Something Is Wrong - Part 05 of 05 — Richard Owen Roberts

Salvation and Reward

The Word of Salvation and all that, now it's coming to the outflowing of that which you received at Calvary, now it's flowing out and it has an objective way off in there. Now he says, I've opened a door for you.

That's truth. Now, no flesh can shut it, but I want you to see the door. That's the opening, the inner openings of Jesus. He's the door. He's the door. We begin to discern, what do we see? We see all the little things that are hidden away in him.

All his purposes, his desire, his inner thought concerning his people. He couldn't tell very much about it. So here, we find that he's talking about some kind of a revelation of truth. It brings us to this question of salvation and reward, which is hard for some people to see.

I'll come to you with that in a minute. The vast difference between the teaching of salvation and your rewards, which are the result of your salvation and which comes clinging on this side of Calvary.

You come up to Calvary, then you pass it. Then after you pass Calvary, you begin to live. Then the opening begins to come and begins to come and begins to come. As you do that, that is really the life that God wants.

It's the field or the pattern for your working, which is in the field of rewards. That's where you make the reward. That's where you gain it. That's where you build it. As we've said so many times, even since I've been here, crowns are not souvenirs.

God doesn't give people crowns to make them look pretty in heaven. We shall sit around singing at each other with crowns on our heads. That's a kind of a funny Sunday school idea. But it entertains some people, and so all right.

Because it keeps them out of jail and out of death. Do you see how I mean it or don't you? That's as far as they can go, so don't spoil them. If a child can be kept quiet and out of trouble with a bag of candy, don't take his candy away.

It'll help him so far. It'll keep him at least quiet. And I feel that with a lot of people. That's right. They have what can hold them. That's all. That is the thing that he's doing. He didn't mind. Your rewards are earned through trial, testing, and proving.

And the crown is the sequel or the answer. Your reward. Do you remember the reward of that man that was faithful? Do you remember that story I told you? And at the end, the man handed him a crown. He didn't hand him any crown.

And yet he received a crown, but what was it? The fact that he was able to be moved into a new place where that element which had been wrought in him could find full expression. Thou hast been faithful over a few things.

You have guarded. You have kept. You have held as a very choice thing this privilege of life, this privilege of your living. You have made it a sacred thing. You have said, Oh Lord, sanctify me. Sanctify this life.

In all of its measure, as it moves out, it shall be under thy glory. So he said, In doing that, I have found registered on you a certain element which I want. Now I will lift that up here and it will be multiplied.

How is he getting a crown? He got a crown, but he didn't hand him a crown. The crown is a symbol. A symbol. But you have to have some qualification which guarantees the crown. You have to have a certain qualification in God to guarantee the crown.

He can't give crowns as souvenirs. But singing books are full of that. And a lot of teaching is too. I wonder how your crown is going to look. And what kind of a crown. But don't be so terrible as that.

That isn't what he's talking about. Well now let's go back to the life of Jesus for a minute. I want to give you a few verses about his reward business and the crown. 1 Corinthians 3, 12 -15. Let me read it.

You take the note and then peruse it through after a while. 1 Corinthians 3, 12 -15. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now that's your foundation. That's the foundation.

That's your salvation. That's all the things you have. Because he said, leaving the first principles, let us go on to our completion. You have that. And the foundation he laid there was salvation, baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection, teachings of all of that.

That was the foundation. Now he says, let us leave that where it is. Don't deny it. Don't throw it away. Accept it. But let us go on to its tilios. Its finish. Tilios. Its completion. Not let us go on to holiness.

He's not talking about holiness. Let us go on. Well, now he says here, to this church. Paul teaching to the Corinthian church. You have all of that. And there's no other foundation than that which Jesus has already shaped and formed.

And you are called now to be stones in the building of that great Don Quixote, which is for his praise and for his worship. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Building on the Foundation

Now comes our building on. Now this is our part. There's the building on. Now if any man build upon this foundation. He's the same man building on the possibilities which God has opened to him. He has given him the material.

Here it is. Life. What are you going to start out of life to make your building? You got to make a building. What material are you using to make this structure? Which he says, let us go on to its completion.

