A New Call to Arms — David Legge

Okay, can you hear me at the back, yes? Well, good evening to you all, and thank you for coming to this last session. I want you to turn in your Bibles with me, please, to where I believe the Lord would have us begin tonight, and we're going to be looking at many scriptures this evening.

I feel the Lord has led something on my heart to close the conference, and so we're turning to Romans chapter 13, please. Romans chapter 13. And if there was a title for my message tonight, it would be, A New Call to Arms.

A New Call to Arms. So we are looking at Romans 13, please, and beginning to read at verse 11. Paul writes, and do this, Knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.

Let us pray, and as your head is bowed, please do pray for me. Paul said, pray for me, that I may speak as I ought to speak, with boldness, and I need your prayers tonight. So please pray for me, and pray for yourself, and pray for us all, and pray for this land.

O Father, Holy God, Abba Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus. We thank you for everything that he is, and all that he means to us, and all that he has done for us, all that he is doing for us, all he will do for us.

O God, we are overwhelmed when we think of the Lord Jesus, your beloved Son, the one in whom is all your delight, the darling of your bosom, and we pray that tonight we will be drawn closer to him, and the drawing closer to him would have an effect on everything around us in our environment, the people that we rub shoulders with, not just in our churches, but in our communities, in our workplaces, our schools, and universities.

In this land, O God, we want to make a difference. We want to be salt and light. We want to make a dent, a mark for Christ in this day, and our generation. Lord, before it's too late, we cannot praise you in the grave.

O God, let us do something while it is yet day. O God, come tonight. Lord, we're listening for your voice. We long to hear from heaven. Lord, we long that you would speak from heaven with a message, a message from God himself.

Lord, let us hear it. Give us ears to hear, and eyes to see, and hearts to receive with meekness the engrafted word of truth. For we ask these things in the precious, mighty, strong name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. Now, as I'm sure you're well aware, I count myself as an Irish man, but I'm also an Ulster man, and I come from the province of Ulster. If you're not familiar with the Irish provinces, there's Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connacht, and I'm from the northern province of Ulster, and we, this year, have celebrated the 150th anniversary of the 1859 revival in Ulster.

Many churches and Christian organizations have been commemorating and celebrating the fact that God, so many years ago now, God moved in mighty revival and estimates are that around about a hundred thousand souls in a very short period, a period of years, were swept mightily into the kingdom of God.

And I have to say to you tonight that whilst the province of Ulster needs revival, is in dire need of revival, and the church is in decline, it is depleting spiritually and morally and numerically, there are still the remnants of revival in Ulster.

And Belfast, the city in which I was born, is one of the most, if not the most, evangelized city in the world by square mile. When Billy Graham visited Windsor Park Football Stadium in the 1940s, at which my own grandfather was converted, he said, out of all the places in the world that he would not want to go to hell from, it would be Belfast, because they had such a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ for so many years.

And like many of the histories of revival, revival history, wherever the locality or jurisdiction might be, shows that revival among the church, God's people, greatly affects a nation. And our nation is still affected up in the north.

Edwin Orr, one of the greatest authorities on the history of revival, claims that the evangelical awakening right throughout the 18th century saved the nation of Britain from the revolutionary experience that ravished the continent of Europe at that time.

Documented historical fact. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, of course, an English evangelist, it is thought defeated Voltaire, the French philosopher and deist. His preaching of the gospel, the consequence awakening, pushed back the forces of darkness.

It was equally true that the period of revival across America at that same time in the 1800s saved the USA from the godless French philosophy that had influenced almost every college by the close of the 18th century.

Just to give you an example of how bad things were in the states at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. Green records that he knew of only two professing Christians among the students. Two professing Christians among those who were training for the office of ministry, supposedly.

In the College of William and Mary in Virginia, it is said that that college, and I'm quoting, was a hotbed of French politics and religion. And almost certainly the period of revival saved America from the tragedy of the worst elements of the French Revolution that affected Europe.

