1963, Des Ford at 34

don · 10-21-09 10:33 pm

1963, Des Ford at 34 - Part One Two years before this, Desmond Ford returned to Australia after obtaining a doctorate in Rhetoric about the Pauline Epistles from Michigan State University. This sermon, in two parts, gives a clear example of Ford's understanding of Righteousness by Faith. It demonstrates what has become a Ford trademark, simple explanations combined with impressive sermon style. He explains why Righteousness by Faith is the way to dynamic, victorious Christian living. How Wide Is Heaven's Gateway? A sermon preached by PASTOR D. FORD, Bible Department, Australasian Missionary College.<blockquote>Gather with me at the street corner of an ancient city. You find groups of people looking up at the house, whose windows are shut and barred. The blinds are drawn and every door is locked. As the crowds pass this corner they point and gesticulate at the house, and I hear one man say, "He's gone; he's gone, I say." "Rubbish," retorts another. "He wouldn't leave a home like that." "I saw him go this morning, he and his servants. Even those other houses are all closed. The families have gone from- the smaller homes, too." "What's wrong with the man? Why would he leave a city like this? Where is he going? He must have been mad." "He said he didn't know, but that he had been told to go." "Who told him to go?" "He said God told him to go." It was true that the householder had gone. He had left a home which it had taken him long years of arduous work to secure. And he wasn't the age for travelling—he was over seventy years old when he left. But God had told him to go. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know he was beginning a journey that millions would follow. He didn't know he was commencing a pilgrimage that you and I are sharing today. Let's take a look at the story in Genesis, chapter 12, beginning with the first verse. This is the story of the coming out of Babylon by Abraham, the father of the faithful. (You know that is where Abraham lived to start with, in Ur of the Chaldees; this was Babylon.) And where was he heading for? Canaan. This is no new message. "Come out of her, My people" is the message God has been sounding right down through the ages. Here is the first record of it in Genesis 12:1. Abraham was called the father of the faithful because his pilgrimage was the typical one. It represents the journey that you and I must take if we are ever to reach our heavenly Canaan. As we look over the story shall we remember it doesn't belong merely to some old patriarch of long ago, but also to each one of us? This story tells how wide are the gates of heaven, and how narrow. The story of Abraham tells us just what it takes to get through the gates of the New Jerusalem. So God called him to go "to a land which I will show thee." Did Abraham ask any .questions? "Lord, is the climate healthful?" "Is the land fertile, Lord?" There is no record of any such interrogations. Did things go smoothly? Well, let me ask you, Since you have been a Christian, have things always gone smoothly? If so, I suggest that you may not be what you think you are. At last, after months of dusty travelling, perhaps, when soul and body are weary, he sees in the distance a beautiful country of flowing streams, of nourishing palm trees, of green pasture land. "Oh," he exclaims, "this is wonderful! No wonder the Lord told me to come here." But when the traveller gets over the hill and has a closer look he sees the tents or cities of the Canaanites, and he says, "Lord, ,you didn't tell me there were people already here in the land. And here are also idols, images, false worship. These people don't know You, Lord." What a shadow, what a disappointment? Did Abraham go back? Verse 7 says that "the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord." Yes, he was disappointed, but he had a promise from God, and he found his solace in communion with God. Verse 9 records, "And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south." When you and I begin the Christian life there are lots of problems and difficulties. There are others besides the Chaldeans who think we are mad when we move out of the old life and begin a journey with new principles, new aims, new habits, and new ambitions. And even when things don't go smoothly the test of the Christian is whether he, like Abraham, goes on still. A Christian is one who can see his world convulsed and still rejoice in God. A Christian isn't a weathercock, a piece of dead wood that floats downstream. A Christian goes on still though all hell is in his pathway. A Christian is one who, like the hymn writer, can say that although the world is filled with devils, God is his fortress and strength. As Martin Luther made his way to Worms, the devil