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  AN INCONVENIENT, BUT CRUCIAL TRUTH
  by Fred Tomlinson
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of absolute surrender to
God, drawing insights from the Apostle Paul's unwavering commitment
despite facing imminent danger. It challenges listeners to move beyond
nominal commitment to Christ and embrace total surrender, highlighting
the transformative power of yielding completely to God's will.

Topics: "Absolute Surrender", "Transformative Commitment"
Scripture References: Acts 20:24, Acts 21:13, Romans 12:1, Galatians 2:20, Philippians 3:7, James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:6, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23, Ephesians 4:22

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of absolute surrender to God,
drawing insights from the Apostle Paul's unwavering commitment despite
facing imminent danger. It challenges listeners to move beyond nominal
commitment to Christ and embrace total surrender, highlighting the
transformative power of yielding completely to God's will.

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CONTENT
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It really is a pleasure to be together. My name is Fred Tomlinson, and
I'm speaking to you really from a segment of a Zoom fellowship meeting
in the Mackenzie Fellowship in Abbotsford, British Columbia, but it's a
wonderful privilege to be able to also speak to all of the people out
there that will be listening, and may the Lord bless each and every one.
Now I'm going to be speaking as a couple of verses from two chapters in
the Book of Acts from chapter 20 and chapter 21, and it's not common for
me to give a title to my message in the meeting, sometimes I have to do
it after the meeting, but the title that just occurred to me after I'd
sort of given thought to what I was going to be saying was this, an
inconvenient yet crucial truth, an inconvenient yet crucial truth.

In the 20th chapter of the Book of Acts, we find that we're in the midst
of the travels of the Apostle Paul, and at this point in time, in
chapter 20, he's travelling with a group of other men with him. I mean,
for example, Luke for sure is with him, Luke is the one who is the
writer, the author of the Book of Acts, and so he's giving his report,
and what a tremendous report he is able to give when we think of all
that's documented here for us. We just wish he hadn't stopped when he
did stop, and that there was a bit more to the Book of Acts, but there
you are, the Holy Spirit was in control of all of that.

So we've got Luke, we've got, in verse 4 you'll see we've got Sophita
from Berea, we've got Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, we've
got Gaius from Derbe, we've got Timothy and Tychicus, and Trophimus from
Asia. So quite a group moving along, and then if you turn with me into
chapter 21, and down to verse 8, we'll just break in there, and the next
day we that were of Paul's company departed and came to Caesarea, and we
entered into the house of Philip the Evangelist, which was one of the
seven, and abode with him. And the same man had four daughters, virgins,
which did prophesy, and we tarried there many days.

Let's break off there for a moment, you of course know very well who
Philip was, we met him first of all back in the sixth chapter of the
book of Acts, and he as was noted here was one of the seven men with
superb credentials, if I may put it that way, who were selected in the
early church to fulfil a particular role, and we enjoy reading through
the developing story back there in the sixth chapter, and from there a
number of things happened, and I'm trying to think how to say it, just
put it very briefly, but by the time we reach chapter 8 of Acts, we find
Philip in Samaria with a truly remarkable ministry. Much could be said
about that, and one day perhaps we will, but now as we find ourselves in
the 21st chapter of Acts, we believe that this is 20 years later, 20
years after Acts chapter 6, that's got nothing to do with the chapter
numbers, but this is what people who study things very very carefully
tell us, and there's reason to believe, we're looking at about 20 years
after that particular event, and much has happened, as I've intimated
already, he'd been travelling with a remarkable ministry, but clearly
also he had got married and had settled in Caesarea, and the statement
included in this little section of verses concerning his daughters is
quite remarkable, that he had four daughters who did prophesy, and he
said, just a comment here, I mean, obviously no parent has complete
control over their children and what they do or how they turn out
ultimately or what their responses to the Lord may be, if we're
Christian parents, we're concerned about that and there's no doubt
there's been a lot of prayer for that, even as I'm saying this, if I can
digress even further. It just comes to my mind when I was a little boy.

I lived on my own with my mum and dad until I was age seven before a
brother came on the scene. But I can remember in those early days, I
can't tell you how old I was, but I was very young and I'd been put to
bed and, however, in the tiny little house where we lived, I had got out
of bed and I was sitting on the top stairs, peeping through crevices or
openings in the boards which divided the stairs from the living room
where my mother and father were. And I can still remember to this day
seeing them there, bowed in prayer, and they were praying for me there.

