Dennis Gillett - Bible Men The Way They Were - Class 6 - John - Fearless and Faithful

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1. 0:00

   We’re now ready for our first class of the morning and we’ll be calling upon our brother Dennis Gillett to deliver the 6th class in his series on Bible Men. The way they were entitled, John, Fearless and Faithful. As an introductory reading, we’ll be reading from Mark chapter 6, commencing at verse 14 and reading through to verse 29. Good morning, everyone.

2. 0:47

   As a beginning this morning I make a RE proposition that is something we’ve already pondered earlier this week, that is. That when you are trying to see the characters of Bible men and to see them the way they were, it is sometimes profitable to discover their characters in observing the way they live and act in their relationship to other people.

3. 1:16

   Now I think we found this to be true, or I tried to do it in respect of Nehemiah. Another good example in the Bible, of course, is Pontius Pilate. It was through his contact with the man of Nazareth that we were able to measure his character. I dare say without that contact he would have been a non entity and we should never have heard of him. But because of it his name has been proclaimed all then the ages.

4. 1:44

   From millions of lips he suffered under Pontius Pilate and apart from that he would not have been known well. This is just an example. Men are sometimes revealed in their relationship with other people. And this is the process I’d like to follow today about John the Baptist to watch the development, the revelation of his character in his relationship with first of all the Pharisees and then with King Herod.

5. 2:17

   We are to try to examine this process in this man, the son of Zacharias. Now it seems to me that the life of John can be divided into 3 distinct periods. The 1st is that part of his life which is described in Luke One verse 18 as he was in the desert, still is showing unto Israel that period as you know lasted 30 years.

6. 2:43

   He was in the wilderness, seeking God by the heart, without the aid of rituals and creeds, away from the infallibility of the rabbis and away from the controversies of Judaism and the life of Jerusalem. So that was the first period about which we know nothing. The second period is shorter. It comprises a few months of his public ministry. He was now ready to be the herald of the one who was to come shortly afterwards, and who was to baptize with spirit. He’d learned this John in the desert, that reality lies at the root of all true religious life.

7. 3:22

   And so to a nation of formalists he came preaching this one thing that they must be real. He said bring forth roots meat for repentance. That’s in Matthew 3, verse 8. Personal reformation is the preparation for the Kingdom of God. This was His Clarion call. Let each man be true. Let each man do his duty.

8. 3:47

   Let the rich give to those who are not rich. Let Republicans accuse no man falsely. Let the soldier be content with his wages, the reality of serving God. This was his message. Change yourselves, he was saying, or you will have no Kingdom at all. And he delivered his message manfully, as you know. And it’s just, his success was astonishing, even to himself. He was a burning and a shining light. That’s how the record describes him. It’s sometimes easy to shine.

9. 4:20

   It’s more difficult to burn. And he burned his way into the hearts of the Israelites and the the desert swarmed with crowds. And the formalist was no longer satisfied with his formalism. And the infidel was unable to rest any longer upon his infidelity. And when John saw the Pharisees coming to him for baptism, he, even John, was astonished.

10. 4:43

    He cried, Who had warned ye to flee from the wrath to come, The qualities which he had learned, and those things which he had nursed in the desert through him became known to the world. And I sense as I read the record that men felt that the greater than themselves was among them. They felt somehow that he was a great prophet. The world around him was moved with admiration. Now this was the trial, the first trial which John had to endure, and he he endured it uninjured the trial of admiration, even indeed, as the Messiah did later on. But of course, the great trial is yet to come, as we shall notice later on.

11. 5:27

    But let’s think a little bit more about the success which attended. John Baptist ministry, it says they went out, they went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized by him in Jordan, confessing their sins. That means that all kinds of people came to John and they came to him with one malady. The aching of the hollow heart waited with sin, and when they were baptized.

12. 5:57

    The man who bent over them was a solitary man who had LED a hermit’s life, a man of spare diet, a man of austere habits, a man of composure, A stern man, a man who had been in lonely place, who is the most high God. A prophet indeed, And though he was a hermit, he took no half view of men and sins.

