Christ Is All - in Human Experience — Bill McLeod

18 million people in the country. But the congregation I'll be working with, they have 150 people, and my friend indicated that most of these are, they're missionaries, but they don't call themselves that, they're working in Afghanistan at various jobs, and they're soul-winning on the side.

And they're very anxious to have this kind of ministry. So just so you keep this in mind, that India, possibly Afghanistan, possibly the Philippine Islands, possibly two and a half months of ministry all together, and I'm a little scared.

One little Canadian among 500 million Indian people, and it's the first time I've gone into overseas ministry by myself. My wife's always gone with me, and she's three-quarters of the brains, you know.

I mean, she remembers everything and thinks of all the things that have to be done, and I don't. And I can see myself leaving my hat here and my umbrella there and my rubber somewhere else, my Bible somewhere else, and this kind of thing.

Prayer Support for Gospel Ministry

Unless you people pray, and then the Lord will pick up the slant, I know. I went to South America the first time several years ago, and when I got back, I met a number of people who told us that God had given them a great burden to pray, such a great burden to pray that some of these people told us, particularly housewives, that they used to walk around the house by the hour just praying for South America and for our ministry.

And then when I heard that, I understood why God did some of the things he did. And maybe God will do the same thing for some of you people. It would be wonderful for you to be a team behind me in prayer.

I'd appreciate that very, very much. And then something some of you, of course, will know, most of you will know who Bernard Palmer is, the editor of the Danny Orlis series, and I saw a picture of him recently, and they had all the various books he's authored standing on the floor beside him, and the pile of books was about 10 feet high.

Intercessory Prayer for Unconverted Relatives

Something about Bernard Palmer would be a challenge, I think, and a blessing to your heart. I just read this recently, and the Lord brought it to my mind so clearly to share with you. He was telling how that some years ago, he and his wife, they sat down and figured out how many unconverted relatives they had.

And I think it was 38 or something like this. Some of these were close members of their family, others were not so close, uncles and aunts and cousins and so on, 36 or 38 that were not converted, and they got concerned.

Now some of these people were so opposed to the Christian gospel that Mr. Palmer said, we could not even talk to them. They would not listen to anything we had to say. So he and his wife, they decided to make a prayer list, to put all these names in the prayer list, and then to pray daily for these people, believing that God would touch them.

And at the end of six years, 28 of them were saved. That's wonderful. Well, if God did that for Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, won't he do it for us as well? I'm sure he will. If we do what they did, get concerned, make a list, pray daily, trust God and believe the Lord, we'll see the same things happening.

Christ as the Center of Conversion

Caution 311 for a text again, is that simple statement that Christ is all, and in all, and this afternoon I want to talk about the totality, or Christ is all in the totality of the Christian life. Christ wants to be all.

Will we let him be all? For example, now Christ is all in the conversion experience. Did you ever stop to think about the conversion of the Apostle Paul, how it happened? Did some Christian philosopher get a hold of this well-educated Pharisee and sit down and dialogue with him or debate with him for some days or weeks to get him converted?

No, this is not how it happened. We know he'd heard the gospel because he had been in Jerusalem, and certainly he had probably heard some of the other Apostles preach the message of life in Jesus. But that isn't what did it.

Paul was not converted until he had a meeting with the living Christ. Somebody said, Paul never met a doctrine walking down the road by Damascus. He met a person. You know, sometimes ladies will come and they'll say, please pray for my husband and he'll go to church.

And I say, why? Well, so he'll be converted. Well, can't God convert him outside of the church? Well, I guess he can. But would he? When I think of my family, I don't know if any of us, well, my oldest brother, I guess, was converted in a church.

The rest of us were not converted in a church. We were converted when we met Christ. One of my brothers who's now with the Lord in glory, he met the Lord. He wakened up one night. He was under such awful conviction of sin.

