He Would Not Answer the Doorbell

He Would Not Answer the Doorbell

by Tommy Tyson

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Well, this morning, it seems that He’s kept giving me these impulses from within. I take it to be the Lord. And that is for us to think together something about the work of the Holy Spirit in terms of the cross. Now, I used to hear people talking about the cross of Jesus Christ. And to hear them talk, it was the most horrible thing in the whole world. Well, such expressions as, “If this is my cross, I’ll have to bear it.” And talk about how hard the way of the cross was, and what a tremendous, difficult path a Christian had to try. And really, I grew up with something of the feeling in my heart that a Christian couldn’t look for much in this life because they had to go the way of the cross. But in learning to do with that, not only in terms of material value, but in learning to do without the real joy and wonderful victory, that he could have compensation to know that he was going to really reap it after he died. And you know, it wasn’t until after I became a Christian just a few years ago, and I began to hear this man, Rufus Moseley, and saw a living example of what the cross was, that the victory began to be made known to my heart.

Now, I will have to say this. I didn’t know what the cross was until after the Holy Spirit came within me in baptismal power. I believe Jesus had died for me. I believe that He had atoned for my sin. But the way of the cross, to me, is the work of the Holy Spirit within our lives. He does work out the way of Calvary within the human heart, within the human mind. He works out the death principle within us. But He works out the death principle of the old life by filling us with the life principle of the new life. And this becomes… we die out to the old by being married to the new. And regardless of how many boyfriends you might have had and how much you have loved them, it ought not to have been much of a cross when you realize that you love the boy that you married more than all the rest of them put together. And really you had to turn your back on other boys to take the one you got. But you ought not to have grumbled about it.

And it ought to have been the highest privilege to do that for the sake of him with whom you’re to live. And I see this as a Christian. There are a lot of things we have to give up. There are a lot of things over which we have to turn our backs. And there are a lot of things that we have to learn to love that we didn’t love before and hate that we didn’t hate before. But really it ought not to be such a chore in terms of the companion that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Moseley’s experience is very unique. And yet, it, I think, is universal. And so I’m going to describe it from his own experience. Rufus Moseley was… How many of you did not know Rufus Moseley? He’s dead now in heaven. All right. Well, let me just share with you this experience. He was a professor over here in Macon, Georgia. And had had a conversion experience in his early days at Peabody College. A very brilliant man whose field was political science. And after he came there to Macon as professor in the field of political science, he was in the Baptist church. He had this great hunger that just forced him, day after day and night after night, to seek for that which he didn’t have.

And it was at the turn of the century. And about that time, Christian Science was beginning to come into something of a flower. And it seemed to be him, at least. And they were having a lot of victories. And about the only ones around at that time that were having anything in terms of healings. And so Moseley had such a great hunger, he wanted to be where there was life. He asked for permission to resign from the college. And they said, “No. How about if we just give you a sabbatical?” Well, he said, “No, it wouldn’t be fair to you. I’m going to go into Christian Science. It wouldn’t be fair to the institution to say one of your professors is dabbling in Christian Science.” So he insisted on resigning, went into the science movement, learned a lot of things, a lot of good came to him. But he came through it rather quickly. In just a few years. And he realized that there was something much greater than just these principles that he was learning. And about the turn of the century, too, as you will remember, the Pentecostal churches were beginning to be born. And they were having these experiences of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And Brother Moseley began to hear and see some of these.

They seemed to have a great deal of joy, a lot of fire, and sometimes good sense. And so he began to go with them and pray, asked the Lord if this is what He had for him, said if the baptism is what they’re talking about, if that’s Your highest, I want it. If You’ve got something better, I’ll take that. And so he went on this way, seeking and searching, really dedicating himself to follow the Sermon on the Mount. This was the highest good that he knew. The Sermon on the Mount has turning the other cheek, going in the way of love, humbling himself, giving himself in obedience to the teachings of Jesus. And he literally did this. Bert Strube, who is editor of the Macon Telegraph, told me that he had known Brother Moseley to give up his last dime to a beggar on the street and just eat raw Irish potato for breakfast. This sort of thing. If he found anybody in jail, he’d go to minister to him. He’d ask permission to sleep in the jail with the boy. And he stayed right there until something had happened. If he goes to prison on death row, he didn’t go just to witness a little bit. He went and lived with the boy until either he was converted and the Lord released him, or else he was executed.