13. 6:20

    There was nothing morbid in his way of life. There was a sanctified common sense in the advice he gave to the different classes of people as we have remembered. Repent with him didn’t mean come with me into the wilderness and live a solitary life away from the world. Didn’t mean that Repent with him meant go back to the world and live above it, each man doing his worldly duty in an unworldly spirit. In a sense, when you think about it, it’s a remarkable thing. It’s a strange thing.

14. 6:58

    Men of the world coming with implicit reverence to learn the true duty of life. Men who were engaged in an active vibe in a busy world. Coming to a man whose world was the desert, who knew nothing of active life except my hearsay. Men from the metropolitan life of Jerusalem coming to this hermit to learn the secret of living.

15. 7:32

    That was a strange thing, and the secret of his power seems to be to me that men in their deepest heart knew that John was real. You see, in the long run, brother and sisters, reality is the secret of all. Success and religion in Jerusalem had come to be a thing of formalism. Men had settled into a a routine of formal, external things. And really it was these things that form the substance of Jewish religion at that time.

16. 8:08

    And the truth is, it’s no good. It never satisfies. It’s an empty thing. Men will sense, sooner or later, that true religion is not to be found in the mere performance of external things, nor in the keeping of mere keeping of rules, nor in the abstemious refusal of certain vices, nor in the punctilious performance of certain virtues.

17. 8:38

    Not this. This is an expression, of course, but men sooner or later are driven to realize that. There is something deeper than this. It’s the hidden things of the Spirit, the hunger for the truly spiritual life which satisfies that and nothing else. Now you see, John Baptist brought this kind of faith to tell them that all we see now really is but a shadow, and that the invisible life of the Spirit within is is the real life.

18. 9:15

    And this man had seen the glory of God in the desert, and he’d done it, and seen it without the aid of any formality, without the aid of any external religion. And as I read it, it seems to me the people sensed it. This is what they understood. They knew that they could not go to him as they they could to the rabbis for some learned subtlety. They get no subtlety from John Baptist Cliff. They wanted sophistry.

19. 9:45

    They get none of that from John Baptist. They knew that his words were real, and his words touched them deeply. They were incisive repentance, spoke of wrath to Tom. The axis laid to the root of the tree, he said, and he said, fruitful tree, fruitless trees will be cast into the fire. And he spoke.

20. 10:14

    As a man who spoke earnestly, they may not have liked it, but they could not escape its realism, and they felt, I think, that John was true. Say what you will, John was true. Indeed, in a way this is the test which is applied to all, I think, who listen to preachers. In the end, this is the test. The acid test.

21. 10:46

    You may think that that men apply to people like ourselves. Is this man true? Is he, you know, this, this preacher, wherever he is now? This is the one of the this is one of the secrets of a preacher’s influence.

22. 11:07

    And then there is another thing to be noticed. John’s reaction to his success? We read of the soldiers and the publicans and the poor coming to you and he was not surprised and you can understand why. No wonder the poor of this world should look wistfully for salvation. No wonder that soldiers with their prompt habit of obedience and and self devotion should recognise and reverence that the type of heroic life to which John was calling men.

23. 11:39

    No wonder that the guilty publicans would come for purification of heart. He was not surprised that these people came to him, he was. He was surprised about these other two classes which we’ve remembered that moved towards John and this made him marvel. The first of course was the self satisfied formalist, the Pharisee, and the second was.

24. 12:06

    The calm, reasoning infidel, the Sadducee. And when he saw the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming, he was astonished. Now consider these two classes for just a moment. The Pharisees were men who were satisfied with that which is outward. Let me just detain you for a moment to say I know that the fantasies began at the highest level.

25. 12:31

    I know that. And they began in the days when Israel were exposed to the influences of the Greek culture and they stood for the defence of the faith. I know that they were then into that society, what the Puritans were to English society in the days of the Pilgrim fathers.