He thought he was going to drop into hell right away. He shook so badly in bed, he woke up my older brother with whom he was sleeping. And my older brother, who was a Christian, led him to Jesus. Now omnipotence has servants everywhere.

It is not necessary that these people get to church in order to get converted. They need to meet Christ. And sometimes we've overlooked this when it comes to conversion. Jesus said, behold, I stand at the door and knock.

And sometimes we've let doctrines in, but not Jesus, and that's why it doesn't last. I mean, we've decided the Christian gospel is true. And somehow we received the John 3, 3, 5, 7, and so on, and we believe we have to be born again.

And we receive that doctrine into our heart. And we believe it. And then it doesn't work out. And it explains why, I think. We have sad reports like this. A friend of mine who was chairman of a large citywide evangelistic crusade, and his church got 175 decision cards out of the crusade, and out of 175, exactly two worked out.

Just two out of 175. And that's not unusual. That's very common. They're talking now about three percent of people going on with God, who profess the Christian faith, in large evangelistic crusades. Three percent.

That doesn't sound like Acts chapter 2, where it says that the disciples continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. Now that's how it was then.

Why is it so different today? I think because we've left Christ out of the conversion experience. People need to meet Him. Years ago, I remember when I was with a shantyman's mission, I got into a little place called East Braintree, Manitoba.

You have never heard of it, I'm sure. It's so small. There isn't a store, there isn't a restaurant, and I was visiting house to house, a few little shacks and shanties, and I came to the last shanty along the line, and I was getting hungry, and I didn't know where to spend the night, and I got to this place.

They invited me in for supper. They invited me to stay the night. I was quite happy. I didn't want to sleep under a tree, but I was prepared if I had to. And then I began talking about the Lord, and it was very embarrassing because they wouldn't talk.

They wouldn't say yes, they wouldn't say no, they wouldn't say scat, they wouldn't say go, they didn't say anything. I could ask them a question, they never said a thing. Just sat there with eyes like owl's eyes, and they didn't say a thing.

So finally, I went to bed, had breakfast with them in the morning, and took off. Never saw them again. But a year later, or two years later, Leonard Dick, and if someone in this meeting knows who Leonard Dick is, he followed me in the shanty mission work in Manitoba, and he happened to call it the same house, not knowing I had ever been there.

And when he told them he was a shantyman, they said, oh, come on in. Bill McCloud was here a couple years ago, and we got saved when he was here. And then I knew why they couldn't talk. They couldn't talk because Jesus was talking to them.

See, it wasn't me at all, and I was so stupid, I didn't realize that the Lord was there, and the talking to them, and he converted them. Now I'll tell you something, if Jesus doesn't convert you, you'll never be converted.

He's the one that has to do it. One man said that Jesus met Saul, and unhorsed him. Do you understand the phrase? He got him off his high horse, flat on his face. And only Jesus can do that. So when you're thinking about people being converted, remember what they need to do is to meet Christ.

And if we pray, the Lord Jesus will work circumstances around, and he'll move into their life at the right time. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Not a doctrine, but a person. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him.

And some people have accepted ideas, but not received Christ. And that's why it doesn't work out, and it's a reproach on the name of the Lord, and the power of the gospel. So we need to put Christ back in the saddle, or in the driver's seat, in the preaching of the gospel, and the work of the Lord Jesus.

Christ is all, in conversion. And I have a brother, who when he got married, he and his wife, when they were alone, they shook hands, and they promised each other they would never become Christians. Well, so much for that, he's an evangelist today.

And I know a lady went into a barn, and got down on her knees, she was under such awful condition, and she said, Lord, whatever you do, don't save me. And the next day she got converted. So much for that.

Trusting God in the Conversion of Sinners

So when people are praying and believing God, you have to let the Lord do it in his way, and he will confront them, and he will show them what you and I can't show them. You can persuade, and persuade, and persuade.