Now, this is not unusual for Christian parents, but it's just a
particular memory that I have and how thankful I am, grateful to God to
have had parents who loved the Lord Jesus and who set a tone and an
example for me. And clearly, Philip and his wife, his wife we do not
know of course, we know nothing about her, but they obviously had prayed
much and what a wonderful privilege they had to have their four
daughters recorded. They would never know this of course, but to be
recorded in the very book which we consider to be the inspired Word of
God.

And beyond that, I remember many years ago, I can't tell you where I
read this, but I read in some apocryphal writing, so I can't vouch for
every word being as accurate as I am when I think of the Holy
Scriptures. But in that apocryphal writing, it made a reference to
Philip's four daughters and described them as burning luminaries. What a
wonderful, wonderful thing.

And so here we are, if you like, we're in Philip's house with his wife
and his four daughters. I don't know if there are any other members of
the family there, but they are mentioned in particular. But now, in this
verse that I just read to you, in verse eight, Paul comes along and he
brings his companions with him that we've just noted in the earlier
chapter.

So we're looking now at 15 plus people in this house and just thinking
about that. What a wonderful meeting that must have been with these folk
all together. I have some personal memories of being together in homes
where there's been a group of people together.

Sometimes it's been leading men and women that we've had the privilege
of working with and knowing and to pray together. I'm thinking of one
time it was just one man and one woman. They were not married.

The woman was a missionary in India and the man was a ministering
brother that we thought a lot of. And they were in our home and we had a
time of prayer. I'm still remembering that moment to hear those two
mature people of God lifting up and opening their hearts in that
situation.

So I'm thinking about this house here as they worship together. I'm sure
they sang together as well and how wonderful that must have been. But
Paul was there and I know one of the people listening to me right now in
this meeting has been just very blessed reading about Paul of late.

That word got back to me. Of course Paul the Apostle, he was a giant in
so many ways. He was what today I suppose we might refer to as the real
ordeal.

He was an authentic man of God. He was an apostle of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But he had this remarkable, remarkable conversion.

He had this remarkable revelation from God which we today are so
indebted to God for. He also was a man of great experience. By the time
he's sitting here in this house with this group of people, we're looking
at a man who clearly was at the centre of the gathering.

He was the man with remarkable experience. He paid a huge, huge price
already for the experience that he'd gained over the years. I mean just
for a moment, just consider his journey.

Let me put it this way. He had his life threatened in Damascus in Acts
chapter 9. He had his life threatened again also in chapter 9 but this
time in Jerusalem. By chapter 13 he's been persecuted and run out of
Antioch.

In chapter 14 he's faced possible stoning in Iconium. Also in chapter 14
he's been stoned and left for dead in Lystra. In chapter 16 he's been
beaten with rods and imprisoned.

In chapter 16 also we find that he's been cast out of Philippi. In
chapter 17 his life is threatened again in Thessalonica. He's also been
forced out of Berea.

He's been mocked in Athens. He's been brought before the judgment seat
in Corinth in Acts chapter 18. He's been opposed by the silversmiths in
Ephesus in chapter 19.

In chapter 20 the Jews have plotted against him in Greece and here he is
sitting with these brethren, his companions, enjoying the hospitality of
Philip and his family. And then, I don't know if it worked out quite
like this, whether the bell rang or there was a knock on the door. I'm
sure it wasn't the bell ringing though.

But there was someone at the door. We read about this in chapter 21 and
verse 10. And as we tarried there many days there came down from Judea a
certain prophet named Agabus.

And when he was come unto us he took Paul's girdle and bound his own
hands and feet and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at
Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle and shall deliver him
into the hands of the Gentiles. And I'll just break away from the text
for a moment at this particular point. I mean, we've met Agabus on one
earlier occasion as we've read through the book of Acts and that would
have been in chapter 11.

And where he gave a prophecy on that occasion. And so he now, and I
doubt that he was travelling alone, so the company is now even larger.
And it's at this point when, in a sense, things got even more
interesting.

Because he proceeds with this very graphical, very graphic rather, and
very strange visual aid. And Paul, without any question, was the focus
of what took place. Now, I don't want to spend a long time here, but
there are questions that have been asked concerning Agabus.

Was he a genuine prophet of God? As it would seem to be the case, but
that's been brought into question. In giving this prophecy, was this the
Holy Spirit telling Paul that he must not proceed and go to Jerusalem?
If that was the case, was Paul then disobedient? These are the kinds of
questions that have been raised and we can give our own particular
opinions in response to that. But what we do know with certainty is that
the man who was being addressed, the focus of this event, was no
stranger to danger.

I mean, that's become very clear from the various references that I've
made already. He knew very, very well indeed, who knew better than him,
the danger that is to be faced in preaching this message that he had.
And, I mean, just to add to that, let me just ask you to turn your
Bible, if you're following me, in the text to the earlier chapter again,
to chapter 20.

