going to be a lot of folks that don’t like you. Some retreat in hard times. I had a friend that had that problem. He just couldn’t get going in the right direction. He had retreat in his heart. Every time he’d get going pretty good he’d run into a rough spot and end up in the same old quagmire of sin. Retreat leads to the sins of the past. I don’t claim to be a good Christian. I want to be a good Christian, yet I know my failures. But I made up my mind when I got saved, that there would be no reserves, no retreat. I’ve got my mind made up where I’m headed. No retreat. I’m not going to go back. You say, “Do you think you can’t fall?” No, I don’t think I’m above sin. Anybody is capable of that, but by the grace of God, I don’t have any retreat in my heart. I don’t sit around and think about the possibility of maybe turning back and quitting or going back to the old life. It never enters my mind. I think about going forward. Onward, forward, upward, that’s the Christian life. No retreats. I like the old song, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. Though none go with me still I will follow, no turning back, no turning back.” We sing that all the time, but most of us don’t mean it. We sing it while in retreat. Many years ago in a battle, there was a young man who was a standard bearer. He had gone forward with the standard and stuck it into the ground. The troops were driven back. The commanding officer yelled to the young man. He said, “Bring the standard back to the men.” The young man stood there with his standard planted. He said, “Bring the men up to the standard.” They did and won the victory. I’m weary of these preachers that are taking the standard back to the men, taking the standard back to society to keep a few members that don’t love Jesus enough to do right. People leave churches in most cases because there is too much pressure to follow Jesus. They don’t want to do right, and they don’t want to feel guilty about it, either. They don’t want strong preaching week in and week out. They don’t want to separate from ungodliness. They want somebody to tickle their ears and tell them what they want to hear and make them feel comfortable while they’re backslidden. The Bible says, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;” (II Timothy 4:3) I talk to people and who say, “I grew up in church and everybody in church is a hypocrite.” You’ve been going to the wrong church. The kind of soft-touch preaching you gravitate to produces hypocrites. Maybe you are one yourself. If the pulpit is hot enough, people either get right, or they’ll get out. Nobody is going to stay in a church that preaches the Word of God hard and strong very long and play the hypocrite. They’ll find some old dead church where they can look pretty good. You stick out like a sore thumb when the pulpit is hot. Some people don’t stay in a church with red-hot Bible preaching because they say, “Legalism, legalism.” You wouldn’t know legalism if you stumbled over it. Legalism has nothing to do with living clean and holy before God. Legalism has to do with adding baptism, church membership, and good works to the grace of God for salvation. The truth is that there are some people that don’t have any standards at all in some of these dead churches who are legalists. You believe you trust Jesus and get baptized and join the church and endure to the end to be saved. That’s legalism. Holy living and separation and looking like a Christian is not legalism. It’s Bible holiness. It is merely coming after Him. No reserve. No retreat. I believe we ought to bring the men up to the standard instead of lowering the standard and bringing it back to where they are. All you do is lose ground and live a selfish, defeated life. When they brought the men up to the standard like the young man cried out, they defeated the foe. When God’s people are brought up to the standard instead of the standard being lowered for them, we’ll defeat the foe, the enemy, the devil. We’ll have victory. We’ve been going the wrong direction. We’ve learned how to retreat. God never told me in this Book how to retreat. The only thing he told me is to forget the past and go forward. Paul said, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14) He said, “I’m pressing, pushing, laboring to get somewhere.” There is opposition, but the man with no reserve and no retreat in his heart will have no regrets at the end of life and no regrets while he’s here. I didn’t say that nobody would give you a hard time. I said that you’ll never regret doing the will of God. Someday you will get to stand before the Lord Jesus and hear Him say, “...Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful...” Consistent, no reserve, no retreat, “...over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” (Matthew 25:21) Then you’ll say, “Thank God, I did.” You say, “I don’t believe what you’re saying.” I do. I believe all of the Bible. There will be no reserves, no retreats, and that will cause us to have no regrets at all. A brilliant, young concert pianist had finished a performance. At the close of his performance the whole crowd, except one old man, stood and gave him an ovation. The old man sitting on the front row remained in his seat, though everybody else stood and clapped their hands and cheered and whistled. The young man walked away from the piano dejected with his head down. A friend said to him, “What are you doing sad and dejected with your head hanging down? Look at the crowd. Everybody in the crowd is standing and cheering. Everyone except for one old man.” The pianist replied, “Yes, but that one old man is my teacher.” I don’t care if the crowds cheer me or boo me. There is only one person I’m worried about pleasing today, and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ, my Master, my Teacher. If I decide, “No reserves,” and give Him everything, and “No retreats,” and I don’t turn back, then I’ll end my life saying, “No regrets.” The crowds may not cheer me, but the Lord will give me His approval when I step in His presence, if I just decide to be faithful. Go forward and do it for Him. I think of Job. It could be said of Job that he had no reserve. Do you remember what God said about Job when the devil came to Him? He