I remember one time, a desperate, desperate sinner. As a matter of fact, when some people found out that a couple was going to call on this man, they said, you better wear your bulletproof vest. So we went there sort of in fear and trembling, that's not all that bad, because Paul said, I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and much trembling.

And I began, I began by giving him my testimony, which didn't mean a thing. I've often told people, you know, that if I give my testimony, it will take four minutes, and two minutes will be wasted. You know, I didn't rob a bank, and I was not an adult, and I never got drunk in my life, and I never took drugs, and I never did any of these things you have to do to be an effective witness.

And so I gave my testimony, such as it was, nothing happened. He sat with his feet up on a chair, and he looked out the window. He wasn't even looking at us. It was quite difficult to maintain, you know, the attack under these circumstances.

And I prayed and said, Lord, what in the world do I do? I said, well, why don't you try me? Try my word. So I began talking from the Bible. I've just looked up to God in faith in that moment, and the Lord just began talking through me, and the guy's feet came down on the floor, and in ten minutes, we were on our knees, and he received the Lord as his Savior.

And I'll tell you, we had a shelter in time. But it was the Lord Jesus that did it. It was nothing I did. I just happened to be there. So in the conversion experience, if we want to see genuine conversions, the Lord Jesus has to do it.

And he will do it in his own time and way, if we'll let him. Like maybe you heard about the lady, she had a son. It was a true story. When she had a son, it was very wayward, so she was praying, not because she was concerned about the glory of God, or the name of God, but because she was concerned about the family name.

You know, he might get drunk, he might do something terrible, and bring an awful reproach in the family name. That's really what she was concerned about. But she thought she was concerned about the Lord.

And so she was praying, God, don't let him get into problems. God, look after my son. Please, Lord, don't let him get into an accident when he's drunk, and all these things, you know. Well, God might want to get him into an accident, so he can take his strength away and talk to him.

Who knows? So we can't tell God how to do it, when to do it, and all these things, like she was trying to do. Well, God dealt with her about this, and she really saw how sinfully she had been praying, and so she told her son, she said, I'm not praying for you the way I used to pray.

And he knew how his mother prayed. He'd actually heard her praying, and he used to kind of lean on his mother's prayers, because he knew she walked with God. And he thought, well, God will take care of me.

Nothing's going to happen this bad, even though I'm a little bit wild. But she said, I'm not praying for you the way I used to pray. And he said, how are you praying now, Mom? She said, I'm praying, God, you get him dead or die.

And he was saved in one week. Boy, he didn't want to run that kind of a risk. All right. Dear people, when we believe the Lord, and let God do it in his time and his way. Do you know something? Maybe you've heard this before, you probably have, because I don't have anything new to say, but to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, which was what Peter was doing as well.

Waiting for God’s Timing in Spiritual Work

You know, when we believe God, you put somebody into God's hands, and you take your hands off. You know what may happen right away? The situation may get three times as bad as it was before. Ever notice that?

But you know what that means? That means that God's picked it up, and God's accelerating the thing, and God's going to do something. So don't panic. When you commit, things immediately get worse. You know, the way that Joel put it, he said, you hunt me like a fierce lion.

And then again, he said, you show yourself marvelous unto me. Thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down. Let God do what he wants to do, but let him do it in his own way, and don't panic when the thing is bad.

Christ in the conversion experience, we want the Lord Jesus to do it, so it won't have to be done the second time, or the third time, or the tenth time, as happens in some cases where, you know, I've had people come to me and say, I went forward in a meeting, and I knelt down there, and I did what the counselor said, tell me, am I a Christian?

I've actually had people ask me the question. I'm supposed to be God. I'm supposed to tell them whether they're a Christian or not. And then when you get talking to them, you find out that the way they were dealt with, I mean, the Lord really wasn't in it at all.

And sometimes there's strictly an emotional response. And you can get that. I was asked to preach once at a children's rally, and there was about 800 children at this rally, and they said, preach the gospel, and then give an invitation.

