Finished With the World - Keith Daniel
Dear Lord, in mercy on all of us, come in this meeting tonight.
Thank you for these dear souls that I have come to love; everyone I’ve conversed with, I’ve looked in their eyes, and seen their tears, the brokenness, and the tenderness. The dear man I walked with along the hills this afternoon, he sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed, and couldn’t speak. That’s all I really know of him, Lord. Thank you. Thank you for a people who would break before their God, and seek their God in desperation in this wicked world, to be holy, to be revived.
Come, Lord, to this precious, precious, precious group whom Thou hast brought from many corners of this land, aside, away from that terrible atmosphere out there – It’s unbelievable. But thank you Lord, for we know that Thou hast ordained this convention, and that we are here by God taking us aside, that we are the apple of God’s eye. Each one of us can go back there and live a Christ-like, holy life no matter what the world does. Come now in these moments and speak further to all of our bowed hearts, and our broken hearts, in Jesus Christ’s name – in Jesus Christ’s name – Amen.
You need not look up these verses; you know them off by heart.
Galatians 6:14: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom – by whom the world is crucified unto me. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
1 John 2:15: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in Him.
James 4:4: “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
The first meeting we gathered here, I shared briefly of the godly Scottish man, Presbyterian minister, who is serving God in his last days in our hometown back in South Africa. And how he said to me, before he led me to Christ, “Keith, written across your life, boy, if you’re going to be truly saved, as I know salvation; written across your life, boy, will be these words that every single person in the world will see written boldly across your life: Finished with the world!
By the way you dress. By the way you speak. By the company you keep. By the places you go and frequent. And Keith, if those words are not written across you, where I come from in Scotland you’re not saved. There’s no such a thing as a worldly Christian. If you’re worldly, you’re not a Christian.”
Is the world crucified unto you?
You answer God, please sir. God is all that matters. Now will you – everyone – answer God now, God alone in your hearts, otherwise what on earth are you doing here, sir, if it isn’t only God that matters? What are you doing here? Will you answer God please, sincerely?
So with anticipation the children were waiting, after this long drive. They came to the town, saw a sign to the hotel, and drove into the hotel grounds, the parking grounds. And as they drove in there were just cars and cars and cars.
He said, “Goodness me! What are all these people doing in this hotel?” And as they drove around in a parking place, they looked, and they suddenly realized there was a dance going on. Oh my! This was the dance of the year, and they arrived on that night to stay in this hotel.
He said you couldn’t believe it. They were dancing as they looked into the hall, they were dancing out in the verandas, they were dancing down into the parking ground! They were just going wild! There’s no place for them all inside, they were just dancing – and the drinking was going on – and he despaired!
He said, “No, I can’t – I can’t stay here. I’m not staying here tonight. We won’t sleep; I refuse to stay. We’re going to try and find another place.”
So he turned the car wheels to turn around to try and get out of this big parking place, and as he turned to drive out, his little girl said, “ But why Daddy? Why are you going? Please don’t go!”
So he looked at her through the rearview mirror, and he says, “We can’t stay here tonight – they’re children of the devil! They’re the devil’s children!”
And so they’re driving out, he looked in the rearview mirror, he saw the little girl looking longingly back at the dance, and he heard her say,
“Oh, I wish I was a child of the devil!” Oh!
Now you’ve got to forgive that little girl, she’d be embarrassed to know that I told this story. She grew up to be a woman of God. But that little girl in ignorance – in ignorance – looked back, longingly, to where the children of the devil were. Do you mind if I ask you this question again? I want every one of you, please, to answer God utterly sincerely.
Is the world still in your heart?
Is the world still in your heart?