said, “And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” (Job 1:8) Job was separated. He feared God and separated from evil. God was proud of Job. He bragged on him. The devil has been going through all the earth. He then came up before God and God said, “Have you considered My servant Job. There is not a Christian like him.” No reserve, he was sold out. Do you know what the devil said? The devil said, “The only reason Job serves You, God, is because You prosper him and You have a hedge of protection about him. You won’t let me touch him, but if You’d let me touch him and take some of those possessions and blessings away, he’d curse You to Your face. He doesn’t serve You and love You and worship You because of who You are. He worships You because of what You do, and the material benefits.” God said, “All right, I’ll let you touch everything but his life. You can take everything away, but not his life.” Isn’t that wonderful! If I know Jesus Christ and am coming after Him in holy living, I’m under the umbrella of obedience; the devil can’t touch me without permission. Glory to God! Some of us have strayed so far from God that we’re outside the protection that He’s provided. We’ll still go to Heaven, but we’re outside of the God-given protection, the hedge that He’s set up. Job lost his wealth, his home, and his children; he lost the support of his wife; he lost his servants; he lost everything he had; his position in the gate and he sat on an ash heap scraping his sores. Job said, “...Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) He bowed himself and worshiped. He didn’t have any retreat in his heart. No reserve, he was sold out, but when the hardship came he didn’t turn back. No retreat. He didn’t curse God. In Job 42, God gave him twice as much as he had before he lost everything. He gave him the same number of daughters and sons. Do you know why? He hadn’t lost them. They were already waiting for him in Heaven, but He gave him twice as much of all the animals, twice as much of all the wealth, and the same number of children again. Job had twice as much afterward as he had before. He had no reserve in his life, no retreat in hardship and no regrets at the end when he met God. God rebuked his so-called friends and blessed Job for his faithfulness, his obedience in hardship. The Bible says that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees. That was a pretty big thing for him. He left his homeland. He left all of his possessions. He was looking for a city whose Builder and Maker is God, eternal in the heavens, according to Hebrews chapter 11. No reserve, he turned everything over to God. You say, “That doesn’t seem like such a big thing.” Oh, really? In later years God told him, “I want you to take your promised son, Isaac, up on Mount Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering.” Abraham did as God commanded, believing that even if he offered his son, God was able to raise him up. It looks to me like there wasn’t any reserve in Abraham’s life. God didn’t want Isaac on an altar, dead. He wanted Abraham, all of him, alive. When he willingly gave his son, God said, “I’ll give him back. I didn’t want Isaac dead. I wanted you alive, without reserve. Now that I have you, you can have Isaac.” There were no reserves in his life. He had given it all to God. There were no retreats either. Abraham hit some tough times. I like what it says about Abraham. “And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.” (Hebrews 11:15) Do you know what’s wrong with some of you? When you got saved, you just got saved with your head turned. You got saved looking back. You got saved looking at the world. You never got turned all the way around. You wonder why you are wanting the world, why you’re having trouble living the Christian life. You got saved and kept reserve in your heart, kept retreat in your heart. If you are ever going to be a victorious Christian, if you are going to ever come after Jesus, you’re going to have to say, “No reserve.” “No retreat.” Then you’ll be able to say, “No regrets.” Abraham has no regrets today. He’s in glory and he and his seed have been a blessing to the entire world. He has no regrets. I’m very impressed with the life of the Apostle Paul, this man of God. The Bible says about him in Philippians 3:8, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,” Paul said that he had lost everything. He had lost all that he had, but he counted it but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. He said, “I don’t have any reserve. I’ve given it all, but what I have gained so far outweighs what I have lost that I have no regrets.” Let me give you a further illustration of that in the life of Paul. In Romans 9:3 Paul said, “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:” Paul said, “I’d be willing to die and go to Hell to see these people saved.” It sounds to me like he didn’t have any reserves. There is not a person in this room that can honestly say that today. We won’t even knock on a door to see them saved, much less go to Hell for them. In Philippians 3:13-14 Paul said, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Do you know what he said? “I’m not looking back. There is no retreat in my heart, no reserve. I’ve given it all to God. I’d be willing to go to Hell to see people saved. No retreat, I’ve left the past behind. I’m looking forward. I’m pressing toward the mark of Christ-likeness, obeying His command to ‘Come after Me.’” When it came time for Paul to die there were no regrets. In II Timothy 4:7-8 he said, “I have fought a good fight,...” It’s been a battlefield. “... I have finished my course,...” It’s been an obstacle course. “...I have kept the faith:” He said, “I’ve finished without compromise.” “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” The person that has reserve is not going to love the appearing of Jesus Christ. The person who is in retreat is not going to love the coming of Jesus Christ. He’s going to find you such a state as ye would not, but the person who will sell out and live a life of “No reserve, and no retreat,” will someday be able to say, “No regrets,” when you face Jesus. Everyone of us is going to face the Lord Jesus one of these days. In my life, I decided when I