059. Consecration

For some years I’ve wanted to speak on the topic of CONSECRATION.   --------    Every time I’ve considered the subject, I’ve thought, I’m not consecrated enough to speak about it.  Today friends, I’m still on the journey, and my relationship with our wonderful heavenly Father and Jesus is growing.

So even though my journey is still ongoing, I want to speak on this very important subject today.

PP (The big)    Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (says that the word) Consecration (means:)
- Dedication, devotion to a divinity.
- Devotion of one’s life to a sacred or high purpose.

Some of us are afraid of this life of ‘consecration’.  We are afraid that we will be classed among certain people as ‘too religious’. Yes, we are often afraid of being ‘too religious’.

A lot of people don't go to church because they're worried that they might be put in the class of being ‘too religious’.  And then maybe some of us have advanced beyond that problem and do go to church once a week.  Yes, we do go to church but we don’t keep God’s Sabbath day very holy. The fourth commandment in Exodus 20 verse 8 starts off by saying …

PP Exodus 20:8
“Remember the Sabbath day , (Yes, we remember it, but most of us forget the last part)  TO KEEP IT HOLY.”

Apart from the couple of hours in church, most of the rest of the Sabbath from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday is often taken up chatting to our friends about all the secular chit chat that the Bible says we should keep to the other six days of the week.

It hurts our wonderful Creator God when we are lukewarm about properly keeping His Sabbath day holy as the Bible teaches.  …

PP It seems that even God’s children don’t want to be too consecrated. So if we’re church-goers, sure we may go to church on Sabbath, but do we do any more than that?    Go to church, ok, but go to any extra church programmes on Sabbath or through the week - no way!

No mid-week prayer meeting - no giving our testimony to our non-Christian friends as to how we became a Christian - no studying the Bible with others.  Why?  Maybe because we don't want to look ‘too religious’, ‘too consecrated’, around our acquaintances.

DL Moody made a statement about being consecrated.  And it's a pretty heavy statement.  He said,

PP 1 “We should make one of two choices, either give up this whole thing called ‘religion’ or else be out-and-out on fire, consecrated, on God’s side.” Sounds hard doesn't he?  He said,

PP 2 “What we want today are people who believe what they are talking about. (People who are dedicated to what they believe. They are consecrated in what they believe.) He went on to say,

PP 3 “The world has gotten sick and tired of sham. want to urge you (he said) to be out-and-out for God.” Friends, think about this. Jacob said to his family in …

PP Genesis 35:2     NKJV

“Put aside the foreign gods that are among you,
Purify yourselves, and change your garments.”
They put away their gods and God blessed Jacob and his family in many many ways.
Friends, are there some ‘gods’ that you and I need to put away?
For some of us, could it be TV, some magazines and books we like to read?   Or dwelling on the Covid story to the extent that we’ve got very little time to spend in God’s Word? - or sport, or too much time on our own leisure instead of on Gospel business?

PP  Christianity is dragged down into the
       dust today because so many people
       profess what they don't possess.
       People are lukewarm Christians.

Think about this - we should let our whole heart be given up to God and His service.  We should give our whole selves over to God, as living sacrifices, consecrated!  -   As Paul said in ……

PP 1     Romans 12 verses 1 and 2,
“… present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
And do not be conformed to this world.”
Yes, Paul wants us to be classed amongst the ‘too religious’, the ‘consecrated’.
And Paul said, …

PP 2          “Is that too much to ask, after all that Jesus has done for us?”

--------   Friends, when it comes to God's service, the Bible says that with the help of Jesus, we should “aim high”.  What is your aim in God’s service?   Put the question to yourself.  Do you have an aim?   Do I have an aim?

The trouble is though, that if we aim high for God, we're going to get ‘too religious’, ‘consecrated’, a ‘fanatic’. People are afraid to get filled with God’s Holy Spirit, because they will be labelled ‘religious fanatics’.  How shameful to be called a ‘religious fanatic’.   -----

Friends, we are not at our best for God until the world considers us ‘fanatics’. -----

--------   A writer once said, that -

PP      “Piety and conscientiousness are wrongly called fanaticism.”

The reformation was charged with fanaticism by its enemies.  Noah was ridiculed as a crazy fanatic, and so was John the Baptist.  Well friends, I don't mind being called a religious fanatic, if it means being listed along with the reformers, and Noah, and John the Baptist, and Jesus.  How about you? - That's good company to be in!

