The Washerwoman Who Asked for a Cottage

The Washerwoman Who Asked for a Cottage

by Reginald (Reg) Goff

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

About this time in a camp, those who do counseling and those who are giving themselves to help others feel a great sense of compassion as the days come close to the end. And we still see so many, many hearts whose faces look out and say, “Help me.” And I feel this way tonight.

But let’s start on a little lighter vein than that. I never get over loving Bishop Cushman’s poems. I’m quite sure I use his poems more than all other poets together. I guess they speak to me, and I knew him personally, for he was my bishop for many years.

Oh, the sheer joy of it, living with Thee, God of tomorrow and Lord of a tree, maker of mountains and lover of me. Oh, the sheer joy of it, breathing Thine air. Morning is dawning, gone every care, all the world’s singing, God’s everywhere. Oh, the sheer joy of it, walking with Thee, out of the hilltops or down by the sea. Life is so wonderful, life is so free. Oh, the sheer joy of it, working with God and running His errands on common sod, building His heaven, seeing His nod. Oh, the sheer joy of it, ever to be living in glory, living with Thee, Lord of tomorrow and lover of me.

I got two lines mixed up there for those of you who know it by heart, but you will forgive me.

Just need you to see through tears. I want somehow tonight, not so much to tell you something as to lift up an ideal. Sometimes I think we can give instructions until we get bogged down. And we get to the point where we say, well, I don’t know what to do.

And sometimes we need to have lifted up for us an ideal so high that it once again challenges us to get out on the road and start to travel toward the peak. And I want to talk to you tonight on Spirit living. And I am meaning Holy Spirit living.

And I shall take for my first two thoughts part of Galatians 5, part of verse 1 and part of verse 25. “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” I am deeply convinced tonight, more so than ever in my life, that the great failure of the church and of Christians today is living far below what Jesus wants us to live. I believe this. I am convinced that most of our failures, most of our shortcomings, can be traced to the fact that we do not know the freedom that Jesus bought for us.

Now, a good many of you know what I am talking about, for we have been talking about this on the campus. The blessed Holy Spirit has been sent into the world to administer the kingdom of God on earth. And He came here to free us. And I suppose if there is one thing that has made my heart ache these days here in camp, it has been the amount of people that I have looked in your faces and prayed and wished somehow I had a key that I could just turn and somehow free the bondage of our thinking. Maybe the bondage of our sin. Maybe the bondage of our sin. But not so much, I do not believe, the bondage of sin in the sense of real outward sin. Of course, all is sin that is not of God.

What does Holy Spirit living do for us? Well, if the Holy Spirit is going to administer the kingdom of God on earth, then I would say the first thing I think that is really important in our freedom is that Christ frees us from false security.

If Christ sees enough in me to die for me, then I am of worth whether you think so or not. Isn’t that right? It doesn’t matter what you think about me. If Christ died for me, I am something of infinite worth.

If Jesus loves me that much. Now let me ask you some serious questions tonight. Whom do you depend on for your security? The boss at work? The social leader in your set? The balance in your bank account? Or the standing you have in your church? Which?

Let us put it bluntly. If Christ accepts me, no matter what I have done, then ultimately it doesn’t matter a bit what anybody thinks about me. My friend, this is freedom. Such as few people know in this world.

For what people think of us will send us into blues and discouragement in the twinkling of an eye. And of course that is very true in the teenage. All a girl has to do is just turn up her nose, and that’s it.

Or the leader in the football squad to ask another girl instead of you for a date. And it’s all… The world has tumbled. Crashed in midstream. Huh. It’s all gone to pieces. Now then, if you go back into that wonderful 11th chapter of Hebrews, which we call the Hall of Fame of the Bible, where it names from the beginning almost to the end of the Old Testament the great heroes, that great Hall of Fame, who lived by faith. These souls who were great in God’s eyes. By the way, if you’ll look at them, some of them weren’t too big in our standards.

Educationally, financially, socially, or any otherwise. But at the end of that chapter, there’s a phrase I want you to remember tonight. These people whom God placed in His Hall of Fame. Listen to this. And never forget it, you crawling worms that are afraid to look up and feel you are something. Listen to this. It says to these people, “of whom the world was not worthy.”