My brother Dudley, a few years older than me – he’s also a preacher – Dudley came to God before me. He wasn’t married, he had this lovely girl, Ann, and the two of them came to Christ through one of the most godly men . . . well, let me put it this way, I would say the holiest man of God I ever met in my life was the man instrumental in bringing my brother to Christ – Mr. Will MacFarlane. Came to our country in the 60’s, preached in an old Presbyterian church in Boksburg, and a movement of God moved in that town that has never been seen in its history, through this man of God. Amazingly, it was the young people who flocked to God in their crowds, seeking God night after night under this holy man of God who would have no compromise in his preaching, or in his life. Oh, he was holy! He was the only man I ever stood with that I trembled in his presence. No other man ever did that to me. I shook as I looked at him, and I realized how holy God could make a man.
Will MacFarlane had led Dudley to God, kneeled down with him, put his arm around him, cried out to God with Dudley to be saved. Dudley my brother was mightily saved.
Mr. Will MacFarlane and his wife left the country, and then a few months later they were passing through South Africa, and on their flight they stayed one or two nights in Johannesburg before they went on to Zimbabwe, which was Rhodesia those days. And he was staying in a home, and Dudley and Ann heard – I knew the people of the home – but he heard that the man who led him to Christ, Will MacFarlane, was passing through our country.
Dudley said, “I’ve got to see him . . . I want to see him!” Well, he was leaving the next day, so Dudley had to see him that night. So Dudley said, “Well, we find it very difficult to come tonight because we’re going to a dance! We booked for the dance long ago, months and months ago, it was something arranged long ago, and we can’t get out of it.”
“But it’s the only time you can see him, Dudley, is tonight. Do you want to see him?”
“I’ve got to see him.”
So they went to Will MacFarlane on the way to the dance. Now if you knew Will MacFarlane, you would know that is the most outrageous thing that’s ever been thought of – going on the way to the dance to Will MacFarlane!
Well, Dudley and Ann arrived and explained to him why they couldn’t wait, they just wanted to see him, wanted a prayer, to pray for them; and so he prayed for them, and off they went. Got in the car, drove, and Dudley said as he was driving to this dance, first time they were going to a dance since they’re saved, Dudley said Ann didn’t even speak. There was just silence in the car. And he drove slower and slower as they got closer to the dance, where all their friends arranged to meet them. They got out of the car, not speaking; they went into the dance, sat down at the table with all their friends, and suddenly as they all sat there, this one fellow, a close friend of Dudley’s through the years, started telling jokes.
And Dudley said, “Stop, please. Please, just stop right there.”
He says, “Why? Why?”
Before Dudley could answer, another fellow came and said to Ann, “I want to dance with you. Come.”
And Dudley said, “Stop. I know you. Sorry. You’re not dancing with her.”
He said, “Why? What’s wrong with you?”
Another man comes with drink. Dudley said to the man, “No. We don’t drink. We don’t drink anymore, sorry. I’m so sorry, we don’t drink.”
“Why?”
“We’re Christians now, we’ve become Christians; and I don’t know why I came here tonight, I didn’t know until now I shouldn’t have come. Please forgive us, for we can never come here again. Can never touch drink again, never listen to a dirty joke again, and I’ll never let you dance with Ann again.”
They got out, got in the car, and drove back to Will MacFarlane. And they opened the door, and Will MacFarlane said, “Oh Dudley, we knew you’d come back! When you left, we all got on our knees, and we all cried ‘God, show him!’ We knew you’d come back.”
And Dudley said, “But sir, I never ever heard from one person in my life that it’s wrong to dance. I never heard from one person in my life it’s wrong to go on a dance floor. I never heard from a minister; no Christian ever told me that. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me not to go?”
Mr. MacFarlane said “Oh Dudley, I didn’t want to tell you, because I wanted God to tell you! You see, if I had told you, then you would stop going to the dance because of me. But I’m not always with you. But I wanted God to tell you, Who is always with you! And I knew He would, I knew He would!”
Can I ask every one of you sitting here; very, very, very carefully, now – very carefully, every single person: Is the world crucified . . . Do you know what that means? . . . unto you?
Are you crucified unto the world?
Or is the world still in your heart?
Is the world still in your heart?
Will you please answer God, sir? Will you answer God now – please – before we go any further. He’s waiting for your voice.
