This episode of ‘Through the Bible’ explores the intriguing concept of spiritual power, a topic that continues to be misunderstood and underestimated in our modern world. Dr. J. Vernon McGee guides us through Zechariah chapter 4, unveiling the ‘Secret of Power,’ which is not rooted in physical might or human intelligence, but found in the spiritual strength bestowed by the Holy Spirit. Through listener testimonials, including heartfelt messages from individuals who have walked their faith journey with the program for decades, the episode underscores the enduring significance of relying on divine strength in everyday life.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.
SPEAKER 01 :
Power. Our world is obsessed with it. No matter where we look, sports, entertainment, business, relationships, and yes, unfortunately, even in some churches, power is seen as the key to success, the key to getting what we want. Welcome to the Sunday Sermon on Through the Bible. In this study, Dr. J. Vernon McGee opens God’s Word to tell us we do need power, but not the kind we might expect. His message, The Secret of Power, takes us to Zechariah chapter 4. Now, while you find your place in God’s Word, here’s a quick voicemail that we received from a fellow writer here with us on the Bible bus. Let’s listen together.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ve been listening to Through the Bible radio since 1973. I started listening on shortwave on the station in Bonaire, Netherlands and Tilly’s. I finally started listening on a local station when I was living in Vermont. Now I listen on the app. The Bible has meant a lot to me in my growth and development. I’m now 83 years old. My name is Nelson. I live in Sumter, South Carolina. I have the opportunity to share God’s word through my volunteer work with hospice. And I enjoy Dr. McGee’s teachings. The Holy Spirit has touched my heart and I have grown significantly in the Lord since I started listening. Keep on with your good work. I pray on the prayer team and donate. You all have a blessed day.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, thanks, Nelson. It’s awesome to hear how God’s using you. And we’re grateful for your support and prayers that keep the Bible bus rolling through all the places that you’ve lived. The Netherlands, Antilles, Vermont, South Carolina, and all over the world. Here’s one more encouraging note. This one’s from a listener in Clearwater, Florida. This morning, as I read the World Prayer Team email, I was struck by how desperately so many countries, including our own, need to turn back to God. Dr. McGee saw our deterioration 45 years ago. When I hear him preach about it in the Sunday sermons, I am always struck by his frankness, his faithfulness, despite the populist feelings. I thank God every day, for this faithful exposition of God’s word that we still have his blessed teachings and for the leadership and staff that continue his mission to take the Bible to the whole world in people’s heart languages. I listen every day. via internet, smartphone, and radio while driving. TTB, you’ve been a vital part of my life since 1978. God will continue to bless those who fear the Lord and are true to his purpose. Until we meet in heaven, Janice. Well, thanks, Janice. Thanks for your prayers, for your encouragement, and your partnership with us. And what about you? Would you like to join our global team of committed prayer warriors, those who faithfully ask God to reach his whole world with his whole word? Or like Nelson, would you like to support the Bible bus by providing a tank of gas? Well, you can sign up for the World Prayer Team. It’s super easy from our app or at ttb.org forward slash pray. Or to make a gift to the ministry, you can do that from our app too or online at ttb.org. If you prefer to call the number, it’s 1-800-65-BIBLE, or you can always write to us at Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C, 6B1. Let’s pray with and for one another now. Heavenly Father, thank you for reminding us that the true power that comes from you alone. Bless those who are listening now and use us to shine your light to a world that desperately needs you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. And now here’s the Sunday Sermon on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 04 :
Spiritual power today is in inverse ratio with physical power. And as physical power increases, spiritual power is ebbing and flowing today. It is going down and down and down. Christians today are walking like little Lilliputians among the great giants of this world system. Believers today are no longer the salt in the earth. They’re not even a cup of weak tea. No tang is there at all. Believers are no longer today positive light in the world, merely a pale reflection of the times casting doubt into dark corners. We have today lost the optimistic song of victory, and we are playing the funeral dirge of pessimism for a dying age. And someone has described a pessimist as one who blows out the light so he can see the darkness, and it does seem that certain religious leaders are doing just that today. No longer are we singing onward, Christian soldiers, but a cry of alarm has gone up. Stop the retreat. What’s happened today? What is it that has taken place? You find that question being asked everywhere today. This was in an editorial in Decision magazine, Billy Graham’s paper. Let me give just this excerpt. And we Christians sit by and watch. Why are we so helpless? Why do we allow our wonderful free countries to be overrun by unsavory libertines who prey upon and pervert the normal desires of ordinary people? Why do we submit to the cultural and social domination of filth vendors, pimps, addicts, hoodlums, gamblers, barflies, homosexuals, sex maniacs, and power-crazed lawbreakers? And