What Makes a Church — Major Ian Thomas

I appreciate the opportunity of this informal hour, or less, that we have been spending together. Some year or two back, several years now, I was in China, Rose Garden in the world, so to tell me, at an institute, and I was sharing the ministry, amongst others, with a man called Fred Smith, whom probably some of you have come across.

He's a businessman, heads up a big business analysis firm. They move into some of these great empires, and their commission is to evaluate their efficiencies, and discover whether things could be improved, or why things have gone wrong.

A very fascinating speaker, one whom I enjoyed immensely, and in particular, I was fascinated by what he had to say on that particular occasion, in this particular context, because he explained to us the nature of his business, how almost from coast to coast they've had the opportunity of evaluation in various business enterprises.

And it's been said, he said, when there is inefficiency, almost always one or two causes, either one, ignorance, or two, conceit. One or the other of those two reasons. Ignorance or conceit. He said in the first case, if it's ignorance, we can do something about it.

We conceit. Whereas if the cause is the second, conceit, we write it off as a dead lie. There's nothing we can do. And that's interesting, because by and large, this is equally true in the spiritual life.

And there's an immense amount of inefficiency. As well, you and I are aware, within the context of evangelical Christendom, and if we're honest enough, to recognize the fact in our own heart and in our own life.

And by and large, the inefficiency derives also from one or other, or a combination of both. We've got ignorance, which is a very, very large factor, because of the hypothetically inadequate presentation of the gospel for which we have settled in our pragmatic age, and very often conceit.

Preconceived notions, prejudices, rigidified forms and patterns for which we're not prepared to diversify. And it's good for us sometimes to pause in the middle of whatever we may be doing, and take time to evaluate.

But for evaluation to be valid, there's got to be a norm against which we can evaluate. And this, by and large, of course, is the tragedy of our age, that we've settled for dialogue. In other words, there is now nothing absolute.

There's no norm. This is the society in which you and I live, and it's on this premise, of course, we have developed the convenience of a productive society, where there is nothing absolute, and therefore nothing is wrong.

It's quite obvious. If there's no such thing as truth, then there's no such thing as a lie. I've got nothing to worry about. If there's no such thing as honesty, there's no such thing as being a thief.

I've got nothing to worry about. If there's no such thing as morality, there's no such thing as immorality. It's a marvellously convenient hypothesis. And we've settled for it because, by and large, all the moral gut and moral fibre has been disintegrating in human society.

And nobody ever really wants now to be right or wrong, because it demands a moral choice. So we run away from it, and settle for something which is pseudo-intellectual, but is really a moral escapist.

And we hide in our little funkhole. Well, where shall we find a norm? Where shall we find a yardstick, whereby we may make a valid evaluation? Well, of course, there is only one ultimate. The timeless and eternal absolute.

God himself. If we depart from that, we've lost everything. And for this reason, I thought it might be interesting, just for the first few moments at least, by way of an introduction, to turn to the second chapter of the last book in the Bible, the Revelation, and meet there the Lord Jesus in company with the Church in Ephesus.

God's Absolute Standard for Evaluating the Church

For here, the Lord Jesus himself is making an evaluation. And he is the only one who has the right. For he is the timeless absolute. The one who was the same yesterday, today and forever, who never changes.

As timeless and unchangeable as God himself. For he is God, in whom there is no variableness, not a shadow of truth. The Revelation, as well you recognize, is not the Revelation of St. John the Divine, as the title would tell us, for some strange reason.

The first sentence of the first chapter tells us that it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ. To St. John the Divine, of course, we are given the privilege of recording, for our instruction, that Revelation.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him. To show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass, and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John. So John was sent to describe, to whom this Revelation was signified by an angel, a Revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now, he says in chapter 2 verse 1,. For the angels of the Church of Ephesus write, These things, said he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, or lampstands.

The seven stars, explained in the 20th verse of the first chapter, are the angels, or the ministers, representing the proclaimers, those of their testimony of the seven churches. The seven golden lampstands, here described as candlesticks, it's our source of the seven churches, it's a picture of the Church of Jesus Christ, the Body of Christ, that human vehicle through whom he makes himself articulate and visible in the world in which he's placed.

The sevenfold golden lampstand, a beautiful picture, of course, both in the Old and the New Testaments, of the Witnessing Church, because we recognize that the golden lampstand itself has nothing to give, absolutely nothing.

It's only the oil flowing through it that provides that which sustains the light, which is, of course, immediately an elementary picture of the basic principle of the Christian life, that it takes God to be a man.

