Now, will you read with me all together the first eleven verses? Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those that have obtained life, precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and Godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these he might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through love. And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness. and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that he shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that practiced these things is blind, and cannot be afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rod of Redmond, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." Now as we turn to the subject of addition and begin to bravely say, Our paths are building a Christian character that can contain Christ and magnify Christ, a container through which the Lord can multiply by the Holy Spirit, his lovely self. Christ multiplied, magnified, made large in the life of a believer. But I have to build the container. Now, it's costly. No one becomes a doctor without sacrifice and cost, as they face the five or six years of study and learning in all the various branches of medicine. If they slack and think they can get it all into one or two final cramming years they can't, they'll go down in their mid-exams. They've got to constantly be moving out into different areas, constantly covering fresh ground, revising their lectures. And slowly, instead of it, the mind absorbs the great field of medicine. And when they face their final exams, they get through. It's the same in every area in life, and it's just as true in the Christian life in our adding to our faith. That is, in our faith, this precious faith in Christ that has brought us the living Christ, the great salvation in Christ. It's going to cost us something to build a Christian character. Now it's because some Christians won't pay this price that they just drift along. It's because they won't pay this price that they become backslides. It's because they won't pay this price they're barren. They never need souls to correct. It's because they won't pay this price that they're unfruitful. They are a sort of a bush that's bearing little pimply fruit, but nothing of the lashes fruit that God plans. It's because they won't pay this price. They have no vision. They're people without vision. And there are thousands of Christians in the churches with no vision. People perish around them but with no vision. And you see Christians stumbling around and constantly having to be propped up and encouraged and edged on because they won't pay the price of building a Christian character in which Christ can display himself by the gracious power of the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm very, very fond of a little story which I'm going to tell you. It meant so much to me, and that's why I pass it on to you. I believe if you grip this story it might be one of the stories that you would use again and again in your own ministry and service that God's going to call you to. Many of you must have heard of the founders of the Salvation Army, William and Catherine Booth. They stepped out of the... Methodist Church because they felt the Methodist Church was getting too sedate and wasn't touching the down and out. And so stepping out, they started a mission called the Christian Mission to reach the slums of the big cities. And when they won their converts from the red-light areas and from the slums, the prison boys, and all sorts of bad people, they found that these sedate churches wouldn't receive them, wouldn't welcome them. And so they had to start these new little groups. They never thought of starting a new movement or denomination. It was just a mission. But the churches wouldn't take their converts. Gave them no welcome. And so they began to use terms like this. They said, now we'll use our thorns and do a bit of thorn work with the Bible. And when we pray, we'll do a little bit of knee drill. And they began to use army tones and slowly it turned into the Salvation Army, which you must have heard about all over the world. Now, Mrs. Booze was a very godly woman. And she tells how one day in the big old home where she was running the home and minding our five children, her husband was away on a preaching mission, she said it was pouring with rain and the children couldn't go out and play in the open air and they were bottled up in the house. And so she said they were playing with a big old Norse ark, one of these big old wooden ships. You never see a child playing with a Norse ark as a play toy today, but they used to in those days. And they spent many happy hours playing a Bible game like this. They got the ark on the floor, and they got the animals lined up, and they were shoving the animals into the ark two by two and loading it in preparation for the flood. And when they got all the animals in, shut the door, She said, these children, five of them, said, now the next thing in the story is a flood. Let's go to the bathroom. Now don't think of a modern bathroom, the sort that you have at home. You think of a big old concrete tank where they used to get them all through a hot bath on Saturday night. The whole family through the same water. and it was a big square, concrete, tub-like thing, and it was a great place for a flood. They could put the stoppers in, get the shower going, the pats gurgling, have a real old splashing time. And when they'd had a good