said to him, "They are going to kill you there. They are going to burn you at the stake." Luther replied, "If there are as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on the housetops I will go there still." Abraham went on still, and thus does a Christian. Notice another disappointment in verse 10: "There was a famine in the land." Where were all the things God had promised Abram? He first finds the country is full of Canaanites, thicker than grasshoppers, and then a famine comes. The Lord will tip us upside down time and time again, until we give up trusting our own strength, until we give up flexing our spiritual muscles and saying-, "I am able, I am sufficient." As long as you and I have this attitude the Lord will send Canaanites, famine, troubles, until we come to the end of our tether and say, "Lord, I don't know what to do." Then the Lord says, "Fine; that's just where I want you. There is only one thing you can do—trust Me." Only those who learn to trust God implicitly will find the gates of heaven wide open. And we are all familiar with Abraham's supreme test, when the Lord commanded him: "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering." After tossing in his bed all night, Abraham arose very early in the morning to carry out the Lord's strange instructions. The details of the journey and the preparation to sacrifice Isaac are well known to us. I knew this story a long time before I realized one significant part of it. Abraham's faith was so great that he believed God would resurrect his slain son! That is what we are told in Hebrews 11:17: "By faith Abraham . . . offered up Isaac: . . . accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead." "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed." "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise" as a stranger and a pilgrim. And then, "By faith, Abraham offered up Isaac." My friends, we should be very interested in the story of Abraham, because it will be our story if ever we reach the king- dom of God. No one will go through the gates of the kingdom without the faith of this patriarch. He is the father of the faithful. The great tragedy of the Chris- tian life is that so many are trying to earn their way to heaven, trying to obey God without having faith. This is the wrong order of things. This is legalism. This is what will keep more religious people out of the kingdom than perhaps anything else. This is the cause of fail- ure in the Christian life. There are three types of Christians— so-called. One group is doing dreadfully, and doesn't know it. These people think they are doing rather well. It is respectable to be a Christian in their little environment. They have many good contacts in the church; this helps a lot. They have consciences as good as new because they have never been used. The second group are doing dreadfully, too, but they know it, and they are down in the doldrums. The Christian life to , them seems just a succession of failures, and they despair of ever attaining the gloryland. The third group know that their life is not a failure, but that God is doing wonderfully. Let Him be praised! He is making their life one of continuous victory. Groups one and two are the legalists. They place the Ten Commandments on the wall and say, "I am a Sabbath-keeper, a tithe-payer, a health reformer; and what is more, I go Ingathering. What more could God ask?" These people try to obey God without faith. This is comparable to getting married because you think you ought to. The gates of heaven, are too narrow for any man or woman to enter who does what is right as the only way to save his or her miserable self. Some of the most significant words of Scripture are found in Romans where it is said, "Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin." My brethren, if I go Ingathering only because I am afraid of being regarded as insincere; even if I sing a hymn or pray out of mere formal routine, that is sin. Whatever is not motivated by a close, loving relationship with our heavenly Father, is sin. The Christian who is doing dreadfully and doesn't know it, needs to begin using his conscience. He should look closer into the law until he sees that it is not his saviour, or a tool whereby he hacks his way into glory. The law is only a mirror to reveal the defilement that will make us go to our Saviour for cleansing. Faith that works by love is the only motive that will see us through. That faith will produce obedience. (To be concluded) <a href="http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/AAR/AAR19630513-V67-19__B/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=12" target="_blank">http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/AAR/AAR19630 513-V67-19__B/index.djvu?djvuo pts&page=12</a></blockquote>

