John Sterling Rochedale Convention 1999

Those words we sang were what I am going to read. 308 Lord’s my Shepherd. Back in the year 1975, my companion and I were speaking to the Mexican people that had come out from Mexico, and were working in the States. There was famine and starvation in their country, and many fathers and some brothers were trying to get a little money for their families that were hungry. We were able to have studies with them - there were only four words in the Bible that they knew - God, Jesus, devil, and Mary. They had never heard of the creation, Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, Noah and the ark - they had never heard any of those stories, and we had to start at ground level, so to speak. One night we had the 23rd Psalm, and we asked them if they had heard the 23rd Psalm.

 

The Psalms were the hymns that the people of God sang before Jesus came into the world; this Psalm is 3,000 years old, we don't have the music to it, but we have the words. The one who wrote it started out as a shepherd-boy, and later on he became king, and saw the similarity between the people of God and the sheep; and the similarity was that they both had a very, very poor sense of direction, and that is why sheep need a shepherd, and that is why God's people need a shepherd for their souls, too.

 

And we asked them "What are you going to do when you die? - or, your house falls down, as it were. Where is you soul going to go, because it isn't dead? Do you want to go to heaven? Where is heaven? Don't know. Do you know anyone who knows the way to heaven? Don't know. And we asked them where had Jesus come from, before He was born - He came from heaven - and then He was on the earth, and where did He go after He was crucified and rose again? Back to heaven. And so Jesus came from heaven and went back to heaven, and so He knows the way, and so in our little meetings with them we told them "We are going to tell you all about the One who knows the way from earth back to heaven".

 

Now it starts off by saying "The Lord is my Shepherd". (We are probably more familiar with these verses than any other in the Bible). Every person who doesn't have the Lord as their Shepherd, and they aren't guided by God, they will never find this Way. And so, the Lord is my Shepherd, and we can sure do anything if we know that the Lord is with us. If I knew that God was with me I would do a cartwheel on the top of Mt Everest, but we know that God isn't with us in circumstances like that. "I can overcome any kind of a foe": if the whole world turned against us - any army or people in the world couldn't harm us if the Lord is with us.

 

And then it says "I do not want" - "I shall not want". One of the pathetic things that happen in life is people that have everything, but they don't have the one thing that will take away their hunger. They have a hunger, but nothing will satisfy them. There are many kinds of things that will satisfy us naturally - jobs, cars, houses and so on - but it is nice to know what the Lord brought into our experience is satisfaction. "I'm satisfied in Jesus now". Sometimes people wonder why God's people live such a narrow life - a narrow life is a good life, because it narrows down to Jesus. People look at our lives and say "You are so narrow", but we are satisfied. We heard at one Convention that if we have the right kind of hunger we will be satisfied. "I am satisfied" - "The Lord is my Shepherd, I am satisfied'. We read of Belshazzar in the Old Testament, he wasn't only not satisfied, but he was found wanting.

 

"He leadeth me" - He guides me beside the still waters into green pastures". We think of the barrenness of this world that we live in, over in our country, naturally, there is a lot of barren land, but when the spring rain comes, everything is nice and green, and that is how the Lord guides us, where the cool clear waters are. He always knows the best places to feed our souls, and He always makes us content. And then he says "He makes me to lie down" and this is really the main thing that I want to speak about today, about what God makes us do.

 

My mother used to make me take a nap, but the Lord doesn't make us do anything like that, but He makes me to lie down. How does a shepherd make a sheep to lie down? Well, they have been led to the still waters, they have got the shepherd standing by with a staff and rod, and he guards them there, they have peace and safety, and they lie down because they want to lie down. Why do God's people do what they want to do? Because we want to. It is that simple. Just because the world doesn't want to do what we do, it doesn't mean that we don't want to do what God wants us to do. And then He makes us to do what He wants us to do. That is a beautiful story. Remember when you did what you wanted to do and it didn't bring satisfaction? And then you came to this straight-laced religion, and you find yourself more satisfied than you were in the old life?