26. 12:52

    They stood for purity of the faith at the time when the faith was assaulted by all wronged forces. I know that. But like so many other things, they started well and ended bad. And in the day of Jesus they had come to be, as we’ve already remembered, a group of formalists only satisfied with that which was outward the inner heart of religion, the things which are unchangeable, justice and mercy and truth. They could not feel.

27. 13:24

    Their souls had shrunk, as it were, from from this true religion, nobleness and goodness and truth. But drained away from their hearts until they were withered and barren men, for instance, they could jangle about the length of a phylactic. They could discuss. They could discuss ties, as that was a matter of life and death.

28. 13:50

    They could argue to a furlong about how far the man may travel on the Sabbath day, but they couldn’t look with mercy upon a broken and contrite heart. Seeking divine forgiveness in the temple, they could not suffer a hungry man to rob out an ear of corn on the Sabbath. They could not cover the shame of some daughter of Israel who fell from a high heritage and was caught in the very act of sin.

29. 14:16

    Men from whose narrow hearts the grandeur of God’s truth had disappeared. I’d become shut out now. These men came to John Baptist. And the Sadducees? They came, and in a way, they’re at the other end of the pendulum swing there. At the other end of the spectrum, they despise the exclusiveness and the formalism of the Pharisees religion. They regarded it as superstitious. It was, for them, ultra strict and consequently they reacted against it strongly.

30. 14:56

    But as is often the case, as you know, the reaction from one thing is to go to the other extreme. The reaction in this case from superstition was infidelity, and the action from ultra strictness was laxity. The reaction from the piracy was the seduce and unbelievable who admitted neither spirit nor Resurrection, nor Angel.

31. 15:23

    Who had looked at the religion of his day, and despising it, and despising it, thinking there was no other with dreadful daring, had said, there is no other life than this life. And so they lived in accordance with that philosophy, the cold, hopeless, barren creed of seducism. Now both these groups came to John.

32. 15:53

    And John Marvel. And from this brother and sisters we may learn a lesson. And it’s this that formalism, even morality, will not really satisfy truly the man who is seeking God. Nor will infidelity give any rest of the hungry and troubled spirit the formalist’s heart, which is so pure according to himself. Perhaps, after all, is not. Perhaps after all it’s polluted and miserable. Else, why are these Pharisees coming to John for a symbol of a new life?

33. 16:31

    Why are they coming, these men who know everything and have every answer and have discovered the right way of life? But in God’s name, why are they coming to this lonely prophet

34. 16:45

    and the skeptic who reached his conclusions by such clear, unbiased intellect? Perhaps, after all, it’s not so clear. And perhaps, after all, it’s not so unbiased. Perhaps his heart is restless and dark and desolate. Else, why is he coming to stand trembling on the brink of the River Jordan? Why, if they’re so satisfied, why are they coming?

35. 17:11

    So the lesson we must learn, brethren and sisters, is this. And you can learn it here, if you will. There is no real joy. And there is no real satisfaction and there is no real peace apart from the truth. That’s the thing you ought to learn. You’ve learned it, of course. But relearn it, my comrades.

36. 17:33

    Relearn it. These men are telling us, as it seems to me. These men we are looking at today, they are telling us as they wait there on the Bank of John’s river. They are saying it is a lie. It is a lie. We are not happy. We are. We are dark and hopeless and miserable. You men of America, you women of America. We are not happy in our formalism. We are not happy in our intellectualism and our scepticism.

37. 18:04

    There is no joy, there is no satisfaction. We are miserable and that’s why we are coming to this great prophet. And there is no rest in the world, you see, which will satisfy us, except the rest which God has provided. And there is no refuge in the world which we may come to accept the refuge which God has provided. And that refuge is in Christ Jesus our Saviour, manifested the manifested love of God in him life without the truth. Ponder it sometime.

38. 18:41

    You are always pondering it, perhaps in this age. Think what life would be without the truth, and I believe you would be as miserable as these Pharisees of these Sadducees.