-------   Now a lot of people think that in order to be consecrated, you've got to isolate yourself from just about everything.  Some people think that if you are consecrated to God you can't go out and play a game of tennis, or squash or swim.  That's not right. Some people think you've just about got to go into a cave and stay there all your life in order to be consecrated to God.  That's not right.

Of course we can swim or play tennis or squash or whatever, but in order to be consecrated to God, when we are doing these things, we must be sure our motive is right.  We can socialise or play sport or whatever and still be consecrated to God if our motive is right. Yes a person can go into a game of basketball or whatever and win the whole lot of the participants to Jesus Christ, if their motive is right.  Let that be our aim.

But friends, we don't want to be like a so-called ‘Christian minister’ down in a town where we lived who used to go into the pub to drink with the boys so he could save them.  And he didn't come out too sober either.  You can't do that!  That man wasn't consecrated. You can't go in and drink with the boys and condone what they are doing and think they'll be converted.  It just doesn't work.  The boys in the pub didn't respect that man - and didn't go to his church.  And you and I friends can't be one of the world and expect the people to come to Jesus.

One Sabbath I was in Brisbane to do a live gospel programme on radio. I had some time to spare and walked around the city block. Someone who was with me said, “Come into this shop and I'll shout you a mineral water.”  Now if I’d gone in and let him buy me that drink on the Sabbath when God clearly says in His Scriptures that we shouldn't buy or sell on His holy day, then what would that person think of me later as I studied the Bible with them on the subject, ‘How to keep the Sabbath holy’?  They wouldn't think too much of me would they?  They'd realise I was talking out of both sides of my mouth - saying one thing and doing another.   After I explained one or two things about the Sabbath, that person was looking forward to finding out what the Bible teaches on ‘How to keep the Sabbath holy’.  And I thank God for that.  -----

Let's see what the Bible has to say about consecration.  Daniel was a bit ‘too religious’.  Daniel was ‘consecrated’.  As the old hymn says, will we  …

PP      ‘Dare to be a Daniel?’

Daniel lived in Babylon 2,500 years ago, but he still shines today. He shines brighter today then he did back then. ----  Where are the millionaires of Babylon today?  Can you find them?  Where are the millionaires of even 100 years ago?  Who can name them?  They are forgotten.  I imagine they were forgotten not long after their bodies turned to dust.  Where are the wise men, the astrologers, from Babylon?  They are gone!

But that old Hebrew Daniel, went down to shine.  Thank God, he's been shining all along.  Daniel’s been shining these 2500 years.  He dared to be called ‘religious’.  He dared to be called ‘narrow minded’. He dared to be ‘consecrated’ to God.  And he's still shining!

You and I friends …

PP1  We need to stand out from the rest of the world.
PP2  We need to stand out from the rest of our friends.
PP3  We must dare to be different.
PP4  We must dare to march to the beat of a different drummer.
PP5  Dare to go the opposite way to the worldly crowd. 
PP6  Dare to stand up for Jesus.
PP7  Dare to be a Daniel!

I believe that if we’d gone up to some man in ancient Babylon and asked him about Daniel, he would have said, “Well, he's a good man, a very good man; but you know he's a very narrow-minded man. While he was in the king's household, he wouldn't eat meat or drink wine - wouldn't touch them at all.  He lived on pulse (which includes various grains and vegetables and probably dates).  Yes, he lived on pulse and water, (a pure vegetarian diet, like some of you folk do), and he came near to losing his head.”

But friends, look at the way that man has stood all these centuries. He dared to be different from the world.  I pray for you and I pray for me, that we will dare to be a Daniel!  ------
-------  I suppose if we'd dropped into the old antediluvian world and asked about Enoch, they would have said “Well, he was a very good man but …

PP  ENOCH

“He was odd, and very religious.
He had a kind of religion that most didn't believe in.
He was a narrow-minded man with only one idea,
and that was to glorify the unseen God.”

In fact friends, Enoch was the oddest man in his day.  If he met everyone in town going off to bet at a horse race, he'd go in the opposite direction.  The current going one way and Enoch going the other.  He dared to go against the current of the world.  He dared to go against ‘peer pressure’.