the church today remains silent and impotent in the presence of all that is taking place today. What’s happened? Well, simply stated, it can be put like this. We’ve lost our power. And today we need to learn the secret of power again. This morning I want to go to the little book of Zechariah. It’s an unexpected place to go to look for the answer to our question, but I think that we can find it there. He was a young man. a young man with a vision. In fact, he had ten visions. God raised him up, raised him up in a day of discouragement and defeat. A small remnant had returned from the Babylonian captivity, less than 60,000. Jerusalem was in rubble and ruins, and the enemy was pressing them from the outside. And they had failed time and time again. If you want a picture of that day, you can go back to Nehemiah, who was contemporary with Zechariah. And he gives us a bird’s eye view. When he came to Jerusalem, he made a survey of the city. He was a very practical businessman. He saw the tremendous task that it would take to clear the debris of the city and to rebuild it. And then he called the people together and gave them his report. Then said I unto them… Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach. That is Nehemiah 2, 17. And then you get another picture over in the fourth chapter, verse 10. And Judas said, the strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed. There is much rubbish. so that we are not able to build the wall. And our adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to see. This was part of the handicap and the insurmountable difficulties that these people had to overcome. And God raised up, among others, this young man, Zechariah. And He encouraged the people to rebuild. He gave them a vision, showed them that there was a purpose back of all of this and that what they were doing was fitting in to God’s overall purpose for his people. Now this morning we’re looking at one of the visions. And I’d like to get it before us today because it has a message for us also. I turn now again to this fourth chapter of Zechariah, verse 1. Will you listen to this? And the angel that talked with me came again and waked me as a man that is waken out of his sleep. And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I’ve looked, and behold, a channel stick all of gold with a bowl upon the top of it, his seven lamps thereon, seven pipes to the seven lamps which are upon the top thereof. Now, this vision is very simple, as you can see. Actually, it’s identified with the lampstand in the holy place. It’s my personal judgment that the lampstand in the tabernacle was the most beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ that you have in the Old Testament. It was a work of indescribable beauty. It was made of solid gold and it had one main prong and three prongs going out on each side. It was a beautiful thing done by Bezalel, the head craftsman. It was made like almond boughs, and right at the very end was a great open almond blossom, and in that was put the olive oil lamp. It pictures Christ and his deity. It was a beaten work of the fact that he was crucified on the cross. And this beautiful thing as it held up these lamps, the lamps in turn reveal the beauty of the lampstand. It’s the same thing our Lord said to concerning the Holy Spirit, for those lamps speak of the Holy Spirit, as the lampstand itself speaks of Christ. He says, when the Holy Spirit has come, he’ll take the things of mine and show them unto you. And this lamp revealed the beauty of the golden lampstand. Now, when Zechariah saw it, It was the same thing, but there were two accessories that were ordinarily not upon it yonder in the tabernacle and then later in the temple. For instance, he sees here something that is unusual. That was a bowl on top. The lampstand, as God gave it to Moses, each lamp had a wick in it, and it would draw up the oil through the wick. As we today have seen lamps like that, many of us probably that go back to older days than most of us have lived in maybe. But we remember the lamp that drew up the oil. But here is something that’s run by gravitation. The oil comes down out of the bowl and is fed to each one of the lamps. Now, there is something else that’s here. There is a pipe that goes from that bowl to each lamp. And not just one pipe, but seven pipes to each one of the seven lamps. It looked like, if you please, an oil refinery with all the oil pipes around it. And all of this has a message. It speaks of the plentitude of power that was available. that that which speaks of the Holy Spirit, it could flow through seven pipes, and there was a great bowl that was there. Now that is the picture that is before us in the lampstand itself. Now something else has been added. We find that in verse 3. And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, the other upon the left side thereof. Now again, this all augments the abundance of power that is available. These lampstands are the lampstand, I should say, with the seven lamps, each one having seven pipes coming out of the bowl, but the bowl in turn is connected to two olive trees so that the oil comes directly from its source right to the consumer. The middleman’s been cut out here. You don’t have to go by the filling station to get it. You get it directly. I’ve often thought that… It’d be wonderful to own an oil well and to have a rubber hose that would stretch. You could just stick it in your gas tank and it’ll just stretch well anywhere you took a trip. It would go along with you and keep your gas tank filled up. That would be a very wonderful thing. Well, that’s exactly what you have here. The lampstand doesn’t move, but there is a direct connection with the source of power, if you please. That is the picture that’s before us here. Now will you notice something