Questions No.7 What is a Christian?

How lovely are thy dwellings, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living swallow, Where she may lay her young, even thine altars, Even thine altars, O Lord of hosts! Hear my prayer, I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. For a day called is better than a thousand.

How lovely are thy dwellings, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living swallow, Where she may lay her young, even thine altars, Even thine altars, O Lord of hosts! Good evening and welcome to our 86th church anniversary. The reading this evening is taken from Romans chapter 10, commencing at verse 5. Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law.

The man who does these things will live by them. But the righteousness that is by faith says, Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the deep, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith we are proclaiming, that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the scripture says, everyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. May God bless those words to us this evening.

It is a great privilege for me to be standing in this pulpit on this church anniversary evening, and to be sharing it with the pastor and other brothers. Although I have been a member of this lovely sanctuary over 65 years, I have never been in the pulpit. Why I am here this evening, it is because I want to share with you what the Lord Jesus means to me.

He means everything to me. I cannot tell you when I first loved him, but this I know. He first loved me and gave himself for me, and suffered and died on that old rugged cross at Calvary to give new life to me.

The more I got to know him and trust him, the more I found him true. Most of you know by now I was a children's nurse. Many years ago, when our carnage was pouncings and pence, I was seeking for a post in Worthing.

I was almost in despair as I only had one shilling in my pocket. I was seeking the Lord's guidance as to what I should do. I was in Chapel Road when I noticed a servant's burrow, and the Lord seemed to say to me, go in and put your name on their books.

And I walked up and down, saying to the Lord, they want a shilling. Well, I went in and parted with my shilling. Next morning a lady came to see me.

She said she must have followed me in to the burrow, and would I be willing to take over her baby at once. As soon as I had put my trust in the Lord and parted with my shilling, the Lord provided for me. But I had to trust him first, and then he undertook for me.

What I am going to tell you now only happened a few months ago. I wanted some ingredients for making some small cakes. On my way home, I suddenly remembered I had forgotten the most important thing, a lemon.

And I thought to myself, well, what am I going to do now? No shops nearby I must do without. So on I went, and when I came to the next road and started crossing it, I saw something in the middle of the road. Yes, it was a lemon.

I looked all around me to see I looked all around me to see if anybody had dropped it off their shopping basket, but not a soul in sight. And though, I thought, not pennies from heaven, but a lemon. For which I thank God for supplying my need.

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. I have found all through my life, my Savior has been a faithful friend and guide.

He has never failed me or forsaken me, never let me down and never will. I have let him down many times, but I know he forgives and forgets and still loves me. And the older I get, I find him more precious.

So dear friends, if there are any here tonight who do not know him as Savior and friend, turn your eyes upon Jesus and look full into his wonderful face. May the Lord's blessing be upon you all. And I trust I shall see you all in Emmanuel's land.

Will you be there? Well, thank you so very much indeed, Ms. Mohan. Tremendous testimony to God's faithfulness. Now it's a real joy to welcome to the pulpit the word of testimony, our brother Jim Skinner.

When Mr. Sergeant rang up the other day and said, would I give my testimony, I said, certainly. How long have I got to speak? And he said, 45 minutes. And I nearly said, no way.

But no, it was four, five minutes. That was a vast difference. I was born in Sacom and I went to the parish church.

And when I was eight, I gave my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. There was a preacher who came in Lent and he spoke upon the flag and that interested me being a boy. Then he spoke from the scriptures about the red being the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the white the purity, and the blue the glory.

And the Lord saved me. And I continued in the parish church because there was nowhere else to go until a certain number of people came and they built a gospel hall and I joined the open brethren. And I was there for some years and in my early teens I was baptized in the baptistry which was built there.

But then my sister who lived in Worthing in the autumn of 1931 introduced me to the tabernacle. She lived in Worthing then, she lives in the glory now. And it was in the pastorate of the Reverend G.J. Atwood who was a man of great esteem, he was a powerful preacher, a very quiet man but very deep and his word was wonderful.

