Brother Mr. EMS Gooding from Seymour. Turn with me please to Romans chapter twelve. Romans chapter twelve. I defeat you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that he presents your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent, worshipful service, and be not conformed, externally fashioned to this age but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now please, Leviticus chapter one. Except for what? Verse five, he shall kill the bullock before the Lord. And the preterrant's son shall present the blood, sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. He shall play the burnt offering and cut it into his pieces. The sons of Aaron the priest shall put the fire upon the altar and lay the wood in order upon the fire. And the priest Aaron's sons shall lay the part, the head and the frat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar. But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water, and the priest shall burn the whole on the altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, a sweet savor unto the Lord. The apostle in these verses in the Roman epistles is doing a strange thing, down on his knees, begging the saints of God to respond. You would hardly think of an apostle down on his knees before the saints, taking that place of humility and begging them. Yet this possibly was a feature of the way in which Paul acted when he moved amongst those New Testament Christians. The Thessalonian epistle says in our authorised version that he had been there as a nurse. If you look out the word and it will tell you that he was there as a babe, they expected he would be as an apostle. exercising apostolic authority, demanding the reverence that was due to an apostle. And instead of standing on his dignity in the full height of his apostleship, he says, I was as tender and meek as a babe among you. So the apostle here in the Roman epistle, he's down on his knees begging the same, asking them to do something. He says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. He's written eleven whole chapters to this company of Christians in Rome. Whether they all gather together in one assembly or not, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. They may have gathered in at least three. But he's addressing the Christians in Rome. And based upon what he's already taught them in the previous chapters, Now he's going to beg them to do something. If we said we had gathered together today in this conference, but the speakers were here to beg you to do something, to speak to you on behalf of God, to beg you to face up to the truth of the Word of God and have real dealings with God in the meeting today. You younger folks, have you ever had real dealings with God? I'm not talking about your conversion, lest God you had dealings with God there. But have you ever had, since your conversion, real dealings with God? So that as a result of real dealing with God, your life has been changed. Your object in life has become different. And your brethren and sisters and those you associate with have been able to see that you were different. Remember in my first visit to Toronto, speaking to the young folks from these verses we have before us today, dear sister at the end of the following week, spoke to the lady with whom I was enjoying hospitality. She said, I don't know what Gooding said last Saturday. But she said, I know our home is changed. She said, the girls came home. They didn't put the television on. It hasn't been on all week. They didn't talk about the usual topics of conversation. They were quiet. They spent their time alone with God. Things had changed. It would be a good thing if we were gathering together today in the presence of God, our lives would change. I'm no apostle, and I wouldn't try to be mockly meek and imitate Paul, but I want to say I'm going to beg you today, my dear young Christian, and my fellow Christian who's been on the road for a while, I'm going to beg you to face up to the teaching of the first verses of Romans chapter twelve. And I beg you to face up to it because I am convinced that ninety percent of the saints of God have never faced these verses and never made what these verses teach a reality in their lives. that time in assembly fellowship, on the road to heaven, but never faced up to the demands of verses like this to present their bodies a living sacrifice. Remember years ago when I faced the verse like this, the relative of mine saying, well, you can't do what that verse says because you are not out in the work. Well, I wasn't then, and I not now, like my brethren I associate with today. This chapter teaches me that this is not something merely for men out in the work, or men who contemplate going out in the work. For this chapter is in a setting, first of all, of the local assembly, and the gifts that function in it, So it's for men and women who gather Lord's Day by Lord's Day and weeknights at the prayer meeting and the ministry meeting and the Bible reading and so on. It's for ordinary saints like you and I who are ordinary members of a local assembly. That's the context here. You go on from that and you find that this is ordinary men and women who have folks that they get on with and folks that they don't get on with amongst the saints. And again, that ordinary men and women, for these men out in the work would never think of falling out with anybody. It's only us folks who live constantly in the local assembly who know the difficulties of just getting things through, and you don't always agree with everybody. Well, in the context of the verses we read, you have friends. and you have enemies. And you can even have friends and enemies amongst those who are not the saints of God at all. And you are told just what your attitude has to bring to people who hate you and despise you and seek you to do as much harm to you as possible. Then the context still in the opening of chapter thirteen tells me that this experience of presenting your bodies a living sacrifice is worked out in the lives of men and women who have to learn in their day by day movements to be subject to the powers that be. So you see these are ordinary things, in an ordinary sense, surrounded by ordinary circumstances and living very ordinary lives. but they have to have in their lives what would become for us an extraordinary experience of a total surrender, a total devotion, a total giving of their whole being, body, soul and spirit to