 

We met a woman who told us she was looking for religion that enabled her and her husband to drink and smoke and dance all night long. My companion said “we are going to have to get them to the mission. They came to the mission in the coldest winter in Idaho’s history, 3 meetings a week, and in three weeks they had made their choice. The husband had previously measured his week by a TV program called "Gun smoke". Only three days to his "Gun smoke", and then three hours, and so on but after he made his choice, he realised that the TV and the Bible were in conflict with' each other. "I knew that I had to choose between one and the other, and I turned the TV off', and you don't know how much that meant for him to be able to do that. There was an indication in his soul that there was a new life that was never there before. He said "I had a different sense of peace", and the Lord put it in him, He made him to lie down" with peace and rest and satisfaction. Now that man was qualified for baptism, and he later was.

 

Then, in contrast to that, when I was a little boy the circus came into town. There were six huge African lions, and they all jumped up after their trainer got there snapping his whip; and there were tigers and elephants, and other animals, which all responded to the whip of their trainer. All of those animals were changed, every one of those animals was behaving in a way that they had never behaved before, but it was the wrong persuasion, it was the whip that did it. We are glad that we do what we do because we want to do it, we don't have to face the whip, we don't resent what we do, because we are doing what we want to do. We are satisfied sheep, God makes us do what we want to do, and He makes us lie down. The Lord knows all the resting places, all the most useful places.

 

I liked to think about Philip, when he went out into the wilderness and ran into the treasury-keeper, and he was reading his Bible. Philip said "Do you understand what you are reading?", and he said "How can I except someone guide me?" That wasn't just a chance meeting, this all took place because the Spirit of Christ was leading Philip there. When we just happen to turn to the right verse, or get a 'phone call from the right person at the right time - we aren't just guessing. We have great confidence in God's ability to lead us to the right place at the right time.

 

One of our workers in Taiwan finished the lunch dishes and said "I think I will go for a walk". He walks down the street and walks about a mile into the city and sees a Mountain man who is more brown than the Chinese, and gets talking to him, with the result that we were invited up into the mountains to have a mission there. It wasn't just by chance that he decided to take another way, or to go for a walk instead of taking a nap, or whatever. It is just amazing when we see people do the right thing and they didn't know why they did it, and it is more amazing when it happens to us.

 

God's name is on the line when He comes to you with the gospel. If He ever failed one person, He would lose all His credibility. There are just so many wrong ways and so many things that are just so terrible confusion, things that are running out of control, but remember, the Lord is our Shepherd and He is making us, and if He can make heaven and earth He can keep His children. In 1976 I was in California, and I was there for 1 and a half years without being in the work, and during that time I tried to keep up my correspondence. I met a sister-worker at an uncle's funeral, and we wrote once or twice a year. One letter I wrote to her, I had written about God's goodness to us in making us to lie down in the green pastures. She wrote back within a very short time, which was unusual for her, and she said "I want you to know now that you aren't in the green pastures, you are in the valley of the shadow of death, where the clouds hang down and the tears flow, don't lie down now but keep walking". Don't lie down now - not when you are discouraged, not when everything seems against you. The devil was saying "nobody cares whether you are dead or alive, what difference does it make to you". But don't stop walking in the valley of the shadow of death, keep making steps, no matter what others do, or what happens in the world, just keep walking, make no major decisions when you are in major temptation.

 

I like the last verse and the picture there - one of the things that we always wonder about is the worth of something, and the worth of something is really determined by how long it lasts. Suppose you bought a brand new luxury car and you drove a block and it broke down - and you had a 1920 Ford and it still has 200,000 miles in it - which is worth the most?

 

Here is the green pastures, here is the still waters, but how long is it going to last? And here it says "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever", Do you notice that little convoy there - there is the shepherd and the sheep, but something is following us - goodness - and something is following goodness, and that is mercy. How long is it going to last? All the days of my life, I have committed myself to something that is going to last all the days of my life; and then what is going to happen when we have no more days left on the earth? "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever".