In my own province of Ulster, we have a very bloody history. Indeed, the island of Ireland has a very bloody history going back 400, 500 years. I was driving down to this conference from County Armagh and going through the hills, the valleys and mountains of South Armagh on that beautiful day that it was on Friday morning.

I was struck by the wonder of God's creation and yet also struck by the depravity of man because those hills and valleys of South Armagh are stained and drenched in the blood of innocents. And yet God came and God even stayed the hand of evil men.

Whilst we have a very bloody history, it could have been oh so much worse if it wasn't just for God's general grace, but the awakening of God in our nation. I'll give you one example. In 1920, going long past the 1859 revival, again the northern Irish state, the province of Ulster, was in chaos.

Fear and uncertainty filled the minds of people and the politicians, as they still seemed to be, were at their wit's end as to what to do. Murder and mayhem seemed to rule the province. But for the Christian, there was hope.

And that always must be our clarion cry as the church. No matter how down we get on ourselves and conditions and circumstances around us, we must remember that we have the treasure within earthen vessels.

We are the one who has hope and where there is God, there is hope. God raised a man by the name of WP Nicholson and he was a rough, crude, uncouth individual, if ever there was one. But he was God's man and he was used to preach Christ to the nation in a language that people understood.

Now my grandfather worked in the shipyard in Belfast and I'm told that my great-grandfather helped build one of the four funnels of the Titanic. Now it wasn't his fault. It went down. At least I don't think it was.

I think it had something to do with an iceberg in the Atlantic. But the men of the shipyard, rough working-class men, were affected by the preaching of WP Nicholson. They understood what he was saying about sin and about salvation to such an extent that God moved mightily.

So much so that the restitution and repentance in the life of those men meant that they brought back to the shipyard many tools and implements of their trade that they'd stolen. But they brought back so many that they had to build a new shed on the shipyard and they called it Nicholson Shed.

And people kept returning so many stolen goods that they had to tell them, stop bringing them back. We have no more room to hold them. But that's what happens when God moves. But greater than stolen goods returned, in 1920, a civil war, a potential civil war in Ulster was turned back because of the grace of God in revival.

As I've already said, we've been celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 1859 revival. And as a result, there was a dramatic reduction in the crime rate in the nation. The following statistics from Dr. William Gibson's history of the 1859 revival, entitled The Year of Grace, indicates the effect that revival had on public morality.

And I'm quoting him. He says, the number of prisoners for trial in the quarter sessions for County Antrim in October 1859, six months after the commencement of the revival, was exactly one half of that of the previous year.

Cut by 50 percent. At the Ballymena quarter sessions held in April 1860, after the revival had been in existence for over a year in that locality, there was not one single criminal case on the records.

Not one. A Coleraine magistrate, that's a town at the very north coast of Ireland, a magistrate there declared, quoting him again, when I look into the calendar for the last three months, I find but one new case, which is in some respects very unimportant.

I am greatly struck at the appearance of this. So small is the number of cases. I formerly had calendars filled with charges for different nefarious practices, pocket picking and larcenies of various sorts.

How is such a gratifying state of things accounted for? It must be from the improved state of the morality of the people. I believe I am fully warranted now to say that to nothing else than the moral and religious movement which commenced early last summer can the changes be attributed.

Indeed a Roman Catholic magistrate in the county down affirmed that the wholesome moral results produced throughout the community was due to the religious movement and expressed his wish that, I'm quoting him, that it would extend over the whole country and influence society to its lowest depths.

That is what happens when God really moves in revival and that is what we need. We sang tonight revive us again. I know we need God to revive us again in Ulster and we need God to awaken and revive in the south as well and we thank God for what he's done in the past.

I thank God and we should praise God for what he did in 1859, for what he did in 1920 and any other year where he's blessed in grace. But do you know and are you aware that when God comes in revival again it will be different than 1859 or 1920 and the mistake that we often make is we expect God to do the same thing over again and perhaps we even want him to repeat himself but God is the God of the new thing and he will do a new thing for a new generation and often the new thing that God does upsets the church and some in the church oppose God's new thing and it is often those who think themselves most biblically literate who oppose the new thing that God is doing and we must be sure not to fight against whatever God is doing or about to do.