My mother was the last one to come to God in our home. My father was gloriously saved; I never ever saw such a transformation in my entire life as my father’s transformation. My brother was gloriously saved – oh! – and I was saved. The three of us, ablaze for God, and here was Mummy, the only one in the whole home still unsaved. That was quite a predicament in our home. There’s Mummy not knowing what to say in the conversations! We were doing everything to try and get her saved, and she knew it.
One night, one night my mummy said she’d come to a meeting because it was three houses away. It was a little cottage meeting where there was a preacher going to be preaching. The Christians had arranged that they’d give this little Bible study, a sermon, then a time of prayer. Well, they invited us, and we knew it was a godly person preaching, so I said, “Mummy, please come, It’s just three houses away. Come.”
So she said, “Alright, I’ll come to your meeting, Keith.”
So we sat there. If ever I heard a sermon, it was that night – O my! Let me tell you! We got home; I couldn’t wait to go to the kitchen. Since a boy, to this day when Mummy and I are together, we go to the kitchen. We just like to talk in the kitchen, the two of us.
Got home, got in the kitchen, I looked at my mummy and I said, “What do you think? Did you enjoy that meeting, Mummy?”
And my mother said, “No. No, I don’t think I’d ever like to go back in that home or that Bible study again in my life. Thank you, Keith.”
I said, “Why?”
She said, “My boy, the lady whose home we went to – ”
I said, “That’s always where the Christians hold a meeting in this town.”
“Why is it, that in the morning when I go by bus to avoid traffic sometimes, why is it, that that lady sits in the bus with blood-red lips, and blue and purple make-up, a short dress — dressed to kill? How is it she’s sitting there tonight – no make-up, long dress, like an old maid, a plain Jane. Keith, if that’s what becoming a Christian is going to make me, I don’t want it. If I have to dress differently than what I dress when I’m not with Christians, to be acceptable to Christians, I don’t want that – thank you.”
I mean, just by the way you dress – no woman here – but just by the way you dress when you’re not with Christians says something.
Is the world still in your heart?
I don’t believe in preaching on outward things, you know. My wife said something to me – she educates me – daily, sometimes. My wife has a wisdom I will never, ever attain; I’ve given up thinking I can! My wife said to me concerning the outward things, she said, “Keith, it’s best you don’t talk about these things, you just live it!”
And she said, “You’ll find everybody sees, every woman in the whole room will see, if you dress differently, you speak to their hearts! You must look beautiful, you mustn’t look as separated as you can if you’re ugly.”
You know, I saw something after that. I don’t know how many homes I’ve been into where my wife sat – not a word – and the people phoned me later, or contacted me later, and said, “You’re costing me a fortune, Mr. Daniel, bringing your wife in my home. When she walked out, my children went and burned all their clothes!”
Not a word.
I believe my wife is right, so you’ve got to forgive me tonight saying this, but I wonder if a time hasn’t come in the church – if you would forgive a poor preacher like me if I dared to ask you – by the way you dress when you’re not with Christians,
Is the world still in your heart?
Are you crucified unto the world?
Is the world crucified unto you?
Or is the world still in your heart?
I’m going to preach on things that you don’t dare preach on these days, you know. And you’ve got to forgive me, but God taught me something a while back, when I trembled, and I said, “Lord, the doors are going to close if I preach this. Please don’t ask me to preach in this particular church this message.”
And instead of the doors closing, God showed me something, He gave me a revelation. Not one church has ever closed its doors in this world to my ministry. Not one church. My wife tried to estimate, she said every meeting opened some other sixty doors. So God honors you if you’re willing to preach things you and I are scared to preach anymore. Did you know that people want a standard again? And the devil tells us you win the world by being like the world – and that’s why we lost the world.
Is the world still in your heart? O my!
I was in a town where God moved in a peculiar way, I could tell you things of that town – O my! Some of the towns we went to, every single person in the entire town came to the meetings, there wasn’t a soul that didn’t come. The whole town turned to God. I wish I could say that of every town. But God can come; I found He answers prayer – desperate prayer. Where there’s no desperation for God to come, nothing happens. But I’ve never been to the town where there are people desperate with God that the town doesn’t turn to God. Many times – a number of times – the entire town. God can come, He will come to your country when you get desperate.