don · 10-21-09 10:34 pm

How Wide Is Heaven's Gateway? DESMOND FORD (Concluded) <blockquote>I want you to notice in Genesis, chapter 15, a little more about Abraham, who represents every Christian who will ever go through the pearly gates. In this chapter we have two words used in the Bible for the first time—"righteousness" and "believe," and they are linked together. In the sixth verse we are told that "he [Abraham] believed in the Lord; and He [the Lord] counted it to him [Abraham] for righteousness." The word "righteousness" ought to interest us, because the Bible says, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9); and, "Follow peace . . . and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." (Heb. 12:14.) The first time anything is mentioned in Scripture it is significant. It is meant to tell us something that will guide us all the rest of the way. And the only way to obtain, righteousness is to believe God. This is an old story, is it not? But Ellen G. White declares that not one in a hundred Seventh-day Adventists understands righteousness by faith. The chances are one hundred to one against my understanding this truth, if statistics carry through for us; yet it is necessary for our present and eternal welfare. Put in a nutshell, the doctrine of righteous- ness by faith is that my righteousness comes by my linking up with God by faith. It does not come any other way. Righteousness is a free gift, and the only way God could make it free was to offer it by faith. Faith doesn't earn it. Faith is like a pair of glasses. With the glasses off your nose they do no good whatever. They are only a medium by which you see, when they are in position; thus it is with faith. Faith is only a hand that receives, that takes hold. When we extend the hand in faith and say "Thank You, Lord," as He offers us all things necessary to life and godliness, and He sees us clothed in the righteousness of His Son, a blessed union results then in our living the life that counts, the life of a true Christian. But faith comes first. Faith is the root. Obedience is the fruit. Obedience can never be the root. These two always go together. Next, we inquire, How perfect was Abraham at this time? Going back to chapter 12 of Genesis you find him suggesting to his wife that she tell a little "white" lie. "When they ask who you are, say, 'I am his sister.'" White lies are more coloured than any other type, because we violate our conscience when we speak them. Apparently, Abraham was not perfect. Then was he perfect after this experience? No, for later on we find him repeating this sin. Then Abraham takes Hagar because he can't wait for the Lord to give him a son. He tried to engineer the fulfilment of the promise himself. He was just like you and me—with this difference. He trusted the Lord a lot more than you and I do, and therein lay his hope of ultimate perfection. This is significant for us in our daily life. God could call Abraham righteous despite his failures, because he trusted Him. And God will account you and me righteous, despite our failures, if we trust Him. Every sin we commit is a sin of lack of faith. The sin of unbelief is the root of every other sin. If we believed Jesus Christ could save us from sin we wouldn't sin. If we believed His words, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world," we would be of good cheer. We would realize that victory is ours because He gained it for us. If only we would believe this, we should have no failures. Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. The repentant thief had the same assurance. He communed with the Lord Jesus Christ, and as such communion always does, it begot faith in him. Our first efforts should be for faith, and we obtain that through communion. The thief couldn't do any work—his hands were nailed. He could not go on errands for Christ—his feet were spiked. But he communed with his Saviour, and Jesus said to him, "Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." When we commune with the Lord until we have faith, all else will follow automatically. Abraham made communion first. Wherever he halted as he went through the land of Canaan he erected an altar. On one occasion he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Hai on the east. Bethel means "house of God"; Hai means "a heap of ruins," and the pilgrim passes in between. This is a true pilgrimage. You and I are pilgrims in this world, with the house of God beckoning on one side and a heap of ruins in this old world on the other. The only way to keep our equilibrium straight is to do what Abraham did here. He built another altar to commune with God. It was because he knew Jesus personally by fellowship that the Lord could come down and talk to Abraham. God had only to whisper what He wanted, and Abraham understood and obeyed. Fellowship precedes obedience, and woe is me if I try to reverse the position! The second group of Christians I mentioned earlier try to do this, and that is why their lives are failures. They are not spending enough time in fellowship with the Lord. When I do not give Christ enough time every day I am inviting failure. I cannot trust someone I do not know. I can know my Lord only by taking time to converse with Him. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Meditation upon it, the study of good books, such as the writings 20/5/63 [5] of the Spirit of Prophecy, the biographies of Christian men and women, will incite us to holiness. And I must have holiness if I am to enter the gates of heaven. God has been trying to teach us that righteousness is a free gift we receive by the trusting hand. The Pharisees asked Jesus, "What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?" He answered, "Believe on Him whom He hath sent." When Paul was asked by the gaoler, "What must I do to be saved?" he answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." Of course it means believe on Him as Lord, which means owner. If I believe on Him as Jesus—that means saviour—I have to overcome that bad temper, or I don't believe on Him as Jesus. Believe on Him as Christ, the anointed teacher. Unless I let Him teach me day by day, I do not believe on Him as Christ. When Adam sinned he made a garment to cover his nakedness, but the Lord stripped this from him and said, "Adam, slay this lamb." "What, Lord, this beautiful, innocent creature? I've never shed blood." "Slay this lamb. It is the only way you will obtain a garment to cover your nakedness, the only way you will obtain righteousness. The fig-leaf garments wrought by your hands wouldn't stand a second before the judgment bar of God. Adam, you must receive these as a gift through the death of the innocent one." When the Bible says that the Lord has