The one thing that impressed me most was that each Sunday there was the institution of the Lord's table because with those who come from places where they have the Lord's table every morning and the gospel hall is the main thing. But to come to a church as big as this and have it every Sunday morning is one great blessing. It was one thing which did my life a power of good and it made it feel as if it was and it is still my home.

Well then Mr. Atwood asked me to be a seismon. And I was a seismon up in the gallery down in the middle and the head seismon at that time was Mr. Horace Saunders' father. And some people came in late one day and I said to him, Where shall I put them? And he said, Take them right round Horace's side.

So I took them right round Horace's side which was round here. Well that went on and then Mr. Atwood retired through ill health and the revet Eric Land came. After he'd been here some time he asked me to be an elder.

And I was very sorry one day because I enjoyed being a seismon and showing people into the pews giving them the right hand of fellowship giving them a smile and making them feel as if they were as they should be, welcome. And for some time I was an elder 35 years is quite a long time and when Mr. Land first came he was going to start a men's singing class and we weren't going all over the world but we were going to do a lot. Now on occasion he was directing and Miss Cullum, the organist in was playing the piano in the lecture hall and he stopped everything.

He said, Mr. Skinner, you're singing the wrong note. So then we had another try and he stopped it again. He said, Mr. Skinner, you're still singing the wrong note.

I said, no, Mr. Land, I'm not. I wasn't singing at all. And so through Mr. Land's ministry as an elder who also was a man of God who also led people to the Lord Jesus Christ I came into Mr. Sargent's ministry.

And there again I enjoyed being an elder and enjoyed also hearing the word of grace pronounced by his lips inviting people to the Savior. And the main thing one of the main things was I enjoyed every Lord's Day morning the breaking of bread. But then another thing the tabernacle provided me with and that was a wife.

I found my wife here and we've had 49 years time does go 49 years of happy married life. And that's what the tabernacle has provided me with a home, a spiritual home and a physical home together. And the Lord knows all about our needs, you see and he can supply them.

For God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. During the waiting time before I came in to the tabernacle the secretary then was Mr. Leonard Bentall and he said, Mr. Skinner, don't you think it's time that you joined up with us? And I said, well it says in the scriptures, you know prove all things and hold fast to that which is good. I said, I'm in the proving stage now but I did find it was good and I joined up with the tabernacle and I've never regretted it and it is still my home and it means a lot to me.

So, may each one of you if you trust the Lord Jesus Christ not tomorrow, but today because today is the appointed day behold, now is the day of salvation. Now we're delighted to welcome Mrs. Yetta Payne. I think you'll all agree with me that life today is full of pressures for each one of us.

I'd like to share with you some of the ways in which I find my Christian faith helps me through these pressures. You may notice that I often refer to the Bible because as a Christian it is my guidebook and I think it's as relevant today as it was when it was written nearly 2,000 years ago. Being the mother of three boisterous boys aged nine, six and three is a very serious business.

As they too are under pressure to conform to a society in which standards of morals, speech, honesty and respect for authority are lowering. Having a husband who shares my faith is a tremendous blessing because it means that we can face the problems together and pray about them. The Bible is full of good counsel on how to bring up children and on every aspect of family life.

It says to children, obey your parents and to parents, do not provoke your children to anger. And how about this for sound advice to members of the family who have quarrelled, do not let the sun go down upon your rock. Bringing up children also has its amusing times.

A few weeks ago I happened to change during the day from my jeans into a dress and David, my three-year-old, exclaimed with pleasure, now you look like a lady. The pressures on a young mother with one or two preschool children are great. It is difficult, sometimes impossible during the day to be quiet.

During the last four years I've found it a tremendous help to come here each Wednesday morning to leave the children in the crèche and to have an hour or so with other mothers. Not always talking about our mutual problems but focusing too on completely different subjects and praying together. Paul writes to one of the first churches, encourage one another and build each other up and this is our aim whenever we meet together as Christians.

The pressure of having to make important decisions is eased as I remember that God is my loving Father who has a plan for us and wants to reveal it to us. When I was a teenager I felt that God wanted me to become a teacher and I duly applied to six colleges thinking that I would get in at my first choice. I was rather put out when I was rejected by my first four choices.