39. 18:54

    The message of John is not vengeance. It is, behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And that means a heart which is renewed, a loving heart, a penitent heart, a humble heart. It means their sins forgotten, cleansed. It is repentance unto a new life, and you know it.

40. 19:16

    Well, that, in case you’ve forgotten it, was just a little review of the second period of John’s life, his contact with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now let’s come to the third period of his life when he leaves the desert and goes to the city when he quitted the simple life and finds the artificial life. You know the facts well.

41. 19:47

    John has won the attention of King Herod, and now he stands in the magnificence of the court of Herod. But we ought to notice one thing First of all, he is still the prophet of the wilderness. He is unseduced by the glory and the favours of royalty. He is prepared to confront even his patron and his Prince with the stern, unpalatable truth of God. And there’s a lot to be learned from a scene such as this. In a way, I suppose it it is really the highest moment of John Baptist’s ministry.

42. 20:31

    It is comparable in form, though not in degree, with the agony of Jesus in the garden. John spoke the truth unflinchingly. That’s why we called him faithful and fearless. He spoke the truth unflinchingly. Now this is what I want you to think about the meaning of that you see to lecture to those who are weak about religion is not hard.

43. 21:05

    To speak upon worldliness. To those with whom we do not usually associate, and therefore do not see our daily inconsistencies is not hard. To speak contemptuously of the world when we have no power, of commanding its admiration. It’s not difficult to speak of. Separating ourselves from riches when there is no possibility of ever being wealthy, is not hard.

44. 21:34

    I know this. I know all about this. I know you can Thunder against sin when nobody knows about your private life. It’s when somebody does that you tend to be careful what you say. No, these things are not difficult. But when a man receives powers and accomplishments and opportunities which would enable him to rise and shine in society, when a man may receive the very highest estimation of human glory and yet still remain himself, he’ll be the same man, firm and steady and uncompromisingly true. When he can be as undaunted before kings as he is before peasants.

45. 22:30

    When rank and fashion cannot subdue him into silence, when he hates model evil as sternly as a king as he does in the poorest commoner, then I tell you, there’s a mark of truth about such a man. Now you can think of John. Then, when he stands before Herod to deliver his rebuke.

46. 22:53

    We’ve read about it. You can think of John in that situation. Now I I want to try and imagine for you the kind of advice that he would be receiving. Imagine the advice he is going to confront his king with this unpalatable challenge of the truth. And as he is ready to go, think of the advice that he would be getting. John, whatever you do, keep your remarks within the limit of politeness.

47. 23:34

    John, if you cannot approve, better say nothing. You’ll do no good by finding fault. That’s the kind of advice he would receive. And we can imagine also what John would think of this, because he goes, he goes, and he simply says to the king, it is not lawful for you to have this woman.

48. 24:09

    It is not lawful. It is evil. That’s what he said. Now that I mean, he said it plainly. I he said it politely, I’ve no doubt, but he said it plainly. There was no cashew history, no sophistry. See, I I’ve known some men, I’ve met some men, and they are they are capable of using certain subtle approaches which have a way of excusing those who they’ve come to rebuke. Have you noticed in the very rebuke they provided the excuses?

49. 24:48

    Have you seen it? Now? John was not one of these. As Jesus said. He was no Reed shaken by the wind. He does not, for instance, go to the King and say, well now, Your Majesty, it would be better to do something different. It it would be better for the situation.

50. 25:13

    He doesn’t go and say it would be unprofitable for your own happiness to do this. It will not bring you happiness. Not saying that, he says plainly. It is wrong. It is wrong for you to do this evil thing. You see. As I said to you earlier in the week, in this in this world, earnest men don’t have time for these kind of subtlety.

51. 25:43

    If we dare not tell our patron of his sin, then we best give up his patronage. So that was John, fearless and faithful. And then there’s one other aspect of John’s character which I think we ought to remember in this scene. He does his hard duty without, it seems to me, as I read the passage anyway, he does it without any feeling or consciousness that he is being fine. There’s no there’s no sort of feeling that he’s saying to himself.