Well, he says, now if any man build upon this foundation. He's a Christian, lovely man. He's building on his foundation which God has given him in Christ. If he build on this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, or wood, hay, stuff.

Well, he's a Christian. That's the point. That it depends upon us in our reaction to the material which God has given to us manifold. In our choices, in our decisions, we gather the material for the building of this thing.

This lovely edifice for Christ. We gather it all the time about us. Gold, silver, precious stones. Gold is always a type of deity and divinity. Are you taking the things of divine value? Are you taking the things of eternal value?

Silver is always redemption. Are you building it of material that has been redeemed? That has no shadow yet being judged? You get it? The material is silver. It has passed its judgment. It is a redeemed thing.

You get it? I want you to see it. Precious stones. Those are the treasures. Now remember the treasures which are hidden in Christ. Have you been able to reach in your hand in the treasure chest and gather out these treasures which may be inserted in the building?

It should be a very beautiful edifice. It should be a very magnificent edifice that the Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, should deign to come and live in it. And we are building it. We are building it.

Now he says, you may build, you may build of the things of God and they are of divine value. You build of gold, of a student, of precious stones. Now that's all quality of material for life. All of that is the life.

We have it all here this morning. Some of us have, every one of us have some materials of gold in the structure that we are building. Some of us have, every one of us, everyone in this room certainly.

Every one of you have what? Materials which have come through a redemption of Christ that have not yet, will not be judged. They have been judged by his redemption. You get it? Silver is redeeming. Silver is the atoning.

And it's gone through an atoning, redeeming process. He says, that will endure through the ages to come. Let us put that into the building. Reach into the Christ for the hidden treasure. That will make the mosaic work and all the lovely decoration that he wants in this structure.

But he says, listen, on that same foundation, a Christian who is resting above the salvation, the baptism, the gifts, all of that, that is his foundation. That is not the building. He says, it is now possible to build without a material.

Hay, wood, how many do you get? How many do you get? That is so weak. There's no character to it. It is combustible. It can't stand fire. Gold and silver and the precious don't come. You know you can build a fire of hell around it.

In Christ that's there because that's Christ. Though the gates of hell are storming, he says, they shall not prevail. Don't you see that? How many see the high tower into which we run? And they're hidden.

How many see the beer building too? That's our building. Now he says, it's possible to build hay, wood, and stubble. Now hay, wood, and stubble all have their origin in the earth. You see, I was talking about earth a little while ago.

Remember when I talked about the earth in us? The earth? The earth? Hay, wood, and stubble always have their roots in the earth. Oh, so curious. It can so be arranged that it becomes artistic, beautiful.

Look at the things that you can make out of some of the most simple elements. But he says, all of that material has its origin in the earth. It's combustible. Everyone shall be tried by fire. You get that text.

Hook that right on with it. All work shall be tried so as by fire. That's his text. Now we will go on a little bit more with this. He may build with wood, hay, and stubble. Every man's soul? No. He's saying, every man's manifestation of life.

Judgment of the Life We Have Lived

That is his work. His manifestation. That doesn't mean the works that you do, like teaching and preaching and saving souls. That isn't the works he's talking about. The word here means a manifestation of all the conduct of life that has gone on in the body.

I have to give an account for the fact that I have lived. Not merely that I have done a few things. That's included too. But the whole group of life processes, they must stand a test of fire. And everyone shall be judged for the deeds.

Not the works, but remember the other text. For the deeds which are accomplished while we're in body. Whatever they may be. He's not talking about the works of good. Can you get that or can't you? The deeds, whatever they may be, whatever life we have offered to him in this life.

He says that is to be judged. Not just my work as a teacher. Then a work is this and my work is that. That's going to be judged, but that isn't it. That's included very, very much. But I have to give an account for the life that I've lived.

The element of life that's given to me is my talent. Everyone has a talent. He said to each one he gave a talent. And you remember all those talents were the same thing. He didn't say he gave to one a talent of singing and to another a talent for business.

And to another a talent for so and so. And to another a talent for so and so. All the talents were one thing. And that's why he gives to us the privilege of life. To be what? Consecrated, sanctified unto God.