We've got to stand up against an ungodly world.  Enoch was peculiar.  But friends, he probably stands higher on the pages of history than any other man in the first 2000 years.  Why?   ----  He lived with God. He – was - consecrated!  And God liked his company so much that one day He said, “Enoch, come and take a walk.”  And Enoch took a walk - a long walk --- and he hasn't got back yet!  With one leap, he leaped across the crystal stream and strode victorious into heaven.  -------

 -------   Friends, don't be afraid of being ‘too religious’. May God forgive us for ever allowing such a thought to come into our minds. ------
In Elijah's day, the people would have told us that -

PP  ELIJAH

“He was odd, very religious.
He had a kind of religion that most didn't believe in.
(They would have told us that …)
He was a narrow-minded man with only one idea,
and that was to glorify the unseen God."

But I tell you friends, Elijah had more power than King Ahab.  Think what power he had.  God’s power!   He just locked up the heavens and put the key in his pocket, and there couldn't be rain for 3 years. Ahab became his message boy.   With this power from God, after the drought, when Elijah called down rain, it came.

PP  Elijah got power by living a separated life.

He consecrated his whole self to God, laying himself on the altar, a living sacrifice, and saying,  “Take me! Use me!”
God used him to shake that nation.  Now Elijah's name has lived these thousands of years, and it is going to continue to live!  He had the power-of the Spirit-of God.
We can have that God-given power too.

The Bible says in James 5 verse 17 …

PP  James 5:17 (that) “Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are.”

He was just like you and me.  You and I can have that same power. We're inclined to think these old warriors were different kind of men from ourselves, but they were just like us.  But then, they were men of mighty faith.  They dared to stand alone.  They dared to be fully consecrated to God.  And there are times when you must stand alone - when you dare not turn or compromise in this evil old world.  -----

-----  Look at Abraham.  Abraham didn't begin to be as shrewd a man as Lot.  If you had gone into Sodom and asked about Lot, I think they might have told you that he was one of the most prosperous men in all Sodom.  He probably owned the best property in Sodom.  He probably owned the best corner lots.  His family moved in the very highest circles - at the very top. He wasn't ‘too religious’.

He wasn't like his uncle, Abraham.  They thought Abraham was a very narrow-minded man.  But Lot was a noble man - he was just the kind of man the Sodomites like.  They liked that kind of Christianity.  He was their style of man.  If there had been a railway running from Sodom to Jerusalem, I imagine he would have been a prominent director in it.  He believed in all modern improvements. He was getting along amazingly well.

Bear in mind friends, Lot is a typical character.  He represents the professing Christians of today who don't want to be ‘too religious’. He may represent you or me.  These kind of Christians just want to get into Heaven.  They keep their religion as a sort of fire escape. They don't want to be ‘too religious’, peculiar, narrow-minded, too consecrated.  Lot wasn't ‘too religious’. He didn't belong to that class.  According to the locals he was probably seen as ‘a noble man’.

But God knew about him.  And as I read the story about Lot in Sodom, it seems to me that when God came to investigate him, he found a bad state of things.  Lot had been there 20 years and didn't have much of a family altar, been there 20 years and hadn't got a convert, been there 20 years and not one man had been made better in all Sodom.  I wonder if Abraham, when he was pleading with God, may have said, “Lot has been there 20 years.  Surely he’s got some converts.”  But the story suggests there wasn't a convert, and all Sodom suffered one fate.

Abraham said to God, “If there are 50 righteous people in Sodom will you save the city from destruction?”   God said, “Yes, I will spare it.”   Then Abraham said, “What if there's just 45, or 40?”  Then finally he got right down to 10.  And God said, “I will spare that city if there are just 10 righteous people in it.”  But as we read the story, only 3 people left that city alive.

Many of us say today,

PP  “Let's make the best of both worlds!”

We see a lot of that today.  Well, Lot tried that, and he came to a miserable end.

But look at Abraham.  Look at how he shines on the face of history. His name lives on today, and he's going to live, eternally.  There was a man who walked with God.  He was consecrated.  He was the friend of God.  See how he shines today!  ------
-------    Now what about Paul?  He was consecrated to God.  They called him ‘mad’!   Friends, how we need that kind of madness now! Someone said about Paul,

PP  “If Paul was mad, he had a good caretaker on the way, and a good asylum at the end of the route!”
Paul could afford to be mad.  And he was a man who turned the world upside down.
Are we mad too?   Crazy?   Like they said Paul was?   If we are, then maybe, through us, Jesus can turn our part of the world upside down for Him.

PP  Paul had one motto.  (He said)   “This one thing I do.”
(Friends, listen)    Paul didn't have 40 mottos - 40 aims.
If he had, you wouldn't have heard of him.
He threw his whole life into one channel.
Paul said in …

PP  Philippians 3:13,14

“This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” And Paul went on from conquest to conquest, higher and higher.