And that's why it takes Christ to be a Christian, because Christ, in the Christian, puts God back into the man. Detach the man from God and you've got nothing. That's why when the Lord leads us out of Deity, steps into time to become man, he made himself exactly what a man is without God.

How much is that? Nothing. Flip him to five. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, didn't consider it rather to claim total and eternal, timeless equality with God, made himself of no reputation.

Don't see himself. Made himself, in the New English Bible, nothing. All that a man is without God. And then Prophetic Theosis, of course, demonstrated that often. So the Church is always described as the lampstand through which the oil must flow, representing the light of God in the soul of man, which is indispensable to the likeness of God in the character of man, what gives him the divine dynamic to fulfill the functions which God, as Creator, created him as his creature.

And the Lord Jesus, of course, now is the one who, by his indwelling Holy Spirit, walks, as it were, in the midst of the Seven Falls golden lampstand. And then, in the second verse, he says something which is immediately frightening.

Just two words. I know. I know. And that shatters all the premise of a philosophy that's based upon mere dialogue. Here, somebody actually dares to stand up and say, I know. Well, that's shocking, isn't it?

And that's just not allowed. This is proclamation. But this is God. Because God is absolute. That's why you and I are called upon, as his emissaries, as his voice, to make proclamation, said the Lord Jesus.

I know. I don't surmise. I don't pretend. I don't think. I don't hope. I don't just believe. I know. That's right. Because you and I, at this very moment, share the life of the Lord Jesus. If we don't, we're not Christian.

If that isn't true, we've never experienced that spiritual new birth that has made us, again, by the exceeding great and precious promise of God, partakers of his divine nature. We're still as bankrupt as the day we were born, dead in trespasses and sin.

But as those who've claimed redemption through his blood, reconciliation to God in that spiritual new birth, by the restoration of his Holy Spirit to our human spirits, we are at this moment in the presence of and sharing of the life of Jesus Christ.

We are in the presence, right now, of the one who has the right to say and to know that it is true. I know. There's nothing that I don't. Well, what does he know? Well, he has a good look at this church, the church in Edmonton.

And he tells us some of the things he knows about this church. He says, I know thy works. I know thy labor. And I know thy purposes. And how thou canst not bear them which are evil. And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not.

And hast found them lying. I know that thou hast borne, and hast patient, and for my name's sake, hast labored. And hast not fainted. I know. Well, let's pause there for a moment and consider the things that he knows about this particular church community, the church in Edmonton.

First thing he says is this, I know your works. And your labor. I know that you are an extremely busy institution. You're constantly on the job. I know it. I've watched you. I've sat in on all your committee meetings.

I'm always there. Okay. Sometimes you behave as though I wasn't. But I'm still there. I listen to your asides. I read your thoughts. I know the motivosi and intentions of everything that you suggest. The side currents and the cross-cuttings.

I know. Read it like a book. I look through it like a pane of glass. I know. The first thing that the Lord Jesus tells us that he knew about this church was that it was a church that sustained an extremely heavy program.

Everybody was busy, busy, busy. And of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong in that. It was incumbent upon every member of this particular church community to be on the job. He's our nurse. Nobody was expected to be unemployed.

Everybody, with any capacity whatever, was expected to find their niche and be an act. That's the first thing we know about this church. They probably sustained a wide missionary interest, an evangelistic class, constant variety and ingenuity in their means of outreach.

In every conceivable way, they were on the job to make the gospel known, to be busy and active in the service of God and his Son, Jesus Christ, their Savior. He said, you're busy. I know. That's the first thing we know about this church.

Now, the second thing he said he knew about them was this. He said, I know you can't bear men which are evil. In other words, not only was it a church which sustained a very heavy program, it was a church of strong convictions about right and wrong.

They drew a very specific line. They had high values and strong, deep convictions as to the standard to which they should submit themselves. He's our nurse. There's nothing ambiguous. There's nothing gray about the stand you take.

If it's a question of a voice being raised on the question of public morals, your voice rings out loud and clear. You've taken your position. I know it. You cannot bear them which are evil. So added to the fact that it was a church that sustained a very heavy program, we recognize the fact that this church in Ephesus was one that held strong convictions about right and wrong.

There was no compromised tolerance in this area. Now, the third thing that the Lord Jesus said to me about this church in the second verse was this. Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and found them liars.

In other words, a church that has sustained a very heavy program, one that had strong convictions about right and wrong, and one that was utterly sound in its doctrine. It was biblically based. It was a Bible church, if ever there was a Bible church.