else? So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord? Zechariah had no inhibitions whatsoever or any hesitation to ask a question. There was no reluctance on his part if he didn’t understand something to say so. You’ll find that the other men who had great visions, like Ezekiel and Daniel and John on the Isle of Patmos, they all stood back reverently and waited. But not Zechariah, he got right in with it. If he saw anything he didn’t understand, he said, I’d like to know what that is. And he’s always questioning somebody. He had a vision we saw of a man that came by with a measuring rod. He says, wait a minute, where are you going? And what are you going to do? He had a big curiosity bump. and the right kind of one, by the way. Now, what is he asking here? He says, what’s the meaning of this? And I think we need to be very careful here. He was familiar with the lampstand. He knew what it was, and he also knew the meaning of it. What he’s asking is this. What does this total vision mean with all these additions? What is the purpose back of it? And furthermore, he’s saying, what is the application for us here today as we’re attempting to rebuild the temple? What does it mean to us? Now, will you notice the angel draws him out. Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, knowest thou not what these be? And I said, no, my Lord. Now the angel is drawing Zechariah out. He says, you mean to tell me you don’t know what this means? Well, you ought to know. And this man Zechariah is as honest as the days long. He says, well, I don’t know, and I’d like for you to tell me. And I’m of the opinion that a great many of us, if we didn’t have an explanation, would still be in the dark, as Zechariah was until the explanation was given to him. Now, will you notice, here is the explanation. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts. Now I want you to notice the answer because it’s exceedingly interesting. And first of all, we need to note that What we have here is an abridged and abbreviated sentence. In fact, it’s no sentence at all. If you want to get in and talk about the grammar that the angel is using, he’s not using good grammar. This sentence has no subject. It has no predicate. And my teacher told me that if a sentence is to be a sentence, it must have a subject and it must have a predicate. This one has neither. May I say to you that This reveals to me one of the wonders of the word of God. May I say to you, he didn’t finish the sentence because he’s going to let you supply the remainder. Let me give it all to you now as it applied to Zerubbabel. Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts, will the temple be rebuilt. That is the meaning to Zachariah and to those of his day. You want to bring it up to date? You can fill in the sentence. Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord, will anything be done today that is accomplished for the glory of God. Let’s fill it in. Needs to be filled in today. Now, this verse is eschatological. I use that big word to show off this morning. All it means is for the future. It’s for a future day. It has an application for the future that has not yet been fulfilled. But you do not exhaust it when you’ve said that. It was also for the day of Zerubbabel. And when you’ve said that, you still have not exhausted it. It’s practical. It is also for today. And that leads me to make this statement. There is always a grave danger in studying prophecy. And the danger is that you feel like that it is so far out and some even think it’s way out in left field, that it has no application for us and does not affect our lives at all. My beloved, may I say this to you? Prophetic teaching is not to tickle the curiosity of the saints. It’s not to provide an intellectual titillation where we can get a little excitement in satisfying the fact that we may know something that somebody else does not know. It’s given to us in order that you and I might have a hope, and we are told that the one who has this hope purifies himself. And my friend, if prophetic study doesn’t affect your life, it’s not worth that, not even the snap of a finger. It is to be geared into our life. And that is the great meaning here. Now, therefore, there’s a threefold application here that we want to note briefly this morning. First of all, it’s directed to the people in Zechariah’s day. Second, it’s destined and deferred to a future day for its final fulfillment. And third, it’s delivered and defined for any day, including our day, this morning even. Now, let’s notice these three. First of all, it’s directed to the people in Zechariah’s day. Now, the two olive trees, and I did not read the rest of this because it’s not my purpose this morning to go into all three meanings. But you’ll notice the two olive trees are identified in Zechariah’s day. Zerubbabel is one of the olive trees. He was the king in the line of David. The other olive tree was Joshua the high priest. And they would be the two instruments that God would use to bring light back into the nation, Israel, and make them a light to the world. The olive oil, I’ve already indicated what it means, the olive oil And the word in the Hebrews, beautiful, golden oil it was, represents the Holy Spirit. Hengstenberg, one of the greatest scholars of the past, said oil is one of the most clearly defined symbols in the Bible. And he says it’s a type of the Holy Spirit. That is exactly what it pictures here. It’s not by might. nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” Now the word for might here indicates physical strength. The word for power is human strength, either mental or material. So that if you will let me give you my translation here, here’s what it would be. It’s not by brawn nor by brain, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. That’s the picture. God