Give Up on Your Own Kingdom, and Yield to God's Supernatural Provision

Thy kingdom come. We pray, your concentration camp come, your prison come. Come on, hand over the handcuffs and the shackles and the straitjacket.

It's really funny, it's almost amusing the ways we hear preaching. I got to be good, you got to do this and that, and you got to live like that, and this just won't do, and so on, so on, so on, so on. Well, his kingdom is a kingdom of peace and righteousness, joy unspeakable and full of glory.

And when his kingdom comes, why, he reigns, he takes over. I learned a little bit about that fifty years ago when God gave me that verse that I quote a thousand times, commit thy way unto the Lord. I had to make my choice, because there was that concentration camp.

We were taught to be good, and to be gooder, and I didn't manage very well. I tried it, but oh, it was so different when Jesus Christ took over my thoughts. Somebody said, how can you, how can you tolerate so and so? Well, thank God it ain't none of my business.

Somebody falls in love. A friend of mine fell in love, and some minister came to me and said, you better go and warn him. Warn him against that girl.

He's going to get into trouble. I said, well, thank God it's none of my business. He's living in a free country, and he can marry whoever he chooses.

Why should I worry? Why should I bother? I did pray, however, and God immediately showed me that that was his appointment, and they lived happily ever after. They did. Thy kingdom come.

My goodness, it leaves me so free of all worry, of all fretfulness, just leaves me free. That's why I said a while ago, let's have a dump for one minute and see what it feels like to jump out of it. Come out of it, and if you ain't out of it by this morning, if you're too hot, you can take off your shirt.

Look, we didn't used to tolerate that. But thine is the kingdom. I'm so glad that I don't have to reign anymore.

So glad I don't have to boss anybody. People wonder about that. They think that I'm come to boss them.

Wouldn't occur to me. But thy kingdom and Jesus Christ comes in. Why? He becomes the boss, and he becomes the wonderful manager.

He'll manage your financial affairs. Your spiritual life is entirely his charge, his responsibility. And when we talk about consecration, why, that's done when we're baptized into Jesus Christ.

You put on Christ. Paul says, you have not so learned Christ. You don't live like the Gentiles live anymore, in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.

What ignorance is in them? Asked a couple of fellas this morning, they had to light their cigarettes. I somehow lose my respect for a man or a woman that smokes. Why in the world did you ever start? What made you ever put a rope around your neck? You knew you'd choke to death.

You knew that devil would get the best of you after a while. And yet they all do it, except those that let Jesus Christ reign. Thank God.

And here, you have not so learned Christ. Beloved, it's our job to be an example of what it is to be in the kingdom of God. It means I've got a king, a king of glory.

What a king! He doesn't only reign over Woodhaven or Ridgewood, but over everything. Everything is under his control, positively everything. He made it all.

He upholds all things by the word of his power. And, oh, to have him for a king ought to, first of all, make you very happy. You're a sinner if you're not happy.

You are. You're a sinner if you worry. You've got no business to put those shackles on anymore, to put that straitjacket on.

You're not. You're free. And how can you attract others to Jesus when you go around moping and kicking and criticizing and finding fault with everybody and finding fault with your lot and finally finding fault with God? Why he's done so much for me that I cannot tell at all.

And what a joy! Don't ask for trials. They'll come if you do. Don't you do it.

They'll come by themselves. When God is king, he will let things come your way to just sort of push you up, and he'll make all things work together for good. But God's got to do it, and he does it.

Praise the Lord. Now, I know I can preach a thousand, million years like this, and some, I was going to say, some of you will never take it. You're so in love with yourself.

You're so deeply in love with your own ways. You haven't any idea. Beloved, we got to fall in love with this Jesus.

Isn't he beautiful? But we don't until we experience him. That's how we find out how wonderful he is. I never knew how wonderful air travel was until I climbed into one of those contraptions and strapped myself in, and then feel the push behind your back.