 

It would be a heaven on earth if we could just even realise what it would be like to be living here with all the negatives of this life taken out. All the pains, all the tears, or separation of any kind, no curse no sin, all these negatives taken away, what a wonderful thing it would be to live like that, but God has something that is beyond any description. Someone told me once that human beings only use 3% of their brain, and yet we have civilization like we have - planes that fly to the moon, medicine, etc. There is coming a time when our brain is going to die, but 97% of it has been saved to comprehend the new world.

 

He takes a step, we make a choice, following Him, that is what He wants us to do all the days of our life, we can face any kind of resistance and nothing can stop us. Mercy is following kindness - now mercy is a state of love, mercy is for the wrong doer, not for what they did, but for the wrong-doer. "Mercy is the loving compassion that overrules punishment even though justice demands it". I will repeat that: "Mercy is the loving compassion that overrules punishment even though justice demands it". One time a young boy was sitting in court waiting for his trial and the judge came over to him and said "Don't worry, you will get justice". And he said "I don't want justice, I want mercy". And that is how we all are in God's sight.

 

Sometimes sheep are the dumbest animals on the face of the earth, and sometimes we are like that in a spiritual sense, sometimes even though we are following the Lord we get off to the right or the left; sometimes someone over on the left side says "It doesn't make any difference what I do, if people want to make an issue about what I do, let them do it, I have got my life to live to live". And we get tangled up in that bramble bush; And someone over on the left side says something else, and we get tangled up in that bramble bush; but when we repent - no wonder David could say the Lord is my Shepherd, I don't want, I am content with my life, if I am way out in the bush somewhere, I am content. "It doesn't last for a day or a year, but all the days of my life, and after that, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever".

 

John Sterling

Jesus made a very, very pronounced statement in the last hours of His life. He was praying to God and He said "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent". [ch 17.3]. What we are dealing with here is eternal life, a life that has no end.

 

In Matthew 16.24:"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me"; and then in Mark 15.21"And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull".

 

What we read here is to do with what makes it possible for us to know God. We have to be a disciple of Jesus, and that is what makes it possible that we can learn of Him and become like Him. There are certain qualifications for an entry into university: money, credit points etc., but the standards for the Kingdom of God and knowing God are much more simple - denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Jesus. It isn't money or credit points, but taking up our cross.

 

I  read  to you about Simon of Cyrene; Cyrene was a Jewish settlement in what is now Libya, and it was the ambition of every Jew in Cyrene to make one pilgrimage to Jerusalem during their lifetime. Simon had left Cyrene and travelled all those 1500 miles to Jerusalem; the city of Jerusalem was built on the top of the hills and it was situated in an area that looked like a horseshoe, with the opening to the north, and that is where they came into the city. It seems that Simon was going into the city when they were leading Jesus out; perhaps Simon was a big man, and that is why he was noticed. The cross that he was carrying wasn't a cross like we often see, it was just the timber that stood on the top of the pole. It sounds like it was too heavy for Jesus after all the blood that He had lost and the dehydration that He would have suffered, and so they compelled Simon to take it up and carry it.

 

Simon never heard the gracious words that Jesus said, saw the gracious things that He did, His kindness to the children, the selfless life that Jesus had lived, he never heard the things that Jesus said that no-one had ever said before.

 

The crowd was led by the Roman soldiers - the ones that were going to be crucified, the three of them, were following the soldiers, and then the townspeople were following the accused, and what happened now, was that Simon was given the cross-piece, and he took up the cross-piece of Jesus and he laid it down. Simon laid the cross down and Jesus lay down, He wasn't forced, He wasn't kicking and screaming, it was of His own will that He laid Himself down on that cross, and Simon watched the soldiers put the nails in Jesus' wrists, he noticed the crown of thorns, he saw the sign that they put up that "Jesus is the King of the Jews". He saw all that because he denied himself, took up his cross and followed Jesus - wouldn't that be something if one of us was in a situation like that and the cross was put on you, and you could carry the cross of Jesus. But the beautiful part of that story was that when he put that cross down, another man laid down on it; He was the last one that should have been on it, we should have been there - Jesus was lifted up on the beam, up, hanging there, and perhaps one of the most excruciating parts of the pain that He suffered was when He said "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