got saved, no reserve. God knows I’ve had my rough spots. I had some troubled times. I decided, “No reserve.” I’m going to give it all to God. It hasn’t been easy in some cases. I have made a mess of it on a few occasions, but I decided no reserve and no retreats. There have been opportunities to retreat. There have been times when I thought I ought to. There have been times when I felt like retreating, but I decided I wasn’t going back. I have no regrets for going forward for God. I am confident in my heart, when I face the Lord Jesus if I’ll keep going the right direction, I’ll have no regrets, none at all. He was an old man. He sat by the roadside in a far country. All of his wealth was in a little clay bowl. He was a beggar-man. His hair was matted, his clothes tattered, dust upon his brow. All of his wealth was in that little clay bowl. He was a beggar, so as people would pass by going to and from the market place, they would throw a few grains of rice in the old man’s bowl. All of his living was in that bowl. One day as he sat there, he looked off into the distance and saw a great cloud of dust rising in the distant desert. His heart began to pound with anticipation. He said, “Surely, this must be the Rajah. This must be the king of our country.” He was excited because he had heard stories how the Rajah had reached down to many other poor, old beggars and lifted them from their poverty and given them a life worth living. The old man thought, “Surely, when he sees my lowly estate, he’ll lift me from my poverty, and give me a life worth living.” He sat there with great anticipation and just as he had hoped, he saw that it was the royal caravan. When the Rajah drew near, just as the old man had hoped, the Rajah raised his hand, stopped the entire caravan, dismounted from his camel, and walked over where the old man was seated. But much to the old man’s dismay, instead of giving great riches to him, the Rajah reached his hand out and said, “Give of your rice to the Rajah. Give of your rice to the Rajah.” The old man could not believe his ears. He could not believe this rich man with all of his wealth and flocks and herds and servants was asking for his little bowl of rice, all that he had. Begrudgingly he reached in the bowl and pulled out one grain of rice and he placed it in the Rajah’s hand. Then he pulled the bowl tightly to his breast and backed up with a frown. Once again the Rajah reached his hand out and he said, “Give of your rice to the Rajah.” This time the old man with fire in his eyes, hatred in his bosom, and cursing under his breath, reached in the bowl and pulled out two more grains of rice, placing them begrudgingly in the Rajah’s hand. Then he pulled the rest of the bowl tightly to his breast and said, “The rest is mine. It’s all mine. I’ll not give it. It’s my rice.” Without any further ado the Rajah turned and went over to his camel. He spoke to a servant, then mounted the camel and rode off without speaking another word. As he rode away,that servant got a red velvet bag and walked over to where the old man was seated, still muttering curse words under his breath, with complaint written across his brow. He reached down in that bag and pulled out three shiny brand new gold pieces. He dropped them into the old man’s bowl with those few grains of rice, tied the bag closed and without a word he mounted his camel and he, too, moved on. As the old man sat there and looked at the bowl of rice, he looked at the three shiny new gold pieces and realized he had played the fool. For every single grain of rice he had given to the Rajah, the Rajah had given him a gold piece in return. He realized that if he had just given the whole bowl of rice, he could have had the whole bag of gold and his dream of a lifetime could have been a reality. But instead he had made the mistake of a lifetime because the Rajah would not pass that way again. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity and he had squandered it. He had thrown it away because he had reserve. “I reserve this for me. I’ll give you a little bit Lord, but I’m keeping the rest for me.” You say, “That old man was a fool.” Yes, he was. He had no pleasure in his little bowl of rice because he realized what he had thrown away for it. On January 15, 1975, the Lord Jesus Christ reached out to me and said, “Give of your rice to the Rajah.” I said, “Lord, I don’t have very much. It’s not worth much, but you can have the whole thing.” I want you to know I’ve been picking out the gold chips ever since. God is so good. You can’t out-give God. It’s an impossibility. The truth is that today God reaches His hand out to you and He says, “Give of your rice to the Rajah.” You say, “Here is one grain. Here are two grains. The rest is mine. It’s my life. I’ll live it for me. I’ll not give it. I reserve it for me.” Your opportunity passes by. There are folks that Jesus is passing by today, and you’ve never been born again. You’d better not throw the chance of a lifetime away. This opportunity may not be available to you again. You may never get the chance to receive Him again. You’d better receive Him while you can. Others, the Lord Jesus says to you as a believer, as a child of God, “Give of your rice to the Rajah.” Give without reserve. Give it all to Him. You can’t out-give God. It’s impossible. Give without reserve and decide there is no retreat in your heart. I will guarantee you there will be no regret in this life or at the end of life when you meet Him. But if you fail to come after Him there is going to be regret written across your brow because you withheld from Him what was His. You not only robbed Him; you robbed yourself of blessing in this life and His approval at the Judgement Seat of Christ. No reserve, no retreat, and thank God, if that be real in our lives, no regrets. I want to go a step farther making application. The only way you’ll keep from having folks saved is if you retreat from doing right. If you keep working and praying, soulwinning and inviting, being excited, you’ll keep walking converts down the aisle. You can have a book of Acts church every week of the year, if you decide to come after Him. No reserve, no retreats, and no regrets. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) |
|
