David's New Car - Part 2 — Vance Havner

New Creation and Christian Assurance

And folks will find it out. You don't have to convince them, just be what you are in Christ Jesus. You are the salt of the earth, he says, all right, be what you are. You're the light of the world, just be what you are.

You don't have to go around like a man with a flashlight, I want you to know I'm a Christian. Just be what you are, and they'll find it out. God's people. Are you one of God's people? Let me say tonight, if you're what you've always been, you're not a Christian.

Because a Christian's something new. To any man being Christ, he's a new creation. Now you may not have known the day, day and hour of your conversion. Some dear people get awfully worried about those things.

While you're trying to stir up folks that think they're saved and they're not, you always stir up some dear nervous people who are saved, but are afraid they're not. And so we have to be careful along that line.

But let me say to you tonight, if you're troubled with insecurity and a lack of assurance, you don't have to be like that. A dear lady wrote to old Alexander Whiten, said, I just can't feel like I want to feel.

Am I saved or am I not? The answer, dear lady, when the serpent was lifted up out there in the wilderness, there were several hundred thousand people out there. And the fellow on the back row may not have been able to discern the outline of the snake on the pole.

But he said, God didn't say, see. God said, look. He said, what's the difference? There's a lot of difference. If you don't understand all about it, thank God you don't. If the plan of salvation could be understood with my little brain, there wouldn't be much to it.

I'm not supposed to understand it, I'm going to stand on it. If you don't understand it, you don't understand electricity, you're not going to sit around in the dark until you do. And so get out on what you do understand.

W .A. Criswell of Dallas tells us, and I wouldn't tell the illustration if he hadn't himself spoken of a time when he started out as a minister and did not have assurance like he should have had. And I asked him later, as we rode along, I said, tell me about it.

Yep, he said, I'd stand up to preach in the morning and in the evening and be on my knees trying to, he wanted to feel saved. God didn't say anything about that. He said, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt feel saved, he doesn't say it, thou shalt be saved.

And he said, I finally got to where I said, Lord, I can't work up a feeling, I can't get a feeling, I feel like I want to, but the book says, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. That is where I stand, and at the judgment day, that is where I'm going to be standing.

And I'm going to say, Lord, that's where I am. And that's what you said do. And anybody who hears him now realizes he's not lacking in assurance any more than Barnhouse was in certainty. Barnhouse was always sure about what he was talking about.

A .W. Tozer used to say, I wish I could be as certain of one thing as Barnhouse is about everything. Well, that's a wonderful thing to be sure. And if you're a little shaky, though, all the souls who for refuge to Jesus have fled.

He's not going to desert you to his foes. And so, as this same Alexander White said, throw yourself in the general direction of Jesus Christ. I like that. If that doesn't sound clear enough for you, there have been times in my life when it was a great comfort.

Get old H .A. Ironside's book on full assurance. He worked for years trying to feel right and never did. All the way from the Salvation Army to the Plymouth Brethren, that man went in his experience, but he came to rest on the Word of God for his certainty.

Full-Time Christian Service in Everyday Life

So make sure, however, that on those grounds of faith in Jesus Christ and on the authority of the Word of God that you're one of God's people. But you say, are you doing God's work? Now, not all church work today is necessarily God's work.

Sometimes it's something we thought of. The worship and the fellowship and the ministry of the Church, that's Church work, yes. But the best work of the Church, perhaps, is seven days in the week where they're out there living it in the shops and in the schools and in the stores and in the homes.

It's the outliving of the inliving Christ everywhere in full-time Christian service. Do you realize you've been called to full-time Christian service, every one of you? Aren't you supposed to live for the Lord every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year?

What's that with full-time Christian service? I had a fellow come up to me the other day and say, I'm an ordained plumber. I never had heard of that before, but I can see that. I tell you, a plumber has a good chance to let his light shine, along with the one that he's shining down the drain and trying to find out what the trouble is, because the lady of the house may be out of sorts and need a word from the Lord.

That's a good place to be, an ordained plumber, I think, the service of the Lord. Some church work, I don't suppose, is God's work, as I say. But what it's really supposed to be is some organization, an organism, doing the work of God.