He just lived this way and gave himself as best he could. And many miracles happened through his ministry. But yet he knew there was something hard. And one night in his room, where he stayed, on Orange Avenue, the Danningberg residence, he went to bed rather early. And he’d been counseling with this person. And sometime in the wee hours of the morning, he awoke. And when he awoke, there were some thoughts coming to him concerning this person whom he’d been counseling with, with whom he’d been counseling. So he got up and went over to his desk and began to write a letter to this person, jotting down these thoughts that were coming. And as he wrote, he was aware of a supernatural power taking his hand. And he began to write under the power of the Holy Spirit. And he said as well as he could, he began to yield himself to the presence of the Holy Spirit. And he became aware of the room being invaded with a divine power, unusually so. And so he began to yield in praise and thanksgiving. And as he did so, his room began to be filled with a supernatural light. Here in the early hours, about two o’clock in the morning. And as he began to sense this light coming in, the doorbell rang.

And he said when he started to go out to the doorbell, the power seemed to die down a little. So he said, “I haven’t time for doorbells, I have an appointment with heaven.” And he didn’t answer the doorbell, and he said heaven seemed to approve of his choice there. And when he made that decision, that he’d rather stay there and respond to heaven than he even answered the doorbell, he said quickly, the room was filled with light. And in the midst of this brilliant light that was brighter than noonday, there stood Jesus Christ Himself, in outward form, standing there in front of him. And he said he could just reach out and touch His body. And as he stood and involved Rufus, Brother Moseley said, he fell to the feet of Jesus on his face as if he were dead, and yet never so much alive. These were his words. And he said that he’d been praying concerning a deeper meaning of the cross. And as he doesn’t know how long he stays there at the feet of Jesus. And when he comes up, he’s being lifted by the power of the Holy Spirit. And as he comes up, his body is forming the shape of a cross. And really, he couldn’t see. Now, I’ve heard him.

But he says, coming on his lips was the most beautiful song. And the words were, “Jesus, Jesus, interposed His precious blood.” And as he stood there, in front of Jesus, being raised at his body, forming the shape of a cross, he says to Jesus Christ, “Lord Jesus, I have found Your Sermon on the Mount to be the highest principle of good in this world. But I have not been able to obey it on the level of principle. If it is at all possible, will You come within me and be the fulfillment of Your principle of love that I’ve found to be the supreme good?” And Jesus Christ, literally, inbreathed, or infused Himself within Moseley. And this is what happens in the baptism. We don’t have eyes to see it. We don’t have to have eyes to see it. But this is literally what happens. But Moseley was aware of it taking place, not only for himself, but so he could help others. And Jesus infused Himself, or inbreathed Himself, through the Holy Spirit. Came within Moseley. And said, gave him a three-fold commission. And his three-fold commission was, “I want you to serve at the bottom of human need. Witness at the top of human privilege. And give My love to everybody.”

And Moseley, in this experience, realized what he terms the reverse side of the cross. And this becomes the most helpful experience that I know in relation to the cross. And it’s this. Jesus Christ, in coming to us, as the God-man, paving the way and breaking through in terms of salvation, when He comes to us, we put Him on a cross where He really becomes a sin offering. He becomes shame and sin. He who knew no sin became sin. But when we come to Jesus, He puts us on a cross where we become righteousness. We actually have the righteousness of God when we are put on the cross of Christ. When Jesus came to us, we put Him on a cross of shame where He’s deprecated and spat upon by the world. When we come to Jesus, He puts us on a cross of the church, of the fellowship, where we are made one with other people. We’re not despised by friends. We really don’t know the love of friends until we are put on the cross of Christ. And we find ourselves one with those who are hanging with Him or living with Him, really, in Calvary. When Jesus comes to us, we put Him on a cross where He has to give up the ghost and cries out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