time of flooding, they pulled out the cork and pulled out the flood rather, and they stopped the taps, and slowly the old ark came down on Mount Ararat, the Bartman. And then they dried up the ark and got it out onto the floor of the lounge, and they opened it up and began to get the animals out. And they were just playing a Bible game. Mrs. Booth said she was busy in the house, but watched them. And then she said they reached a point in the game where they said the next thing is a sacrifice. So they got a great big tin tray, put it on the floor. They built a little altar in the middle of it. They got the top of a soap dish. You know, one of those soap dishes with lots of holes in the top. They got that life just propped up with sticks and paper underneath. They made a nice little altar. And then they looked at the line of animals and they said, which animal shall we offer? And she said they went right down the line, they looked at dear old elephant, you know, jumbo, couldn't spare him. They went to the tiger, they went to the lion, they went to Jack of the Monkeys, the giraffe, right down all the animals, couldn't spare any of them. And the game came to a standstill. And then she said as she watched very interested to see what they would do, all of a sudden Bramwell, her eldest boy, said, Oh, he said, I know, I know. And he went dashing off up the stairs to what they called in those days a junk room. It was a fair room in the house where anything that wasn't wanted was shoved in, you know. You keep it in the basement, don't you? Well, he came out with a woolly sheep. He pulled it out from all the rubbish and junk. It was one of these woolly sheep about this big... a little white, rather dirty woolly body. It had lost its head, it had lost its tail, it had lost three of its legs, just an old woolly sheep's body with one lonely leg sticking out of it. And it came down the chair, wouldn't it still? And they said, oh yes, and they put it on the altar, lit the fire, and offered a... What? Don't you dare to say sacrifice? They offered a... Any little useless, rubbishy thing that doesn't cost you a thing. Mrs. Bood wrote this in her diary, that godly woman. She said, As I watched my children play, I learnt one of the deepest lessons in my Christian life. She said, I learnt the meaning of David's words in two Samuel twenty-four, verse twenty-four, when he said... Shall I offer unto the Lord that which cost me nothing? Cost me nothing. No, no, you've got to do your part in the Christian life. It isn't all take. It isn't all take. I've got to respond to all that he gives by adding to my faith certain things, by diligent, watchful effort. Now I rather fear that some misunderstood me yesterday when I was talking about verse five in two Peter one. Giving all diligence adds to your faith courage, courage. There's all the difference between a timid Christian and a courageous Christian. And courage isn't multiplied. It isn't an answer to prayer, and God will give you a hundred times more courage today than you had yesterday. He won't do that. He'll say, no, my child. You've got to add it. You've got to play the match. Grit your teeth, square your shoulders, and say, Jesus Christ, it's worth standing up for. In the face of the world and its temptations, you've got to say, no. In the face of the world you can confess Christ publicly in baptism. In the face of the world you can open your lips and speak well of your lovely Savior. And it is not multiplied. It's got to be added. And as by diligent watchful effort you add, steadily there is built up a character, a courageous Christian character. When we called the dear old fisherman in, he stood amongst us, bless him, and he said, Do you know in those darkest hours, Jesus said, I prayed for you that your faith fail not. Satan will sift you. Satan will try to destroy you. Satan will try to prove to the world that you've no faith. No faith in me. But I've prayed that your faith fail not. Now, what Jesus' prayer answered? Oh, you say it must have been. Well, it was. In the darkest hour when the old fisherman looked at the girl and said, I don't know him, in his own heart he had faith that Jesus was for Christ. His courage had failed in the face of the world, but he had faith. And she said, but you are one of them. Your speech betrayed you. I don't know the man. Don't worry me at all. And a soldier standing by said, yes, I saw you down in the garden. You are one of his disciples. And out came the oath and curses. And he said, I'm not. His courage had completely failed. But his faith hadn't failed. He knew who Jesus was. That revelation stood and abided. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God, as one looked from Jesus through that room, sent him out into the light weeping bitterly. That's why I honestly believe this, that when you fail, it doesn't mean you forfeit your salvation. Your salvation doesn't depend upon your courage. It doesn't depend upon your doing. The point is, do you know who Jesus is and do you know what he did? And in the secret places of your life have there come that moment when your guilty soul rests in the person of Christ and you know him as your own. Add to your faith courage. Now to balance it, he went on and he said, and in your courage supply knowledge. Don't only be a courageous Christian, but balance it with knowledge. You must be an intelligent Christian. There's a great difference between an ignorant Christian and an intelligent Christian, as we