52. 26:21

    I am doing a great scene. I am doing a fine scene. There was no sidelong glance, as it were. It’s in a mirror of admiration for himself. He’s not looking sideways to see how well he’s doing. He’s not feeling, oh, this is brave.

53. 26:43

    His reproof, it seems to me, comes quite naturally out of an honest and an earnest heart. See, no, No man is conscious that he’s true when he no true man, at least, is is. Sort of constantly conscious that he’s true, he’s rather conscious of his insincerity. He’s often worried by his insincerity. No brave man is conscious of his bravery. I’ve noticed that very often bravery is done in in a condition of fearfulness.

54. 27:13

    Many a brave man is full of fear, and yet in spite of his fear, he does his duty. The skin of Moses face shone after he’d been with God, but Moses knew it. Not now. Honest men are like that.

55. 27:35

    I was thinking yesterday as I was just finally thinking what I would say to you today. I was thinking how I would, how I would have delivered the message of rebuke to Herod. You might like to think how you would have done it.

56. 27:55

    I fear there are some of us, and I I fear most that I won. Some of us would have prefaced the rebuke with a long speech. Too long, I’m sure. A long speech before we came to the point. We should have begun, no doubt. Perhaps I better not say we. Perhaps I better say I I should have begun with saying how difficult it was for such a poor man as I to speak to a great one that’s making the way a bit easy to start with. I would have said how delicate the subject was, how that we were.

57. 28:44

    What we were about to say was really proof of our devotion to the well-being of the King. After all, we were only thinking of him. I fear that’s what I would have had in my opening address. No, John does nothing like this. I am compelled to confess that in my deepest heart I know that sometimes long prefaces betray an anxiety about self more than anything else. But that was not John.

58. 29:22

    He was thinking of God’s offended law, and he was thinking of the King’s salvation. There is a sickly habit that we have sometimes of looking at ourselves to see how we are appearing, and when we do that, we are always truly unnatural. The facts are that John periled his life on the words that he spoke.

59. 29:45

    Not many men do it, but he did. He periled his life on the words that he spoke, and he did it politely. I mean, there is a there is a surly, bitter way of speaking the truth which says very little for a man’s heart. I know, I know, that some people are in their element when they can become censors of the great. When little men are able to criticize big men, they revel in it.

60. 30:18

    But this was not so. It was the earnest, loving nature of a man which made him say the stern things he had to say. It was he was a rugged true nature. But in that rugged true nature there was a depth of tenderness. For instance, consider how he received the news of his that his ministry has been superseded by the ministry of the Messiah. They came to him, and said, Rabbi, he to whom thou bearest witness beyond Jordan, baptized it, and all men come to him, two of his personal friends, apparently some of the last he had left him, and went to the new teacher. And what was the Prophet’s answer? Calmly, humbly, the great prophet recognizes his destiny. He said he must increase, but I must decrease, and he rejoices to be forgotten.

61. 31:17

    He rejoices to be nothing. He rejoices to disappear so that his king and his Lord can be everything you see, Brother sisters, we are really thinking today of one of God’s heroes. There is no doubt a rare man, The great man, the great prophet, and the true conqueror stand by the master as more than a prophet. The friend of the bridegroom rejoices, because he heareth the bridegroom’s voice, and this my joy is fulfilled. But today, and now reading we we we heard that it were almost in parenthesis of the sequel to his Faithfulness. Herod cast him into prison, that free spirit which had been in the wilderness, whose true home was in the open desert. Among the locusts in the wild, honey was confined within the dark walls of a dungeon, and Herod, driven on by the cumulative effect of cumulative effect of his first sin, commits his last grade actor folly and murders the prophet, the very man who had been sent for his salvation. In a way, the story of Joach

62. 32:48

    repeated, he kills the man who might have saved him. Strange it is there. Some men have one supreme opportunity to repent, and if it is spurned, it may not recur. As I said to you once before, I think this week Felix trembled when Paul spoke to him of judgement. That was Felix’s great opportunity.