When we come to Jesus, He puts us on a cross where we receive the Holy Ghost and cry, “Abba, Father.” Not being separated from God, but receiving God and being made one with God. This becomes the reverse sign. When Jesus comes to us, we put Him on a cross of death where He descended to hell. When we come to Him, He puts us on a cross of life where we ascended to heaven. Now, you see, this becomes the reverse sign. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit. So that the cross of a Christian is never going back and repeating what Jesus has already done. You do not have to fight the battles that Jesus has already fought. He fought those battles once and for all. He won those victories once and for all. He died once and for all. And our cross, in that sense, and making up that which is lacking in the cross of Christ, is filling it full with the glory side. Here’s what’s lacking from the cross in the revelation of the gospel. It’s the glorious, victorious side that is in manifest victory. And this is what Jesus… Jesus took the bitter side that you and I might have the sweet and glorious side. He took the death side that you and I might have the wonderful life side.

He took the vicarious suffering side that you and I might have the vicarious living side. You see, and this is our high privilege so that it becomes the greatest joy to be put on the cross of Christ. Now, it doesn’t look like joy from the world. It looks like persecution from the eyes of the world. The world seeing us coming here at 10:30 in the morning to sing praises, to pray, and maybe come away from jobs. Maybe some of your friends think that you’re really foolish to take this time. But you and I know that in this experience, we’re not being foolish at all. So we don’t have to say to the world, we don’t have to defend ourselves. We can just say, “Praise God. I wish you did understand me, but you don’t. So I can’t force criticize you just don’t know.” And we just come to this worship service, praising the Lord, rejoicing in our hearts that we have this secret place and abide under the shadow of the Almighty. There’s nothing drudgery about that, isn’t it? Well, now, look at our English. Quite often, now, I don’t know much about persecution. I reckon maybe I’ve hit into much of it as many of you have. I’ve hit into some of it. And some of it, when it was for my own foolishness, I didn’t rejoice in it. And really, it became hard. But that wasn’t the cross. That was Tommy’s foolishness.

But every time that I’ve ever had to meet any persecution, for righteousness’ sake, really, I felt just Jesus Christ has opened up the doors to more victory than I’ve ever known. I’ll just share a little bit with you. When I was pastored, this first church that I had. It wasn’t the first church. It was another. But it was my first pastorate. And I’d been there for about three years and really came into this great hunger and desperate need. The Lord Jesus baptized me with the Holy Spirit and gave me a new expression altogether. And you can imagine. Now, here were a group of good, dedicated laymen who had just been brought up all their lives in what I would call a typical Methodist expression. And I don’t say that judgmental. And they had accepted me on this level. I had accepted them on this level. And then, just almost overnight, I’d come out preaching the same way and shout a little and cry a little. And just praise the Lord in my preaching. Not concerned anymore about ringing doorbells and rubbing furs and patting backs. And all that. I’d really just want to go around loving folks. And that sort of thing. And there were some other manifestations of the Spirit. That they just couldn’t quite accept. Well, I can understand that. So, they began to reject me. Well, at the board meeting one night, I talked with them about it. And I said, “I wish you folks would be honest with me about it.” So, one man took me up to the word. He just said, “All right, Tommy, I’ll tell you.”

He said, “Now, we’re not about to let our church become a holy roller church.” And he says, “We love you. And we want you as our pastor. If you’ll come back on our level.” He says, “You’ve run off and left us. And we’re not about to go the way you’re going.” Well, I said, “Now, you’re the board. And the church has elected you to be the ones in charge here. And if you think that it’s best for me to leave, I’ll leave. I don’t want to stay here and break up a church.” And so, in a week or so, they met again. They prayed about it. They really were sincere. And so, they elected for me to go. And when they made this decision, the district superintendent, I’d been his fair-haired boy. That’s all there is to it. He’d been bragging on me everywhere he’d gone. I was in this big building program. I was finishing up my seminary work. Everywhere I went, this DS would just tell everybody about what a wonderful job I was doing. He said to me, “You stay right here 10 years. Go with this work, and you can name your appointment.” Well, you can imagine what the devil did to that. I could see myself as a bishop right away.