And he's talking to a group of elders at Ephesus, and I'm breaking into
this unfolding section, but let me go to verse 22, where we read, And
now, behold, I go in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things
that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every
city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. And I'm stopping the
reading there, and in verse 37, as we read down, when the elders all
heard this, when he had thus spoken, in verse 36, he kneeled down and
prayed with them all, and they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck,
and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that
they should not see his face any more. And they accompanied him to the
ship.

And in 21, chapter 21, and in verse 3, I read, Now, when we had
discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand and sailed to Syria, and
landed in Tyre, for there the ship was to unlaid her burden. And finding
certain disciples, we tarried there seven days, who said to Paul through
the Spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem. And so it goes on, and
I'd like to read more, but for time's sake, I won't.

So there's another occasion where there's even a direct reference to
these people being led, they feel, by the Spirit of God to warn the
Apostle about the danger that they had. So for Paul, the fact of danger
lying ahead of him was not new, so this word which Agabus is bringing is
not like some fresh new word in that sense, which raises questions in my
mind at least, it has done, in particular. What was really going on?
Without any question, and I'm not challenging the fact that Agabus was
an authentic prophet of God, bringing the word from the Spirit of God,
I'm not doubting that, I don't doubt it.

And I also know that it was a very dramatic way in which he is sort of
demonstrating what lay ahead for Paul. So it's definitely a warning, and
I ask you to understand that, it's definitely a warning. But what if,
this is my question, what if the message that Agabus brought by the Holy
Spirit was not really for Paul after all, although Paul was the centre
of all that was going on, what if the Holy Spirit was actually providing
a very dramatic visual aid for everyone who is sitting around in that
house on that occasion and watching, what if the Spirit of God was
addressing the, what if he's addressing you and me, to the point.

This man who was a man of God, who bore in his body the marks of the
Lord Jesus, who was carrying this truly remarkable revelation of the
Spirit of God and of the truth of God. And I was struck with this
thought, and it's not part of the text, it's another way of seeing it,
but it's what the Lord laid on my heart, that really what was happening
was in the audience that was sitting there, the Holy Spirit was focusing
in on this authentic apostle of Jesus Christ, this experienced man of
God who'd suffered already so much for his faithfulness to God and to
the Gospel. And now with this clear word coming to him the trouble lay
ahead, and there was an opportunity for those gathered around to watch,
as I'm very, very sure in my own mind they were doing, they were
watching the apostle who was the target of this word, and they were
watching his response.

How would he respond to it? And I sense that God wanted to do that, he
wanted this gathering of people to watch how a true man of God, a man
whose life was wholly and totally given over to God, would respond when
faced as though there's spotlights on him on this occasion, when he's
faced once again with the fact that there's even more trouble lying
ahead for him round the next corner. How would he respond? And once
again I'm thinking if that's true, if you can embrace with me that
possibility, which I think is a distinct possibility, what if the Spirit
of God is using this very passage of Scripture of this event in that
house on that occasion to actually impress upon you a message today? If
there's something through this that God wants to impress upon you, look
back into chapter 20, I deliberately stopped the reading short, but
having heard the apostle saying he only knows that in verse 23, that
bonds and afflictions abide me, are they going to be ongoing? Verse 24,
but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto
myself, so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry that
I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify of the gospel of the grace
of God. None of these things move me.

Do you see, this is the response that the people were watching, this is
the response that we're looking at this morning, the response of a man
who is wholly, utterly, and completely given over to God. There's only
one thing that concerns him, that he might finish the course of ministry
which God had entrusted to him, and that he may do it to the glory of
God. Back into 21 again, to the home of Philip, and we find here, after
we've come through verses 11 and 12, where he's being warned by Agabus,
verse 13, then Paul answered, what mean you to do to break my heart? For
I am ready, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the
name of the Lord Jesus.

And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying the will of the
Lord be done. What a remarkable, remarkable man was this Paul. How does
that challenge your heart? It challenges my heart, as God put this word
on my heart to share today.

I had some other thoughts for today, but this seemed to just eclipse
that word, and I'm certain that God is wanting to speak to people who
will hear this message today. And it's as though, this is how I see it,
it's as though the Holy Spirit of God is bringing this story, putting
it, sort of the floodlights on it, and it's lit up in brilliant
technicolour, and God is using the response of a true man of God to the
imminent danger that faced him, and to see just the grace, and the
confidence, and the peace, and the commitment of an authentic man of
God. You know, this revelation, this vision, if you will, is so needed
today, I believe.