laid on Christ the iniquities of us all, it is trying to teach us that you and I don't have to carry our sins any more. That means you, if you have been on the fringe of the church for thirty years. That means you if you are a backslider. That means you if you are a respectable hypocrite. As soon as you and I believe and know that God "made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him"; that He took our sins in which He had no share, that you and I might take His righteousness in which we had no share, we will understand righteousness by faith. Well, we say, "Praise the Lord! He's done it all. It is a finished work. The price was paid on Calvary. I will work from the cross, not to the cross." And we will work for Christ not because we have to, thinking we will earn our way. We will serve with the compulsion of love, like Jacob who worked seven years for Rachel and it seemed but a few days because of the love he had for her. This is the only way a Christian can work for God. It will make such a difference when we understand this truth, that righteous- ness is Jesus Christ, and when I believe in Him I am linked to Him as the branch to the vine, and I have righteousness. On a beautiful day we look at the green fields, perhaps the silver gleam of a stream, or gold and yellow of wheat, the distant blue haze of a mountain. We think how wonderfully coloured is this landscape. But it really isn't. If we stay there until the sun sinks in the west, how much colour is there? None whatever. All the colour comes entirely from the sun. The landscape has no colour of its own. It receives it from the sun. That is righteousness. You and I have no righteousness of our own, but only as we abide under the Sun of Righteousness, as we open our hearts in fellowship for His rays to shine in. Then He gives us the white robe, symbolizing righteousness. This is the mystery of the gospel—"Christ in you, the hope of glory"; and He doesn't come in unless we spend time getting to know Him. Once I visited Niagara Falls. What a tremendous cataract of water! What if one could just say a word and make the water go back up, up that precipitous cliff, back along that stream. That would be marvellous. It would be no more impossible than for me to say to my human nature, "Be ye cleansed and made righteous." Only God can change our hearts. You know when old Charles I came to the little town of New Market to live, it was a dull old place where you could al- most fall asleep on the pavement at a moment's notice. But when Charles came to live there, all was changed overnight. People flocked in from the four points of the compass. Businesses and shops sprang up. The place was a hive of activity and wealth and culture, because the king had come. This is righteousness by faith. When the heavenly King comes in He brings everything- with Him. Christ says, "If a man love Me he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." I was worrying about some petty detail one day, and then the thought came to me: If the Lord Jesus were staying in our home today, would I still be worried? I knew I would not be worried at all. My brethren and sisters, if you and I daily take sufficient time to understand the love-letter of God and believe it, God will come into our hearts, and where He reigns there can be no defeat. Victory will be natural, normal. One of the greatest blessings I ever received came in the reading of the story of Hudson Taylor, a two-volume edition published by his son and the son's wife. I recommend it to you. In this story, Hudson Taylor tells how he learned righteousness by faith. He had been a missionary for many years, winning souls; but life was hard and difficult. Sometimes the missionary was hasty and irritable, and he knew this was not the way of the Christian. As he wrote in his diary: "Oftentimes I am tempted to think that one so full of sin cannot be a child of God at all." Later he wrote to a friend, "Do you know, dear brother, when I think of this striving, this effort, longing, hoping for better days to come, this is not the true way to happiness, holiness, or usefulness. Better, no doubt, far bet- ter than being satisfied with our poor attainments" (group one mentioned at the beginning of this address), "but not the best way after all." Then he adds: "I have been struck by a book left here, and particularly with a passage which says 'The Lord Jesus received is holiness be- gun; the Lord Jesus cherished is holiness advancing; the Lord Jesus counted upon as never absent would be holiness complete.' " My brethren and sisters, if we can really learn this we have righteousness by faith. "The Lord Jesus received is holiness begun"—you never get it without Him. "The Lord Jesus cherished is holiness advancing"—this is sanctification. "The Lord Jesus counted upon as never absent would be holiness complete. He is most holy who has most of Christ within. . . . Not a striving to have faith or to in- crease our faith, but a looking after the faithful One seems all we need." "Not a striving to have faith"—look at Jesus and it will come automatically. What do you mean, "look at Jesus"? Think about Him, meditate upon Him, learn about Him. This is the one thing needful. Remember when the disciples were crossing the Lake of Gennesaret one day. The storm came on as they were toiling and rowing and getting nowhere. Suddenly they saw a haze which ultimately became the form of Jesus. And (as you read in John chapter 6) when Jesus stepped into the boat "immediately the ship was at the land whither they went." Think of it—toiling and rowing for hours and getting nowhere. Jesus comes, steps in with the disciples, and immediately they were at their destination. This church has toiled in rowing long enough. What we need is Jesus Christ as individuals. When we know what it is to have Him in the soul through constant daily communion, above the newspaper, our work for daily bread, above fellowship with mother or daughter or wife or son; when we receive Jesus, then immediately we will be at the shore of sanctification and holiness whither we are going. And our church will cross over into the Promised Land. <a href="http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/AAR/AAR19630520-V67-20__B/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=5" target="_blank">http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/AAR/AAR19630 520-V67-20__B/index.djvu?djvuo pts&page=5</a></blockquote>

maggie · 10-27-09 1:33 am

Only those who learn to trust God implicitly will find the gates of heaven wide open. Another stretch of the spiritual journey.

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#1 10-21-09 10:33 pm

1963, Des Ford at 34

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