He didn't. People get gifts of manifestation mixed up with talents. Don't do it. He gave everyone the same thing. He gave everyone the same thing. When it came to pounds, he gave everyone the same thing again.

That is the universal gift. He calls it sometimes a pound because it has multiplication or a talent which may be multiplied. It is the token of life. Now I have to give an account to God for this life which I have lived.

The Great White Throne and the Judgment of Sinners

At the great white throne judgment which is for sinners, how many of you know that's all they have to offer? Remember? And all they have are the works which they have accomplished in their flesh. And how many of you know it gave nothing?

He looked and he said, your names are not written in the last book of life but you'll have a judgment. Every sinner will have a judgment. And he will have to be judged according to what? The failure which he has permitted.

He's lost. He has no place. Don't get your judgments mixed up. You hear singing books and singing about the great white throne. Well, heavens, I don't want to get anywhere near a white throne. The white throne is the seat of judgment for sinners.

But if they don't know that, how will they? Like the man, he gave a testimony. Now do this, do that. He got up and he praised God that he was like a green bay tree. Well, how do you know that? It's perfectly opposite from the palm tree.

God says we shall be like a palm tree. A tree planted by the water. And he got up and said that he felt like a green bay tree. Well, that's the awfulest picture you could have of distress and horror and sin.

But it sounded like a tree. So he said, well, aren't people funny? Oh, mercy, what a thing to say. Never sing that you want to sing around the great white throne. That's the white throne of judgment. Now there is the throne of God where there is worship.

That's another thing. He's not talking about that. The throne of God where he's crowned and all of that. The angelic host, that's different. But the white throne of judgment, that's a judgment where sinners who would not come in under the redemptive scheme and move in their own righteousness and their own works.

That's what they have. It's for them. And of course there is nothing to avail. So he says in this, every man's work, that's the manifestation of his life, shall be manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire.

And the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall not, it shall be burned. He shall suffer loss.

But, now this is salvation, you see. But he himself shall be saved, yet so is the fire. Come you see, he gets in by the skin of his teeth. He just makes the grave. He gets in, but all of this business of having any kind of reward, that's all gone.

That's all swept away. He says, this man, he shall be saved. Now come you see, he has no reward for the glory of God. He has never come into any fullness of the meaning of life. It doesn't mean he shall be lost.

He won't be lost. There'll be thousands and millions of people in the heavenlies who haven't any idea about a reward and walking with the Lord and all this. They don't, it's all the same thing. But always remember this.

God has all eternity to work out any of the problems that baffle us. Can you remember? And God is great enough to accomplish many things that we can't conceive of. So I ought to put that over upon his hands.

Shall not the judge of the whole world do right? Certainly. But what about all these people I see? Turn them over to God. Here are some whose whole consequence of life that they should have built, doesn't say the foundation, but the building on the foundation is the thing that is wrecked.

How many can see that again? He didn't say your salvation is burned up and ruined. That still remains. But he says the building on that, the building that you make on that, that's consumed, burned. But he says your foundation will still remain, yes?

But it's fire. Is this a special time when the fire is going to triumph because the day shall declare it? Or can that take time? It's always triumph.

Fire is a continual thing. The fire is like the judgment of God. It's like a fire. The judgment, the estimate of God. The judgment of God as he sees the thing. It's going to be tried by his standard, not ours.

Salvation, Rewards, and Legalistic Standards

So there are so many people who can't distinguish between a reward and their salvation. They get all mixed up. Poor teaching. I know some of the churches which have such a legal idea of things. They're very legalistic.

And their teaching all moves around in that field. Think of a person who feels his soul is lost because he went fishing on Sunday. How many get a revelation? Does the Lord say, he that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ and does not fish on Sunday shall be saved?

But there are people just like that. I meet them all the time. They have a certain process of rationalization about it that ends there. None of us are perfect. All of us have a sin in the sense that we have not perfectly glorified God.

It's not a specific act, but the fact that our whole manifestation, how many of you think we perfectly glorify God? Well, we don't. Well, when we do not glorify God, that is sin. For sin is what? Missing the mark.