God. Mighty young Christians, are you prepared On this day, when we gather together to do dealings with God about this verse so that when you leave the building tonight and go home, you're different and you're going to be different. And your determination will be to get alone into God's presence and give yourself completely to Him. Paul says, I get down on my knees and I beg you. How different would our lives be? How different would our assemblies be if they were made up of men and women who had completely given themselves to God? Let's read. He says, I beseech you therefore, Dresden. Notice first of all, Dresden. Some of them he never sees. Their city he had never visited. Many of them were the results of other folks' life. They belong to almost every strata of society, from slaves to freedmen, from domestics to servants in Caesar's hotels. So different. They belong to varying nationalities. But in his affections he reached out, and he embraced the whole of them. in the term brethren. And thus he would not only get down on his knees and beg them to do something, but he pressed them to his heart in order that they might feel the throb of his authority. And is it not because we love the saints of God, But now is it not because we wish your highest good and greatest spiritual development that we would say to God, we get down on our knees and beg you, brethren, to respond to that? Notice the basis upon which he puts it. He doesn't say, I beseech you being such an one as Paul the aged. He asked you to imagine that body prematurely aged, that wizened little form that had placed, that had placed suffering after suffering. He was, Paul, not old, but prematurely aged. Does he use those words in beseeching one person to respond? That person could get a picture in his mind of that frivolous little man who would become that because of his love to the Lord and love to the faith. When you think of some dear servant of God with him the load and frail, and do you know they've given their lives for the faith? And they asked you to do something. You'd say, well, dear old man, I must respond to that. Paul did that on one occasion. But the nots were saved at Rome. He couldn't do it on another occasion. He did. He besought another young man because he had had the privilege of leading that young man to Christ. Of course, if somebody has led you to Christ, you know, you owe them an eternal death. Don't forget that. Don't forget you owe an eternal debt to the dear man or woman who led to Christ. You've only got one, Father. That's all. And Paul would, on occasion, pray on that stream. Say, because now I travailed in birth to bring you to Christ. I felt the birth pain. And on that ground he would receive. But now he is something that so colossal that the aging of one of the Lord's servants isn't a sufficient ground. And the fact of being the means in God's hands of leading someone to Christ, that isn't sufficient ground. Now, for a plea like this, when you're asking the faith to give absolutely everything to God, there is only one lever. There is only one fulcrum. that is calculated to move the hearts of the saints of God. He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the tender mercies of God. The expositors will differ here. Some will say that's the first eight chapters. They might be right. Some will say that's the first eleven chapters. They might be right. You will recognize that those eleven chapters take us as the dear people of God from the awful picture that is presented to us in Romans chapter one. At least they finish with us glorified. They take us through a range of forgiveness and justification and sanctification. and deliverance. They clear us of every condemnation and every accusing voice and leave us standing in the divine presence of God in His purposes already glorified. If you include the following three chapters, chapters nine, ten and eleven, you'll finish with this burst of praise, all the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and his ways past finding out. For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. And as those previous chapters have thrilled your soul, giving you sufficient to say many an amen and a hallelujah, because what God has done is mercy for you. There's four ways. Such dealings of grace as this demand not only verbal hallelujah. Demand not only verbal expressions of praise. Such grace as this to such sinners as we are demands something more. Demands not only our words but ourselves. Not merely our lips, but our noise. So much of our speech is just speech, isn't it? So much of the words that we sing are just something to a present tune. And if we get into the presence of God and place the things we sing sometimes, and ask ourselves, We go an awful long way with our lips, but we are not prepared to go with our hearts. An awful long way with our singing and saying. We are very sluggish in allowing our whole beings to follow those words. Oh, Paul says. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the tender mercies of God, that he present your body. The word present demands, sense, but this is something that you do once and for all. But you do it in the sense of having done it once and for all. and then you live in the good of it every day that follows. The man who presented his beast found almost immediately a knife in its throat, very soon after it was on the altar and consumed, and he could not take it back, these verses demand that our offerings be on the altar in the sense that we can never take it back. See then, three times was the burned off and presented. It was presented living, then it was presented dead, and then its blood was presented. You and I do not bring an animal. We do not bring blood, however precious. We bring ourselves, our bodies. The word body used is that which here is the representation of our whole being. For it is the body through which both these souls and the Spirit express themselves. We are to take into our hands, as it were, our entire self, and put ourselves in entirety on the altar for God. We are, in this verse, the opera, the priest, and the author, to present your body. That body represents my entire self. Everything I am, every gift that God has given me. Every grace with which he's endowed. Every possession he's ever given. Every. Francis Ridley Havigal must have been thinking about these verses when she wrote. Take my life. My all, I thought. Present your body. Why do you, young Christian, it means