Ten Shekels and a Shirt - Part 5 — Paris Reidhead

Repentance Because Christ Is Worthy

And the consequence was repentance that led to faith and led to life. Dear friends, there's only one reason, one reason for a sinner to repent, and that's because Jesus Christ deserves the worship and the adoration and the love and the obedience of his heart, not because he'll go to heaven.

Rejecting Self-Serving Religion

If the only reason you repented, dear friend, was to keep out of hell, all you are is just a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt. That's all. You're trying to serve God because he'll do you good.

But a repentant heart is a heart that has seen something of the enormity of the crime of playing God and denying the just and righteous God the worship and obedience that he deserves. Why should a sinner repent?

Because God deserves the obedience and love that he has refused to give him. Not so that he'll go to heaven. The only reason he repents is so that he'll go to heaven. It's nothing but trying to make a deal or a bargain with God.

Repentance, Surrender, and Restitution

Why should a sinner give up all his sins? Why should he be challenged to do it? Why should he make restitution when he's coming to Christ? Because God deserves the obedience that he demands. I have talked with people that have no assurance of sins forgiven.

Obedience Without Bargaining

They want to feel saved before they're willing to commit themselves to Christ. But I believe that the only ones whom God actually witnesses by his Spirit that are born of him are the people, whether they say it or not, that come to Jesus Christ and say something like this, Lord Jesus, I'm going to obey you and love you and serve you and do what you want me to do as long as I live, even if I go to hell at the end of the road, simply because you are worthy to be loved and obeyed and served and I'm not trying to make a deal with you.

Do you see the difference? Do you see the difference between being a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt or a Micah building a chapel because God will do you good and someone that repents for the glory of God?

Union With Christ in Death and Resurrection

Why should a person come to the cross? Why should a person embrace death with Christ? Why should a person be willing to go in identification down to the cross and into the tomb and up again? I'll tell you why.

Because it's the only way that God can get glory out of a human being. If you say it's because you'll get joy or peace or blessing or success or fame, then it's nothing but a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt.

The Cross and the Glory of God

There's only one reason for you to go to the cross, dear young person, and that's because until you've come to the place of union with Christ in death, you are defrauding the Son of God of the glory that he could get out of your life.

For no flesh shall glory in sight. And until you've understood the sanctifying work of God by the Holy Ghost taking you into union with Christ in death and burial and resurrection, you have to serve in what you have and all you have, is that which is under the sentence of death.

Human personality and human nature and human strength and human energy. And God will get no glory out of that. And so the reason for you to go to the cross isn't that you're going to get victory. You will get victory.

It isn't that if you're going to have joy, you will have joy. But the reason for you to embrace the cross and press through until you know that you can testify with Paul, I'm crucified with Christ, isn't what you're going to get out of it, but what he'll get out of it.

For the glory of God. By the same token, why aren't you pressed through to know the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Why aren't you pressed through to know the fullness of Christ? I'll tell you why. Because the only possible way that Jesus Christ will get glory out of a life that he's redeemed with his precious blood is when he can fill that life with his presence and live through it his own life.

Presenting the Vessel to God

The genius of our faith wasn't that we were going to go through the motions like a Levite that were hired to serve God. No, no. The genius of our faith was that we'd come to the place where we knew we could do nothing and all we could do would be to present the vessel and say, Lord Jesus, you left us something.

And everything that's done will have to be done by you and for you. But oh, I know so many people that are trying to know the fullness of God so that they can use God. A young preacher came to me down in West Virginia, Huntington, West Virginia.

Seeking the Holy Spirit for Personal Power

He said, Brother Reed, I've got a great church. We've got a wonderful Sunday school program. We've got a radio ministry. Drawing. But I feel a personal need and a personal lack. I need to be baptized with the Holy Ghost.

I need to be filled with the Spirit. And someone told me, God's done something for you. And I wondered if you could help me. I looked at the fellow. You know what he looked like? Me. Just looked like me.

I just saw in him everything that was in me. You thought I was going to say me before. No. Listen, dear heart. If you've ever seen yourself, you'll know that you're never going to be anything else than you were.

For in me, in my flesh, there's no good thing but like me. He was like a fellow driving up in a big Cadillac, you know, someone standing at the filling station saying, Pour up butter the highest octane you've got.

Well, that's the way it looked. He wanted power for his program. And God is not going to be a means to anyone's end. I said, I'm awfully sorry. I don't think I can help you. He said, Why? I don't think you're ready.

I said, Well, suppose you consider yourself coming up with a Cadillac. You've talked about your program. You've talked about your radio. You've talked about your Sunday school in church. Very good. You've done wonderfully well without the power of the Holy Spirit.

Accomplishing Great Things Without God

That's what the Chinese Christian said, you know, when he got back to China. What impressed you most about America? He said, The great things Americans can accomplish without God. And he'd accomplished a great deal, admittedly, without God.

Now he's wanted something, power, to accomplish his ends even further. I said, No, no. You're sitting behind the wheel and you're saying to God, Give me power so I can go. You won't work. You've got to slide over.

But I knew that rascal because I knew me. I said, No, it'll never do. You've got to get in the backseat. I could see him leaning over and grabbing the wheel. No, I said, It'll never do in the backseat.

Surrendering Control to Christ

I said, Before God will do anything for you, you know what you've got to do? He said, What? I said, You've got to get out of the car, take the keys around, open up the trunk lid, hand the keys to the Lord Jesus, get inside the trunk, slam the lid down, whisper through the keyhole, Lord, look, fill her up with anything you want and you drive.

It's up to you from now on. That's why so many people, you know, do not enter into the fullness of Christ because they want to become a Levite with ten shekels and a shirt. They've been serving Micah, but they think if they had the power of the Holy Ghost, they could serve the tribe of Dan.

It'll never work. Never work. There's only one reason for God meeting you, and that's to bring you to the place where In repentance, you've been pardoned for his glory. And in victory, you've been brought to the place of death that he might reign.

Christ Living Through the Believer

And in the fullness, Jesus Christ is able to live and walk in you. And your attitude is the attitude of the Lord himself who said, I can do nothing of myself. I can't speak of myself. I don't make plans for myself.

My only reason for being is the glory of God in Jesus Christ. If I were to say to you, come to be saved so you can go to heaven, come to the cross so that you can have joy and victory, come to the fullness of the Spirit so that you can be satisfied, I'd be falling into the trap of humanism.

A Life Surrendered for God's Glory

I'm going to say to you, dear friend, if you're out here without Christ, you come to Jesus Christ and serve him as long as you live, whether you go to hell at the end of the way, because he's worthy. I say to you, Christian friend, you come to the cross and join him in union and death and enter into all the meaning of death to hell in order that he can have glory.

I say to you, dear Christian, if you do not know the fullness of the Holy Ghost, come and present your body a living sacrifice and let him fill you so that he can have the purpose for his coming fulfilled in you and get glory through your life.

It's not what you're going to get out of God. It's what he is going to get out of you. Let's be done once and for all with utilitarian Christianity that makes God a means instead of the glorious end that he is.

Let's resign. Let's tell Micah we're through. We're no longer going to be his priest serving for ten shekels and a shirt. Let's tell the tribe of Dan we're through. And let's come and cast ourselves at the feet of the nail-pierced Son of God and tell him that we're going to obey him and love him and serve him as long as we live because he is worthy.