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     1. Day by Day   (3:15)
     2. Christ Is Coming, verses 1 and 2   (3:00)
     3. The Hope of the Gospel   (35:04)
     4. Psalm 92:1-2   (2:45)
     5. It May Be Today, verse 1   (1:39)

Colossians 1:23.  If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister.

Galatians 5:16.  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

“Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which was preached to every creature which is under heaven.”  When God spoke to us by His Son, He didn’t speak death, but He spoke life.  “Himself took part of flesh and blood that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who all their lifetime were subject to bondage because of the fear of death.”  We’re delivered from that “fear of death” when we receive “the hope of the gospel.”  And the Bible says we should not be “moved away from the hope of the gospel.”

I was making mention of an article in Time magazine the other day where churchmen of different churches and of great renown were expressing themselves about the conditions in the world, and what place the church held, and the preaching of the gospel.  They said very nice things, but all of them missed the main thing.  We have “turned to God from idols… to wait for His Son from heaven.”  Every Christian’s job and responsibility is to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.  “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”  But you cannot know “Jesus Christ whom He has sent” until you experience Him—until you live Him, praise God!—until He takes over.

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How many people are sick and dead because as soon as the devil pokes them in the ribs… they go around looking for sympathy, telling everybody how it aches and oh, what faith they have, and how they trust in the Lord!  You don’t!

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There was Judas Iscariot—and I think lots of people do him a lot of wrong.  They think he was a scalawag.  He wasn’t; he was a disciple.  He was an apostle.  He sat down with the other disciples.  He was a minister.  He cast out demons.  He healed the sick.  He was close to Jesus.  He walked with Jesus Christ for three and a half years.  He was sent out preaching the gospel. 

But there came a time when Satan made a bid for him; the devil wanted to get in.  And Jesus was there, and Jesus made a bid for him.  The Bible says in that 13^th chapter of John, “He loved them unto the end.”  And He had warned Judas—told him, “Judas, you get into a dump.  You allow that dump to reign in you.”  What do I do when I allow my dumps and my shadows and my anger and my pride and my flesh to get the best of me?  Why, I crucify Jesus Christ—I say, “Jesus, get away from me.  I don’t want You, I want the devil.”

No, Judas was not a bit worse than you and I.  And that shows that you can preach the gospel and still not let Jesus Christ reign.

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What an easy time the devil has to get in!  What an easy time!  It took nothing more than the sop.  Jesus Christ dipped the sop in vinegar, and maybe there was a little bit too much salt on it, and just was enough to get Judas mad.  That’s all.  It doesn’t take very much.  Oh, how little it takes for us to flare up, and to get huffy, and to be sensitive!  And when we exercise flesh…  And it doesn’t take much of a crack to let the devil in.

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What is my tree filled with—what kind of fruit?  What is it that people see in me?  Do they see Jesus?  Do they find love?  Love—the love of God?  Oh, we’re so satisfied to be Christians—to have the baptism, to come to good meetings.  Well, Judas had all that!  But when it came to an issue, the devil had an easy time to slip in.  And once the devil comes in, you’re lost.  But you know, it’s so simple and so easy just to play—to play a little bit with the flesh: “I got to have my little fling now.  I’ve got to let this fellow know that I’m mad at him.  I’ve got to have just a little fling.”  Brother, that means crucifying Jesus Christ.  “Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light.”  Do I love light?  What is light?  Why, “God is light.”

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I can tell you honestly that the Lord would have come fifty years ago, or forty years ago, if some of God’s top-notch saints had not exercised flesh.  And it was the nice kind of flesh—the spiritual kind of flesh.  Beloved, we never get rid of this dirty flesh unless we let Jesus Christ be the one.  It’s got to be Jesus, not my spiritual self.  I must make my choice, and I must do like the Apostle Paul: determine “not to know anything save Jesus Christ, but Him crucified.”  He’ll never be mine unless I receive The Crucified—unless I’m “dead with Him.”  “They’re enemies of the cross of Christ.”  Oh, we want the crown, we want the glory, we want the unction, we want the blessing, we want divine healing, but we don’t want death to self.  We don’t!

How many of us are top-notch saints until somebody touches us in a sensitive spot?  And then where are we?

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God, I must have Your salvation!  We want to be saved to have a comfortable life; we want to seek the Lord so that when Jesus comes, we may be ready.  But, you know, that Bridegroom is seeking a beauty that we don’t understand.  We’re to be “like Him.”  What is God going to do for me this year?  What is His plan?  I’ll tell you something: it’s way beyond your own plan.  Isaiah 55: “Let the wicked forsake his way”—his way, his way.  Who are the wicked?  Why, we are the wicked.  “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.  And let him return unto the Lord.  For my thoughts are higher than the heavens.”  Oh, to think the thoughts of God!  That’s God plan.

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Who is the overcomer in your life?  Oh, that’s your choice.  I tell you, Jesus Christ will make you “more than conqueror.”  But why do we choose the flesh?  Why does the flesh have such an easy time to run away with us?  Why is it that we make such big statements, and we talk about being “filled with the Holy Ghost,” and when it comes down to brass tacks, we live in the flesh?

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And today, two millennia have rolled around, and isn’t it time for the Lord to come?  Isn’t it time for you and for me to wake up?  When Daniel saw in the Bible that it was time for the captivity in Babylon to end, he didn’t say, “Well, let the Lord do it.”  But he set his face unto the Lord his God to confess his sins, and the sins of his people, and to call on God.  And he never gave up until the angel came.  And doesn’t the Bible talk about “the elect of God that cry to Him day and night”?  And that “they shall be avenged speedily”?  And doesn’t Jesus Christ complain that when He comes again, He won’t find much faith upon this earth?

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A story from Mrs. Brookes about the temptation to spiritual laziness.  “They came into such power… The Holy Ghost did everything—walked in their feet, and chewed the food in their mouths, and everything was under the control of the Holy Ghost. … My, the word of God was fire in their mouth.  They never spoke any word themselves.  But they said, ‘The difference between us and Mrs. Robinson was this: she still went on seeking the Lord.  We didn’t.  We found out,’ she said, ‘that we could prophesy, and during the day live rather careless lives.’”    (from 17:39)

A failure in watchfulness against a lion.  “The next day, they found his watch chain.”  “Do you know that the Bible says that [the devil] ‘goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour’?  Who is he after?  Not the world; that work belongs to him.  He’s after the saints—he’s after the children of God; he’s after you and me.  And if I don’t watch and pray, I’m lost.”    (from 22:08)

Sausage strings as an illustration of the poor comforts of the flesh.  “Mother would say, ‘Hans, what are you bawling about?’ ‘Why, Gottfried has a longer string than mine!’ ‘Yeah, but you can’t eat it.’ ‘No, but you can lick it!’”    (from 27:43)

“Ich sitze hier und schneide Speck,
und wer mich lieb hat, holt mich weg.”

“I am sitting here and cutting bacon,
and the one who loves me, takes me away” (i.e. sets me free from this)

This is an old rhyme. I do not know what the meaning of it really is.  We used it as children when we were sitting somewhere waiting impatiently for somebody to do something.  Or also, when we were bored and somebody came and asked what we were doing.—G. Reichle

Date: “Isn’t it strange that in this assembly after 32 years there are people that are just as carnal as they were at the beginning?”  That would place this recording around 1957.

Audio Quality: Mixed