63. 33:09

    He let it slip, and as far as we know, Paul didn’t make him tremble again. Strange it is, how one willful sin will by its consequences, though it perhaps be small at first, lead up, lead us on to greater and more heinous sins, almost against their own will. And this was the case with Herod. And David is another example.

64. 33:33

    And the converse is true. You see, thank God, that that that one act of righteousness, 1 refusal to sin, one overcoming of temptation, be it ever so small, will lead us on by its consequences to greater victories. Think of Daniel. He’s a good example. He was the young man sitting at the King’s table, but for conscience sake he refused the King’s meat.

65. 34:03

    Politely and and respectfully, he said he would not defile his body and his conscience. Now it may seem a very small thing about which one act of compromise might have been justifiable under the circumstances. A glass of wine? The eating of some dainty.

66. 34:25

    But because Daniel refused the King’s meat, in the end he had to face the King’s lions. But here is the principle. If he had not refused the King’s meat at the beginning, perhaps he would not have had the strength to refuse or to face the King’s lions at the end. You see, sometimes big doors turn on very small hinges. Perhaps if Herod had hearkened to John’s voice at first, he would never have murdered the man who would have been his salvation and would not have condemned at last even the Messiah himself.

67. 35:05

    Who knows? But so it is we read about it. The Great Prophet dies privately inherited the dungeon dungeon by Herod’s consent and command, and we have no record of his last word to this great man. There were no crowds to watch on. There was nobody to sympathize. We don’t really know how he received the sentence.

68. 35:32

    Was he calm, the fearless and faithful man? Was he calm? Did he bless his murderer? Well, all that is hidden. All we know is the ACT flashed down and a noble life came to its end, but not its full end. Of course, let’s be sure remember how it’s coming into the world is recorded in the New Testament.

69. 35:57

    There was a man sent from God whose name was John. Think of that. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. And there is a sense in which he has returned to. When she came, Salome took his head, but his life is hid with Christ in God. Now some people have looked at it and said it was a hard or still life which ended in failure.

70. 36:24

    But that isn’t true. We know it. In our heart it isn’t true. He was heralded the King from heaven. He was the prophet of the Kingdom of God. All his life long he had panted for that. His task was to prepare man for the prepare men for the coming of Messiah. He tried to make the soldiers merciful, the publicans honest, Pharisees sincere, and when the Kingdom comes, and all the things which John wished for, and hoped for, and prayed for and worked, when they are all brought to pass.

71. 36:57

    When the great superstructure of the Ecclesia and Christ becomes the bride of the Bridegroom, a House of God which has been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ as the chief cornerstone. Let’s be sure in our deepest heart that deep down in the foundation of that great House of God that is the noble and triumphant work of John, the man who was faithful and fear. Now that sounded.

72. 37:29

    I know that sounded like the flourishing end of the and it wasn’t. It wasn’t just a bit longer. There’s one other aspect of the life of John which might help us think of this. Think how closely he was associated with the miracles. There were miracles. At his birth an Angel appeared to his father, as you know, and announced his birth. Zacharias was miraculously dumb until the prophecy was fulfilled.

73. 38:05

    Unto his mother there comes a vision of angels. Both his parents are filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke thereby. John was one of the few in the Bible who were named before they were born, a signal that they were especially chosen by God. John was in a sense the reincarnation of Elijah the prophet, the great miracle worker of the Old Testament. John himself was full of the Holy Spirit, the source of divine power.

74. 38:34

    Notice, then, how closely he was associated with the miraculous. And yet the remarkable feature of John’s ministry is that he himself did no miracle. He was the herald of the king, but he did no miracle. The sick were all around him, but none of them did he heal. There were blind people and deaf people, and dumb people and broken people.