I was in this particular town, God was doing a very precious thing. We were all down before God on our faces for what He was doing. I said one night something I don’t normally say: I mentioned about the television.
Now I didn’t say to the people, “Get the television out of your home.” I just said, “Listen, can I ask you sincerely, every one of you – no matter who you are, even if you’re a preacher in this Holiness church. I don’t want any one of you bypassed. Do you give God the time you should with that box in your house? Has that kept you from the time you should, and God would have expected you to spend with the Word of God, which would have made you holy? Do you put it off when no one’s watching, or are you not strong enough, and therefore, because of that box, you are totally backslidden? No other reason; that box in the home is the cause of your. . .
Because you’re not strong enough. You’re watching things only the devil’s children could enjoy, so you’re standing there with the enemies of God – what they enjoy.
Well, I went on to other things. The next day … a day or two later, a Holiness preacher – I would be scared to say his name, because he’s known, I tell you – he called me to his home, his wife and him. He said, Keith, we sold the television! He didn’t sell it, I won’t tell you what they did to it – goodness me!
I said, “Why?”
He said, “We got rid of the TV.”
I said, “I didn’t preach that, I didn’t tell you, or mean for you to go now, do that. What I meant for you was to search your heart and say, ‘Are you strong enough to put it off?’ Are you compromising in time, and losing all the time you should be gaining with the Word of God, and you’re losing it all. Are you strong enough?”
He said, “We’re not strong enough.”
He said, “Maybe you are, Keith, but I’m not, and I’m never going to be. And so my wife and I came home last night, we looked at each other and we confessed, ‘We are totally backslidden. Not a little bit, there’s nothing left – because of that box. We have to make a choice, to be honest.’
Maybe many preachers will never ever be honest! And they’ll stay backslidden, they’ll stay preaching, and they know they’ve lost everything that’s real – because of that box. I want to get back to God. And you may be strong enough Keith, but I’m not. We sat, we listened at first, we listened, and we thought no – no – no – no! what’s coming – no! Why are they doing these things? But we didn’t put it off! And so we got conditioned, and soon those things that shocked us we were sitting and looking at! Until we found ourselves looking at everything that a child of God would be astonished to look at!
We used to pray in the nights, have devotions together in the nights, year after year after year after year. The moment came, Keith, we spent five minutes with God! We couldn’t find that some nights because of that box. We can’t get away from it! I’m too weak to survive with that in my home.
So I don’t know about others who call me a fanatic; but so that I got the right to stay on in the ministry, I want to get right with God – and I can’t with that in my house. Even if the world says I’ve gone too far, I’ve got to; otherwise I stay backslidden till the day I die.”
Oh . . . oh . . . oh. I know a man, a preacher, who wouldn’t have a TV in his home. He was regarded as an extremist, and his parents – his mother – said, “You’re not doing this to the children. They’re going to go to other homes, [if] they can’t get the legitimate, good, educational things there. We’re buying you a TV – the biggest screen there is.”
So it arrived, and he said, “Here it is, here they come. The shops brought this big thing, and on the box as they carried it in was written these words: We bring the world into your home!”
And he said, “No. Get it out – take it back!” Oh!
Now I want to be careful here, even though you all seem to be agreeing with me, I want to be careful here. I don’t want you to say that I have said – that Keith Daniel said – that having a television in your home is out. I don’t want any one of you to ever say that of me, even if you’d like me to say that. I just don’t want to give you that right, okay? I don’t want any one of you to say, ever once in your life, Keith Daniel said, it’s sin to have a television in your home. Get it out of your home.
Because I didn’t say that tonight. Many church doors would close immediately on me if you say Keith Daniel said that – no matter what you know I believe!
But, I’d like to say this; I’d like to have the right to say this. Though you’ll never, ever be able to say those words of me – if you at all have any integrity – I’d like to have the right to say this to you: by what you know, and God knows, and the devil knows, you watch, sir, on the television.