would see that the temple was going to be rebuilt by His Spirit totally apart from all human resources. You know, it’s very comfortable to know today that God says, I’ll do it. And I’ll not have to depend upon your weakness, and I’ll not have to depend upon your ignorance, and I’ll not have to depend upon you, but I’ll do it. It’s not by brawn, it’s not by brain, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. Now, this is also a prophecy that’s destined and deferred to a future day for its final fulfillment. And if you want to know when it will be, it will be in the Great Tribulation period and clearly identified in Revelation 11, verse 3. And I will give power unto my two witnesses. They shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. That’s to be fulfilled in the future. Out yonder in the future, In the Great Tribulation period there will be no witness on the earth because the Antichrist, with the power of Satan, since God withdraws his hand for that brief moment, will have stopped the mouth of every witness on topside of the earth except two. God says, always in the mouth of two witnesses a thing is established. And God says, I’ll never leave myself without a witness. And during that period, they’re going to be these two stand up. There’s speculation who they are. I do not know. I think Elijah’s one of them. But whether the other’s Enoch, whether it’s Moses, whether it’s somebody else, I don’t know. John the Baptist, something. But… That’s not the important thing. God will have two witnesses, and they will speak in the power of the Holy Spirit in that day, God’s witness. That’s his promise for the future, just as he used these two men in the past. Now, there are other related matters here about the future, and I won’t go into them, but I’d like to say this for the benefit of some today, especially listeners today out yonder, because I know they’re listening because they’re writing me. God is going to pour out his Spirit upon all flesh according to Joel in the future. And this is the picture here in this prophecy. He says, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. That has never yet been fulfilled. It will be in a future day. Now I move on to that which is for us today and that which is important for this is to be practical. The application here is it’s delivered and defined for any day, including our day. And you will find that Israel and the church are the two olive trees as far as our day is concerned. That is, God has set Israel aside temporarily. And Paul says that in Romans 11, 24. For if thou were cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree. So that Israel was the olive tree and now God has set them aside and raised up the church the second olive tree that today is to exhibit his power in the world. Now, the whole operation here reveals a great principle, and the great principle is this, and this is the secret of power. God’s will and God’s work is instigated, promoted, and carried through to a successful accomplishment by the Holy Spirit, and that is totally apart and without man’s ability and help. Oh, if we only knew how helpless we are today. If we only recognize that we can do nothing today in our strength for God, then it would cause us to cast ourselves upon him and get connected with the real powerhouse, the Holy Spirit. God utterly and entirely repudiates the flesh of man. He will have nothing of it. He says it’s not by brawn, not by brawn, not by the display of the physical. The problem today is not with what man is building. The problem today is with man. God will have none of it. And today we go in for that which is brawn, that which reveals muscle. Well, my friend, the dinosaurs were big, but they’re not here today. And the little lowly flea is still with us. You don’t have to be big. And today we’re looking at that. The day will come when God will put it down, my beloved. He says He will. It’s man who made the noise of the city with its nerve-shattering noises 24 hours a day. It’s man who made the horn and the siren and the gaudy and garish lights that dot these brick canyons. God made the silent depths of the forest. with its pleasant shadows. And right now, there’s enough power being released in nature. I noticed coming back the other day on the train in Illinois, oh, what a carpet of green was down. And through Missouri, the trees are beginning to come out. And in Kansas, the grain is coming up. It’s beautiful. And then there are flowers out on the desert. This morning, my friend, silently the nitrogen is crawling up the stalks and up the limbs, making leaves and flowers, and there is enough power being released this morning to blow this little earth to smithereens. God’s doing it without any show, without any display. It’s not by might. It’s not by brawn. It’s by my spirit, saith the Lord. You could describe the greatest power the world has ever seen so far, which was Rome. You can describe it with one word, power. It was the greatest power machine the world has ever seen. The legions of Rome marched on every frontier. They were invincible and victorious. And one day they took a man. He seemed to be very weak. And Pilate said to him, Don’t you know that I have power over you? And the Lord Jesus said, You have no power whatsoever except what God gives to you. My beloved, this morning we have a perspective of that. The legions of Rome have marched down into the dust. Kipling says the tumult and the shouting dies. The captains and the kings depart. They are gone. But the gospel of that man that died on the cross is still being carried by weak men to the ends of the earth today. Men that are as weak as I am today. And his death is a victory today, my beloved, God says. It’s not by brawn. I’m not interested in your muscle. He says it’s not by brain. This is a day when God’s work is being done