The world looked down on him, but the world wasn't worthy of him. He is well known in heaven.  If you had asked the rich men in Corinth what kind of a man Paul was, they would have said, “Huh!  He's a fanatic - gone clean mad.  He's honest, but he's a madman.” Well, he has been gone for about 2000 years, and now his writings have gone to the very corners of the earth!  There's a man who had just one aim in life.

You know there are other people on this earth who have one aim in life, they are the ‘millionaires’. ------    Some of the great millionaires were being interviewed a while back and they were asked what they put their success down to.  The majority of them answered something like this, we made it to the top because, against the advice of our friends who suggested we should diversify our time and talents and money, we made it to the top because we chose to specialise in one thing.  That's how we made it to the top and became millionaires. And friends, …

PP We should learn the lesson from the millionaires that Paul had learnt from the Scriptures. Our motto should be, “One thing I do ….. I press toward the mark, for Jesus.”

Paul was a millionaire in another way.  And so can we be. -----
I want to tell you about another ‘millionaire’ - an old friend of ours named Dudley, a  ‘penniless millionaire’!  ------   Maybe penniless on this earth, but in heaven and on the new earth, a millionaire. ----

-----    As a result of an accident, Dudley's neck was always in a brace.  Because of the pain, he was often in the pub to drown his troubles. Sometimes we would collect him from his little caravan - sometimes from the pub, reeking of alcohol.  Then we’d take him to an evangelistic programme we were working with in a country town some years ago.  Once or twice we took him home for a meal.  He began to study his old Bible, looking for something better.

One day, after reading his Bible, he went to put it back into the box beside his bed.  And as he did so, he felt a leather belt in there, and he thought to himself,  “I don't remember putting any belts in that box.”  And as he looked down, there was a black snake in the box.  It didn't bite him and Dudley checked through his little caravan and killed three of them.  Well you can see that Dudley surely had problems  - lonely, depressed, a braced neck and lots of pain, and drinking, not to mention the snakes and the cramped little caravan that was his home.  ----   Finally a bushfire came through and burnt his caravan. ------  But one nice thing was starting to happen to Dudley - he was getting to know Jesus.  He finally went to live down near Sydney and one day a postcard arrived in our mailbox.  It was from Dudley.  And he said to us on that card,

PP  “I didn't realise that I was a ‘millionaire’.”

Yes, he had come to know Jesus, and despite his problems down here, he knows there's a light at the end of the tunnel and there's a millionaire's mansion waiting for him, just over the hilltop, in the Promised Land.  Another millionaire!  Thank you Jesus! -------

-------  Well friends, let's get back to Paul.  Let's get on his platform, and let us have one aim.  “One thing I do.”   Let us push right on toward the kingdom of God.  Jesus said in…

PP  Matthew 6:33

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (the things we need), will be given to you.”

Let God’s kingdom be first in everything, and everything else that is necessary will be added to us.  We don't need to be bothering our heads and troubling our minds about what our future is going to be.  If we are wholly given to God, He will lead us.   Paul never marked out the path he was going to tread.  God marked it out.  ----  Friends, hold your reins loosely, and God will lead you.  Paul went out to preach, and God led.

How my bones get on fire when I read about Paul!  Look at him. They’d beaten him with 39 stripes.  According to Roman custom, they bound him to a post and struck him across the back with sharp steel or flint pieces on the end of leather thongs, cutting him clear through the skin and flesh to the bone.  Very often a prisoner died in the act of scourging.

In  second Corinthians 11 and verse 24   he said,

PP  2 Corinthians 11: 24 “… five times I received forty stripes minus one.”  (thirty-nine stripes!) And he hardly said any more about it.

Suppose we had said to Paul after one of these beatings, “Now, Paul, if you get out of this difficulty, what are you going to do?”  --   “Going to do?”

PP  Philippians 3:13,14

“… one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
“You don't think a few stripes will turn me?   Not a bit!  When the people knock me down, I'll get up again.” ------
------    Friends, consider another of Paul's experiences. They'd beaten him again.
“Paul, if you escape this difficulty, what are you going to do?”
“Do?  I do but one thing.”  -   Paul was consecrated to God.
“I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling.”
“But it's costing you a good deal.”
“Cost?  It's a privilege to suffer for Jesus!”
“But Paul, you've gone through perils by land and sea, you’ve suffered hunger and thirst.  They’ve beaten you twice with rods and five times laid their cruel stripes on your defenceless body.”
 “Ah,” said Paul, “These are only light afflictions.  They only hasten my reward.  They only make it more precious.”