Get that. When God says you are something, you are big enough that the world isn’t worthy of you. Now, if you won’t. You can be free. Yes, you can. You can be utterly free from this false security when you find security in Jesus Christ. What do you depend on for security anyway? These false, fleeting, temporal standards of security?

Are you free tonight? The second thing I would like to say is that Christ frees us from the false standard or evaluation of progress. Getting somewhere. By all the world standard, Jesus progressed from nothing to nothing. Aren’t they world standards now? That’s right. From freedom to bondage. From life to death, that’s where He went. Isn’t it? That’s exactly where He progressed to. But in the eyes of God, Jesus progressed from an obedient servant to sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Which do you want? Take your choice.

And how you choose will depend the rest of your life. If we choose to break this bond of false security and false progress, evaluations, and to take God’s standards for us, “whom the Son sets free shall be free indeed.”

And no man or no woman knows how to walk with his face toward the sun, where the shadows have to fall behind you until you find this standard evaluation. And only Christ can do it. No one else. Now in God’s eyes, Jesus progressed from a servant to the King of Kings. In man’s eyes, He was perhaps a leader, a teacher, and then ignominiously was killed, a martyr. But where does God want us to serve? I wonder. It’s not so much for you and I to ask what the Church wants us to do, or how much we shall climb our progress in any way in the world at all, but where does Christ want me to serve? This is it.

I cannot progress like Jesus did unless I progress where He wants me to serve. That’s very simple, isn’t it? Almost too simple. I think of the three missionaries that are with us, and there are others too, more than that, but I’m thinking of the three young people especially. I bow to you tonight.

I would covet for myself the dedication you have. Yes, I would. To go out and give the best you have for nothing, and for those that have nothing, but for those for whom Jesus died. You are free from false standards. You are free from false evaluations of progress. You are walking with Jesus, and looking for His smile, and nothing else in all the world. I can’t help but think of the story of the dear old washerwoman, who lived way down on the alley, just scrubbed her hands almost bare to the bone, washing clothes for other people, and getting a few pennies. But she was always out making a cake for some poor sick person, or washing the sheets and blanket of some invalid. Or she was always out sitting beside somebody that needed help, and praying with them in her spare time. Spare time. And then she died one day, and nobody missed her very much. All those who wanted their clothes laundered had another laundered person. And the people who were sick missed her, and the world didn’t even know she had died. But when she got to heaven, an angel met her in beautiful white shining garments. And she welcomed her to the eternal city. And the dear old lady looked inside and saw the splendor such as no man had ever been able to paint word pictures to make it real to her.

And she was completely overawed by all that she saw. The angel, noticing what had happened, took her by the arm and said, “Come, let me show you the city of God.” Down through the street she went, with all of the grandeur that eyes have never seen, and ears have never heard about, and our imaginations have not even caught up with. And the dear little lady had enough of all the splendor. And she said to the angel, “Won’t you please take me to my cottage?” And so the angel said, “All right, if you are tired, we can go around some other day. We’ll go down to your place.” And they started down through the cottages, but they didn’t stop. And they went on through the medium-sized homes, palaces, and they didn’t stop. And the old lady realized that she was leaving the place where she wanted to stay. And she turned to the angel and said, “But angel, don’t I have a place here? Isn’t there a place for me?” And the angel smiled lovingly and reassuringly took her arm and pulled her forward. On down she went with the mansions becoming more beautiful and more grand every block. Until she came to a palace of extreme grandeur. And the angel paused and pointed to her as much, said, “This is yours.” And the little dear lady said, “But you mean some mystique?

I want to go way back to the little white picket fence back there, and just in a little two-room cottage. It will be good enough for me with a little lawn that’s all my own.” And the angel said to her, “Sister, that’s what we made for you one time. We knew you’d want it. But you just kept sending up such beautiful material, and in such quantities, we had to build a palace out of it.”

The evaluation of God is different than the evaluation of man, isn’t it? What do you want tonight? Has Christ really freed you from the sense of false pride? “By grace are you saved, and not of yourselves. It’s a gift of God.” How can anybody be proud of a gift?

How can anybody take any sense of pride to yourself if it’s something someone else gave to you? I went to Louise the other day, you can guess what it was. I wanted to get a good choice, so I was sneaky and got in the first day. The last cap I was with Louise, I was diligent and got in the last day and couldn’t find what I wanted. I didn’t miss the boat this time. I went and bought a gift for my wife, that I’ve been wanting for some years. My wife has too.