Well, therefore, if that happens, they go to hell. So we're all going to hell. You see the rock of the process? They're so strange in their ways of reasoning. I don't fuss around with them much. I've been with them sometimes.

I've tried to work with them in their churches, but I couldn't do it at all. They didn't even know the truth. They judged people by a sense of moral consciousness which was gathered up by the church. It was a kind of a measure which the church has made.

The doctrines of the church has made a standard that if you don't come true to that, then that's dead faith. Well, I always want to say, who made your standard? We have one in Christ. But a lot of people do and don't do because it's purely, purely, purely, not God at all.

But they do or do not do because it is a standard which the tradition of their church has made. Then they superimpose that upon a group of people. Now you know the danger of it. The danger of it. I can tell some illustration, but I don't want to.

It's so pitiful. Pitiful, just really pitiful. A sort of a standard which a traditional creed has made. And then they try to superimpose that upon the people and God isn't in half of it at all. And then of course they go down, then they're discouraged,.

And of course they lose their soul. Oh, my, my.

All of that is just, to me it's a tragedy. Just a tragedy. And you face them with it and finally in the last analysis they will say, well yes, this is the way they do. This is the way I was told. This is the way so and so.

And they have no scripture for it. They have nothing of God for it at all. But it was according to a custom. A custom. This is right and this is wrong. This is polite, this is not polite. They're all sort of funny standards which people make according to your group or your society or even the nation.

I was going to show some pictures of my work in Africa, a trip there. And I left them home and didn't know it. And some of the pictures are a little bold and daring because you have to get used to oriental people.

Now, in Africa where I was, a woman's dress begins at her hips and goes down over her limbs and her knees. Some of them even to their feet. But their whole upper body will be stark naked. And they are properly dressed and they all think so.

And there's no sense of shame or immodesty about it because they don't have that. How many of you see you can't judge by such things as that, Tom? And I have some of the pictures of these women sitting there and hear their breasts hang way down there like men, people look on the screen.

Well, I said, if you travel here, you've got to get used to an awful lot of things. You just have to get used to a lot of things. To that woman, if she should come here and see these girls with their legs showing like that, that Negro woman would be insulted.

She'd say, I have no sense of modesty showing their legs and the shape of their bodies. She'd be disgusted with them. A heathen woman. Why? Because that's her standard. She wouldn't want to take gospel from such stuff as that.

Those heathen people coming and telling us about Jesus and look how they look. Showing everything they have, as daring as they dare to without getting jailed. And then, precious Lord. They can take it.

They will take it. Well, what is it? Well, they happen to have standards. So I have some pictures and I always tell them, I say, now don't get scared. This is a very polite picture I'm showing you. It's very, very correct.

Very polite. But we make our little standards. And I'd like to give you a scripture verse about that because we have one. About taste not, touch not, and handle the how many rivers. And he says, after all, they all have to do with your flesh.

Nobody holds that verse. I'm going to have a Bible sometime and underline all of these verses for people to look at who don't seem to know they're in the Bible. Listen to this one. In Hebrews 2 -1. Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard.

Holding Fast to the Word

Why? There's danger. Lest at any time we should let them slip. That's the same sense again. It means like a little boat or something that has its moorings. It's mooring. It seems sheltered mooring. But you see the tide and the waves, the tide and the waves breaks that and it slips away.

It is the little ship that slips away from the moorings. The moorings never move. No. The ship slips away from its moorings. Lest we let them slip away. When I got into this field, it put some standards before me.

It put some standards before me. I thought, oh my. Then I tried to speak a little along this line in one of the meetings. A man took me outside. Why did he tell me where to get off? He says, a preacher.

And you're doing nothing but preach law. You're preaching law. You're getting people all under law. And he had his mystic going. You're putting people all under law. Where is the grace? Well, he had such a big idea of grace of God that when God saved you, all of these things were taken care of, right?

In the act of salvation. And how do you know that? It's as erroneous as anything could possibly be. He had no place in this economy at all, religiously speaking. He had no place for any growth or development or rewards or crowns or anything.

Well, if you're saved, you'll have your crown. Well, I let them. I went. So, you see, you can't always teach in places. There's always sometimes you steal candy out of the paper bag and you all squawk.