And we'll have workers in the room at the back. So I preached the gospel message for 15 minutes, which is about their attention span. And then I gave an invitation. There must have been hundreds of kids stampeding down the aisles.

So I stopped them all and sent them back to their seats. And then I said, now, don't you dare come down that aisle, don't you dare stir out of your seat, unless you want to receive Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Savior.

And I made it as difficult as I could, just looking to God, and every word I said, God, you say it to them. And they gave a low-key invitation. 27 children came forward, and the workers said about 25 of them gave evidence of being under conviction.

Saul of Tarsus and God’s Arrows Against Persecutors

Christ and the conversion experience. Christ met Saul of Tarsus and turned the church's great persecutor into a great evangelist. And one day God showed me something in the Old Testament that I'd never seen before on a planet to Saul of Tarsus.

God ordains his arrows against the persecutors. So when people are persecuting God's people, God is firing arrows into their hearts. That's a wonderful thing, all right. Christ is all in the totality of the Christian experience, beginning with conversion.

Sanctification Through Christ and the Church

And after conversion, on the other side of the coin is what we call sanctification. You might call it by a different name. But sanctification is a good Bible name. Sometimes people say, well, in our church we don't believe in sanctification.

I say, all right, you don't believe the Bible? Oh, yes, we believe the Bible. But we don't believe in sanctification. But that's talking the Bible. Like people sometimes say, you know, I don't believe in predestination.

I say, you don't believe in the Bible? Oh, yes, we believe in the Bible. You don't believe in predestination? Well, is that talking the Bible? Yes, it is. Well, what you believe about it might be different from what I believe about it.

But sanctification is taught in the Bible. What kind of sanctification? It's the other side of the coin, and it's sanctification by the power of Jesus Christ. You know, in Acts chapter 20, it says that God loved the church, and He purchased the church with His own blood.

God did that. Why? The answer to that question we get in Ephesians 5, where it says that Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify, that He might sanctify the church with a washing of water by the Word.

And He cried to God, His Father, in John 17, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy Word is truth. But Christ gave Himself for the church, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.

Now, in order to do that, here's what He does. Going over to Ephesians chapter 4, it talks about the One who ascended and descended, and then it says that Jesus Christ gave gifts unto men. And then it says in the same context, that He then gave those gifted men to the church.

Why? And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto a measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Now, then, Jesus Christ is sanctifying and cleansing the church, because He wants to present it to Himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish before Him in love.

And He's doing it by giving gifts to men, and then giving those gifted men to the church. And some people are too proud to listen to anybody else teach the Word of God. They think they know it all. I've met Christians here, and I've met Christians there.

They've got all the answers. They don't believe in the church. They don't need the church. They get it all from God, they tell me. And I notice that people like that usually are limping in both feet. You need what God has to say to you, through a Sunday school teacher in your church, or an elder, or a pastor, or an evangelist, or a missionary, or somebody else.

You need what God has to say to you. And if you're too proud to listen to what God is going to say through some other humble Christian, you'll never make it, my brother or sister, you'll never make it.

I mean, in a Christian life, you may make it to heaven, but you'll never be useful to God. You and I have got to get to a place where we're willing to learn from a child. One time I was sitting under a tree, the Lord and I were talking, and all of a sudden a godly colored insect about yea long came spiraling down.

It was dead, and had been in the tree, and I think a little gust of wind had loosened. It was godly colored, and it just came spiraling down like this, and it landed right at my feet. I don't know what it was, but I was looking at it, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a large black ant showed up.

And he found this thing, and man, he went wild. I mean, he ran all over it, he grabbed it by one of the wings, he began to pull it this way, and pull it that way, and pull it the other way, and he couldn't make any progress.

He tried from this direction, tried, and I could have helped him up, but I didn't know where he wanted to go, so I couldn't really help him out, and all that kind of, but I let him, I let him, I just watched him.