And as I took it home, I realized the fact that since I had paid the money, it was mine. Mine. Not my wife’s. Mine. But mine to give free to my wife. And I’m going to send her a bill a week later.

You see, I paid the price. I can give it to her free. And this is Christ. For the word agorazo in the Greek means literally to go into the marketplace of the world and to buy a gift. And to take it away. Jesus went in with His own precious blood and bought your life and your salvation. Why? So He could give it to you free.

Without money and without price. And nobody said amen. There are three things basic to Christianity, to a Christian life, Christian transformation. Briefly, they are repentance, conversion, and faith. And all three are the gift of God. Every one of them.

They are the gift of God. He bought them. He can give them to you free. This is Christ. Sometimes we don’t realize this. Some years ago, at our annual conference, one of the greatest names in Methodism, if I named his name, every Methodist that goes to church would know it without a… just as in a flat. Perhaps one of the most prolific writers of all the years of Methodism, except John Wesley. And he came to our conference as a conference speaker. But somehow, he just didn’t seem to click with our Western people. Perhaps it was too high-brow. I don’t know. Or we were too ignorant. But the first night, he had a great crowd. The second night, it was less. The third night, it was less. And the fourth night, when he came in and saw the crowd so small, he refused to give his sermon. He said, “That sermon is too good to give to a crowd like that.”

One of the greatest men in Methodism. Was he? I wonder. I wonder if he was the greatest man in Methodism. The very fact that he was a Christian and a minister was a gift and a call from God. I was in that great Yongnak Church in Seoul, Korea, at a great conference there. And I had gone into the back behind the stage to pray for the man that was going to speak that morning. He wasn’t a Methodist. But he was a great man too. The editor of a great Christian magazine. Many of you would know it if I mentioned it. And he came in before the service, about five minutes before he was supposed to speak. Three thousand people sitting out there waiting on edge to hear this great man speak. He would come all the way from America. And he turned and said to one of the Korean men, “Where’s my interpreter?” And they started naming a man standing right there waiting. The top interpreter. And this man flew into a rage. Because Dr. Hahn, who is, I think, the world’s greatest linguist, Dr. Hahn had been assigned to me that day instead of to him. And this man refused to speak.

And walked out of the platform, went out of the church. And I had to jump in there and go ahead and preach. And yet he was supposed to be great. I wonder. False pride. Has Christ freed you from false pride? Oh, you’re not maybe one of the… Let’s get back down where we live. Huh. This is going to hurt. Get your cotton bat note and rub it in your ears.

I have seen leaders of prayer groups who had it for 25 years. And somehow got displaced. And were angry ever after. They never went back to the church. They’d been leaders for 25 years. And now they were asked not to. I wonder. I wonder about it. Have you ever been like that? Huh. Nobody here, of course. They’re all until back home.

When the Spirit of Christ comes in and sets us free, those things are gone. They’re gone. False pride. And so the Spirit of Jesus frees us from false pride. Now I’m getting a pretty nice person built up here, man. Huh. Pretty nice personality here. All this and other rare things are the work of the indwelling, not outside, but the indwelling Holy Spirit, who teaches you all things. For to walk in the Spirit is like a declaration of independence within God’s grace. And love. For what we cannot do, when we would do good and cannot, the blessed Holy Spirit enables us. Like Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Not myself. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Now to walk in the Spirit is to live in divine creativity. And this is one of the things that just thrills me. You don’t become a mugwump or a fish worm or a catfish or some other sluggish animal or fish. You don’t become nothing because you give yourself to God. And because God takes over. And because God begins to root in your life. The most creative persons I know in this world are created in the Spirit.

To whom all things have become new. Nothing is left as it was. Everything has. This is the end of all drudgery. Oh, thank God. It’s the end of all monotony. It’s the end of wanting to be like someone else. But why do you want to be like somebody else? For heaven’s sakes. When the Holy Spirit is creating a new being in you. Such as never was anywhere in the world before. And God’s plan for you. I don’t know anything that thrills me as much as that. The end to boredom. The end to aimlessness. To live in the Spirit then is to actually be empowered by divine creativity. That makes you alive such as you have never known anything in your whole life. It’s the end of envy of others. It enables us to walk as a child of God. Old things passing away and every day… Oh, I love this. Every day is new.