But God wants it done his way. Have you ever backed yourself into a corner and asked yourself, why do I do what I do at church? Why? Hebrews 13 tells you very plainly the way the thing ought to go. Have you noticed that in chapter 13, it begins in verse 12 with a wherefore, and then it moves in the next verse to a therefore?

Bearing Christ's Reproach and Offering Spiritual Sacrifices

Jesus kept his wherefore. We're supposed to keep our therefore, wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Now here's where we come in. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

That's the first move. That's us. That's person. For we have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

That's when you sing. You've been doing that here tonight. And then verse 16 is when they take up the offering, but to do good and to communicate, forget not. For with such sacrifice is God as well pleased.

The Church's Duty to Its Leaders

And then number 17 is your duty to the preacher. And if you're inclined to criticize him, obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you.

You have a certain duty and responsibility to the house of God, to the work of God, and to the man of God. I remember one time my father, dear soul that he was, spoke a bit critically against the preacher, and God put him under conviction.

And I remember hearing him say, Never again will I lift my hand against God's anointed. The lesson some folks have never learned as yet. So in the last analysis, that is the test, and as you go back to your church, I hope that you ask yourself, Am I one of God's people?

Am I doing God's work, and am I doing it his way? And please remember, dear friend, that the witness that God blesses today is the one who keeps himself out of the picture, and only the Lord gets the credit.

We ought to be glad to move back to these various churches tomorrow or whenever, because if you have seen the new vision up here, that is the place you are to practice it. And then the wonderful thing is that we are on the winning side.

Christ's Victory and the Hope of Revelation

I think of that little old shoeshine man who had his little place in the lower floor of a business building, and that little black man was respected by all the businessmen there. They knew that he loved God, and he had a Bible with him, and he wasn't ashamed of it, and it was usually open.

One day one of the businessmen came along and said, Well, I see you are looking in Revelation today. He said, Do you understand the book of Revelation, what it's about? He said, No, wait a minute. He said, We've got Bible scholars everywhere that disagree about the meaning of the book of Revelation.

He said, What do you think it means? You think you understand what it means? He said, Yes. What do you think it means? He said, It means Jesus is going to win. Now you could get 500 theologians together and they wouldn't come up with anything better than that.

That's what it means. He's already won at Calvary, and that open grave you've been hearing about all week. Our Waterloo is behind us, we're just engaged in mopping up exercises now. But we see not yet all the things put under him, but we see Jesus.

Love as the Essential Mark of Christian Ministry

Seeing him, we know that we're a winner. I got a letter from Jack Wurzen last week, and he always signs it, Yours on the victory side. It's a good side to be on, you can't lose on that side. And as you go forth and go in love, I had a little country church a long time ago, and they've asked me to come back for homecoming day in the fall, and I don't see how I'll work it, but I'm just obliged almost to go.

And I found that I had been preceded by some preachers of considerable note, one particularly who found his wife there and became quite a preacher, but I never heard much about any of them but Josiah Elliot.

And he'd been way back, a plain preacher who gave away just about everything he had to help boys go through school and prepare for the work of God. So I said, Well, I've got to find out about Josiah Elliot.

Now I went back to my farmer friend, John Brown. I've missed John Brown since he went to heaven. Just a plain farmer, but we liked to talk about the things of God. I'd be over there, I should have been visiting, he should have been plowing, and we'd stand there all afternoon and talk about other things.

The next morning I'd come back, and we never said good morning, always took up where we'd left off the day before. But I said, John, I want to ask you something. I've been here a while, and all I hear about is Josiah Elliot.

What is the secret of the hidings of his power? How did he get such a grip around here on these people? John didn't have much to say, but what he said was usually pretty important. So he was still for a moment, leaned on the plow handles, and then looked at me and said, Well, he just loved this.

That's all he said, and went on plowing. There I stood, and I made my way back through those old cypresses while the wood thrush was singing that evening his vespers to the end of a perfect day. But chiming in my heart were those words, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I'm a sounding brass and a clanging cymbal.