75. 39:05

    They’re all there. But not once did John stretch for his hand, either to change the situation, or to unbind those who were imprisoned, or to relieve them of their infirmities or the solace of their life. This great man, encompassed by so much which is miraculous, did no miracles. Now remember this. Our Lord’s testimony about John places him above all the heroes and heroines of the Old Testament.

76. 39:42

    If we’ve understood the words rightly, he did no miracle. And yet he achieved the miraculous along the plain of natural power. His preaching awakened the nation. He turned hard and sinners to repentance. He knew the times in which he lived. He discovered and proclaimed the Christ of Israel, and he prepared the way of the Lord.

77. 40:09

    He did all this but no miracle. And what is the lesson? Well, the lesson, it seems to me, is this. Miracles are important. I don’t want to deprecate miracles, one wit, but they are signs, and they are secondary. The reality is greater than the sign. John did no miracle, but he was true.

78. 40:36

    That’s the point I want to emphasize. That is a great thing to observe. Truth is greater than strength. Truth is greater than signal. Character acts higher than wonder. Working outward, things are important, I know that. But they are very often symbols of the inward and the eternal reality. To show us that all men who are filled with the Spirit do not work miracles, But to realize that every man may live the spiritual life, as one man put it once I heard it put once, like this.

79. 41:11

    True character is better than a big whistle. We cannot work miracles, but we can all be true. We can be a true witness to the outcome of the moral and the spiritual qualities of the life of God. A mere repetition of empty platitudes is one thing, but there’ll be a true witness demands great qualities of soul.

80. 41:34

    Chicheman was John, the son of Elizabeth. Today I say it especially because in the world in which we live, people are impressed by wonder workers, and I fear sometimes we are. They clamour for signs. The craze for that which is startling is greater today than ever. People are attracted by what has a semblance of the supernatural, but the truth is that being is better than doing, and character is better than wonder works.

81. 42:10

    We all know in their deepest heart that the great deeds that men do are discredited if if their character is not true. It’s better to do the will of God than to do any amount of wonders. Because someday, one day, some people are going to plead that, that, that, that in the name of the Lord they’ve done many mighty works.

82. 42:30

    That’s going to be their great defence. We did the white mighty works in my name, Lord, and to that plea the Kingdom of God will not be opened, Paul says. If I have faith so that I can remove mountains, that’s a pretty wonderful thing. If I have faith so that I can remove mountains have not love, I am nothing.

83. 42:53

    When the 70 returned exuberant over the power that they had to work miracles, the king said, Howbeit in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Learn the lesson then, brothers and sisters, If sometimes you feel frustrated that you cannot alter circumstances, if sometimes you feel paralysed in the faith of in the face of so much which has to be done, and you seem to be impotent to do it.

84. 43:27

    If in an age of bustle and sensationalism your life seems strangely incompetent, remember that the truth stands 1st, and the truth stands fast, the harvest of a true and faithful life, be it ever so seemingly insignificant, be it ever so unnoticed. Never mind that cannot fail at last it will not be launched. We may die, as did John, but the truth lives, and the fruit of faithfulness may not come all at once, but it will come. It will come.

85. 44:11

    Nothing can alter it. There is no power in heaven, on earth, in heaven or earth that can change it. The harvest of the truth is in excellent.

86. 44:23

    You may do nothing wonderful, but if your names are written in heaven, you will not have lived in vain. John Baptist’s life seemed to have ended in failure, and very few people appear to have cared. But we know that it was crowned with victory. So let us learn, like John, to seek the truth for the truth’s sake, and to live it.

87. 44:47

    Never mind about what other men may say. Never mind about what other men have said. Never mind what cherished opinions may have to be discarded or repudiated. Seek the truth at all costs. Seek it quietly and unflinchingly. And I tell you, there is no power in the long run can harm you. Not a wit.

88. 45:14

    Now this is the supreme lesson of the life of John the faithful and the fearless man, the herald of the Messiah, the prophet of the wilderness, who was sent from God.