And then, when this church elected for me to go, the district superintendent took it as a personal rebuke from me to him that I had really let him down. And he took it as personal offense, and did he evermore use his influence in the conference to share with his brethren his deep conviction that I was a fool. And really, I became the off-scouring. Well, now, a little pride got into that. I felt like that I had done it. I was suffering because, really, I was going on to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And these dried-up Methodists, you see, just couldn’t stand it. And so I fed my ego. I raised the corpse right much.

I gave him right much status. But even so, through it all, the Lord Jesus began to get at me. And He began to show me that this was an occasion that He would use to break the power of fear of men. He would break the power of the fear of the materialistic order. And He would teach me to trust Him. And in six months’ time, I had learned more about trusting Jesus and the work and power of the Holy Spirit that I would have learned in 60 years’ time if I hadn’t gone through this experience. And so, what, through the eyes of the world was great tragedy. Really, it became the greatest victory I’ve ever known. And Jesus gave me so much victory in it that I really, deeply in my heart, am indebted to this church. I don’t know what I’ve done if they’d accepted me.

That’s the truth. I’m deeply indebted to this church. And I’ve gone to them. They love me now. They loved me then. But I’ve gone back to them many times. In fact, the chairman of the board of the church, a few years ago, his wife had a stroke. And I was the first one he called. And he said, “Would you come?” I said, “I’ve talked with the pastor about your coming. And he hasn’t had any experience in healing.” But he says he’d be glad for you to come. And I’ve been back. And we’ve had healing services there and all that. These things that they rejected. They have… And they know that I love them right down to a man. But this, you see, I can’t call that… I can’t call that tragedy. You see, I can’t call that suffering. I can’t really call that persecution. To me, the Lord Jesus used it for pure victory. It’s now… It’s the same way when I came into this work of the evangelist. When I made the appointment of conference evangelist. I applied for it. Well, the church… You know, preachers, we have a pastoral heart. And we want to protect our flock. Now, this is a part of a preacher’s job to protect this flock. And most preachers are a little reluctant to accept folks who’ve gone off on tangents.

Not only, you know, because of their own reaction, because they don’t want that sort of thing to get in their people. And I don’t blame them. I mean, I really understand this. It’s God-given. But we can’t misuse it. But a lot of these preachers were just dead convinced that they weren’t going to have a spirit-filled, a Holy Ghost, or a holy royal raparizer. Who jumped up and down and carried a bottle of oil in his pocket. You see? Let loose in the world as a Methodist evangelist. And so when I applied to the Board of Evangelism for Conference Evangelists, they turned me down and had to go in. Well, it was all right, really. The Lord gave me victory. I went to the bishop with my credentials. And I just said, “Brother Garber, I don’t have to serve as an ordained man. I just didn’t do the work of the Lord under any other label. And I appreciate your love and all you’ve done for it.” And I got through to see who’s just laughing at me. He said, “You stop talking through me.” He said, “You’re much one of us as we are.” And says, “This is the work God has given you.” He says, “I want you to know that Methodist Church is big enough for you.”

He was so loving. And he just said, “Now, we have ways of having you do this work.” So the first year, he gave me an appointment as assistant pastor and a charge of 150 miles from where I live. And let me do the work of evangelism. Well, from then on, the Board of Evangelism had just received me. But they began, they had this great battle. Well, now, the temptation was, you see, to go around and try to prove in my own conference that these men were wrong and that I was right. Well, I thank God that He opened the door through their rejection to become an occasion to take me out of the conference. And so, I began to establish all these contacts out of the conference. And every year, I have to submit my report to the Board of Evangelism and I have to have a written report from a district superintendent and three men of preaching. And so, the Lord began to bless me and other churches and other conferences. And so, before I had the meetings, that’s where I’d write the letters of recommendation. And so, they began to get in these letters of recommendation. And you know, bless the Lord, I really am accepted with my whole brethren. And so acceptable, I feel like I’m backspinning.