He said, you've tried them which say they are apostles. You've listened to their propositions as though to claim to be the theological and hierarchical bigwigs of their day and generation. And in the light of the revelation given by divine inspiration as holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, you've exposed them for the cheats and the liars and the counterfeits that they are.

But finally, pew, is I know. I listen to all the sermons preached from your pulpit. I listen to all the lessons taught in your Sunday school and Bible classes. I am always there. I participate in the discussions that you have in your homes, heavy programs, strong convictions about right and wrong, and doctrinally sound.

That's a pretty good church to make an evaluation. Supposing you were a stranger in town, you had a wife and family, and you're looking around for a church home. How about the church in Ephesus? You say, I want the kind of church where I can roll up my sleeves and get busy.

I don't want to sit on the sideline and just walk. I don't want to be a spectator. I've been to churches like that. The one-man band type. I want the sort of church where there's real cooperative effort.

Everybody's expected to play their part and be a harmony, as it were, to the machine. Effort. I want a church where I can send my kid away for a weekend up in the mountains. Entrust them to a youth club leader or a counselor and feel absolutely certain that there won't take place unknowingly anything that would be ambiguous, gray, that smacks of compromise.

I want to feel that they're safe. Okay. Effort. I want the sort of church where, whether it's I who sits under the ministry or my wife or my children, no matter who it is that gets up to speak, they will be exposed always, without exception, to the pure, unadulterated Word of God.

You've really got the church you want. Please, sir, proceed. The amazing thing is this. There's a church that, by the Lord Jesus Christ's own evaluation, was on the very threshold of exceeding. It's just about to be written off as a total loss.

Nevertheless, he said, verse 4, I am somewhat against it. Something wrong. Wrong. So wrong that it's almost without remorse. Thou hast left thy first letter. In all your busy activity, you have departed from the one fundamental, basic principle that makes any church, to God's satisfaction, a working proposition.

I like the rendering there of that verse in the Amplified New Testament. It says you have forsaken program. Yes, you've got the program. You've lost me. Rules and regulations, convictions, rights and wrongs.

Yes, they were all tabulated, listed, analyzed, double-checked, and underlined. You've forsaken me. Doctrine? It oozes out of your fingertips. It drips out of your ears. You've mastered the law. You've memorized whole chunks of the Bible, and you preach it with no little skill.

You've got everything except, if possible, the easiest thing in the world. Within the evangelical context of Bible-believing belief, to substitute the best and all that is legitimate and right and sacred for Christ Jesus.

And you've lost everything. That's why, of course, the only valid basis of evaluation is not to the program, not even to your basis of morality, or to the doctrines that you've mastered. There's only one valid basis of evaluation, and that is your relationship to Jesus Christ.

Because you can have all the rest and not have him. And all too often, you see, we have learned to equate a person's relationship to the machine, to the program. We've learned to equate that with a relationship to Christ.

We've learned to equate a person's relationship to the rights and the wrongs, to the lists of do's and don'ts, with a relationship to Christ. So as long as I submit myself to the machine, so long as I am part of the program, that is accepted as my relationship to Christ.

Because nothing may be farther from the truth. In integrating a person into the operation, I may have introduced only a relationship between them and the program. There's no relationship to Christ. In house training, the certain procedures and behavior patterns, I may have introduced only a relationship between them and me and the constituency I represent and the standards that we propound.

Without any relationship to Christ. We equate consent to certain evangelical doctrines with a relationship to Christ. But that isn't valid. I can mark all the doctrines of the Bible and have no relationship to Jesus Christ, but be intellectually convinced of their validity.

And in the very proclamation of those doctrines, little know Jesus Christ might just well be dead before the party plays in the process of being a Christian. I had a letter some little time ago from a medical doctor who had been attending some meetings that it had been my privilege to speak at in Phoenix, Arizona.

He had moved out to California. And he just wrote a very courteous letter and just expressed appreciation. He said, In 20 years as a Christian, for the first time I learned that Jesus Christ actually had a role to play in the Christian life.

Now that used to shock me. It doesn't now. Because it recurred with such constant, regularity. He had never in 20 years doubted, of course, the fact that his salvation depended upon the death of Christ.

When he would only gain access into the presence of the Holy God on the basis of the blood that was shed for him, vicariously by the Lord Jesus, when he accepted in his person the consequence of his guilt that he might be acquitted, then he accepted.