saw yesterday. Oh, God wants us to be the sort of Christians who will rarely be able to give a reason for the hope that's within us. Be able, as Peter puts it so beautifully, to sanctify in your heart or make your heart a sanctuary for the Lord Jesus to be atone, to be magnified in your life. And at any moment when the opportunity comes, you look the world in the face and can give them a reason for the hope that's within you. A reason for the indwelling Christ and your faith in him. That's why we must study the Bible. We must give ourselves to the Word of God. I never get tired of telling a story, some of you may have heard it already, of how my dear Jack Hume in my class, the gawky boy who couldn't look at anybody, who put his hands like this and his feet, never knew where to put things, a gawky boy sitting in my class. I thought he was the one boy in that class of twelve boys that God could never use. There seemed to be nothing in him, a gawky country boy. Do you know this? Never went to Bible school. But that boy, by diligent watchful effort, shut himself up in his bedroom two nights a week with his Bible and concordance and began to study the great doctrines of the Christian faith. Slowly and steadily he moved to the front in open air work, in Sunday school work, in conference work, in young people's camps. One day he went with his wife and two children across the seas to New Zealand, emigrating out there to settle. He was in the bank. He's now in Auckland, and if you ever go to Auckland, you ask for Jack Hume. You know Robert Laidlaw, the great businessman down there who wrote The Reason Why and is so well known all over the world, a great figure. He wrote to me in Jamaica some time ago and he said, the best export that old Britain ever sent down to New Zealand is your old Sunday school boy, Jack Hughes. He says, we love him. He said, he stands up in conferences, he ministers Christ, he's able to tackle anything. And there's my boy, my boy, you never got above, I suppose, about the eighth grade school. went out and got a junior position as a sort of dusting out a bank and slowly rose in the bank, and now he's a manager of a bank in Auckland and used all over the North Island in the Ministry of God's will. Simply because, line upon line, precepts upon precepts, he added and added and added an intelligent knowledge of this book, gave himself to it. Oh, I tell you quite frankly, when you go off to Emmaus, when you go off to Prairie, when you go off to Moody, when you go off to any Bible school, you are admitting that you have failed. And you are admitting that the home churches failed to give you a solid grounding in the Word of God, and you need to go and top it up for a year or two in Bible school. Thank God for Bible schools. They're needed in our modern days. But the best men on the wishing field and the worst women on the wishing field never went to Bible school. They gave themselves to the word of God. They went to St. Mary's College. They sat at Jesus' feet and listened to his word. And one thing that you get alone with the Lord, as you're led by the Spirit, will be worth fifty things that lecturers give to you that you write down on paper in lectures in Bible school. Did you hear that? You didn't like it, did you? It's true, though. I've seen them coming out, seen them coming down to the mission field with all the books of lecture. Yet they've got almost nothing. Why? Because they haven't made it good in their own soul, in a quiet, secret place. If you would really get alone with the Lord of an evening and shut yourself in for an hour or two with your Bible and say, Lord, speak to me. Come now, Lord, talk to me. Wait till you hear his voice and let the Spirit of God be your teacher to lead you into God's truth. You will get something that God can use through you to others in a way that you will never get from all the lectures and talks you listen to. All young people, it's a price that's got to be paid. add to your faith knowledge. Now look at the next thing, verse six, and to knowledge. Temperance. Temperance. Now I feel I must change this word, just like we've changed the word virtue to courage. The moment you talk to me about temperance today in nineteen sixty, I think of the question of strong drink. giving up drink and saying, no, I'm going to be temperate, I don't want any drink. But I think, of course, this word temperance is far wider than just that one thing, the temperance movement. It covers the whole ground and conduct of the Christian in the matter of self-control. Now, we are going to change it to the word self-control. Besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith or in your faith supply courage. And to courage, knowledge. And to knowledge, self-control, temporal. You see, there's a great difference between a dependable Christian and an impulsive Christian. God doesn't want us to be impulsive Christians. He wants us to be dependable, self-control in every area of our lives. Now I'm going to ask Peter, the big fisherman, to come in and help me. Come on, Peter. Oh, wouldn't it be great if we had him here? And I know just what he would say. He would say, do you know this? When we went down into that garden, he said, the Lord Jesus said, now you sit under the trees, men, here. And taking Peter and James and John, he went a little further under those olive trees. And then leaving them, he went under the trees and he began to pray. And he sweated, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. And