But it’s amazing how the Lord uses these things if you’re not trying to prove anything. If you’re being persecuted for righteousness’ sake, then don’t try to fight that. Here’s the work of the cross. Carola Williams showed me this. She said, “Now,” she asked all of us in the group one. One says, “Let’s form the shape of the cross.” She says, “Now, suppose somebody else, someone would come up and slap you. If you’re going to stay on the cross, can you slap back? No, you have to come off the slap. What about somebody slings mud at you? You have to come off to sling mud back.” It’s a defenseless situation.

Are you on the cross? So you make up your mind, where can you look? You have to look up. That’s all. So you just hang on the cross, you see, looking up. And if anybody hits you, well, “Lord Jesus, You put me here. This is Your business. So I praise Your name that You’re working out Your purposes through it. Save me from the temptation of wanting to spit back on them.”

You see, you have an advantage for it on the cross. You’re an advantage for it, a part when it comes to spitting. But you have to turn your head down to do it. Are you at the advantage for it to pray? You’re living near heaven. And you have to lift your head up to do it. So you do have to make this choice about the cross, the way of the cross. Are you going to hold your head down or up? The opposition is the victorious way. And so you began to realize that He is within you. That He is governing your life. And that every occasion, every circumstance becomes an opportunity not to show how good you are, but to show how great He is. And you just begin to turn to Him and manifest. And this becomes the working order for the way of the cross as I see it. It is learning to overcome. Even as He has overcome for us and in us our hell with all heaven. Our weakness with nothing but life. Our weapon… You see, our warfare is spiritual. It’s not a warfare of the flesh. Our weapons are spiritual. They’re not carnal. And so this becomes a working order of the cross. It is learning to accept the spiritual weapons for your warfare.

And this is in the power of the Spirit. And that actually the way up is down as you seek to manifest the way of Jesus. Now, it’s not compromise. Let me say this. I think Jesus has told me this morning. I don’t know of anyone that talks any straighter than Jesus. Now, if you don’t believe that, read the gospel to any one of us. Now, He just talks right straight. He never apologizes for His span with man or with God. There’s nothing timid about Him. Don’t misunderstand or confuse meekness with humility. And don’t confuse humility with humiliation. Jesus refuses to be humiliated. And He doesn’t humiliate anyone. But He’s always humble. He always takes the low part because He knows that He’s always in charge. And when you’re in charge, you can afford to be a little injured, can’t you? Well, Jesus is in charge. He knows that. And so He doesn’t have to fight. He just speaks with authority. Like the light, He just shines. And this is the power that He gives us. So as a Christian, we don’t have to apologize for these experiences for we’re not defending ourselves. We just simply give the witness. If people don’t understand us, we don’t have to go around and try to prove to them that we’re right.

We just say, “Thank you for loving me if you can love me. And if I’ve got something that you can’t afford to take, pray for me. But this is the truth. And I’ll have to stand in it.” And so we start going this way. And at the same time, just because they reject us and close the door, we don’t close our doors. We do away with doors when we come in the door. The kingdom doesn’t have doors. It has doors. And we stand, you see, in the door. And it’s always the open door. And we go in and out and find pasture. And I find this to be a part of the cross for me. And I’m sure it is for you. Does this make sense?

I think I’ve talked enough. So whenever you find yourself becoming in your heart dejected and you want to really let that old spirit within your heart tell about what a martyr you are, you just realize that the Holy Spirit is never a spirit of self-pity. Never. There’s no self-pity in Him. No apology in Him. And the Lord won’t ever owe you a… He won’t ever say to you, “Well, my child, you sure did suffer from Me, and I owe you a lot. Come on up.” Well, He won’t ever say that. Whenever you get to heaven and you see things as they really are, the Lord won’t ever have to kneel at your feet and thank you for suffering so much for Him. We’ll be kneeling at His feet and say, “Hallelujah, thank You for the joy, thank You for the privilege. It looks hard sometimes, but You always brought me through beyond that which I expected. Glory to Your name, I’m indebted to You forever.” This to me becomes something of the way the Holy Spirit works out Calvary. Thank you. Thank you.