The Holy Spirit - Part 7

You will go straight to hell! Put it out quickly! So the man threw it down and put it out and said, Sorry! And he looks at Roy and I of course was trying everything to stop him and he said, Now don't you ever smoke again or you'll go straight to hell! He was very small. Well, no one laughed. Everyone choked and gasped and looked and trying to hide their faces and this poor man was dying, looking, didn't know where to look and I grabbed Roy, you know.

I died a bit that day. And then he did the same a few weeks later and he did worse. I won't tell you what the woman did that he... I can't tell anybody what happened in that home.

It was unbelievable what that woman did when he screamed. So I said, Listen Roy, come, you've got to deal this. We've got to sort this out for him.

You can't do that. You can't go screaming at people. He must have been listening to Christians and conventions and conferences and everywhere, just picked up little things here and there that smoking was sent.

Well, I said, Roy, if he gives up smoking, he's still going to hell. That's not going to save his soul. You don't tell a man to stop smoking if he's not saved.

You don't put the cart before the horse boy. He has to have an encounter with Jesus. You can make him stop smoking.

You can make him stop drinking, stop swearing. You can change his clothes, make him stop going here and there and go to church. He's still going to hell.

That won't save him. He's still going to hell. It doesn't matter.

It's not what he does. It's what Christ did that saves him. And when he gets through to Christ's salvation, these things Christ throws out of his life.

These things just throw out of his life. But you don't make a man change everything before he thinks he can be saved. Nothing will do that salvation apart from faith in the blood of Christ and the risen power of Christ.

And Christ will set him free to what he ought to be. So don't you ever speak like this again. Well, Roy, finally, the message got through, you know.

The message got through, and he never did that to us. By the by, just before I leave, Roy, just to be just, Roy did get mature. And he's become one of the most gentle, caring, wise, discerning, godly, upright people I've ever met in my life, person that I've ever met in my life.

I cannot tell you in words befitting, befitting what my son has become in the hands of God. In case you're all sitting there worrying about my life with my son, you can have comfort. He's changed.

He's become godly and a great blessing. Of course, it's different if someone is under conviction. Then it's different.

If the Holy Ghost is convicting a person, it's different. And He comes to you for advice as to what's right in a Christian's life. And He looks to you.

Then you've got to be honest, and true, and straight, without compromise. Mr. Macfarlane was preaching in a prayer meeting one day, the oldest prayer meeting, I think, in our land's history. Oh, men in their 90s coming every week to pray through for Africa, to pray through for the world, and the bloodbath that the world thought would happen in southern Africa.

One of the reasons it didn't happen was that prayer meeting. The godliest saints. Mr. Mac preached one night there.

He's preached many nights. Many of those people came to Christ when he was a young man through his ministry. But he gave this word to God.

I was in the meeting, and after the meeting, they had tea, and refreshments, cakes. And everybody after the meeting was standing around because they'd traveled from all over the city. They had fellowship before they left the prayer meeting.

After Mr. Mac had preached and prayed through, now we're all having fellowship. But a man stood there, and he was in the prayer meeting. He heard Mr. Mac preaching, and he suddenly lit a cigarette up.

He starts smoking the cigarette, you know. I saw Mr. Mac looking at him. I mean, to stand there in that hall after that service and light a cigarette.

Eventually, he said to Mr. MacFarlane, there's nothing wrong with smoking, is there, Mr. MacFarlane? I mean, spurgeon smoke, he said. And he looked at Mr. Mac. He said, people tell me that it's wrong for a Christian to smoke.

I can't see what's wrong. It's not a moral sin. It's not morally decadent.

I'm faithful to my wife. It's something to do with the health, they say, but I can take you to people who smoke till the day they die that are more healthy than people that haven't smoked. I can take you to people who drink coffee that does more damage.

They haven't got a right to tell me to stop smoking. They drink so much coffee, they're doing more damage to themselves. Where do you draw the line? There's nothing wrong in smoking, Mr. Mac.

What do you think? It's not wrong for a Christian to smoke, is it? Mr. Mac shook the whole hall. I mean, Mr. Mac doesn't shout. He just doesn't shout.

He's a godly man. He shouts it, and no one could believe it. He looked at this man, and he said, you know it's wrong.

Why do you ask me what you know is wrong? He walked away. Well, that was the end of the socializing. Do you know that man, that night, put a cigarette down, never smoked again.

You know that man, that night, through that rebuke, met with God in such a way that he left his work and became a soul winner, a preacher, and he became a great preacher. He became a soul winner in our land. He needed a rebuke to stop playing the fool with God, and he got it from one of the godliest men, this time, that there is a Nathan needed to the David, who thought his sin was... Oh, have you noticed, though, when I spoke to Mr. Mac about this incident, Mr. Mac said, Keith, if a Christian comes to you and asks you if something's wrong for a Christian to do, it's because he knows it's wrong.

He's under conviction, and if the Holy Spirit is in him, he knows. When Nathan came to David and confronted David about his sin, did you know what David said when he got on his knees, smashed by that confrontation about his sin? He said, my sin is ever before me, my sin is ever before me. They know, and sometimes it's needed, sometimes it's needed for a Nathan, but be sure it's God leading you when you confront a man, or all you'll do is damage.

Be sure that it's God leading you before you confront someone about their sin, brother. But when they're under conviction, that's different. How does God, the Holy Spirit, convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment? How does God, the Holy Spirit, convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment? Two things.

He anoints the Word of God, and He anoints a life. Those two things only does God, the Holy Spirit, use. He anoints the Word of God to the degree to which you soak your message in prayer, preacher, and to that degree only.

And He anoints a life to the degree that you soak your life in prayer. He anoints the Word. He honors His Word above all things, God says.

Hebrews 4 verse 12, the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing. Don't bypass using the Word in the pulpit. This is what God uses to convince the world of sin.

But oh, God showed me how He honors this Word above all things, and how He anoints it to the degree that you pray and soak your life and the people you to preach to, and the Word especially. To that degree, God give us another Jonathan Edwards that started the first revival in America's history, a revival that went on sweeping across your land over 120, 130 years, until millions and millions of your forefathers were saved by the revival started through a man called Jonathan Edwards, taken on by George Whitfield, and even further by Charles Finney, and even further in the prayer revival where millions came to God, and even further by Moody, but just kept on back like wave, but it started through a man that prayed for three days. He did not eat.

Three nights he did not sleep. He groaned before God, give me new England, weeping, give me new England. And as he was groaning for God, God gave him a message.

God led him to scripture upon scripture as the tears poured down as he turned the pages. He wrote a sermon that is the most famous sermon in earth's history, apart from the Sermon on the Mount.