And that is literally true. And I am experiencing that in my own life as you know. This is literally to walk on tiptoe. Did you ever walk on tiptoe? Well, you wouldn’t have any broken arches if you did. These people walk along flat footed, you know, with all their weight going right down their arches, you know, and just smashing them down. Pretty soon they can’t walk up if they want to. But these people walk on tiptoe with their face toward the sun. The Holy Spirit living within them and giving them such a freedom as they’ve never known. They’re not bound by conventionality. They’re not bound by what someone else rules someone else’s means. They’re not bound by tradition unless it is good and in God’s will. They are free in the Spirit. To live in the Spirit then is to live also a divinely ordered life. Oh, wouldn’t you like that? If somebody doesn’t say amen, I’m going to bust my belt. All right.

To live in the Spirit is to have a divinely ordered life. Now, my friends, if you want somebody to take the strain off your back, as George Hale says, some of you know him, to take the monkey off your back, then you have to live a divinely ordered life where joy and peace and the glory of His presence is not in eternity but here and now. Now, I believe in pie in the sky after I die, but I’m going to slice a few up right here. Aren’t you? I’m not going to wait for heaven, for all of that. A divinely ordered life. Listen to this. Why, way back in the Old Testament they knew this, and we don’t know it today. We aren’t so smart. “The steps of a good man are ordered…” By the committee? Oh, no. By the church? No. By society? No. The steps of a good man are ordered of whom? The Lord. “Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him. And He shall bring it to pass.” And what? Now, say amen. You want to say it for me? Say it for yourself. “My word shall be a lamp unto your feet, and a light unto your feet.” What more do we want? I don’t know. Frankly. A divinely ordered life brings all of life into a proper focus.

We’ve talked again and again, and in prayer, if there’s anything else until you’re almost tired, but perhaps, about using the magnifying glass and burning paper by bringing the rays to a focus. A divinely appointed life brings all of life’s powers to a focus until you become the most powerful, dynamic person in your group. And the more ordered you are of God, the more divinely ordered you become, the stronger will be the focus and the greater will be the power of your life. If you want power, my friends, quit trying to find it by reading books and talking to people. But let the Holy Spirit take all the powers and the gifts and the talents and the drives and the hungers of your life and begin to focus them on what God wants.

This is what we need to do. This is glory. This really is glory. No more flying off in all directions. No more divided allegiance for the world today and for God tomorrow, for self today and for others tomorrow. Not at all. The poet knew what it was when they talked about walking in the light. “Walk in the light, and so shalt thou know the fellowship of love His Spirit only can bestow, who reigns in light above. Walk in the light, and thou shalt find thy heart made truly His.” You want to be Jesus’ man, you want to be God’s woman? “Walk in the light, and thou shalt find thine heart truly made His, who dwells in cloudless light enshrined and whom no darkness is.” How could you walk in darkness if you’re walking with Him and He’s all light? You get that. “Walk in the light, and thou shalt own thy darkest past away, because that light hath only shone in which is perfect day. Walk in the light, and thine shall be a path, though thorny, bright, for God by grace shall dwell in thee, and God Himself is light.” Bernard Barton.

This is it. Now then. If you live, then, a divinely ordered life, you will walk a life of light. Not of darkness, but of light. How is this accomplished? And I would say it’s so simple that we can’t see it. If the truth shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. And what is the truth? God’s Word.

God’s Word. Whether it is spoken directly to you through the influence of the Holy Spirit, or whether it comes from the Word of God, the printed page. All truths of God. The Bible. God’s truth for us becomes a rule by which we live. We run to the Bible for our answers and tell of people. We run to God’s Word for our help when we do not know which way to go. And when we want strength, we feed upon His Word, the bread of life. It becomes the rule by which all decisions of life are made. All beliefs about God and Christ are accepted or turned aside. A multitude of sincere church people in our churches today know almost nothing about the basic, simple Christian doctrines. They know nothing about what the church has taught about God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. They know very little about what the church has taught about man or what the Bible has taught. These simple doctrines. And this is why it’s so easy today for small little brains who don’t know what God has said to the Bible to run off on all kinds of tangents that are contrary to the Bible and think they’re truth. And why one person will find one glorious little truth and make a whole Bible out of it.