in an agony he prayed. And when he came back, he looked at those men, and there was Peter. Peter, could you not watch with me one hour? If ever there was an hour when I wanted men to be awake, it's now and you're asleep. All of a sudden there are twinkling lights coming through the trees and I can see Judas leading a band of soldiers into the garden. And Judas comes out and kisses him, and they begin to lay hands on Jesus, and I can see Peter rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and I can see him pulling his old sword out, and the big fisherman's going to fight now. Slash! And an eardrop saw. Wasn't a very good shot, wasn't it? And the Lord said, Stop, Peter. Put up your sword. If I want my servants to fight for me, I'll ask them to. You see, when he ought to have been watching, he was sleeping, when he ought to have been standing, waking his master's orders, he was flashing around wildly. Impulsive. No self-control. Looking into our faces, he said, now you're going to be a courageous Christian, and you're going to be an intelligent Christian by adding to your faith two things, but add self-control in every area of your life. Be temperate, temperate. Now this needs thinking round a bit. Do you know this? I've seen young people cut people's ears off of you. You know, you're talking and all of a sudden your top foils over and you just let go. And I gave her a piece of my mind. You know, I told her what I really thought. Yes, cut off her ear. You go and ask that person to come and listen to a preacher next week. They're not coming with you. Why, you've cut their ear off. Just a few words spoken, you know, out of control. You let them have it. There was no control over your tongue. I wonder if we got control over our tongue. You know, God gave us two eyes and two ears and two of most things. He could only give us one tongue, all we could be trusted with. Don't ever think that Charles Wesley meant all for a thousand tongues to sing all that I had a thousand tongues. No, God can only entrust you with one. Now, this question of your tongue is very, very important. You know, I'm going to say something to you which you'll many of you say amen to, but some of you'll shake your head the first. You know, half the trouble that I have seen amongst God's dear people in local church life is caused by the task. If you track down the troubles that break out amongst God's people, again and again it's caused by the task. The tongue that could pour out the sweetness of Christ. The tongue that could magnify Jesus begins to, because there's not self-control, begins to pull this brother for pieces. And actually, have you heard about this, Miss Joseph? You can shut it down. Don't tell anybody, but of course they will. There'll be all around the district tomorrow. Oh, if only there was self-control in the matter of the tongue. I say, if you can't speak well of someone, don't speak badly of someone, have control over your tongue. An old owl sat on an oak. The more he heard, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Would to God that some of us were like that wise old bird? Yes, I'm perfectly certain that in this realm of the tongue we need temperance, self-control. But you know, that's only one area. Take the question of food. Now I am looking at you. You know, honestly, I believe that eating too much food is just as bad as smoking too much. Many a man's told me I smoke because it takes away my appetite. I don't need so much food. It keeps me slim. Well, I don't agree with him. I believe that if he's on it, you have to face the fact that... tobacco destroys practically all the vitamin C which is so useful to our whole build-up and it very often produces lung cancer and we could go on talking about the noxious weed and all its not blessings but curses in life. And when you see a Christian bravely saying, well let's now give up that, I'll look the world in the face and give up that, we just demand. Are there areas, what have I seen? You know, honestly, most of us could do with a few pounds less. And some could do with forty or fifty pounds less. And be honest about it. If there were self-control, we would... It's got to be added. It isn't multiplied. It's got to be added. You've got to put your hand deliberately. It's the only exercise that reduces you against the table or pushes away. That's the only exercise that produces, of course. Take up your mind three good meals, quite another day, and cut out all the nibblings and the odds and ends, and I like it and go into it. Oh, how much this body is hurt by lack of self-control in that matter. If I moved into the realm of sex, Brother Matthews took it up and talked frankly to you about it yesterday. I want to tell you this, sex is one of the most wonderful gifts that God has ever given to us our sex life. That warming, creative instinct that God has put within men and women that attract men and women to each other, that bind men and women to each other, that bring comfort and strength and companionship, and bind lives together to care for the little created beings that are born and give them, as they should have, an honorable family life. But today, instead of being a warming flame in the house to warm the house and keep it cozy, it seems as if the house is on fire with lusts and passions, and the modern world creates it, especially Hollywood. No, I think you've got to be frank about it. You have got to turn that old knob of the TV set in the wrong direction and