You couldn't swerve him.  I tell you, the devil got his match when he got hold of Paul.  Paul didn't seem to think these things were worth mentioning.   He only alluded to them when he wanted to defend his character. He says they stoned him.  I don't doubt they left him for dead. Suppose you'd gone there and had seen him.  There he lies with his body all swollen, all black and blue.

PP  “Now, Paul, (some of our ‘modern’ church folk would say) “don't you think you'd better be a little more conservative?   You are all-together too on-fire for Jesus. You're too consecrated.  You bear down too hard on us people. Give us polished words. Just give us smooth words.” Isaiah 30:9-13  (simple paraphrase)

Friends, if you care to sit in many of the so-called Christian churches of this world, you'll often hear the minister talking and yet saying nothing.  Sometimes they might as well not open their mouths.  Spiritually hungry people often say, “I go to church and the preacher says very little that will benefit my soul.”   We should thank God for the wonderful truths we are so privileged to have as we dig into the Bible in a more consecrated way.  Thank you God!

Yes, as a preacher, Paul might have been like that preacher, and talked and talked and never said anything to really challenge the spiritual life of the hearers.  And the devil and everyone else would have let him alone.  -----   But Paul gave no uncertain sound.  I'm afraid that if some of these compromising Christians had been there, they would have said, “Now, Paul, don't be so outspoken.  Be quiet.  Don't you think you'd better go to Europe until these riots are over - till this excitement has died out?”

Ask him friends, “What are you going to do Paul?”
“Do?”
“I love Jesus and I do only one thing.  I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling.  I want to work for Jesus because He's done so much for me.”  ------
-----   During World War 2, a Swedish youth and his English sweetheart were separated.  He was in Sweden and she was in England.  They had very little contact because communications were badly disrupted.  The young man was a bit uneasy at times because there were many good-looking American soldier boys in England, and he wasn't absolutely sure just how his girl would fare.
Then one day, to his great joy, a cable came from his sweetheart.  All it said was “Psalm 5:7”.  That's all. He opened his Bible, and read these thrilling words,

PP  Psalm 57:7  KJV

“My heart is fixed, oh God, my heart is fixed.”
Then he knew he need not worry anymore.

Friends, we owe it to our Lord, to send a message like that, daily, to Him.  A message of constant dedication and consecration to Him. We need our hearts firmly fixed upon God - nothing wavering.  This is our desperate need today.  -------
-------    It reminds me of a consecrated Christian girl who was talking to a hippie. He eyed her up and down and saw a beautiful body and he said,

PP1  Hippie “I’d like to take you home to my home.”
PP2  The girl replied, “I’d like to take you home, to Heaven.”

We need to be consecrated like that.  ------

--------     Look at Paul again.  He goes over into Macedonia, and the first thing that happens is that he's thrown into prison - a dark, damp dungeon.  Suppose we had seen a vision of a man crying out, “Come over into Macedonia and help us!”, and had followed that vision.  What if, after we’d followed that call, and arrived at our destination, we'd been thrown into jail immediately with no-one to plead our cause?   We would have begun to whine.   But what did Paul and Silas do?   They sing praises to God.  --------

Delphine and I visited that cold dark dungeon.   It would be a queer place to sing praises, with their bodies bleeding and their feet held fast in the stocks.   I suppose we would have sung, “Hark, from the tombs”, or something like that.   But not Paul and Silas.   They sing praises, and the prisoners heard it, and the place shook with an earthquake, and there was a great work done.  The jailer was converted and his family.   And Paul became the first pastor in Europe.   He got converts wherever he was because he was pressing toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus and he was wanting to take lots of other people with him.   And the people could see that he was fair dinkum.   He was dedicated.

Paul had a motto.  He had an aim.  He consecrated himself to that end.

PP       Consecration!

There's a verse in the Old Testament that says in Leviticus 26:8  “Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight”.

In many of the Churches of the world today it seems that it's the other way around.  Yes, in many of the churches it seems as though it takes about 1,000 Christians to make one disciple now.  Why? Because people are afraid of being too religious, too consecrated.

Is that our problem? -----

-----   You've probably heard the quote before, …

PP     “There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, by putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God.”