to say, if you present your body to him, it will be his possession, henceforth, and not yours. If you present your will to him, it will henceforth be his will, not yours. If you present your life to him, it will be his, his to do what he likes with, his for him to guide, to fashion, to control, him to be the complete master, of everything you do. It's fair to do that. Are you? Come on, my dear young Christians. Maybe you're older Christians too, if you've never faced it. Are you prepared to do that? Or will you hold back a small reservation? Can you hold back just a little bit of that life of yours? You want to keep just one small corner where he has not swine your life? Or will you give him the lot? Notically, in Leviticus chapter one, the first thing they presented was the blood. Interesting to notice that in Leviticus one, the word translated sprinkle the blood should be scatter in large quantities. The different words are what he's translated elsewhere in Leviticus. Now the places it's sprinkled, a drop here and a drop there and so on. But here, God wants in the burnt offering large quantities of blood. So that's not a modernistic gospel, is it, where they don't like the sound of blood? God delights in large quantities of blood. In the Calvary, the burned offering gospel, John's gospel says, a soldier with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came their blood. John's epistle, same writer. came by water his baptism and thus God still delights in blood. In other words, he wants you, my dear fellow Christians, to serve him, do his will, though it cost you your blood. It cost you your life. It cost you everything. That Andrew Ballen told me many years ago that opinions are things that men argue about. Convictions are things that men die for. Is that the kind of Christianity you've got, my dear young Christian? down the center with all that mass of blood the earth has swallowed that according to Isaiah chapter twenty six is it is one day going to be brought up out of the earth all that blood mass more the next thing that God wants on the altar is the head you imagine that lovely bullet head put in its right place upon the brazen altar, those lovely eyes, that determined brow, that mind, God wants you in the altar. God wants your head, your head. Oh, not like the head of John the Baptist, But we want your head. We want your intellect, your mind, your brain. How many a young Christian is today presenting their mind, their mental faculties at the altar of education? at the temple of world advancement. And I know if you want to do anything in this world today, you must have bits of paper that can get you here and get you there and get you somewhere else. None of us would dare to decry education, for apart from it we never have this book in our own language. But my dear young Christians, Is it not true that you have given more time to that than to God? Is it not true that you will give time to study and time for leisure, and at the end there's no time for God? Is it not true that you give your talent, your thinking, your brain, all kinds of things that demand deep thinking. But it's only the sad end of your day that you'll give to God. But God wants men and God wants their heads. God wants their thinking. God wants their intelligence. Will you use that that God has given you to your own ends and then think after that, you're giving ends to God? Once you're done. Well, let's come back to our chapter four. We must have three speakers this afternoon being just an ordinary, I think they're an anglified Scotsman, something like that. I used to having just two speakers in a session. Come back to Romans chapter twelve and remember he wants our blood. Remember he wants our head. Remember he wants our legs, our walk. Remember he wants our inwards, holy and clean. Remember he wants our fat in Leviticus one, which is every ounce of Strength we've got given absolutely to himself. You wonder that a lot of your Irish preachers, are you? They break down in health. God wants every atom of their strength. And he wants every atom of your strength. And he wants you to serve him until exhausted and may be broken. You go to meet him. That's how he wants it. Listen, Moses there. You are to present your body a living sacrifice, wholeness, acceptable to God. which is your intelligent person. You want that body of yours, young Christian, holer. Is it holer? Are you as holy as you should be? Your mind? Your emotion? Your body? Hold it. choice jewel that in this unholy world? God wants your body, young Christian, absolutely holy. You need to clean your life. There's room for confession. May you give that body to him? What would you find the closing part of Second verse tells me this, that in this process, that is the result of the presenting of your body a living sacrifice to God. You will prove everything. The right version says that ye may prove that the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect. If you give yourself mighty young Christian entirely to the Lord as we have tried to show this afternoon, do you think that he would deliberately lead you in a path that would hurt you? Do you believe that he would deliberately lead you in a path that would harm you? Or would the God that gave his son to die for you not planned the very best for your life? So the God who loves you says, present your body a living sacrifice, so that in that body you will completely and entirely henceforth do the will of God. And you will prove that the will of God for your life is good, that the will of God for your life You'll find it acceptable. The will of God for your life when you come to the end, you'll look back and your side is past. As we sing three verses of number twenty-five after what we have been listening to, let us think of the words as we sing. Take my life and let it be. Consecrated Lord to thee. Take my moments and my days. Let them flow in peaceful state. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love. Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for me. Number twenty-five, the first two, and the last verse is only. Standing while we move. Give my life a day, Come sing, pray the Lord to thee, Pray my moment, stand thy day, Live and go in ceaseless way. Take my hands and lift in blue, and lift the angels of my love. Bring my feet and lift in me, with a beautiful glory. In my Lord my Lord's womb, as I see this precious soul, Take my shell that I will be ever lonely once for me.