Jesus Christ, historical, 2 ,000 years ago, accomplished what would get me out of hell into heaven. Of course. Never once challenged the validity of his resurrection from the dead, or that he was ascended to be with the Father, or shared again now the glory that had always been his in the eternal ages of the past and will continue to be his in the eternal ages of the future.

The only thing he failed to grasp was that Jesus Christ was not only alive there, he was alive here. And that his presence as God, created within the creature, was imperative to a man's humanity. That Jesus Christ actually had a role to play in the Christian life.

You see, so often the Lord Jesus Christ is presented not as the one who plays the role, but the object of our activities. The one for whom we do things. Whose way out there. The man upstairs. All this is calculated to brainwash people into a completely false concept of the Christian life.

Jesus Christ isn't the man upstairs. He isn't the way out there. If I'm a Christian at all, it's only because he having died for me rose again from the dead to come and give himself to me so that 24 hours and every day my flesh and blood might prove his divine activity exclusively.

That Jesus Christ is the only one capable of living the Christian life. And without him there is no Christian life. Only a cheap, shabby imitation of the real thing. No matter how sincere or negative.

No matter how noble my aspirations may be. If I hadn't yet learned that Jesus Christ actually has a role to play in the Christian life other than being the object of my endeavors. The hero whom I worship.

The one for whom I dedicate myself. And to whom I give my time. That leaves him passive. And inactive. He might just as well be a Buddha in his pagoda. But we've reduced Jesus Christ precisely to that role.

As did the church in Ephesus. He says you've got everything. Programs. Boys, he says, talk about a program. You can see your charts and your missionary graphs and your pledge programs. Everything you've got in the world.

Everything except I have someone against you. Because I have left thy first blood. Notice what he says. It's an ultimatum. First blood. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen. From whence thou art fallen.

He's talking to a fallen church. Repent, he says. Get back to where you belong. First principle. Do the first work. Or else, ultimatum. I will come unto thee quickly. Suddenly. Calamitously. And remove thy candlestick out of its place.

You've become intoxicated with your own endeavors. Bewitched by your own smartness. Overwhelmed by your own success. And I'll remove the candlestick. Write you off as a total loss. Deadwood. Repent or else.

Well, the question might reasonably come to mind. How can you detect? On the face of it, the casual passer-by going into this situation would be, well, overwhelmed. Their breath would take them. My, what a church.

How can we detect? What's wrong? But rather fascinating this particular situation because we can compare a simple evaluation that was made of another church. We find some of these quite helpful. And keeping the place there in Revelation 2, if you care to turn to Paul's epistles, the first of his epistles, to the Bethlehem, and keep the two places open because we'll need to compare what he has to say.

The Thessalonian Church: Faith, Love, and Hope

Then, this particular church is what the Lord Jesus had to say in the Church of Evans. It's quite obvious that this church, which Paul had, in the first of his epistles to the Thessalonians, was one that brought him unusual joy and satisfaction in his ministry.

He says in the end of chapter 2 and verse 19, 1 Thessalonians 2, 19, What is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? You are our glory.

He says, You are our joy. His heart warmed, quite obviously, when he thought of these people. They weren't perfect. He wouldn't, for one moment, have suggested that. But there was a character about this particular company of redeemed sinners that warmed the heart of the Apostle Paul, as others caused him considerable sadness and heaviness, as, for instance, the church in Corinth or the foolish Galatians.

But this church would be a source of great encouragement. He says, Our gospel, verse 5 of chapter 1, came not unto you in word only, but also in power, in the Holy Ghost, in much assurance. As you know what manner of men we were among you for your sake, you became followers of our sin of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you were ensembles to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.

From you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place, your faith to God, your relationship to Him, the attitude that you adopt in all that you do and say and are towards God Himself is spread abroad, so that we need not speak anything.

We give thanks, he says, verse 2. We give thanks to God always for you, making mention even in our prayers. And then he goes on in the third verse, and this is a significant verse. Listen. He says, Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, your labor of life, and your patience of hope, where?

In our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything is related to Him. In the sight of men, purely on the surface, to impress the crowd, in the sight of God and our Father. Do you notice anything? Remembering, he says, your work of faith.

What did the Lord Jesus say to the church in Ephesus? Verse 2, chapter 2, I know your work. Where's the faith? He says, in the third verse of this one Thessalonians, chapter 1, your labor of life. Said the Lord Jesus to Ephesus, I know your labor.

Where's the life? Your patience of hope. I was born as patience, said the Lord Jesus to the church in Ephesus. No hope. Work without faith. Labor without life. Patience without hope. That's the evangelical machine.