I'll tell you why it's needed today, it's because the common message
today, I'm talking within the evangelical community, the common message
gives a kind of a thumbs up to commitment to Christ. I don't especially
like the term thumbs up, but it came to me, it's certainly in vogue, and
especially as we're dealing with YouTube. I mean, it's one thing if you
have a YouTube channel, or you put information on the YouTube, and you
see a thumbs up, you say, well, that's good.

But it's so incredibly nominal, as contrasted to the kind of comments
that some people leave after they've watched or listened to a message
that we believe to have come from God. And to hear people's hearts
expressing their profound appreciation and sense that God has spoken to
them, that means 10,000 times more than someone giving you a thumbs up.
And what I'm saying is that today, it's so common that so much ministry
today gives a kind of a thumbs up to the concept of commitment to Jesus
Christ.

And yet that same message seldom, seldom frames the message within the
biblical demand for absolute surrender. Many claim to have, quote,
accepted Christ as their Saviour, and yet know nothing at all of
absolute surrender to God. Absolute surrender to God is not some kind of
option or optional experience.

It's not a kind of add-on at all. I deliberately think of it in terms of
a demand, the demand to be totally and fully surrendered. Appreciate
what Bob was saying about the hymn.

And I know Bob is a great hymn lover and has a lot of stories that he's
gathered about behind so many hymns. But, you know, there's a hymn of
Isaac Watts that I've actually been heard to say quite a number of
times. It's my favourite hymn.

I have quite a lot of favourites actually. But I remember some years ago
my daughter knew that I'd said that and she had the whole thing framed
for one of my bigger birthdays. I've had a few of those.

But the hymn is, When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of
Glory died. And the other line says, Love so amazing, so divine. And
many hymn books put the words, Shall have my life, my all.

But, you know, that's not what the hymn writer wrote. He said, Love so
amazing, so divine, demands my life and my all. It demands it.

And of course the scriptures demand our total yieldedness to him. Paul,
you know, people make excuses, you know, when I might speak about Paul
in a way similar to this, that I'm doing this morning. But they say, but
that was the Apostle Paul.

I mean, he was an exceptional man. He had an exceptional calling. But
there's something that so many of us just don't really get.

And that is that same factor or those same factors that so identify the
Apostle Paul, so identify men and women who we think of as being
outstanding. We've read their biographies or whatever it is. And we say,
this was a wonderful man of God, a wonderful missionary, a great
revivalist or whatever it may be.

But the fact is that those particular identifying features are to be as
true in your life and in my life as they were in any one of these people
that we may be thinking about. The real difference between the Apostle
Paul and us would be this. For the Apostle Paul, he was not the product
of modern evangelicalism.

He didn't pray a prayer like, I accept Christ as my personal saviour. He
would never have done that. In fact, those words are never in the
scripture anywhere.

He wouldn't have done that. The Apostle Paul, when he was Saul of
Tarsus, he heard a voice from heaven saying, Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting me? Saul is now on his face on the ground. And he responds
to that.

He knows without question he has been intercepted by some supernatural,
some divine sort of being. And he says, who are you, Lord? And the word
comes back to him, I am Jesus. It is hard for you to kick against the
goads or the pricks.

I am Jesus. I've said before, the kind of imagery that comes to my mind
is a vehicle. I joined the police because I like fast driving and I
didn't like getting tickets, so I found another way around all that,
where you could give them to other people.

But I think of a vehicle. At 100 miles an hour, this is Saul of Tarsus.
He's moving at full throttle, when suddenly on the Damascus road, he
runs right into solid concrete.

He's stopped in his tracks immediately. Who are you, Lord? He uses the
same word again, but with a totally different meaning altogether. Having
heard those words, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, he now says,
Lord, what would you have me to do? You know, to talk of the conversion
of the Apostle Paul, or the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, perhaps more
particularly, it is a huge, huge understatement.

Converted? Well, you can convert your garage and make it into a bedroom,
perhaps, or something. What took place in the life of Saul of Tarsus
was, as Oswald Chambers puts it, it was cataclysmic. It was completely
life-transforming.

It was an instantaneous and absolute surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ.
A total miracle. It was supernatural.

He was transformed. And in that moment of time, in that moment, he
yielded. He let go of his life.

He yielded total control of his life to Jesus. Amen. A lot more could be
said about that, and I'm tempted.

But, you know, let's just return back to Philip's house for a few
minutes. The group gathered, and were kind of with them, you know, in
this. They'd watched the prophet Agabus come in.

They'd heard the pronouncement that he'd given. And, you know, they knew
about the friends who'd been begging with him, and they joined in with
it in verse 12, actually. When they all heard this, we besought him not
to go to Jerusalem.