But one thing is certain we need God to do something. Do we not? But while we need God to do something there's something for us to do and I'm a firm believer that revival comes from God. It's a sovereign act of God but as he must blow the wind we must set our seals to be ready to catch it and I believe the setting of the seals to catch the wind of revival is often the preparation for God to revive in a sovereign act when he sees his people getting right with him.

Judgment must begin at the house of God and we must look to ourselves and we have been looking to ourselves. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying tonight. I'm not saying the conditions in the church are always directly related to what's going on in society.

In other words I'm not saying the problems in Ireland or the problems in Ulster or the problems anywhere in the world are the fault of the church but what I do know from the word of God is that we are meant as salt and light in this world to make a difference.

We are meant to have an influence for good and for God and I want to challenge you today and challenge my own heart in my nation here of Ireland and wherever you are from. What influence do you have? I want this message to be a wake-up call, a new call to spiritual arms to be ready.

Do you know that you're a soldier? A spiritual soldier. Turn with me in your bibles to first Timothy chapter one please and we're going to look at a number of scriptures this evening. First Timothy chapter one.

First Timothy one verse 18. This charge I commit to you son Timothy according to the prophecies previously made concerning you that by them you may wage the good warfare. We are fighting now praise God we are fighting from victory not for victory.

We've read the last chapter of the book and praise God we win for we are in the lamb and yet the theater of operations to use a military term is down here and we are playing out the battle though we are in victory we are still called upon to fight in the victory like the children of Israel as they possess Canaan the land was already theirs it was promised to them but they had to put one foot in front of the other and they had to fight.

Do you understand how much God sees you as a spiritual soldier? If you turn to chapter six of first Timothy we see this again verse 12. Fight the good fight of faith. We are spiritual soldiers in a spiritual battle.

Turn with me now to Ephesians chapter six Ephesians 6 and verse 12. Paul says again for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places and I believe that there is a demonic hierarchy there and that is what we wrestle against as Christians.

That is the battle that we are in. It is an unseen battle and therefore you need the eyes of faith to perceive it. A further description of this battle is found in first Peter five and verse eight. You don't need to turn to it but Peter says there be vigilant be sober waken up for your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

The devil is not interested in the world. He has the world. He's interested in the church. He's interested with you Christian. We are spiritual soldiers in a spiritual battle and therefore we have spiritual weapons.

Turn with me to second Corinthians please. Second Corinthians chapter 10 verse 4. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal not fleshly but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Our weapons are are not the weapons of human warfare but spiritual weapons. Where am I going with all this? Well friends I want to say this very bluntly and I might be shot down for it but the church of Jesus Christ throughout what should have been her illustrious history has been shamed by the fact that she has turned often to politics often to the establishment and the institutions of society to wage her warfare and even to the sword in the name of Christ rather than using her spiritual weapons.

Really what I'm saying is the church must be aware of politics. Do you agree with me? Now please don't misunderstand me. Politics can bring reform and often good reform and we've seen men of God who have realized that for nations such as slavery and so on freedom brought to slaves in the United Kingdom and further afield and praise God for it but we must understand that politics will never bring revival and conservative evangelicals neo-conservatives in America need to waken up to this fact that through legislation and through lawyers you will never change a nation.

You might influence it. I'll give you that and I'm not saying that as a Christian you should not be involved in politics. I can't tell you that. I have no right to tell you that but when Christians try to use politics or try to use the legal system to bring some kind of move of God they will always fail.

It seems today with some that our influence with God doesn't matter but with the politicians we know and the lawyers we know rather than the God we know and the Bible says that them that know their God shall do exploits.

Now I want to say this from my heart there are certain political positions that may equate with what we believe as Christians but it is impossible I believe it even is sacrilegious to pin political or even national colors to the gospel of Jesus Christ and it has been done for years.

It has been done in my nation. It has been done right across the globe right across Europe. Now listen the gospel ought never to be politicized. The gospel ought never to be racialized. The gospel ought never to be nationalized and isn't it interesting that the Lord the savior of the world never engaged in politics.