Make all the religion and all the Christianity out of one little tiny truth. My friends, this is not freedom. This is bondage. They claim it’s freedom, but it’s not. This is bondage. But the Comforter, Jesus said, and listen again, if the Master now speaks, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things and bring to remembrance all things whatsoever I have said unto you.” By the way, I’ve been having the most glorious experience for about two years now reading the Bible, that whole book. I have. And I have read the Bible, studied the Bible, was educated on the Bible, went to a school, taught the Bible, and all these things. And I never knew the Bible, how it could speak until about two years ago. And I’ve been a pastor 30 years. God helped the people that I preached to.

But God has forgiven me for that, so I can laugh about it. It’s forgiven, you see. And someone said that when God forgives, He casts into the sea of forgetfulness, and then He puts up a sign, “No fishing.”

I’ve talked to a lot of people here that claim that they’ve confessed these to God, and are still fishing the stuff out. And you know, anything is worse after it’s been brown a few hours. It’s worse afterwards than when you put it in. It kind of gets you known. I won’t mention it.

I have been reading the Scripture and asking the Holy Spirit to tell me what it means. And I have had some of the most glorious experiences. Why, if you’d see me sometimes about 4:30 in the morning on the back porch in my home, you’d think I was a nut. I am.

You know, the fellow went to the psychiatrist and said, “I’ve got a terrible inferiority complex. Can you help me out?” Worked on it for weeks and weeks, and finally the psychiatrist said, “Well, no. I think we ought not to bother coming back anymore.” And the man said, “Well, why?” He said, “I’m not healthy.” “Well,” he said, “the trouble is that you really are inferior.”

I am a nut for Jesus. I was reading my Bible before the sun came up, a long time before the sun came up. And I was reading the Scripture which says, “Take my yoke upon you.” And I stopped and paused and I said to the Holy Spirit, “What does that mean?” Now, I don’t like a yoke. I’ve seen yoke. Great, big, heavy thing that takes two oxen to carry. Take a man to lift one end of it to put it on. Who wants a yoke on their neck? Bad enough to have your wife on your neck. Let alone a yoke, isn’t it? Or your husband. But you know what God said to me? I’ll never forget this. The Holy Spirit said to me, “Well, now, what is a yoke for?” I never thought of that. And then He said to me, as sweetly and as clearly as could be, “A yoke is to cut the burden in half.”

Somebody say amen. You can’t get half but get half your burden gone? “Take my yoke upon you.” That’s why I can say the burden is light, because He’s taken half. Now, wouldn’t it be lighter if His half was gone? Let’s face it. And then I sat there and the Holy Spirit said, the Holy Spirit just talked to me. Oh, I had such a tremendous time. He said to me, “By the way, when you put a yoke on, remember who’s in the other half of the yoke.” Who is it? Jesus. And then He said, “By the way, if you have that yoke on, you can’t get ahead of Jesus. You can’t get behind Him and you can’t go where He ain’t going.”

I want a yoke, don’t you? I never wanted it before, but I want it now. I didn’t want it before. I shunned it. So I saw the reality. I was reading one day again, and I read this scripture, you know, that “hitherto you have asked me nothing. Ask.” And I said, “What? Thirty years of preaching and I’ve never asked anything?” And the Bible said, “Hitherto you have asked nothing.” Now that’s silly, isn’t it? I’ve been praying all my life. “Hitherto you have asked nothing.” And I said, “Jesus,” or “Holy Spirit,” I said, “Jesus, are You saying to me that up till this time I really haven’t asked for anything?”

And then He said this. Read the rest. And I went on reading, “Ask and you shall receive.” Why? Come on, somebody. Why don’t you read your Bible? Somebody way back here has, “that your joy may be,” what? And nobody said amen?

They’d like to wind you up. “Ask that you may receive, that your joy may be full.” Now, where do the long-faced Christians come into? You’re not Jesus, children, if you’re long-faced. He says, “Ask big enough so you can receive enough that you can have a big time when you get it.”

And then they say, “I don’t believe you ought to ask for things for yourself.” Now, my friend, “ask that you may receive.” Why? “That your joy may be full.” This, my friend, is the abundant life. Now, the last thing I want to say, and I could go on forever on this. This Spirit living and Spirit life will be, without any exception, no exceptions, a life of prayer.