I was eventually accepted by my fifth choice and off I went. It was amazing how Bognor College rapidly rose in my estimation as I got to know a certain Graham Payne who was also there. Sleepy Bognor became a wonderful place together with sunny Worthing of course which became our home town.

That was 14 years ago. A few years later God showed us that he wanted us to work at a Christian school in India and we spent four years there learning a lot about God's concern for all the nations of the world. God says these lovely words to his children I know the plans I have for you plans to prosper you, not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future.

Another pressure which we all have to live with is the threat of a nuclear war. We cannot escape the fact that the world is in a very serious state and almost every news report tells of a fresh disaster near at hand or across the world. If I didn't have a personal faith in a loving God I don't know how I would cope with the horrors around me.

I believe that God is still in control of the world that he made and that although man has made a complete hash of his responsibility to look after it God will ultimately restore it. I also believe that Jesus Christ will return to this world and that everyone will acknowledge that he is its king. We don't have the physical presence of Jesus now but I feel his presence through his spirit which he gives to live within his followers.

This is Jesus' promise to me in these difficult days. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. God's love is tremendous. He doesn't want anyone to face the future without him.

He said, come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Father, for the variety of our experience of your grace so far this evening we thank you. We praise you that you bring differing personalities into the kingdom of God and out of your great generosity you give each an unusual and a unique talent.

And we thank you for what we have been able to hear so far this evening and as we have spanned the years as we followed some of the testimonies so again we have been reinforced as a people in our belief that God has been very gracious to us and we ask Lord that that grace may not be spent but there may be sufficient for us in time of our great need at this moment and within the future months or years as you determine to tarry and this we ask particularly pleading for your presence now as we come around your word for Jesus' sake. Amen. Arthur Scargill claims it.

Margaret Thatcher claims it. Cliff Richard Carol Wojula Ronald Reagan Tony Wedgwood Ben claims it. John Zachary DeLorean claims it.

Enoch Powell claims it. Ian Paisley claims it. Claims what you ask? Well all that catalogue of names represent people who claim to be Christians and immediately I discover from the way that you're puckering your brow that either you've just aged on hearing one or two of those names or you just can't believe that I am still in possession of my senses and have brought such a list before you but what I have said is completely true.

They've either said it in my hearing or I have read their particular claim and now it seems therefore tonight what is so necessary for us is to engage in just a brief study from God's word and ask ourselves what is a Christian? What is the definition of a follower of Jesus Christ? Well where do you generally go for definitions? Well if you're unlucky you might try the concise Oxford Dictionary which I did and became convinced that the dictionary compilers had an area of genius in the putting together of the English vocabulary but they could have done with a little bit of biblical research before defining such a term as Christian. For example belonging to the religion of Christ well that's alright of genuine piety human as opposed to brute civilized decent it just stopped short of saying British in a member of the Tory party We celebrate here 86 years of Gospel proclamation from this pulpit and in the sanctuary and the ancillary ministries which have been attached to it and one of the things I fondly am looking forward to in Heaven is to meet my first two predecessors from this pulpit, one of whom has been referred to by our brother Jim Skinner Douglas Crouch the Reverend Atwood and our brother who I still have fellowship with today, my immediate predecessor here at the Tabernacle, Mr. Lamb and when the four of us in Heaven get together it will be a very interesting occasion for many reasons we will be able to contrast perhaps our differing emphases on secondary and relatively unimportant issues regarding the Christian faith but one of the things that I believe will be dominant in our conversation is reviewing the thrill that we had in this lovely Tabernacle of leading men and women and boys and girls helped with a veritable army of Christian people into a knowledge of Jesus Christ as Savior with any change with any differing of secondary emphasis the thing that has always been consistent in our church here has been the proclamation of the unadulterated, unqualified gospel that men and women are saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and there are three vital elements to the Christian gospel which would have been basic to the preaching of Douglas Crouch, Mr. Atwood and the Reverend Eric Lander and it's these fundamental ingredients with brevity as well as clarity as my twin goals this evening that I just share with you for anyone to claim first of all to be a Christian they must have gone through an experience of conviction you say what is conviction? well conviction is holding certain views about a specific subject the minimum convictions that one would need to constitute entry into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ is a reasonable assent to the authority of the Word of God that's why I spent 40 or 50 minutes the other Sunday arguing for the inerrancy of Scripture a belief common to the three predecessors as well as myself in this pulpit and then on top of that because in Scripture you read of Jesus you need to have the conviction that he's more than an ordinary man and again I spent 50 minutes declaring this to you the other Sunday evening he is a unique person he is none other than the Son of God and then the next thing that you need to be convinced about is that his sinless offering on Calvary's cross is the means whereby you can be forgiven because he takes your guilt upon himself and he releases to you the benefits of his sinlessness now look all those people whose names I read and I could have added to them earlier on they could be, not necessarily they are, but they could be convicted about all those things and yet still not be a Christian you see conviction of itself is not enough in any area of life I might believe that jogging is good for me I might believe that fairy snow washes whiter than all and that I'll wonder where the yellow went if I brush my teeth with petzodent and if I give my two cats whiskers meat then they will be happy ever after and I can have all those convictions and they will improve my health not one whit, the color of my shirt not one degree, the whiteness or otherwise of my teeth by no margin at all and my two moggies could be as miserable as could be I might be absolutely convicted and convinced in these particular areas but not act upon them I never buy it I've even forgotten what powder I was coating a few moments ago. I might never buy the stuff which I actually never have apart from my student days but I'll not reminisce about them this evening.