Is the world still in your heart?
Will you please answer God? When no one’s watching, what you will not stop, is the world – just by what you’re watching – in your heart?
Are you crucified unto the world?
Is the world crucified unto you?
Or is the world still in your heart?
I have three children, I’ve spoken of them already. Noel, my eldest, and Roy, my middle – they sing. Now they are very loved in our country. Noel, as a little boy, suddenly had this piercing voice; shrilling. It was alarming! And this little child was suddenly put into the provinces children’s choir; and there he was – he was very musical – in symphony choirs, violin, the symphony orchestra. Very musical, loves the piano; loves music, Noel does.
And suddenly, Roy got to the age, and suddenly he got strength in his voice, and this shrill just came through the house. And suddenly they were singing together! While I was singing the old hymns of the faith, these two went on and started blending harmony, and I realized there was something precious here. So I said, “Boys, you want to sing in the meeting?”
“Could we, Daddy?” They were small, by the way!
“Okay.”
So we prayed, and they sang. And I noticed something, that people were stunned, and there were just tears coming down their faces. And these boys saw it all, they sensed it.
So suddenly, without my knowing what to do, because I didn’t know this was going to happen, the doors just opened. The boys were singing at the conventions, singing in the churches, singing when I was going to preach, singing. They were practicing. They had something to give! Practicing away all the time; beautiful, the beauty of these two boys harmonizing.
One day I watched them in the house, and they were practicing, and something came into my heart; a terrible, terrible fear. And I said, “Boys, will you please forgive me for what I’m going to say, but I have to say this to you.
Entertainment in the pulpit of God is sin. There is no place in the church for entertainment. You go to the stage, you go to the theater, if you want the applause of men. Get out of the pulpit.
Boys, if you go to the pulpit ever again in your life without getting on your knees and seeking God by the blood of Christ to give you the right to stand in front of the church of Jesus Christ and minister . . . By the blood to be anointed, filled with the Holy Spirit and anointed and guided by God to what He would have you and allow you to bring to the pulpit of God that would not be entertaining, but would meet a heart, and draw a heart, and not draw people to you but to God!
Not draw people’s attention to you, but to God!
Unless you pray from your heart for God to prepare you, for God to anoint you, for God to guide you as to what to even sing. Boys, if you don’t seek God in desperation from your heart in utter sincerity, then you’re sinning!
You’re sinning!
. . . if you ever go in the pulpit again. There’s too much entertainment in the pulpit, boys. I don’t want you to be entertainers in the house of God.”
You should see my boys pray now! You should see them pray now before they sing!
I was in a country – I won’t tell you what country – but this particular town, God just came. Every single church combined in the end, cancelled all their meetings, there was just this united coming and seeking God. And night after night suddenly, before I ended preaching, sometimes, before I could even close, every single soul was on their face before God sobbing. God came.
God came!
Before I preached, night after night, there was very little before the sermon. There was something of a sanctified atmosphere. They had people singing – godly people. And as the crowds swelled and swelled and swelled, suddenly one night it was announced that some man who was famous in his country, utterly famous in secular singing, and, he had professed to be a Christian, and he also sang in the churches.
So he came, and suddenly I sensed there was something different in the front of this church, something almost like a little stage set up to accommodate this famous singer. He stood, oh, the music! Suddenly the way he sang, oh.
Do you know what happened? You’re not going to believe this, most of you. But it happened. The whole hall stood and cried “STOP!!!”
Never saw that before.
“We’re sick of entertainment! We must not let this atmosphere be taken away by the entertainment of the world!”
One man stood and said, “There has never been a sense of God in the history of this town like there is now. We must not allow anything to break this atmosphere. No entertainers, please! No entertainers – we’ve finished with that in this town. We’ve had enough of it.” Oh . . . oh.
The ministers all gathered afterwards. Every single minister in the town gathered, weeping. “What are we to do?” You know what they decided? No more singing, unless every minister listens to the whole song and approves it, then the person’s allowed to sing. Otherwise, not again for the next few nights that I was there.