And finally, you know, he just gave up. He walked away. And a little while later, now three minutes later, a tiny red ant showed up, and he found this thing. Man, he tore over it, and he zoomed away, and he came back with about 500 ants, and he just walked it away.

I thought, man, great, what a lesson. I mean, the Lord taught me from that. The Bible says, speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee. And I learned something from a dead insect, and from some ants that day.

Go to the ant, thou slugger, consider her ways, and be wise. Listen, we need the fellowship of God's people. You can't live or act independently of God's people. Or you're like that big, big black ant.

You don't get anywhere. You can't do anything. What I can't do by myself, two people perhaps can do. Remember what it says, one of you shall chase a thousand, and two of you will put how many to flight?

How many? Ten thousand. Not double the power. If my arithmetic is correct, and I never was great at that, five times the power. The church. He loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the Word.

So he gifts men, and gives those gifted men to the church, apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of the ministry, to the edifying of the body of Christ.

Now that's what God is doing. Jesus Christ is sanctifying the church. He saved it, now he's sanctifying it. And you know, even when it comes, we talk about being crucified with Christ, which really is just part of the sanctification process.

Crucified and Risen with Christ

You know, that's something that the Lord Jesus Christ has to do. I remember someone telling me one time, with a shining face, they said, I struggled for years trying to be crucified. Then, I asked Jesus to do it.

And he did it. And he did it. And that's what we need. You can't do it. I tried to stay on that cross, years, when I was first converted, somebody, a friend of mine, a missionary in South America now, he sent me this book by Mr. Maxwell from Prairie, the book called Born Crucified.

So I read the book, and I saw the doctrine. Brother, I tried, I mean, I really tried to get up on that cross. I climbed that cross, I don't know how many times, and nailed myself there, and always fell off, like Eutychus fell out the window.

I could never stay there. Until finally, I was so sick and tired of that way of living, I asked God to do it. And I said, Lord, from this moment, I'm believing you, I will never doubt it again. Because your word says, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin.

I took my stand on that, and in Colossians 3, 3, that says you are dead. It doesn't say you're trying to die, it says you're dead, and your life is hid with Christ and God. And then he says, because you're dead, now die.

See verse 3 says you are dead, and verse 5 says, therefore, mortify. One translation says, so once and for all, put to death. Because you're dead, now die, is what it says. And then he says the same thing in Romans 6, when he says, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.

Then in the 10th verse, he picks the theme up again, and he says, in that he, Jesus, died, he died unto sin once. And that Greek word there means, once and for all, never to be repeated. But in that he lives, he lives unto God.

And the first word of the next verse is, likewise. Which means, after this fashion or in this manner, you reckon yourself also to be dead, indeed, unto sin. But alive unto God, which is the other side of that coin.

And sometimes, you know, we get crucified, but we don't get resurrected, alright, by faith. The Lord made a verse in 1 Corinthians 6, a tremendous blessing. I mean, God came in on the wings of that verse and just hit my heart one time.

A verse that says this, he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Now that's enough to keep you chewing and thinking for a thousand years. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. And you and I as Christian believers have become one with Jesus Christ.

You know, that ought to end all the struggling, as I realize what Jesus Christ has done for me. Crucified me. He's buried me. His power has resurrected me. And I walk with him in newness of life, and now I can say, I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

Through Christ. And I want to say, only through Christ. That's the crucifixion experience. That's part of sanctification. I think perhaps we've had maybe too heavy an emphasis on the crucifixion aspect, and too light an emphasis on the resurrection at least.

I get that from the literature, from listening, from my own preaching. And I'm trying to correct that. Because we die, it says he kills, and then he makes alive. Who kills? God kills. He kills, and then he makes alive.

He wounds, then his hands make whole. He does it. That ought to end the struggling. I can't. I tried so hard, and it didn't work. And then when I give up, then he took over when I asked him to, and did it for me.