-------    Listen to this poem titled, The Church and the World.  It made me think about many of our churches and how they are lukewarm and lowering the Bible standards on keeping the Sabbath day holy and other things, and walking hand in hand with the world.   This poem talks about the desperate need for consecration in the church today.  It's a beautiful poem but I can't read it all to you because it has almost 200 lines in it and we haven't got time.

As I read this poem, I thought of you and me, and I remembered a writer saying that, …

PP  “Our influence for blessing others is proportionate to our consecration to Christ. Lack of consecration has kept God’s people in the world of sin for so many years.” Well, here is just a little part of that poem,

PP  The Church and the World.

Your preachers are all too old and plain,
said the world with a sneer.
They frighten my children with dreadful tales
which I don't like them to hear.

They talk of judgement, and a coming Lord,
and horrors of endless night.
They warn of a place that should not be
mentioned to ears polite.

I will send you some of a better stamp,
modern and brilliant and fast,
who will tell them that people may live as they like
and go to heaven at last.
‍

The Father is merciful, great and good,
loving and tender and kind.
Do you think He would take one child
and leave another behind?

And the plain old men that preach the cross
were out of her pulpit turned.
And they of the church and they of the world
walked closely hand and heart.

And none but the Master, who knoweth all,
could tell the two apart.
Then the church sat down at her ease and said,
I am rich and in goods increased.

I have need of nothing and naught to do,
but to laugh, and dance and feast.
And the sly old world heard her, and laughed within,
and mockingly said aside,

The church has fallen, the beautiful church,
and her shame is her boast and pride.
Thus her witnessing power, alas was lost,
And the perilous times came in.

The times of the end, so oft foretold,
of form and pleasure and sin.
Then the angel drew near the mercy seat,
And whispered in sighs her name.

And the angels their anthems of rapture hushed,
and covered their heads with shame,
And a voice came down from the courts of heaven,
From Him who sat on the throne.

I know your works and how you have said,
I am rich and have not known
That you are poor and naked, and blind,
And wretched are you indeed.

You have turned from the truth to error’s way,
And knowest not your need.
You have ceased to watch for that blessed hope,
And have fallen from zeal and grace.

So now, alas! I must cast you out
And blot your name from it's place.   -------

Friends, …

PP  Let's determine in our hearts to be consecrated to Jesus and the Bible truths in the trying hours in which we live.

---------    One last story. (Don’t read this PP) …

PP  Story of John and Mary Gaskell Consecrated Missionaries to China

John and Mary Gaskell were two dear consecrated missionaries who were working deep in the heart of China.  Finally, after years of dedicated service for our Saviour, Mary became seriously ill and was placed on a boat for the long journey to a hospital where she could be treated.  As they journeyed along, these two dear workers for God talked about their long period of service and the joy they had in the mission Fields.

After several days journey on the boat, Mary grew weaker, and she said to her husband, John, “Can't we stop here under a large tree for a while.  I'm so tired!”  Her wish was granted and as she lay under the shade of a big tree on the Rivers Edge, she said, “John, I cannot go any further.  I am going to die here.  But I wanted to tell you how very glad I am that we came to China.”

As John bent over her, while she lay in his arms, she kissed him goodbye, drew one last whisper of breath, and was gone.

John dug her grave with an oar from the boat.  He lined it with branches and carefully wrapped his dear wife's body in one of her white skirts.  Somehow he made it do for a shroud.  He placed her in that crude grave.  And as he cried, he repeated the 23rd Psalm right to the end where it says, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”.  Then he prayed, and with the oar, pushed the dirt in over her body, leaving her there to sleep until Jesus comes.

After the lonely missionary had completed his heartbreaking tasks they once more started down the river.

Then, all of a sudden, he realised their direction and said, “No, men, UP the river!  Home to the mission station and to work for souls!” Why did he say that?  Because Mary's last words to him had been, John, I wish you would go back to our work and stay in China and witness for God to the end of your life, or till Jesus comes.

Isn't that a beautiful story about consecrated people?

PP  Let's determine in our hearts to be consecrated to Jesus and the Bible truths, in the trying hours in which we live. Paul was like that.  He pursued and persevered to the extent that he could say in his closing days on earth, in 2nd Timothy chapter 4 and verse 7 and 8,    ….

PP  2Timothy 4:7,8

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
----   Dear friends, that promise can be ours.   Take aim, lay hold, consecrate.
Let us do that for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

PP Friends, if you have been blessed and challenged by this message, then please take time now to send it on to your friends. To God be the Glory!