 

Jesus said - we are all familiar with it - but maybe we aren't - "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do". Do you notice? "Father I forgive these people" - and do you know what that means? Jesus took no offence at what those people were doing. Matthew 18.15, I asked one of my fellow servants in this ministry once, what is the most common sin committed by God's people. And he said without hesitation, "Failing to forgive others when they have caused them offence". Jesus could say at that particular time "Father you forgive them, I haven't taken offence at what they have done". Like I said, my companion said that this is the No. 1 sin of God's people, and you know why it is so serious? Because you won't be forgiven if you do that. We won't go into heaven if we haven't been forgiving to others.

 

Simon knew that this was a different King to any that he had known. In a natural kingdom, the citizens are called up to help defend the kingdom, but Jesus didn't send any of His people to the cross to die for Him, He sent Himself to the cross to die for His people. This is the kind of King that He is, and Simon saw it.

 

Jesus said “I thirst” because of the physical torment that He had had, He was desperately thirsty. The front part of our tongue tastes the sweetness, the middle part tastes the sourness, and the back part of our tongue tastes the bitterness, and the best the world could give Him was something that was sour and something that was bitter. And the world gives illusion of sweetness and cotton candy when we are young, but the further we go down life, time passes and the years roll by, it isn't sweet any more, and life goes sour for many people that don't know God the world can offer the world when we are young, and it did to Jesus, but it doesn't have anything sweet to offer when we are old. Simon would never have known that if he had not taken up his cross and followed Jesus.

 

One of the ironies of humanity is often that even the most dishonest persons can tell the greatest truths, and they walked in front of Jesus, and they wagged their head back and forth, and then they spat on Him and then they said this: "He saved others, Himself He cannot save". Of course, that is how it has to be. Those that would save themselves are never any help to others. That was true, He couldn't save Himself from the leper, from the time that He was out in the wilderness, from the stormy sea, He couldn't save Himself from a woman that the world wanted to destroy, and because He couldn't save Himself, that qualified Him to be the Saviour of others.

 

A long time ago, in the state of Minnesota during one cold winter when the temperature was about 10 degrees below zero, two men were passing out invitations to the gospel meetings that they were going to have in the school house that night. They had visited a number of driveways in different places, and then they were walking back, and it was a long walk and then they were going to have a cold supper and then have the meeting. They came to a house that was set a long way back from the road, with a light on, no tracks to it, so they had missed it during the day. That older worker said, "I will go down and give them an invitation", but the younger one said "No, I am younger than you are, I will go down, and who knows, they might be the only ones in the district who will come to the meeting". To their pleasant surprise that family all came to the meeting, and the meetings went on and that family were the only ones that professed from that mission.

 

"He saved others, Himself He could not save". That is the only way that it will work. He could have called 12 legions of angels, but He didn't, He didn't save Himself so that He could save us. We in our work are tempted all the time to save ourselves, but there is no gain in saving yourself. I am so thankful that Jesus was that kind of a Saviour, He never thought about His own safety, He thought about you and me: and Simon saw it, and it was so.

 

Coming to the end of His ordeal, He looked upon His mother [John 19.27], and said 'Woman behold thy son'. Simon would have seen that those people weren't related by blood - people oftentimes say that blood is thicker that water, but the Spirit of God is thicker that blood. Jesus did all these things because of the spirit that He had in Him, and He saved people for His house of faith that were qualified, and the Spirit is thicker than blood. Right back at the turn of last century, there were 80 workers in Ireland and England that left mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, potential for family life, because the Spirit is thicker than blood.

 

That greater love had united Jesus with the mother of the apostle John, and it was even closer than that which would come from blood. Think of the sacrifices that you oftentimes make that your relatives and friends don't understand all of you have had experiences like that. What makes it like that? - that God's people are more comfortable with God's people than those of a natural relationship. We can all think of times when our friends and relatives wanted us to do this or that, but we couldn't because the Spirit is thicker than blood.