These three, said the Lord Jesus, 1 Corinthians 13, greatest of these, love. For faith is to work by love. And the inevitable consequence of a faith that works by love is an unshatterable expectation, which of course is the sense in which the word hope is used in the Bible.

Faith is the evidence of things hopeful. The evidence of things not seen. The substance of things hopeful. In other occasions, the Bible says you're saved by hope. Doesn't mean you hope you're saved. This is the strong, active, virile, full-blooded sense of the term hope as an unshatterable expectation that God is big enough.

All you've got to do is let Him live. How do you let Him live? Through faith. Why? Because you love Him. This is the invincible trio that allows God to demonstrate His deeds. The church in Ephesus was characterized by work that needed no faith to explain it.

So the only quality of life in you and me as Christians is that quality of life that looks with absolutely no explanation to Jesus Christ Himself. The moment you want to live your Christian life on the base of your personality, you will achieve exactly what personality achieves.

And you won't need Jesus Christ. Your Christian life will be explicable in terms of you. Therefore, there will be only one person to be congratulated. That's the object of the exercise. So you want to live your Christian life on the basis of your determination, your willpower.

Okay. Take a course in Pelmanism. In personality projection. And what you achieve will be based upon your willpower and your determination. You won't need Jesus Christ. There will only be one person to be congratulated.

It won't be Him. Enthusiasm. Sentiment. Thousand and one good things, legitimate things can be your motivation. But the moment they take the place of Jesus Christ, they become the object of your idolatry and Jesus Christ becomes superfluous to the exercise.

They had a program of work that needed no faith to explain. Everything was underwritten. Fully guaranteed. And no risks were taken. There was no margin of difference. There were one or two of you, I believe, there on Saturday when I gave this simple proposition that everything that God demands of a man is completely logical.

But so far as man is concerned, totally unreasonable. For instance, God says, I am holy. Be ye holy even as I am holy. This is God in all His utter holiness telling a man to be as holy as God. From God's point of view, utterly.

From man's point of view, hopelessly unreasonable. How can I as a man be holy like God? Well, the answer, if you remember, in that proposition was this. Because there is under divine logic a hidden factor that is absent in human reason that makes divinely possible what is otherwise humanly unreasonable.

And that hidden factor is God Himself who works in you both to will and to do a thing someplace. Faithful is He that calleth, He will also do it. So there is absolutely nothing to which God calls you that He Himself is not prepared to do.

So that makes divinely logical and possible everything which otherwise is humanly unreasonable. But take the hidden factor out and what have you got left? A proposition that is humanly unreasonable. That's why you've got to settle for something less.

That is humanly explicable. And that's what the Church of Ephesus has settled for. Work that needed no faith to explain. Faith that isn't believing facts or giving academic consent or a mental nod to certain theological propositions.

Faith, as you will remember, simply lets God be God in action. Faith invokes the activity of a second party. Faith brings somebody or something into action on your behalf. And if your faith doesn't do that, if your faith, which you call faith, doesn't bring God into action, it isn't faith.

Faith must bring somebody or something into action on your behalf. Otherwise it's just a belief. My belief tells me the plane will fly at a certain time. My faith sits in it. And lets the plane that I believe will fly at a certain time take me to my destination.

That's the difference between the two. And by and large, within the evangelical context, we have substituted belief for faith. And we equate now people believing things and giving mental consent to certain evangelical doctrines with the faith that lets God translate them into the flesh and blood of our humanity for which there's no possible explanation but God himself.

Work without faith to explain it. Labor that needed no love to compel it. And a patience that needed no hope to sustain it. That was characteristic of the Church in essence. Work that needed no faith to explain it.

Labor that needed no love to compel it. And a patience that needed no hope to sustain it. For this good reason, that there was absolutely no margin of difference between the program and what was reasonably possible on the basis of human engineering.

And there was absolutely no margin between the service rendered and the adequacy of the reward given. And don't just think in terms of dollars and cents. I'm not just thinking in terms of that kind of reward.

There are many other rewards which people will render service. And without which they won't. Quite apart from dollars, glamour, recognition, applause, limelight, success, position, office, power, promotion, excitement, the ultimate trips, going high on Jesus.

Those are the rewards that people are looking for by and large today. For labor that in God's estimate can only be compelled by love, without reward. There was no margin of difference between what was patiently expected and what had already been carefully provided.