One can have convictions but convictions of themselves are not enough Pilate was convinced that Jesus was unusual his wife shared that opinion but none of the Pilate household as far as we are aware ever came to put saving faith in Jesus Christ rather if tradition is accurate Pilate anticipated his death accelerated it and committed suicide somewhere in one of the provinces of Asia Minor. Herod was a mighty king at least he had a lot of power and he was convicted and convinced by the message by the ministry of John the Baptist but it didn't improve him one whit because he failed to act upon his convictions. So although basic to being a Christian there is the necessity to be convicted and convinced about the truths of scripture and the person of Jesus and your own need for salvation you must progress because conviction in and of itself is insufficient What is necessary in addition to conviction? Well there is the experience and my three words that constitute the basis of my address are easy to recollect this evening there is the experience of conversion conviction affects the mind, conversion stimulates the actions conversion means going through a change now it's easy to illustrate I take one pound note and I can change it into one hundred pence and though the value remains the same the denomination has changed or I may change my pound note into fourteen Indian rupees or one point eight American dollars whatever the rate is for the dollar at the moment or two South African rand staying the same is the value but the denomination is altered that is conversion at the mercenary level now the bible tells me that if any man is in Christ Jesus he is a new creation he changes his denomination I don't mean by that he moves from Anglican to Catholic or sees the light and comes into the F.I.E.C I mean that when a person trusts the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior something phenomenal happens to him he or she becomes a son or a daughter of the living God and is bound for heaven you've got to be convinced about that and it's a it's something that some people find very difficult to swallow but it's basic to the scriptures and you've got to act on it you've got to put your heart where your mind is and take certain basic steps and say Lord I know it's wonderful I know it's almost incredible that I a child of man could become a son of God but I do believe in the miracle changing gospel of Jesus Christ listen to Malcolm Mugridge spelling out a parable about caterpillars and yet emphasizing the miraculous nature of the Christian gospel and the change that it brings so he writes let me add that Christianity is and has always been and always will be not just essentially a religion of hope but in itself the most stupendous hope the world has ever known only incarnate God would have dared to hold out to us all mere men and women of every sort and condition sweet mongols and pundits and professors and beauty queens the sick and the well the stupid and the clever those who stumble equally with those who lend an arm whoever and whatever we may be a hope of being involved in a destiny set in eternity and encompassing the universe imagine telling caterpillars that they are destined to become butterflies no A levels needed not even literacy tests the only qualification being faith in becoming a butterfly and lo the poor crawler is flying the worm has sprouted wings more exquisitely shaped and decorated more efficient in their fragility than any mortal craftsman could possibly manage carrying the image further I imagine a TV panel of caterpillars discussing the implications of the prophecy that they were destined to become butterflies with one of them the genus popular popular superino insisting that what the prophecy really signifies is that all caterpillars should join the labor party well you see the point of Muggeridge's argument you imagine being an evangelist amongst the caterpillars and telling them ultimately that they are to take wings ultimately they will fly they will pitch their wings to the breeze as it moves through the atmosphere and their colors will be reflecting something of beauty as the sun plays its rays upon them it all seems so absolutely remarkable and unreal but caterpillars do become butterflies and the bible says because it uses that very process by which the caterpillar turns into a butterfly metamorphosis it says that the Christian is a person who has been changed he once was a sinner but he's now a child of God he held convictions and his convictions so played upon his personality that by the impact of the Holy Spirit he goes through the