say, that's not the stuff that will help me. And when you see fifteen or sixteen shootings in an evening and you see adultery and unfaithfulness and sex portrayed in all its loneliness and baseness, you should have self-control to turn the knob in the wrong direction. Because, quite frankly, young people, I come from an island where there isn't one television set. We haven't got it yet. And I am tremendously attracted to television. I love to see it. But I see so much rubbish that I feel like getting some big tickets out and writing on the tickets as I pin them up here above the eyes of people who watch for hours. Dirt may be dumped here! to have control over these things, and it's not going to be multiplied. It's got to be bravely and earnestly, and at cost you make up your mind. I'm going to... I'll see good news cards. I'll see anything that's honorable and pure, but I'm going to cut out lots of that rubbish that's defiling. And so, in many, many realms of your life, we have to move into this. Personally, I believe that God wants every one of you to use your body as well. I believe in healthy sport. I want to say to you young people swim as much as you can. I tell our youngsters down in Jamaica, our young people in the assemblies there, I say you young people ought to be ashamed of yourselves if you haven't climbed three best mountains in Jamaica. If you reach the age of twenty and haven't been up, Catherine Peak, Sincona Peak and Blue Mountain Peak, eight thousand feet high, if you haven't climbed those three mountains, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. God has given us strong legs and muscles. We've got to keep them trimmed. But in this we need self-control. The moment you begin to see that your sport life or your recreation life is involving you in unequal yokes, in club life, in places where you are dishonoring your Lord and the downward drag is pulling you away from, you know, what God could do with you, the best thing is to cut it out. I've known fellows who've said, listen, I could go to the top in sport, but I far sooner spend my gifts and my strength with a bunch of kids and teach them how to do things and spend time with them, camping. And God has always honored them for us. You know, Stacey Studd, our English missionary, was captain of... Cambridge cricket and captain of the English eleven that won the Ashes back from the Australians in test cricket in that game that's all over the Commonwealth. They love it so much. And when he announced that he was going to China as a missionary, they came to him and they said, don't be a fool, Stav. The cricket world's at your feet. You've reached the top man. And he said, but listen, I've only got one life to live. And he said, for about six years, he said, I can go out, and he said, I can take my stand and hit for six. And he said, just for about six years, I shall hear the lifting press of the crowd. And then he said, I'll have to sit on the sidelines as an old codgers and watch youngsters take my place. No, he said, I want to go to China and not the devil for six. I want to go to the heart of the continents where Jesus Christ has ever been preached. And he went. left his mark in China, left his mark in India, died as an old weary missionary in the Congo. But I suppose around the throne there will be thousands bursting into song until him who loved us and loosed us from our sins because Charlie Scud used his muscle and gifts for the glory of the Lord and the spread of the gospel. And in all these realms you must bravely be careful. It's right to eat. It's right to have sex desire. It's right to be keen on sport. It is right. These are all realms that are right. But they can get out of proportion. You've got to be temperate. There must be self-control. And it's not multiplied. It's by diligent watch for effort. These things have to be added. Now look at the next thing. He says, in your temperance, your self-control, add patience. Patience. Now, do you realize that there's a great difference between a patient Christian and an impatient Christian? We are looking at two characters now. A person could be a Christian, really belong to Christ, but they can be a timid Christian instead of a courageous Christian. They can be an ignorant Christian instead of an intelligent Christian. They can be an impulsive Christian instead of a dependable Christian. And now we've touched upon patience. They can be an impatient Christian instead of being a patient Christian. Why, I cannot turn the pages of my Bible without finding that if you are going to start a race, you must run with patience. The Christian race isn't a hundred meter dash, a ten second flash. It isn't even a mile in four minutes. The Christian race is a race that will go on and on. It's an obstacle race, uphill, down dale, right through to the end, a marathon. It must be run with patience. You've got to get your second win. You've got to go on and on and on and on. Run with patience, the race which is set before you. Listen, Christian work isn't a flash in the panic. Isn't something you can take off and say, I'll put my hand on the plow and, oh, I don't like this dog. I'll try something else. No, you've got to cut the furrow. You've got to do the task. He puts in your hand. And if you look into the face of Christ, he's waiting with patience for the precious fruit of the earth. And he says, there's your task. And we've got to enter into the patient waiting of Christ for the fruit of the earth. Oh, do realize this. It's not a flash in the pan. We've got to, with patience, face the pathway of the year. And not be impatient. We've got to add these things. You know, in Africa, they tell me they had a chorus. I don't know if Bob can confirm this. Perhaps it wasn't in North Rhodesia, but they used to sing around the campfires a little chorus in the days of Dan Crawford, and what do you think it was? I can't give it to you in Africa, and it'll have to be in Old English, but it was just this. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on. Go on, go on, go on, go on. Go off! Go on, go on. Simple little chorus, but oh dear, oh dear. It just means that when you start, you've got to go through patiently with the great race, with the great task he's put in your hand. Peter, big fishermen, come along. And I could see him stepping in and I could see a rather sober look on his face as he said, listen kids of nineteen sixty, I want to talk to you. When Jesus died on that cross at Calvary and they put him down in that grave, the rich man's grave, he said, I never, never, never knew the minutes to drag by so slowly. And the hours to pass so slowly, he said, I had a pricking conscience. Why, he said, when they said the grave was empty at last, he said, I and my friend, my good old friend, John, started running. And he said, we ran and ran. But he said, I could have beaten him. I could have beaten him on the hundred meter dash or the mile race any time in my life. But he beat me, and he got there first. And we looked in. No, he said, that old pricking conscience of mine, I knew the door was not well. He was gone, gone, gone. And Mary said she had seen him. The disciples said they had seen him. He said, at last I could stand it no longer. He said, I said, boys, listen, I'm going back to Capernaum. They said, you are, Peter? Yes, he said, I'm going fishing. The old boat's lying there on the pebbles. He said, all right, we'll go with you. Anything to get over this over-dragging hour. And so they went fishing. They pushed the old boat down into the sea, and they climbed in, these boys did. About six or seven of them. They went fishing. They didn't catch a little fish this day. Pulled the old nets in, nothing there. What's wrong? No fish about to do it? In the early morning hour, as the dawn was breaking, they saw the flickering of a fire on the bank. You know the story. I'm not going into it now. Oh, says Peter, just think of it. I was so impatient that I went fishing for a night and we didn't catch a prat, not a sardine. And we could have spent the night with a written cry. Oh, he said, how impatient we are. Well, I don't know how it will come to you. I can only say this. If you're an impatient girl, I would remind you of this. I would remind you of this, that you're in the school of God. When a young missionary came to Robert Chapman of Vanceable and said, Mr. Vanceable, I want to go to Africa to be a missionary and I want your prayers and counsel, he said, there's one thing in my life that's very difficult, Mr. Chapman. I'm so impatient. I don't seem to have much patience. The dear old sainted man said, well, let's kneel down and talk to the Lord about this. And kneeling down with his arm around the young shoulders, he said, Lord, this dear servant of thine wants to go to be a missionary and he's very impatient and... Lord, we ask thee that thou would send him a real dose of trouble, send him some real trials. Let a lot of tribulation come into his life, Lord, give him a real hard time. Just talk and his self-care to be all the face of God. You need to stop, Mr. Chapman. Don't ask the Lord to do all that. But dear old saint said, but you know, tribulation work is patience. He said, sometimes if you rarely in the school of God want patience, sometimes God has to allow the trials and the tests to produce it. It's not something that's multiplied, it's something that's produced. And by watchful, diligent effort, says Peter, we can add patience. Now the time's racing away, let's get hold of the last one of these in this verse. Verse six, and to patience. Godliness. Add godliness. I don't think I'll change that word. It's a word I was frightened of as a boy. Were you? Oh, if you had mentioned that word to me when I was a growing boy, godliness. I had such a wrong conception of it. I thought that... You know, people would say, oh, isn't he a godly man, and I would look at a man in dark clothing with a long beard in those days and a rather sober face, and I was a boy who loved mud and fun and games and swimming, and I sort of felt the exact godliness I don't want. Of course, a boy's conception was wrong. How wrong we can be. I heard of a little girl who one day was stroking a donkey's face. Do you remember that story? She was stroking the donkey like this. She said, Dear donkey. Darling donkey, you must be a Christian donkey. You've got such a long face. Well, now, that little girl has got a wrong conception. Completely wrong conception. Why is it that the word godliness gives me a sort of shudder as a boy or as a growing young fellow, and I don't like the word? Why? What does it mean? Where have I gone wrong? Now let's think what it means. The word godliness simply means godliness. To be like God, godliness, godliness. Great is the mystery of godliness, God's likeness. God was manifest. His likeness was seen amongst you in Jesus, in the flesh. So godliness is just this, to be like Jesus. If any man or woman or boy or girl wanted godliness, this