But they watched the response of this man. He was unmoved. He was
unmoved by what he was hearing.

They watched, and they could not have done other than to have been
challenged deeply by the response of this man who was utterly and
totally resolute. There was no looking back. Nothing would be permitted
to hinder him at all.

Glory be to God. What a tremendous example he is. Beloved, you know, it
could be that the Holy Spirit, who is alive and with us today, and he's
brooding over, you can say he's abiding within, but he's here brooding
over our lives as we are seated here, wherever we are around the world,
as we are talking with one another today.

It could be that the Holy Spirit himself is using what took place in
Philip's house those long, long years ago for you and for me today. You
know, this message of absolute surrender to God, it's an inconvenient
truth. It's an inconvenient message.

It's an unwelcome message to our flesh. But you know, if the Spirit of
God is handling our lives to this end, there will be, I believe, a deep
sense, deep within the very epicentre of our being. We will know,
perhaps, that we've pitched the tent of our lives in that field of
compromise, just a stone's throw from Vanity Fair.

And, you know, it was an old saint from yesteryear who once said, if our
hearts are willing for this, that is for this total surrender to God, if
our hearts are willing for this, there is no limit to what God will do
for us or to the blessing that he will bestow. Amen. You know, let me,
you think I'm digressing all the way away from this.

I am not, allow me this digression. Many, many years ago, when I used to
travel around more preaching, I remember staying with friends in the
environs of Chicago and I remember seeing a newspaper and it was drawn
to my attention, there's a photograph in this newspaper, the Chicago
newspaper, and it was taken from the air and it was looking down onto a
section of the Dan Ryan Expressway, which is usually an incredibly busy
highway, frighteningly busy. I've driven it on motorcycle a number of
times.

But this photograph was zeroed in on a section of the pavement there.
Because in England, we don't, the pavement is where people walk, but in
North America, the pavement's where vehicles travel. So it was in the
main carriageway and written in red letters scrawled across the tarmac
of the highway were these words, my dad died here.

That statement inevitably, inevitably brings a lot of emotion to our
minds. But somehow it must have happened during the night that the son
of someone who was killed at that very spot had managed to get out onto
that highway, which was somewhat quieter at that time of night to scrawl
these letters on the highway, because that spot meant so much, that spot
was sacred to him. My dad died here.

I'm thinking Bob Jones and Margot will know who I'm talking about. But
many years ago, a man of God that we all knew died in Exeter in England.
And his body had just been removed from the bed where he had lain, and
it was taken away.

And I heard a man of God, another man of God, that evening, say, I went
into the room, and I looked down at the bed. And I said, bed, a man of
God died on you this day. I've wondered to myself, if the Apostle Paul
walked along the Damascus Road, and would remember that spot.

In my imagination, I can imagine him stopping and pausing. Because in
that spot, that's where Saul of Tarsus died. Saul of Tarsus died here.

My dear friend, what about you? I don't know the circumstances in which
you are right now, but it's quite likely that you're not in the middle
of a busy highway. But your feet are on a carpet, very likely. But it
could be that right there where you are, that could be your Damascus
Road.

And I'm asking you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, you don't need to do
it physically, unless you want to. But I'm asking you, as it were, to
get down where you are right now, and stop running, and stop trying to
live the Christian life, and stop longing for that which you do not
experience, and just surrender your life to God. Amen.

You know, it was Francis Ridley Havegale, to quote another hymn, who
wrote that great hymn, take my life and let it be wholly consecrated,
Lord, to thee. Those of you who are familiar with the hymn, you will
know that as the following verses unfold, she says, take my moments and
my days. Then she says, take my hands, take my feet, take my voice, take
my lips, take my money, take my intellect, take my will, take my heart,
take my love.

And then she says, take myself, and it will be ever only all for thee. I
appeal to you, brethren, in the words of Scripture, by the mercies of
God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, that is the
entirety of your entire being, everything that is your life. The flesh
screams about it.

But God, if he's speaking in your heart, will lead you into the very
best things that you could possibly experience as aspects of the
surrendered life to God. Present your bodies entirely as a living
sacrifice to God. I pray to God, and this is my prayer, that you will
hear God speaking through this strange little journey that I've taken
you on this morning, to bring you to a place where you realise the need
to more fully and more completely surrender everything that is your
person and your life to God.

If you're listening on the internet, consider leaving a comment. If you
want, you can go to mckenziefellowship.com and leave a message there.
But rest assured that although we don't know who you are, we're praying
that God will have his way with you.

God bless you all. Amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/n3k-gUBpHtA.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/fred-tomlinson/an-inconvenient-but-crucial-truth/
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