Does that not say something? Oh yes he spoke to it. He referred to it. He commented on it but he said my kingdom is not of this world else my servants would fight. The disciples did not engage in politics.

Did they miss a trick? Paul the great apostle didn't involve himself in politics. Indeed he said in Philippians that his citizenship was heavenly and Peter the apostle said that he was a pilgrim and a stranger in this world.

Now we are to be responsible and obey the government and the laws of our land. It is an ordinance of God and we are to respect them and we are to see that God and sovereign providence has allowed those to to rule over us who do rule over us and we have a right to use judicial processes but this is what I'm saying tonight.

We are not obligated to become an integral part of the system but more than that we must rid ourselves of this perception that we can use the world system to bring revival or to bring a godly or a lasting change.

John says that this world system, now listen to how he puts it, lies in the lap of the wicked one and I think that that is evidenced and manifested in the corruption that we see in politics right throughout the world.

Think about it. Politics is a system of compromise. Decisions are made on the basis of what is expedient and what works pragmatically rather than what is right, what is moral, what is just. Politics whilst it may have good uses is only a band-aid over the cancer of sin and fallenness and depravity in this world.

The gospel is the answer, the only answer. Do you believe that? Turn with me to second Timothy please again in chapter two this time. If we believe that the gospel is the only answer for our nations, the soldier, the spiritual soldier in the spiritual battle with spiritual weapons Paul says second Timothy chapter two verse four, no one, no soldier engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.

You not be bothered with those things. If you understand your enrollment as a spiritual soldier and you have eyes of faith to see the spiritual battle that we're engaged in with the emissaries of evil and you understand the not carnal fleshly but mighty spiritual weapons that we have to pull down the strongholds of Satan in Jesus name, you'll not bother with any secondary or lesser things.

Do you remember the Lord Jesus said on one occasion, let the dead bury the dead. You know what that really means? Let the unregenerate people get on with unregenerate things but you follow me, my kingdom.

Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you. The gospel is the answer. We are spiritual soldiers in a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons. What I want you to see now from Ephesians six if you will turn back to it with me that we have spiritual armor.

Now I know that this is elementary to some of you and you've heard this many many times before but there may be those here that don't know it or have forgotten it or have lost the effectiveness of the armor that God has given them.

Let us read this passage together. Ephesians six and verse 10 please. Finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles or the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand.

Stand therefore having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. Now I haven't got time tonight to do an exposition of the armor of God, the panoply of God, but let me sum it up very briefly like this.

This spiritual armor that has been given to us through the precious shed blood and resurrection of the Lord Jesus that we are to put on by faith and accept through grace, it is necessary because there is a battle for the mind.

That's why you need a helmet. The devil wants to take your head off. You know why he does it? By your thought life. The battlefield where Satan wages is the mind and if he can get into your mind he will get everywhere.

That's why we put on the helmet of salvation which teaches us what we are, who we are in Christ and what we enjoy as an inheritance in heavenly places seated with him and you've got to understand who you are in Christ to counteract the lies of the devil.

The truth sets you free you see, but there's a battle on for your mind. What do you put into your mind? What do I put into my mind? There's also a battle for the heart. That's why we need a breastplate of righteousness.

The vitals are here in the chest cavity and we need spiritually our emotions and our soul to be protected, but it's also not only a battle for the mind and a battle for the heart for out of the heart of the issues of life, but it's a battle for truth.

There is a such a war waged and I think this is Satan's primary strategy to attack the truth whether it's the literal truth of God's word revealed in scripture or the truth of who you are in Christ or whether it's to lie to your mind and plant seed thoughts so that you will get distracted and start thinking foolish things about yourself that God says is not true, but we are to gird ourselves with the belt of truth.

Now you know what that means? Not that we hold the truth in our hands in our bible, but the truth holds us. Battle for the mind, a battle for the heart, a battle for truth and there's a battle on for souls.

That's why we're to shod our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. How beautiful are the feet of him that brings good news tidings of peace and we are to be ready at all times to give an answer to any man and teach the gospel where Christ calls us.