by committees. Greatest day for committees. Someone has said a committee is made up of the incompetent, appointed by the indifferent to do the unnecessary. That’s the church today. We today have complex organization, new methods, boards, programs, plans, drives, contests, budgets, sponsors, rallies, contests, groups, pep talks, psychological approaches, and high-power advertising. The church has it all today, and it’s going nowhere. The machine is out of gas. The church goes forth today like a little Samson showing of its locks of power and like a little Samson parades up and down today and boasts of its accomplishments. And like Samson, it wist not, knew not that the Spirit of God had departed from him. And the thing that makes this so tragic today is that the church could go forth like a little David with a simple slingshot of the Holy Spirit to meet the enemy and all of his stratagems today and come off with a victory. We need the power of the Holy Spirit today because God says it’s his principle. It’s an axiom. It fits any age. It’s not by brawn. It’s not by brain, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to become a Christian even. Do you know that none of us here this morning can make ourselves a Christian? You can’t do it. God says that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and you can’t change it. Now, you can improve the flesh. Don’t misunderstand me. You can educate it. You can give it culture and refinement. It needs that. But after you have given it an education, after you’ve given it culture and refinement, and made it polite even, and blame me if the flesh in Los Angeles could stand a little of that, But after you’ve done all that with it, it is still flesh, my beloved. And therefore, he could even say to a religious ruler who was religious to his fingertips, Our Lord never said to this man Nicodemus, you’re a great, big, ugly sinner. He said, ye must be born again. How could he be born again? Because… It must be done by the Holy Spirit and not by man. Listen to God in Hosea 1, 7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. God says, I save by my mercy. I never save by your effort. I don’t take it. I won’t have it. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and it’s ugly. It’s sinful, and God won’t have it. At the very beginning he put that down in Genesis 6, 12, And God looked upon the earth, behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. And believe me, if God looked down at the time of the flood and saw the violence in the earth, What must he think as he looks down at this earth this morning? And they talk about peace, and we have walls put up everywhere, and fighting is going on everywhere. And there are parks in this country today that no person, man or woman, will walk through at night. And on the streets of Los Angeles, it’s more dangerous than the jungles of Africa today. May I say to you today that flesh is flesh. and how God must look down upon it today. He must inevitably and ultimately judge it. Paul says, Philippians 3, 3, For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have no confidence in the flesh. Let me give you another definition of a Christian today. A Christian is one who has no confidence in himself, and his entire confidence is in Christ. Where’s yours today? Are you trusting yourself, or have you seen yourself without brawn or brain, helpless before Almighty God? And have you turned to Christ for salvation? My beloved, God says, and there are so many other scriptures I’d love to turn to today. Listen to our Lord. It is the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh, profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. The flesh profiteth nothing. God’s not accepting anything from you when he saves you. He’ll do it all if you let him. The trouble with us is we think we’re something. and we think we can do something. God says we cannot. I turn to just one scripture in 1 Corinthians 1. Will you listen to this? Verse 21, For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believed. He never saves people by foolish preaching. He saves them that will believe in Christ. For the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. Under the Jews, a stumbling block. Under the Greeks, foolishness. The Jews require a sign. They want to see the brawn. The Greeks seek after wisdom. They want to know about the brain power. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. And to both of those groups, both Jew and Gentile, if that Jew says, I’m no longer looking for the sign, and that Greek, that Gentile says, I’m no longer looking to wisdom, and both of them say i’m looking to christ god by his spirit will make them his child through faith in jesus christ now i’m about through you cannot be a christian in your own strength you can’t become one you can’t make yourself a christian in conclusion we need the power of the holy spirit to live the christian life listen to paul speaking to the galatians galatians 3 3 Are ye so foolish, having begun in the Spirit? Are ye made perfect by the flesh? Now, a great many people today think that, yes, Christ saves me, but after he saves me, he’s called me now to live for him. I’ll grit my teeth, I’ll clench my fists, and I’ll pull myself up by my bootstraps and keep the Ten Commandments. Well, you never kept them before, and you won’t keep them afterward, my friend, in your own strength. If you begin in the Spirit and God saves you by the power of His Holy Spirit revealing Christ to you, then by the power of the Holy Spirit you’re to live for God. Let me make this statement. You cannot live the Christian life. And you can’t show me a verse in the Scripture where God asks you to live the Christian life. And we got a lot of fundamentalists today. They’re as super pious as anybody you’ve ever seen. Oh, they profess