 

One of my companions, none of his brothers or sisters professed, and he was grieved, but then he got to think "I am sorry that is so, but the fellowship that I have with my brothers and sisters in Christ is wonderful, so why am I grieving?" People were doing things for him that his relatives never did, caring for his soul, and so on.

 

There is a very important verse in 1 John 1.7: "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son clean seth us from all sin". If we choose to do the will of God as Jesus did the will of God, then we have fellowship with one another and then the blood of Jesus Christ saves us from all sin. We are in fellowship with other people who are born of His spirit, and then we have fellowship one with another and then the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. When we have fellowship with those that have the Spirit, that is when we are cleansed from our sin. The fellowship that we have in the Spirit is something that we will never have to worry about losing when we go into eternity.

 

The picture doesn't get very pretty at this time. When Simon was there as the hours and minutes go by, it gets dark at noon, he sees that and Jesus is hanging there quite a while and He asked for something to drink again. And it was no better than the first time, but then it says in the darkness Jesus cried out "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?". You notice He didn't say "My Father"; that is what most of the world are going to be saying when they stand before Him, but He was never their Father; and Simon heard it and Simon was there.

      .

It was hard. Suppose you were a child and you come in to your mum and say "Mum I have been bitten by a brown snake". And your mum is busy in the kitchen, and she says "go away I am busy", and turns her back on you. Gradually you get worse, and one slips into the shadow of death with their mother's back to them. Jesus did that, when His Father forsook Him at this time, and Simon was there to see it - that no-one need ever know what it is to be forsaken by God. The Father's approach to death is a lot different to what we were hearing here - for a child of God, death is not a lonely thing because His angels are waiting for a person to take their last breath, and then we see them carry them back, as they took Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham. And it isn't a long way in that journey, I think, because here Jesus said "This day you will be with me in paradise". We can be sure that God's back isn't turned on us if we are serving Him, and His angels are waiting to carry us to a place where there is no more sorrow, no more tears.

 

Jesus also said "It is finished" [John 19.30]. Jesus said in John 17 "I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do". And what He did was live a perfect life, so He could be the perfect sacrifice, and then He could say that He had finished the work that God had given Him to do. One of our friends died, and from his work there was a folder which said "unfinished business". The worker that took the funeral just shrunk back when he saw the title of the folder, but when it was opened, it was empty.

 

As good as the example life was, bitter was the taunting death, and it was finished. Jesus' last words were "Into thy hands I commit my spirit'. Jesus, everywhere He turned, was considered to be the wrong- doer, everywhere the truth went with Christ, He met that response as if He was the guilty one. We read in Hebrews [ch 12.3] 'Consider Jesus lest ye be weary and faint in your minds'. Jesus was saying "I am sending back to you the Spirit that you gave me, and it goes back highly recommended". A wonderful thing. But suppose this was our last hour on the earth - what would we say to the Lord? No wonder the Bible tells us "Take heed to your spirit" [Malachi 2.15 & 16], because the kind of spirit we have in time, we will have in eternity.

 

What is the final verdict on Simon? Was he a saved man? Perhaps that is something that only God knows. But he was known to the apostles, and those who wrote the Bible knew his name, and at the day of Pentecost there were some there from Cyrene. I would like to think that although Simon never heard the words of Jesus, that he got to know Jesus for himself.

 

The only thing that God wants any of us to abstain from is anything that is going to harm us, it is only the bad that He has asked us to abstain from. You know, what would you people think if I told you that if you did everything that I told you to do, you wouldn't have to die at all. But the cross - the way is by the way of the Cross; and finally, so many things that we don't know much along the way to heaven, but Jesus said "You just follow me" - the Good Shepherd, and when your days are over, you will stand, you will be standing with the faithful, and we just hope that when the devil puts to you it is hard to deny your-self, and it is hard to bear the cross, it is hard to follow Jesus, we just remember Simon and what did he do? These three things that qualified him to be with Jesus in eternity. 

 

                                    " It's not Length of Life but Depth of Life."