We used to sing in kindergarten, how would you like to go up in the swing, up in the air so blue? And now you go up, praise the Lord, faster than a bird. He makes you mount up with wings as an eagle. But we ought to pray.

Thy kingdom come. I quit. I give up.

You have not so learned Christ, if you have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye have put off the old man with his days. All the curling irons, all gone, everything gone. The old man, the old woman, is worse than the old man.

Off with it. And you put on the new man, which after God. Oh, this new man is Jesus Christ, and he's mine.

He's really mine. He really comes to displace me. Praise God.

And oh, what a wonderful kingdom this is. And we ought to get into it. We ought to learn to let Jesus Christ really reign.

We don't do that as long as we reign ourselves, as long as we try to straighten things out ourselves and try to sanctify ourselves. But oh, to learn this grand lesson, to abandon ourselves to him. When I give myself, he takes over.

He really does. And he's got the power to take over. He's got the power to subdue all things unto himself.

That's where it belongs. Now he is king. Now he is Lord.

Now he is master. I remember when I began living the faith, I was as green as a leapfrog. I didn't know a thing about it.

And I had an awful hard time for a whole month. I needed $6 to pay a debt. And I wasn't made up of the material that some people are made of.

They just forget it. I wasn't made like that. So for a whole month, I labored and I dumped and I found fault with God.

I'd go by some bushes and I'd say, now, Lord, you could turn all these leaves into dollar bills, but he didn't do it. Now you said that whatsoever we ask, it shall be done. I looked at those leaves, but they were still leaves.

Oh, I had a lesson to learn, to leave it all in his wonderful hands. When I learned that lesson and I did learn it in a little meeting like this where people, all of them had experiences with God and none of them found fault. They all had a wonderful, wonderful story to tell.

How God supplied their needs. There's a sister who during the war years had nothing to eat and how God produced butter for her. Now I would have been tempted to disbelieve that.

But when God provided cabbage for my rabbit one Sunday morning, no one's ever explained that, but it happened. But anyway, the last testimony came from Elder Brooks and I told you that I couldn't doubt that old gentleman. And he told how that he had taken his pocketbook.

I never use a pocketbook, but he took the lining out to see how much money there was. 37 cents. He thought maybe there was one more penny he could squeeze out.

He couldn't. 37 cents. And then he put it back in his pocket and then the bell rang and the man came who had repaired his umbrella and he wanted a dollar and a half.

And of course these people in Zion all knew that folks in the faith home live by faith. So he didn't dare tell him he didn't have the money. He took that pocketbook out of his pocket, opened it and took out a dollar and a half and paid the bill.

He said he didn't dare look back into it. He closed it again and put it back in his pocket. And after a little while, somebody else came and wanted some more money and the same thing happened.

And now here I had been grunting for a whole month over six dollars, but I went out of that meeting full of joy and not only that, but full of repentance. I had to ask God to forgive me for doubting him. And then the miracle happened and it was a real miracle.

At that time I'd come into Pentecost out of the Baptist church and they all thought I was a black sheep. They didn't like it at all. But next day I got a letter from a Baptist church where I had ministered a long time before and there was a check in it for five dollars.

They said they had forgotten to pay my fare at that time when I preached for them, but I needed six. But the same day I had to make a call in the home of a sister of the Baptist church and before I left she gave me one dollar. Now God figured it out without a computer.

Six dollars is what I needed. Six dollars is supplied. Well, it was a very wonderful lesson to learn.

There are laws of the kingdom. Oh, this wonderful king is a law giver and he works according to the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. And when you refuse to be anxious and you commit everything to him, he takes over.

He says he cares for you. Not long ago I needed, let's see, five thousand dollars overnight. Where take it? Some of our, my nephews, when I see them say, Uncle Hans, cough up some pennies.

I make believe, you know, some pennies there and I couldn't cough up five thousand dollars, but by this time I knew that this belonged to the kingdom of God. That's where the faith life comes in when you seek the kingdom, not yourself. How people think it's strange that I have no car of my own, but when I came to Brooklyn I said, Lord, do you want me to get a car? He said no.