to be interested in everything except Bible study. You never see them in that. But, oh, they’re always interested in anything that’s got refreshments connected with it or a little program of entertainment. They’re all for that. They’re super pious today. And they think they’re living the Christian life. And they’re carrying animosity and hatred and bitterness in their hearts this morning. My friend, you’re not living the Christian life, and you know it. It’s all hypocrisy. And you’re a phony saint of God when you do that. May I say to you, God has made a way for us to live the Christian life. And again, it’s so simple that most of us miss it, and we find it extremely difficult. I turn to the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and I wished I had time to develop this, but I must mention it and then let go. Listen to this, Romans 6, 13, Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Now, God’s plan and program is by yielding, and that’s not this thing that has been developed, so-called a surrendered life. Surrender is a sort of a giving up process, but to yield to God is an act of the will where you definitely yield yourself to Him. It’s not something that is done when you’re out of gear, you know, this kind of flabby sort of thing. It’s when you actively And objectively, and definitely, and positively, you go to him and yield yourself to him. And that’s not only to live the Christian life, it’s for service. The same word is used in Romans 12. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, and the word present there is yield. Same word, if you please. My beloved, it’s only as the Spirit of God moves in when you and I yield When our will moves out, the Spirit of God can move in and bring God’s will to bear in our lives. Impatient like a little child, I find myself to be, not waiting for the Lord to work his perfect will in me. I try with my poor skill to push the hands of time ahead and reap far less than if I were at all times Spirit-led. O Lord, to whom a thousand years are sometimes as a day, give me the patience that I need to walk in wisdom’s way. Teach me to rest in thee and wait so that thy best may be my portion throughout all my days and for eternity. Yielding to God, I can’t do it myself. And what a comfort it is to know that today. What a wonderful comfort. May I be personal and conclude with one illustration? It’s been my privilege, Mr. Rowe mentioned it this morning, to preach in the pulpit of the Church of the Open Door for 15 years. I know something about the beginning of this church. I think the greatest preacher that this country ever produced was Dr. R.A. Tari. I never come out through that door there, but what I don’t do two things. First of all, I tell the Lord, I can’t do it. And if that was the end of it, I’d never come out this door. I’d go out the back door because this is really the church of the two open doors. There’s one in the back. And I’d go out that door. But there’s another facet to this. And that is, he’s told me time and again, he says, I don’t ask you to do it. In fact, if you do it, I don’t want it. I won’t have it if you do it. You let me do it through you. That’s all he asked. A young boy by the name of Dwight L. Moody sat in a balcony. He heard an unknown preacher that we know today. His name was Henry Varley. Henry Varley made this statement. He says, the world has yet to see what God can do with a man that’s fully yielded to him. That boy sitting in a balcony by the name of Dwight L. Moody said, By the grace of God, I’ll be that man. In my book, he was that man. But when Dwight L. Moody was dying, he said to his family around him, he says, when I was a boy, I heard Henry Varley say, the world has yet to see what God can do with a man that’s fully yielded to him. And I said, then by the grace of God, I’ll be the man. But I can say now, the world has yet to see. what God can do with a man that’s fully yielded to him. Not by brawn, nor by brain, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. Will anything be done that’s done for God? It may be that you’ve come in here today and you’ve never yet really taken your hands off. You’ve been trying to do something to save yourself. But this morning, acknowledge that you are an absolute, helpless, lost sinner, and this morning turn in simple faith to Jesus Christ and cast yourself upon him. And I have his word of authority to say to you, he says, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. He’ll say it.
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Have you yielded yourself to God? He’s waiting, ready to give you His free gift of eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ. You can learn more by clicking on How Can I Know God in our app or at ttb.org or call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE. And for more great teaching from Dr. McGee, join us daily as we continue our journey in Zechariah. You can hop aboard by app at ttb.org or call us at 1-865-BIBLE if you’d like to find a local Christian radio station that carries through the Bible. And if you loved hearing from Nelson earlier, I know others would love hearing from you too. So why don’t you share your story on our voicemail line and maybe we’re going to play it here. The number again is 1-800-65-BIBLE. And when you’re in touch, would you let us know how you listen to Through the Bible? How do you ride the Bible bus? That information really does help us. I’m Steve Schwetz, and I’m going to meet you back here next time for the Sunday sermon. Until then, I leave you with this prayer from 2 Thessalonians 3-5. May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ.
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Jesus came in all All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
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