is the true conception of it. Be like Jesus. This my song in the home and in the prom. Be like Jesus all day long. I would be like Jesus. That is a desire for godliness. Well, you say that's multiplied, isn't it? No. No. No, it's got to be added. And as it's added and the container is built up, as you by diligent watchful effort seek to be like Jesus, then Jesus will display himself through the character. His life will be multiplied within you and seen and magnified. Unless you want to be like him, unless you make him your example, you're not going to be a godly man or woman. And it isn't multiplied. Don't fool yourself. It isn't multiplied. Peter, could you help me? And I know what the big fisherman would say. If he came and stood in front of us, he would look into our faces and he would say, listen. There was a time when we were all together and we were talking and the Lord Jesus began to talk to us. He said, you know, disciples, I'm going to reveal something to you now. Very soon wicked hands are going to take me and they are going to whip me and they are going to kill me and I am going to die. And Peter stood there and he said, Be far from thee, Lord, that thou shouldst do this. Then Jesus turned around and said, Get thee behind me, what? Satan. Not get thee behind me, God, but get thee behind me, Satan. In other words, lips were revealing who was using those lips. Attitudes and expressions were revealing who was controlling that spirit and heart and mind. Get me behind, Mr. Oh, I wonder, as you open your lists, if you display yourself, if Christ is seen, or if someone else captures that light. God's likeness. God's healing you. The lovely Lord Jesus living his life through you. Well, you see, that's multiplied. No, it isn't. It will be multiplied in you and through you if you, by diligence and watch for effort, and the content will pour. If you make the content. Well, you see, these are linked very closely. Yes, they are. His path and are. But so often we're inclined to think it's all his part. No, it isn't. You've got to build something by diligent watchful effort. And godliness has to be built. I wonder if how I could help you. Do you know this? Many, many years ago, there was a dear old couple named Mr. and Mrs. Lassar, a lovely story about them. A godly old primitive Methodist. They retired from Blackpool in England. Their son was one of the greatest Methodist preachers in East London, readily used to God. And he tells the story of his parents how this godly old couple, you just picture them, you've never seen a couple like them. The old man with his beard, his solar hat. These old Victorian clothing, the old lady with her little bonnet up here and her big skirts and bustling, and they heard in that pool that for the first time in their life they could see moving pictures. Now you kids were born into a moving picture world, but they weren't. They used to see the old-fashioned white chill lantern slides shown on the screen, but now it's all across here and here's what it means to me. Here's moving, bicycle's moving. Here's the film! The amazement! The wonder! And they heard it was going to be shown in Blackpool Town Hall, admission prize six pennies. And they said, we agree with this new invention. So they went off. Now, don't you? I'm suggesting there's anything wrong in going to see moving pictures. You know that. I'm not suggesting that. But they went. Paid their fix-ups at the door, went in and took their seats, this godly old couple, and as they sat down, Mrs. Lacks bowed in prayer. You can see her old bonnet going down. She's going to pray, Lord, will thou be with us and give us a happy evening and watch over us from bed tonight. As she bowed in prayer, her husband sitting by her side saw her bow and gave her a vouch. She said, Dear, if you don't do that, dear, this isn't church. So she stiffened her old Victorian spine and she looked at him and she said, John, Have you brought me to a place where I can't bow my head in the presence of my Lord and ask him to be with me and to bless the evening? John, if that's so it's no place for us. I'm going home. I'm going down. Up she goes. The way she went. With John trailing behind us. And they never saw the pictures. Simply because a godly old. said if I can't bring Jesus into a thing and ask his blessing and have him with me, then it's no place for me. You see, I don't like that godliness. Well, that is godliness. That is godliness. It's God like that. It's the presence of God, the presence of Jesus, known. How would he act? What would he do? Where would he go? Could he be with me? And I say to some of your young people, and I mean you, you can't turn the lights off on Jesus. Don't think that you can say to Jesus, I'll sit at the Lord's table with you on Sunday morning, and then in the bedroom you'll turn the lights off and you're outside the door. Jesus is not outside the door if you're a Christian. He knows all about the intimate things in your life. And a godly man and a godly woman will acknowledge this, and they will say, in my whole attitude of life, I want to be like Jesus. I want to do what he does. I want to act as he would act. And believe me, the moment there is the addition, the desire for godliness, then the lovely Lord can begin to display himself, and his life will be magnified and multiplied in you and me. Godliness. And so we must stop. The time is gone. Shall we find? Lord Jesus, before we have the questions, we pause for a moment to ponder.