And that was the end of it. I don't mean that you shouldn't because I might ask you to drive me someplace. But anyway, the Lord knows how to take care of his own.

But today, dear brother minister who is in real need, in real need of having a great loss if you couldn't get those five thousand dollars. Well, comes to his uncle. As I said last night, he's been all the world's uncle everywhere.

In Hungary, I'm Anspacia. In China, Ula Musi. And here I'm Gogo.

So he came to me, he said, what shall I do? I said, well, sign the papers. I'll pray with you next day. Next day, when the money was needed, I got a long distance call from someone that you'd never think of.

He said, I have five thousand dollars and it weighs heavy on my conscience. I think the Lord ought to have it. Have you got a place to put it? But those things happen a hundred times.

You don't talk about those things at all. But you say, thy kingdom come. Oh, this kingdom.

You're not the king. You're a bond slave of love. You're here to live no more unto yourself, but unto him.

And that's the mistake people make. They say, thy kingdom come so that I have something to reign over, so that I've got something to make my life comfortable. But oh, how different when your whole life is not yours anymore.

It belongs to him. Then it's part of the kingdom. And those are the lessons we can learn.

That's why I say we ought to pray. Thy kingdom come. And it's a prayer that is perpetual.

Thy kingdom. And we finish by saying, thine is the kingdom. Thank God.

Like our brother said, thine is the kingdom. Oh, how many times I've said that. I've often said, my Lord, you sure fixed it up this time.

Boy, couldn't think of a more complicated trial or problem than this. Absolutely no solution in sight. And it finally makes you rejoice.

I said, Lord, I'll be terribly interested to see how you're going to unravel this thing. I'm just going to watch you do it. And it's interesting to watch the Lord do it.

And he does it when you refuse to be anxious. You honor God. What did Abraham say? He was fully persuaded.

That's what we need. I'm trying to persuade you this morning. But where did Abraham get this persuasion from? By the promise of God.

Instead of going to the clinic and having his high blood pressure lowered and having pills to swallow and going through all that rigmarole that they ask you. I said to someone yesterday, Jesus Christ is my shepherd. But some of these folks make a guinea pig out of you.

They do. They'll try a thousand pills on you to find out just how they react, because they don't know. But thank God here is Abraham.

He was persuaded. Why? All he needed to know was that God promised. And why did God promise? Not because he saw that Abraham was uncomfortable and that Sarah was in dishonor because she was not a mother.

That wasn't it. But God wanted to bless the whole world. God wanted to bring his kingdom to this world, and he had to have one representative upon this earth that wouldn't worry, would believe God.

And he honored God by hoping against hope, where there was no natural solution at all. He honored God. He committed himself to God.

He was fully and so fully persuaded. Beloved, who is God to you? Tell me what kind of a God have you got? I'd like to know. Who's your father? What kind of a father have you got? I talk about coming closer to Jesus.

That doesn't express it at all. He says that that day you shall know that you're part of me and I'm part of you. I'm in my father and ye in me and I in you and is as even as I live by the father.

So you shall live by me. Think of the kingdom. Oh, this glorious and wonderful kingdom.

Why hasn't it come to this earth? Because everybody wants to be the pope. As soon as people get a little blessing, why then they're apostles and then they're prophets and they put on a button and they put on a stovepipe hat and they walk through the town like the goat in a circus. We used to have circus come to our town with a goat stovepipe hat.

It was a funny looking contraption. Thine is the king. Oh God, right at this moment, yours is the kingdom.

Hallelujah. And he said, your father, good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Hallelujah.

Let not your heart be troubled. Well, we're going to go on letting our hearts be troubled unless we don't. Blessed be the name.

Oh, hallelujah. You love it now. See, now you're in the army.

Couldn't get out of it. And listen, we're in the kingdom now. You can't get out of it.

You've got a king. Let him reign. Let him take over.

Let him fill you with the holy.