That is one sure thing. May I say something that hurts me just as much as hurts you? Your Christian experience tonight and mine is the exact relationship to the amount you pray. And pray right, of course. The thermometer of your prayer life will be the gauge and the temperature of your life and your witness. Now, if some of you people are like I was. For 20 years a pastor, I prayed when somebody died. I prayed in the hospital when they’re sick. Don’t know why. Didn’t expect any miracles. But I prayed. I was supposed to. I prayed on Sunday morning. A preacher’s paid to do that. And I prayed whenever at Boy Scout meetings I got up and prayed. I prayed whenever I was supposed to. I prayed at night before I went to bed. I was taught that by my mother. Never forgotten. But I knew almost nothing about praying because I wanted to get close to God.

Duty, form, pattern, need, all of those. But not out of love. Not out of love. We ought to pray. Yes, all of us feel that. But how many of us are willing to pay the price for a prayer life? Now, a devout prayer life does many things to you. And I have written down seven. And I’ll just briefly mention them. Won’t be seven sermons. First of all, it keeps us in union with Jesus. Now, we sing about these things and get happy doing it. But how many of us have it when we get away from the song service? Second, it helps us to know God’s priorities in life.

What is really important today… Now, listen, my friend. I am coming to the conclusion for myself at least. I can’t say it for you. But I am coming to the conclusion for myself that I don’t even know what to pray for unless I ask the Holy Spirit to tell me what to pray for.

And I want to say something else on that point and then leave it. If you ever learn to pray in the Spirit, when God actually multiplies your powers and your spirit sense, that sensitivity, when God actually reaches out and brings you into union with Him, so that the very thoughts of God pour into you and out in prayer, my friends, there is nothing greater that we can know. The first time my wife had this happen to her about eight months ago, she called me long distance all the way across the continent to tell me about it. She’s been a Christian too for nearly 40 years.

I wonder how many of you have ever known the Holy Spirit to pray through you. My wife and I pray this way whenever we get our home at all together and when we can, and when there isn’t somebody around that we’re trying to help them, which is often the case. My wife and I lie in bed, perfectly quiet and relaxed and silent, and say, “Holy Spirit, who is in need of prayer tonight?” Not tomorrow. And we don’t think of our aunts and uncles and all the rest of them need prayer. We lie there perfectly quiet and do like Rosalind Rinker has taught us to pray, to pray conversationally. Either one of us will pray whenever we want to. We never end the prayer, never say amen. You just leave an open-end prayer. Another person, when you stop and pause, if they want to pray, they pray. If you want to pray twice, you pray twice. Whoever feels that God has somebody to pray for, they pray and the other person upholds them in prayer and pinpoints their prayer with that. It’s one of the most glorious experiences man and wife can have in this world. And when we get started at it, sometimes it’s midnight before anybody wants to go to sleep. Praying in the Spirit.

I have a friend. Well, he’s not a friend. He’s one of my partners in Prayer Unlimited. He had… He’s a treasurer. I love Campbell. I hate to tell you this, but he’s an Episcopalian. Working for a Methodist for nothing. But that’s the way to get him in. But anyway, this man has been doing this too for our staff and the people on Prayer Unlimited. Tried to keep each other informed of what we’re doing and grow together. And he called me on the phone the other day and told me this remarkable story. He said, “I’ve been praying in the Spirit. And as I prayed, the name of John Smith…” That isn’t the real name. “John Smith came into my mind. I had nobody I knew of John Smith. None of my relatives, none among my acquaintance, none among my business associates. But I said, ‘Lord, You gave me the name.’” And he prayed. And he felt a great sense of compassion over him. And oh, how he poured out his spirit for an unknown person, John Smith. Less than four days, and about the fourth day I think it was, after that, reading the newspaper, he saw the story of John Smith who almost died in a car wreck. The very day. And was in the hospital unconscious when God brought that name to him.

That man recovered remarkably. The doctors couldn’t understand why. A man will never know, perhaps. But Ilo Campbell knows. Praying in the Spirit. God knows where there’s need. God knows what country needs prayer for. God knows what person needs prayer. God knows what one of your relatives is near to the kingdom and ready to step in if they had a little extra help. You don’t. And if we’ll pray in the Spirit, I think we could, with less prayer, have tenfold times the results of our prayer life. God knows what we should pray for. So it helps us to know God’s priorities in life or in prayer. Prayer, it helps us to know what God wants us to pray for. I just gave that. Number four. It constantly lets the Holy Spirit show us His intent for our own life. And I suppose I’ve had a dozen people come to me on this campus and say, “But I don’t know what God wants me to do.” My friend, this is the answer.

