Pure Gold Faith Series — E.A. Johnston

Seeking God Through Full Surrender

Years ago, I decided to get serious with God and to seek Him in a deeper way. I desired further usefulness to Him, but at the same time, I knew there were still some areas in my life which were stumbling blocks to any further usefulness to God.

I sincerely desired change, and I asked God to show me the areas in my life that were displeasing to Him and needed to be dealt with. I knew God gets serious with those who get serious with Him, and I was ready to go forward with God, no matter the cost.

At the time, I was rising at 4 .30 every morning to seek His face and get direction, and during one of these early morning quiet times, God spoke to my heart. He said, If I am to use you like few other men, then you have to live like few men do.

This was the final battleground between self and the cross. It was either future usefulness for God or a life of uselessness for me. Self had to be willingly annihilated daily on the cross, and there had to be a full surrender to His Lordship in consecration from that point forward until He came or called.

The Cross as the Pathway to Power

There was no turning back. I soon learned that the Christ life, for the self life, is the only pathway to power with God and influence with man. The cross in the life of a believer is the life of discipleship Jesus spoke of.

If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and deny himself and follow me. But crucifixion is a slow death. Self brought the way of the cross will not be quickly annihilated. There will have to be a nailing of the will to the Father's will.

There must take place an abandonment of all our supposed rights. We must go out and He must come in to dwell in a clean and clear channel to flow through as a means of blessings to others, kind of like a mountain stream.

Becoming a Clear Channel for God's Power

A mountain stream flows along a clear rock bed as it courses down the mountainside unobstructed. But if a storm were to knock a tree into the rock bed, then the flow of water would be obstructed until the debris is removed and cleared out.

So too, in our walk with the Lord, we must be diligent to maintain our bodies to be clean and clear channels that the power of God can course through. This does not occur without a cost for what counts costs and what cost counts.

Reese Howells and the Holy Spirit's Purging

Listen to the words of Reese Howells as he described how the Holy Spirit dealt with him. He was not going to take any superficial surrender. He put his finger on each part of my self-life and I had to decide in cold blood.

He could never take a thing away until I gave my consent. Then the moment I gave it, some purging took place and I could never touch that thing again. It was not sane. I was purged and the thing still having a hold on me.

No, it was breaking and the Holy Ghost took control. Day by day, the dealing went on. He was coming in as God and I had lived as a man. And he said, what is permissible to an ordinary man will not be permissible to you.

Well, Reese Howells went on to live a powerful life of faith. In the book of Revelation, we read in chapter 3 a spiritual condition of a certain church in Laodicea. Listen to the words. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.

So then, because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Let me pause here friends to say, I believe we are living in the Laodicean church age. I look around at our religious denominations that have fallen into apostasy and I look at our worldly churches that lack power because they are mainly comprised of lukewarm Christians that are so bland.

They just blend in with society. They are neither hot nor cold. Just religious enough to make you sick and tired of even being in their company because hanging around lukewarm believers is as dangerous as being a lobster in a pot of lukewarm water that soon will begin to boil.

It's a death trap. And because of their spiritual declension and apathy, many churches today are just death traps to the unwary. Jesus said these Laodicean Christians were making him sick to his stomach by their spiritual lackadaisical lives.

Self-Satisfied Churches and the Loss of Revival

Then he goes on to say a remarkable thing. He tells them they are in a perilous position because they believe they are one way when they are quite the opposite from God's perspective. He tells them because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and know us not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

Meaning that this bunch of religious folk at this church in Laodicea are deceived and blind to their own condition. They are like us when we think because we have a nice church building that is running 3 ,000 on Sunday that we are pretty hot stuff.

We've gotten to the place where we got it all figured out and we are smug about it. It's like the pastor who was standing next to me in line at seminary graduation as we waited to get our PhD diplomas.

I asked him a question. I said, are you meeting with the pastors in your community to regularly pray for revival? He looked at me strangely and replied, we don't need revival. We are on the grow. So he was saying in so few words that they didn't need a move of God anymore because they had plenty of bodies in the sanctuary.

It matters little that God withdrew his presence from among us years ago, but we haven't noticed because we can get the job done without him. We can get the job done with money and manpower. It's just a sad fact for day friends that many pastors are content where they are at.

They don't feel a need to go one inch deeper with God as long as they are growing their church and they have plenty of time to work on their tennis game or to lower their golf handicap, then they are satisfied.

But where is the power? Where is the transformation of lives? Spiritual apathy is so prevalent today. It reminds me of a story that Dr. Stephen F. Oldford shared with me. He said he was preaching at a big pastors conference on the deeper life regarding the daily quiet time and the Spirit's anointing.

The Need for Pastors to Go Deeper with God

At the end of his message he gave an altar call to the ministers there that if any of them wanted further instruction and personal prayer along these lines, he'd leave the platform and come down front and stand there waiting to assist them.

Stephen Oldford said he looked out across that vast assembly of pastors and he waited to see how many would respond to his message and come forward. Nobody moved. Finally, after several long minutes, one solitary man came forward and he took Dr. Oldford's hand and said he wanted to go deeper with God and would it be okay if Dr. Oldford would pray for him and instruct him.

Well, Dr. Oldford told me that this man went on to be mightily used to God in his community in a powerful revival, but it was only one man out of all those other pastors who felt his need. The others were content where they were.

So Jesus is telling these Laodicean Christians that they're living deceived lives. They are self-satisfied, self-content and self-reliant and have no need of him. The bottom line is Jesus tells them to repent, but in verse 18 he tells them to do a few things first.

Buying Gold Tried in the Fire

He says, I counsel thee to buy me gold dried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with thyself that thou mayest see.

I want to focus on out of that verse is the aspect of buying gold dried in the fire. That's our focus today, friends. That's what Jesus is saying to the churches today who have a form of godliness but no power.

Gold dried in the fire is a picture of the church being purified. If we don't have revival in our churches today, we are doomed. The world sits on the very verge of destruction and the church is a mere laughing stock to society.

There are multitudes who profess Christ but have no reality of God in their lives. They are mere paper Christians blown in every direction by a godless and sinful society. But when Jesus tells the Laodicean church members to buy gold dried in the fire, he is speaking of their need of purging.

Gold placed in the refiner's fire is purged of all its dross and impurities until it emerges as solid gold. The modern church today needs to experience the kind of purging by fire that brings her to the point of brokenness and submission to the lordship of Christ to where she is brought to see her need to recognize her poverty, her nakedness, her bareness in need of a holy ghost revival.

Gold is ready for the market only after it's had all the impurities burned out. The church should be ready to take on the world and the devil after it has its impurities burned out to the last dregs. This is accomplished two ways.

It can come by hot persecution like that's been experienced by the underground church in China who has such power with God or it can come about by a holy ghost revival. Either way, the church must stand tall as a supernatural force in the world that has no other explanation than the presence and power and glory of God.

A Ministry Explained by God's Presence and Power

Let me ask you, brother pastor, can your ministry be explained other than the presence and power of the spirit of God in you or are you easily explainable by your personality and track record? Is your prayer, Lord bless me and give me a bigger church or is your prayer, Lord crush out and burn out every vestige of everything in me that is fleshly and displeasing to you so Jesus can shine through like pure gold?