Alright? I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. What's the rest of the verse? And the life which I now live, in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

You and I, we need Jesus Christ every moment of every hour of every day, and we'll need him all through eternity. Christ and the Holy Spirit experience. You know, a marvelous study is just to go to John 14, 15, 16, and see how all the promises concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit, sometimes they're called the Comforter, are linked to Jesus.

He said, I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter. The Comforter came because Jesus prayed. Then he said, in another one of these verses, the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.

In my name. In much of today's literature and preaching, there's almost a total divorce between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. And people have, they want to have what they call a Holy Spirit experience.

You cannot have a Holy Spirit experience apart from a Jesus Christ experience. You know, in Galatians 4, 6, and here's another verse, you know, Spurgeon once said that sometimes truths, old truths, they leap out of the Bible like a lion out of a thicket.

And this one leapt out of me one day, Galatians 4, 6, and because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. And it just hit me this way, that the Holy Spirit that God has sent into my heart is the Spirit of God's Son.

You can't divorce Jesus from the Holy Spirit. He's the Spirit of God's Son, sent into my heart. And it's not by accident in the same chapter with sort of a prayer of Paul's, the 19th verse, My little children, of whom I prevail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you.

Did you ever notice in the book of Zechariah, what talks about the Lord stretching out the heavens like a curtain, then laying the foundations of the earth? Those are great, mighty works of God. What's the next thing?

And he forms the Spirit of man within him. You know, the creating in the Christian life of the likeness of Jesus is likened in that context in Zechariah to God stretching out the universe and laying the foundations of the earth.

People, it's a mighty, mighty thing when the hand of God forms the image of Jesus in you and in me. How long are we going to prevent God from doing this? How long will we hold on to some rotten corner of a rotten self and prevent God from showing Jesus through us, conforming us, as it says in Romans 8, we were predestinated not to be carried to heaven in an armchair, but we were predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son.

That's what God had in mind, and we often stand in God's way. You want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then you want to be filled with Jesus Christ. You want to live a life controlled by Jesus Christ.

That's what you want, or else you don't want anything. It's not a feeling or an experience. It's Christ. To me, Paul said, to live is Christ and nothing else but Christ. Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.

In every forward step a Christian takes, he takes by the power of Jesus Christ in his life. Every victory, glory must go to him. He's the one that does it all. The Holy Spirit. Just study, I say again, John 14, 15, 16.

It's all through Christ. And then historically, following those little prophecies in John, then in Acts chapter 2, we read this. This Jesus has God raised up, who offer all our witnesses, therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he, Jesus, has shed forth this, which you now see in here.

Jesus did it. I say again, Pentecost was a Jesus happening. It was something that Christ did. In any revival that comes, it's Christ that's doing it. It's Christ breathing on the church. The first year I was out preaching, we had an evangelist come.

And over 70 people professed salvation in a week of meetings. Some of them are missionaries in the foreign field today. I think it was the first or the second meeting. And things like this very, very rarely happen in my experience.

And maybe I shouldn't even share it. But it was the first or second meeting when I saw the Lord standing over the congregation with his arms out in the attitude of blessing. And it was so real I got to my feet to tell the evangelist that Jesus had come.

I didn't. I sat down again. He has to do it all. The Holy Spirit. Do you remember what Paul said in, you know, thinking about service, Christian service, in the book of Colossians chapter 1, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily?

So then, be you not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. The Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ, lives in your heart. And he inspires us and moves us out in Christian work to share, to comfort, to console, to rebuke.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend. The kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And so we strive according to his working, which works in me mightily. And remember in Galatians Paul said this, he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles.

Christ was in Peter and Christ was in Paul. And Christ was working mightily, powerfully through Peter to bring Jews to Christ, and mightily in the same way through Paul to bring Gentiles to Christ. And Paul talked about that in Romans 15.

He said, I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient. By word and deed, mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about unto Elyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.