process of conversion and he acknowledges who Jesus Christ is and that is basic to being a Christian have you got two stages so far there's conviction certain beliefs but in and of themselves they're not sufficient those beliefs in the grace of God take you to the second stage the stage of conversion but even that is not complete in and of itself because to demonstrate the fact that you really are a Christian you need to do something and my third and final word is confession you need to tell other people about it if there's one impulse that I believe the Spirit of God is putting upon my heart for the tabernacle in the 1980s is this that it is not sufficient to call ourselves an evangelical church there is an ocean of difference between evangelical and being evangelistic between having convictions and having gone through a conversion experience and having made confession of who you are and what Christ has done for you to ordinary people who are desperately in need I don't apologize this evening that so many people took part in our service it seems to me a biblical concept that the ministry of a local church is a shared ministry because evangelism is a corporate goal which each of us is to acknowledge as part of our responsibility it was Jesus who said listen these aren't my words this isn't my theorizing this evening Jesus said if you confess me before men I will confess you before my Father who is in heaven you heard the words read by John Burling from Romans 10 a little while ago if we will confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead we will be saved so twinned with conviction and conversion there must be confession and that's the third test how do I know whether you're a Christian or not well I should know it because there are certain truths that you believe and there is a radical change in your personality which I'm beginning to register but even more than that you have a great desire to communicate what you have learned to other people so that they in turn shall come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and as their Saviour so then my message this evening was exceedingly simple there are three basic constituent elements not mentioned in the concise Oxford dictionary but maybe if they ask me to write the definition for the next publication we'll get it right there are three vital ingredients as to what is a Christian and those list of names, that list of names I read earlier must have these tests applied against each person or personality what are those ingredients conviction the truth of scripture and the message of Jesus that it proclaims, do you admit to this and who He is and have you acted on your conviction, have you said come into my heart, take away my sin Lord, I ask you by your grace to make me a child of God, have you done that and have you given proof of that by telling others, you see I depend and perhaps this is a right note on which to close, I depend as the one who does the bulk of the preaching ministry though not all of it in this tabernacle on folk like yourselves taking leaflets by word of mouth encouraging others to come along and listen to the sound of the gospel I do it with myself to some degree try to encourage others to come to the tabernacle so that they can hear the message of salvation but it's necessary for us all to be involved, here we are I take my leave of you on Wednesday at 6.30 in the evening and for the next three Sundays we have one of the most outstanding Bible teachers one of the greatest men of God that the Lord has seen fit to use in this country down the years a man old enough to be my father let's ensure that when Francis Dixon speaks in the name of the Lord there are those present in our evening gospel service in particular who not being Christians can be brought unto the sound of the good news so that they also by God's grace might form conviction which leads to conversion and they in turn confessing their faith to other people When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died my richest gain I count but loss and poor content on all my pride I should boast of Christ my God all the vain things that charm me most I sacrifice them to his blood see from his head his hands his feet sorrow and love low mingled such love and sorrow meet all forms compose so rich a crown his dying crimson like a rope spreads on his body on the tree is dead to me the whole realm of nature mine that were a present far too small love so amazing so divine demands my soul my love the grace of our lord Jesus Christ the love of God the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore amen amen