Now look further at this this armor because not only does it tell us there's a battle for the mind, a battle for the heart, a battle for truth, a battle for souls, but it tells us how this battle is to be fought.

It is to be fought by faith, taking therefore the shield of faith. It is to be fought with the bible, not just believing God which is faith, accepting what God has said and standing upon it, but using the bible as an offensive weapon and here the bible is spoken of as a two-edged sword, the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

Now the literal greek word used for word there is not the same as in John chapter 1 Logos which is spoken of our Lord Jesus Christ as being the expression of the mind and heart of God as God's only begotten son, but here the word is rhema which means the spoken word of God.

The weapon we are to use in this battle is to speak the word of God, but the final piece of armor is prayer. Verse 18 John Bunyan describes it as all prayer, all types of prayer and brother Paul earlier was hinting at that, that it's not just about intercession, it's not even just about dialogue.

Various types of praying always, constant prayer, all types of prayer and supplication in the spirit. It must be spirit wrought and spirit inspired prayer, being watchful, watchful prayer, persevering prayer, supplication for all the saints, comprehensive prayer and every soldier is required to be in communication with headquarters but prayer is number seven in the armor of God and you know number seven is the number of perfection, the number of completeness and in other words we could go into the battle with all the armor of God on but if we are not praying we're in trouble because prayer brings God onto the battlefield.

Now look at 1st Timothy with me please. 1st Timothy, let me show you how this is. We don't need politics. 1st Timothy chapter 2 verse 1 and 2. Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayer, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

There it is. Prayer brings God to the field even in international and national affairs. Do you believe that? Is it reflected in our lives if we believe it? I don't think the church certainly in Ulster and in Ireland as a whole is realizing the power of prayer.

Do you? I have an evangelist friend who wrote a number of lines about the power of prayer and I just want to read them to you tonight. He said Abraham prayed and lot was spared. Isaac prayed and Rebekah conceived.

Jacob prayed and Esau was pacified. Job prayed and trials were ended. Moses prayed and Amalek was defeated. Joshua prayed and sin was found out. Samson prayed and strength was regained. Hannah prayed and Samuel was born.

David prayed and sin was cleansed. Solomon prayed and wisdom was given. Elijah prayed and fire descended. He prayed again and the showers fell. Hezekiah prayed and invaders withdrew. Jonah prayed and was given another chance.

Daniel prayed and lions were muzzled. Nehemiah prayed and a king listened. Peter prayed and was saved from drowning. A publican prayed and went home justified. A thief prayed and went to paradise. Paul prayed and sight was restored.

Stephen prayed and saw the Lord. Cornelius prayed and was told what to do. John prayed and gained a vision of the future. The apostle James prayed and his knees became callous. Payson prayed and the floorboards were worn.

Baxter prayed and stained his study walls with praying breath. Knox prayed and monarchs trembled. McSheean prayed and Scotland wept. Susanna Wesley prayed and presented Britain with her her two sons. Luther prayed and dispelled the darkness of centuries.

Zinzendorf prayed and started world missions. Savonarola prayed and Florence was purged. Tyndale prayed and a king's eyes were opened. Bunyan prayed and received light in prison. Rutherford prayed and saved souls in Anwerth.

Muller prayed and orphans were fed. Hudson Taylor prayed and missionaries sailed to China. William Booth prayed and the poor entered the kingdom. Chalmers prayed and the cannibalism died out in the south seas.

Carey prayed and widow burning was banned in India. Gladys Healwood prayed and orphans were adopted. Jonathan Goforth prayed and swayed Mancuria. John Hyde prayed and won souls daily for Christ. Brainerd prayed and influenced more missionaries than Indians.

Mary Slessor prayed maintaining prayer can do anything. David Livingstone prayed and died thus on his knees and he ends the poem by saying this all these also worked hard, preached, wrote, traveled and poured out their lives for Jesus but they had at least one thing in common.

They prayed and left a legacy of achievements that illustrates the truth. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of and greatest of them all Jesus prayed and continues his intercession today.