So nobody planned, did or expected anything which wasn't reasonably possible, adequately rewarded or already provided. That was the church in Ephesus. It was a perfect machine. It worked magnificently without Jesus Christ.

Program was professional, absolutely top. The motive was materialistic, even though they had become so acclimatized to it they weren't even able to recognize the senses. And their stamina had become stagnation.

It was terror. Death to do with any real reproductive life. And Jesus said, I'm not guessing. I'm not guessing. I'm not just suspecting. It isn't just a hunch I've got. And a repent or a and of course in this we easily recognize the true nature of repentance.

An attitude that makes God imperative to the exercise. Dependent. What happened when man fell into sin? Is that he believed the devil's lie that a man could be actually a functional man without God. That Jesus Christ doesn't actually have a role to play in the Christian life.

Even if you want to be a Christian. This is the carnal mind that is perpetuated within the regenerative. Because what's the difference between Christians a Christian who believes that he can successfully live the Christian life without Christ and Adam who believes the devil's lie that he could be a successful man without God.

What's the difference? What's the difference between a Christian trying to live a Christian life without total step by step moment by moment breath by breath dependence upon Christ as the sole and exclusive origin of the act and a man believing the devil's lie that a man can be a man without God.

Absolutely none whatever. And there's nothing that tickles the devil more than Christians in the very propagation of their faith who are perpetuating the Adam creature self-sufficiency and trying to live a Christian life without Christ as Adam tried to be a man without God.

Nothing is more subtle than that. But it is the pitfall into which you and I unwittingly and without insincerity can so easily fall. The moment we are permitted to substitute anything or anybody for Jesus Christ himself.

When Adam fell into sin he traded dependence for independence. So repentance takes place only when we trade independence for dependence. So the measure of your repentance and mine is simply the measure in which we are dependent.

Any area in your life or mine in which we continue to be independent is an area in which we have not independence. No matter where that area may be whether it's in the pulpit if I can get into the pulpit and by virtue of custom practice repetition can get by that's an area in which I've never attended.

Even though what I say is biblical. And that is the great moment of truth for Hudson Taylor. When he realized that for all these years in China he'd been rushing around with a busy branch trying to bear fruit for the vine.

And suddenly he saw it. You see, for all too long he had thought when Jesus said I am the vine, you are the branch he was distinguished between vine and branch. So there's a branch in one thing and a vine in the other.

And he suddenly saw it. If he is the vine vine includes the branch. You don't have a vine without branches. A vine incorporates the branch embraces the branch. And when he said I am the vine that includes the branch.

And suddenly the moment of truth dawned upon his poor battered soul. When Jesus said I am the branch he included me as part of him called branch. All I've got to do is abide. Then he who is the vine including the branch through me the branch abiding in him will bear fruit.

All I've got to do is stick my finger down. And a thousand missions went to China. A .B. Simpson. Dwight Moody. Andrew Murray. F .B. Meyer. Jonathan Edwards. These are names of men and women in whose frail humanity God rocked the world.

Not because of what were they there not what they discovered Jesus Christ to be. When he's got any old drainpipe open both ends and nothing in the middle that will let the water flow. I'm so thankful personally for the moment in my own life as a Christian.

When at the age of 19 seven years after my conversion in which I had sincerely accepted Christ as my redeemer and had been no less sincerely programmed by those who knew no better as to the procedures of a Christian life which were to be equated with my relationship to Christ.

Left me at the end of seven years defeated, frustrated, exhausted and deserted. Already in my second year training as a doctor to become a medical missionary in Athens. Leader of the intervarsity Christian fellowship.

Spending all my vacations Bible study, preaching in the open air, witnessing right, left and center on every committee I can lay my hands on. Thinking that certain activity could be equated with a true relationship to Jesus Christ.

And with no insincerity I loved him with all my heart. And it was for this reason that in utter sheer despair in total exhaustion and finally with tears in my eyes I got down on my knees and said Jesus Christ.

The Christian Life as Christ Living Through the Believer

Not because I don't love you I do but because quite obviously I'm a total hopeless utter failure. And you might just as well write me off now as for me to go on playing. I know if I go to Africa as a missionary I'll be as useless there as I have been in Asia.

And I'm so tired I can't stand it. I'll be there. I'll sit. I'll watch. From now on I'm a spectator. And I almost heard him sigh with relief. This was the moment of truth. It was almost as though he was standing in the room and he said Frank at last this is what I've been waiting for for seven years for seven years you've been trying to live for me with no insincerity with the utmost devotion with all your ability you've been trying to live for me a life that only I can live through.