“If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally and upbraideth not.” Doesn’t make any fun of you because of your ignorance. This is the promise of God. Five. It empowers us to seek and gain new and higher ideals step by step by step, forever and forever, up toward the kingdom of God. Sixth. It frees us from ourselves. And wouldn’t you like to have that happen to you?

I say amen, too. For me, I mean. Our self-anxieties. Our self-demands. Our self-interests. These things that devil us and keep us from our best and push their way and rob us of our powers and of our strength and our joy and our vitality. Prayer then frees us from self and makes us, allows us to be God-centered. And number seven. Prayer enables us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, knowing full well on God’s promise that all the necessities of life shall be added to us without us going out and fighting for them. Jesus promised that again, our Lord. To be freed from self and bound to God is true freedom.

Make me a captive, Lord. Then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword, and I shall conqueror be. I sink in life’s alarm and by myself I stand, imprisoned with Thine mighty arms. Then strong shall be Thy hand. My heart is weak and poor until its master finds. It has no spring of action, sure. It varies with the wind. It cannot freely move till Thou hast wrought its chains. Enslave it with Thy mighty love, and then deathless shall I reign. Oh, hallelujah. My power is faint and low till I have learned to serve. It wants the needed fire to glow. It wants the breeze to nerve. It cannot drive the world until itself is driven. Its flag can only be unfurled when Thou hast breathed from heaven. My will is not my own till Thou hast made it Thine. If it would reach the monarch’s throne, it must its crown resign. It only stands unbent amid the clashing strife. Till on Thy bosom it has leant and found in Thee its life. And may I read the first few lines again. So, make me a captive, Lord. And I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword. And I shall conqueror be. To be freed from self and bound to God is the greatest thing that man was made for.

This is it, the Lord would say on the street. This is it. I am hoping tonight that somehow these things just lifted up without much content, skeleton without much bones, will do something to us as we prepare ourselves for communion.

I would hope that taking these thoughts and taking the Lord’s Supper tonight could become truly a new beginning for you and for me. And that as we take the bread and the wine, symbols of His body and His life, that somehow it would be death to sin and life to resurrection to new life. And that somehow we would see Christ upon the cross. Yes, I didn’t like that picture when I came in tonight. I imagine you had the same feeling as you looked at it first. In fact, the matter is, I think I would rather not have it there. If the person hadn’t been a wise one and used the word over there under the cross that is there. But when my eyes left the picture of agony and sorrow and turned to the empty cross and saw the word love, then my heart could look at this with rejoicing and not pain. I have no suffering to come. He has paid the price. Bought with a price. Of a value yet untold. Not of silver and gold, I should say. Now then, realizing the symbols that we are going to take in a few moments. Realizing that Christ actually means what He says. “This is my body broken for you.”

If it ever became personal, let it become personal tonight. “This is my blood.” And without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. This is the door to forgiveness. And as you partake of the wine, and as it trickles down your throat tonight, and enters your body into your bloodstream, may it actually be a forgiving power. More and more I am seeing that there is healing in the Lord’s table.

Jesus paid for our infirmities upon the cross. “By His stripes, we are healed,” the Scriptures tell us. I feel tonight, I don’t know who I’m talking to, but I feel tonight, that there are numbers here who have physical disabilities. That if you will accept the forgiveness of Christ, and let it go deep into your heart tonight. As you partake of the wine, and eat of the bread, that something marvelous will happen to you. I believe this with all my heart tonight.

I’m not saying this because I planned that it isn’t in my notes. I believe God is saying it through my lips to you tonight. There is healing at the table tonight for you. Without money, without price, bought with a gift of value yet untold. The love of Jesus.

May I just say this, and please don’t take it too harshly. Don’t make a mockery of the communion tonight. Don’t go and partake of those precious elements with hatred in your heart. Unforgiven sin in your life. Resentment you won’t give up.

Wrong ambitions and desires that you’re fostering and holding deep in your heart. As you meditate before you go, as the organ is played, I hope that somehow the Holy Spirit will be closer to you than He’s ever been in all His life.

I hope you’ll hear the rustling of the seamless robe. If you are an invalid, if you are sick, all you have to do is reach out and touch the hem of the garment. And you shall be whole. I believe this with all my heart.