Hallelujah. Do you believe more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of? I would suggest to you that the church to a large extent has given up on prayer. There is a need for a new call to arms.

As soldiers, spiritual soldiers, in a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons, wearing spiritual armor, we must dress for battle. That's what we read in our reading at the very beginning in Romans chapter 13 and verse 12.

We are to put off the works of darkness, the works of the flesh. We are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, the armor of light, this armor of God. Being a soldier of the cross demands consecration but the problem is in times of prosperity and apparent peace, it's easy for the army that is the church militant to put down its guard and go off the offensive and even off the defensive.

We must say as we look into the bible and into history, must I be carried to the skies in flowery beds of ease while others fight to win the prize and sail through bloody seas? It was in times of prosperity that Israel forgot their God.

Read the book of Judges, you see the cycle there. Prosperity came and they fell into sin and idolatry and God chastised them by sending oppressors and then they cried out for mercy and it seemed they repented and it wasn't long when God delivered them with the judge that they returned back to their sin and maybe you find yourself in that cycle.

I tell you the church finds itself in that cycle. What we need to do is what that nation failed to do. In the book of Ruth, we read of a little family. Abimelech was the head of the home and he took his wife Naomi and his two sons and daughters-in-law and in a time of famine in the house of bread, that's what Bethlehem means, they left the house of bread and went to Moab, a picture of the world but you know what they should have done?

They should have stayed where they were and asked the Lord what is wrong? For if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.

We need to stay where we are, not run for this solution in politics or law or wherever the church growth movement. We need to to stay where we are in the midst of the dearth and the famine and cry, oh Lord, why?

What a wake-up call is needed. Are we living as soldiers? Well praise God, we are promised ultimate triumph. The word of God teaches us that very clearly. Our wicked spiritual forces, we have a promise that they will be defeated.

The Lord Jesus told his own disciples, behold I give you power to trade on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing by enemies shall hurt you. Not only do we have ultimate victory and triumph over wicked spiritual forces but even over the severest afflictions in our lives.

Paul said, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? In all these things we are more than conquerors to him that loved us.

We've even victory over worldly attractions. Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith and we have victory promised over all satanic powers.

It says in Revelation 12 and verse 11 that they overcame him, that is the devil, by the blood of the lamb. The devil hates the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. Now my friend, we need to ask the question, are we making a difference where God has placed us in our community?

We can't make a difference that will be meaningful and lasting for the kingdom of God through law, through politics, through influence, in the flesh, it must be of the spirit. I was reading John Piper not so long ago and he was referring to Martin Luther King, civil rights movement in the United States and I know that many of you might disagree with some of his beliefs and certainly his actions politically and I've been espousing that we don't need to use politics but John Piper was referring to how Martin Luther King Jr. was charged as being an extremist.

Now this was his reply, this was his reply and he was true and right in his reply and I'm quoting him. He says, was not Jesus an extremist for love? Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.

Was not Amos an extremist for justice? Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel? I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Was Martin Luther not an extremist when he said, here I stand, I can do no so help me God. John Bunyan when he said, I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I will make a butchery of my conscience and Abraham Lincoln, thus this nation cannot survive half slave and half free and here's how Martin Luther King Jr. concluded his remarks, the question is not whether we will be an extremist but what kind of extremist we will be.

Will we be an extremist for politics, civil rights? No, for the gospel and then all these things shall be added unto us and then of course Luther King delivered a powerful call to the church which rings true today as it did 40 years ago and whatever you think of him, what he said was right.

There was a time when the church was very powerful, in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed in those days. The church, listen, was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion, it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society but he said the judgment of God is upon the church of his day as never before and if today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century.

Martin Luther King Jr, of course in 1963, August the 28th, he stood before the Lincoln Memorial and gave his most memorable speech. I have a dream that one day the Red Hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners, will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Now listen to me tonight, whether you agree with his politics, whether you agree with the civil rights movement, whether you agree with his religious convictions, whether you agree with his morality, you've got to agree that his dream was a great one and it is the ecumenical dream to a certain extent and often with many people in the ecumenical movement which I have no sympathy with whatsoever and oppose.