Better leave it in. Law. You see, we're not teaching law at all. We're not teaching about how to get saved or that or how to lose salvation. We're talking about rewards and how to lose them. The foundation remained.

But the structure was burning down. But the foundation stayed. And it says, all that he had was burned and yet he is saved so as the fire. He got through. Well, who wants an entrance like that when it says we should have a joyous, victorious entrance into the things of God?

Crowns as Authority and Glory

Crown. Somebody gave me an overhauling about crowns. What a self-centered thing. How selfish to be talking along this line of crowns. Well, I said, we don't talk about this for self-aggrandizement. It is something that we are going to be or have.

It isn't that at all. We are merely an instrument which will in time reflect the glory of God, the glory of Christ. We take the symbol called the crown and we offer it all back again at Jesus' feet. We don't sit around with a crown and say, I got this far.

If you have two crowns, I got three. Really, two of them under the chair. No, no. The crown is our place of authority, a wonderful thing which has been won and gained. After all, how many of you know, it all goes back again to the cross, that He may be all in all in the universe.

That's why all the time I'm doing this and in my heart's all I'm doing this. Everything in me is doing that. Do you see what it is? It's like a strange aspiration for the exaltation, the lifting up of this One who has found us.

He's found us. And all we can do is say, Amen. Take all there is. He fills the universe. He fills the universe. He fills all heaven. Why should our little hearts and lives be the means of what? Any glory that we can gain and put at His feet.

But in the end, He is all in all. Now I'll read you another verse that goes right along with this teaching. In John, that is 2 John 1 and 8, look to yourselves that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.

And he's talking to Christians. And this is John talking to his little children. You ever notice that? It's so sweet of John. He was called the son of thunder, wasn't he? There was this dynamic quality, power, like a fire in him, which Jesus saw.

Now when Jesus saw that, we heard the other night, Jesus saw the potential. He saw the capacity. And he coveted that man, and he called him, and he dealt with him, until what could happen? God could take that and sweep all that thunder out of him, which was his natural.

But he says, I want you. You have thunder capacity. You have fire capacity. You have light capacity. But I don't want yours. I want the capacity that I may be in there. I will thunder through you. I will shine through you.

I will live through you. Do you get it? Don't you get it? Now look at the change. Do you remember when he was that son of thunder? That was when he was, when he comes back, do you know how he addresses the Christians?

He calls them children, and he calls them little children. Isn't that a, isn't that a come down? Isn't that a sweet come down? I looked at it so many times, and I said, oh God, what a triumph you had in that man, that now he says, love one another.

Well, he's full of thunder. Oh, no dear, thunder's knocked out. He's full of love just now. Do you remember it? So sweet and beautiful. Love one another. Love one another. Little children do thus and so.

Little children, how many see a tremendous, a tremendous revolution and change in that whole thing that brings him where he belongs? How many see he's getting off on some new levels? He's not here where he's thundering.

He's here where he's saying, little children, little children. Love one another. God is love. Well, what's the matter with him? I remember him when he used to thunder wonderfully. He's backslidden shortly.

How many of you know that'll come to? That will come. You'll be questioned. If you can't figure in the same pattern that you did five or ten or twenty years ago, don't be amazed. Don't, don't, don't be distressed.

They'll say it behind your back. I remember, well, they all remember John when he thundered. But how many know John had another ministry? He did have that. That's good. That's all right. But that isn't the thing that they do.

The Christian Race and the Prize

Now, one more, then we'll go. 1 Corinthians 9, 24 and 27. Know ye not, that they which run in a race run all, that one receiveth the prize? Are they running now to get salvation? And all these sinners are out running to get salvation, which is set before you.

And Jesus is the prize. And you sinners, you just run with all your strength and might and name and do the best you can and do as good as you can and keep out of jail and give to the missionaries and run fast and you'll catch him.

Know ye not, that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize so run that he may obtain. And he's talking to saved, baptized people. And he says this is a race. This life in the Spirit.

This moving into God. This ascent that we talk of. He says it's a race. It's a race. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate, that is balanced in all things. A perfect equipoise of balance.

Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown. But we an incorruptible. I therefore so run not as uncertainly though he's got a terrific vision that's captivating. So fight I not as one that beateth the air but I keep under my body this whole natural thing.

This whole natural body. Socks. That's your whole bodily concept. And I bring it into its subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I myself should lose my soul. He will be a castaway from the rewards which will be passed out.

How do you see it? I had a Methodist minister told me this that you're liable to lose your soul so and so. He had no teaching anyway. He was an awful good man. Precious man. He's one of the first preachers who helped me toward God.

He was very limited. But I took all that he had. And this was one of the passages he was preaching on how we would lose our souls. He says even Paul was afraid of being a castaway. Well Paul wasn't talking about salvation.

He was talking about running in a race for the rewards which would be unto God and if he misses, what happens? He says I will be rejected as one who wins a reward. But how do you know he's not rejected as a man saved?

And this preacher couldn't see that coming. And here he was teaching us that we had to be thus and so or we'd be castaway. No, lest I would be rejected from winning the prize for which I am now moving.

Christ's Endurance and the Cross

Now just one more little thought. You're getting tired aren't you? Now let's relate it first this idea of holding fast what you have lest you lose the crown. Let us apply it to our great leader first.

You see he is the teacher and we are the little learners and we have to learn as he teaches. He is the master and all these things are accomplished in him. Now when he was on the earth moving through his period of manifestation this principle, this truth was continually demonstrated.

What did he have before him? For the joy which was set before him he endures. Do you think enduring is a great pleasure? No. No, no. He endures all this that is going to be setting because he has the fact and the thought of that ultimate thing.

The enemy when he comes to say fall down and worship me I'll give you the kingdoms of the world. Jesus knows from the Old Testament teaching and he knows because he is in touch with God that there needs to be a king over all.

He said so. He told the people that. Well he keeps that in mind. That's his reward. That's the objective. That's the thing toward which he is going to focus all his life and all his being is going to focus toward that.

He walked in the light of the eternal verities. He walked in that light. Not the light which is created about which relates to this. All the time in that light. All right. Did he have any message? How many of you know he had a message?

He had a word. Well what was it? It was the very word of life. He was the word. He had to garrison all of that. Keep it in its place. He held and guarded and sheltered and loved the message which God had created in him and through him until he became that.

And so he held. He held the word. All right. For all that is coming. A crown was there. There was a crown waiting. Well what form will this obedience to the word take? You know there has to be a fidelity and obedience and a reverence for the word or revelation that comes.

We have to do something with it. Now he will guard that and it takes a form. It takes a form of discipline and suffering and all of that. You know now why he says take up your cross and follow me? Why?

Because he continually bore a cross not that one of Calvary. That was a climax which would be the epitome, the sum total of the cross life. He was not a sin bearer in the sense that he was made sin when he was walking.

He was made sin on Calvary. That was the episode. All right. But all this time there was this intense suffering, discipline, learning. Though he were a son that he learned obedience, obedience, obedience, the will of God, obedience.

That was like a cross continually in his life. That's a cross that we all have. If any man want to follow me you had one too. If any man wants to follow me to my destiny, to the things that I have, let him, you, let him take up his own cross and follow me.

But that isn't a cross that he lays on us. It is a cross distinct from trials and testings which he brings about. This is something which we may voluntarily resist or accept. It amounts to great suffering but it's a suffering which we have the power to resist if we don't want to take it.

How many know that sometimes great teaching, a great revelation amounts to a cross? That we know if we take that cross up, if I embrace that truth, if I dare to subject myself under the impact and power of that truth, how many know it's going to be a terrific cross that will kill you?

It will be what it's supposed to be. Take up your cross. Well now, your cross and my cross, they all vary, of course, according to the disposition and the calling of your life. We don't have the same in that sense.

But everyone will have one. Why? Because in God's economy and purpose for us, he knows the thing, the pattern, the situation, the episode. He knows that, which will perfectly crucify my old flesh. He knows that.

So he says, will you voluntarily take it? You pick it up. Do you know what my cross did for me? It was the place of my execution. It was the place where I died. Now you take yours. It will be the place of the execution of that creature that will slay you.