And I said, Good God, help me to live in that 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians the rest of my days and love the people that I'm trying to help. Love the people with whom you work, and something will happen.

Seeking God's Will and Asking in Faith

Pray for me, won't you? And finally, people keep asking me to tell about it over again before I sit down. Some years ago in Pennsylvania, a long time ago, I had meetings in a Presbyterian church with a preacher who is now pastor of 5th Avenue Presbyterian in New York City.

He wrote a book, Home Before Dark. I don't remember a great deal about the book, but that title grabbed me, and it's been one of my ambitions from then on, and one of my prayers, Lord, I'd like to get home before dark.

And I mean to that, number one, I'd like to go before my physical faculties, fail, that may not be God's way. It's not that way tonight with this dear brother in Virginia, John Dunlap, who is very near the other side.

I went to see another dear brother not long ago that I remembered when he looked like a prizefighter and had been a preacher in some of the great churches. When I walked in, I'm afraid my face betrayed my concern.

He's gone now, but everything's all right now. But like Culbertson at Moody Bible Institute, Lord, don't let me wind up a workless worker in a working world. And although Dr. Culbertson was ill, it wasn't for long, and God took him mercifully.

But all that's in God's hands. I don't understand it, Lord. Lord, don't ask me to explain it all. God's running that end of the line. But you can't help asking, and that's all right. God's your Father.

Sometimes we have not because we ask not. Your Daddy gave you what you needed, but there are some things he gave you, wouldn't he have given you if he hadn't known that you wanted it and asked for it?

Now, God knows what you need, but he says ask. And my friend Pappy Reveal of the Evansville Rescue Mission, who knew the Lord better than I ever did, and he could get anybody from Billy Sunday to Billy Graham and all other preachers to come there because they loved to be with Pappy because he knew the Lord.

Just a plain man. And he had a prayer, Lord, I'm going to make a quick getaway, and he got it. He was a cripple, and he was shaving in bed, and his wife came in to call him to breakfast, and he shaved one side and laid the razor down on the head.

I like to go like that, go to bed and just wake up in glory, but God doesn't always do that. No harm putting your name in. Then I'm going to say, Lord, now, if that doesn't suit you, why, don't let me make some big blunder near the end of the way.

If you're saved, you're saved, but you're never safe as far as your testimony is concerned. There's always a danger that you may make that blunder the last mile of the way, and they remember it and forget every blessed thing you did back up the road.

That's human nature. Anthony Eden was a great Prime Minister of England, followed Churchill, and he got a little mixed up over that Suez, I understand some of the management of it. Many an Englishman will say today, if you speak of it, yes, too bad about Suez, but sometimes they forget the good things, so ask God to keep you from them, and then abide with me, fast falls the eventide, the darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide, change and decay and all around the sea, O thou who changest not, abide with me.

That one you can be sure of. My old daddy used to, when I started out as a boy, he'd go with me, because he was only 12, and for a year or two he went with me, and then I'd ride the train and go by myself, and he'd meet me at the train when he came in.

I can see him beside that little old cheap Ford Roadster he had, and that old blue shirt suit never had been pressed since the day he was born. I'd go up to him and he'd always ask me one question, How did you get along?

And I'd tell him. We always had a rule at home when I was little that I used to get home before sundown. That was understood. We didn't have to argue about it. We didn't dialogue much back in those days.

Father did a lot of monologuing, and we said amen to it, but not much dialogue. It's been a long time since I've seen Dad. One of these days when the train rounds the last curve into Grand Central Station.

And he's there and he'll be there, not in the old blue shirt suit, but in the robes of the glory of God. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the first thing he'll say would be, How did you get along? I'm going to say, Pretty well, Dad, and then as we walk down the golden streets I'm going to nudge him.

And I'm going to say, Remember, when I had to be home before sundown, well, bless God, we've both made it, and home before dark. And may you have that experience, too, by the grace of God.

You have been listening to a Columbia Bible College audio message. We trust it has been a blessing and that you will recommend the use of CBC audio messages to others. A complete listing of tapes is available upon request to CBC Media Ministries, Box 3122, Columbia, South Carolina.