I was stunned. I trembled. I trembled. You know, when revival comes, you won’t allow them in the pulpit! Don’t say you had revival meetings, sir; just look at the entertaining you enjoyed before. That wasn’t revival! When God comes, there’s no entertainment in the pulpit.
Duncan Campbell, in the Hebrides revival, Duncan Campbell said, “There’s no such a thing as entertainment in the pulpit of God. You stand there as a sinner, sinning, if you dare to stand in the pulpit, and you are there as an entertainer and you know it. You’re there to get the applause of men. You’re sinning!”
I was in a town where a very, very famous singer . . . very famous singer . . . was in the meeting. And after I preached – I preached about what happened in this particular town where all the people screamed “Stop!” I preached and told what I told my two boys, and how they started to pray, and there is no place for entertainment in the pulpit.
And this fellow, this famous singer, he was a Christian, turned to Christianity, makes records and disks all over. He is so well-known – television – he’s known, let me tell you! Well afterwards, they introduced me to him, and suddenly everybody realized I was the only one in the church who didn’t know him.
“Don’t you know who he is?”
I said, “I don’t know, I . . . I really don’t listen to these things, I don’t know what’s going on, you know. I’m terribly sorry – but I don’t know who you are!”
Well, he wasn’t hurt, you know, he just looked at me with respect, funny enough. And this dear man said, “Mr. Daniel, I want to tell you that God brought me here tonight. I want to tell you that I’ve sung in the pulpits of the great conventions across this country since I’ve been saved, I have been singing, I have been the one called out there. I’ve been in all the churches – the biggest churches – I sing. But as I listened to you tonight, I realized, sir, all I’m doing is entertaining. I’ve just changed platforms into the church. All I’m doing, all I’ve been doing, everything, is wanting the applause of men. That’s all I’m doing in the pulpit. And sir, I’m so scared. I sat there trembling as I heard you. I want you to pray for me, that I’ll pray the prayer you told your boys to pray before they dare stand in the pulpit again. Something about me, sir, in what I choose by God’s guidance what to sing and the way I sing and not bringing the applause of men, but men broken before God.”
I don’t know if you’ll let me preach or be allowed back here or not. I want no applause. I don’t believe that I’m pointing to you and that you’re guilty of this. Don’t let me get you all mixed up now. There’s such a thing as absolute, spontaneous joy and thrill, and an amen from your heart and even from your hands that is not sin. We know that, don’t get me wrong. Please don’t. But if you’re guilty, don’t doubt it sir, you need to hear it.
Oh, I know it’s hurting, and I know a lot of you are probably wondering, “Where is he going to end?”
Is the world still in your heart?
I was once asked to preach at a youth rally, and thousands and thousands and thousands of youth from across the land came. Busloads, busloads, busloads streaming into this convention. And I was asked to preach in this last meeting, this great gathering, where there was going to be different “gospel groups” singing. Never quite heard that before in my life, the gospel singing, gospel groups. And I was asked to come across the land to preach, to bring the closing word to all these gatherings; the largest, I think, youth group they ever had in the history of that country. Well, I sat there, and onto this big stage, and these thousands on all these lawns up on a hill, all gathered. There were loud speakers; there they started to sing.
You know, after about twenty minutes, I started to cry. Have you seen a preacher cry? You know, I cried, and sat there; I tried to hide it. I thought “God, if I close my eyes, it just sounds like I was in a nightclub – in the nightclubs with the disco. There’s no difference.” Every now and again I’d hear the word ‘Jesus’ in the singing, but I can’t even discern what gospel that they sang!
And I just began to cry, saying, “Lord, what’s going on here? What am I doing here? I didn’t know this was going to be the case here.” It went on and on and on, group after group after group coming, some of them you wouldn’t believe what they looked like. I just looked and I just wept and I hid my face and cried. This person was standing up now to tell us about Jesus from the pulpit in singing.
Eventually, after a good, good, good, good long time – let me tell you – they came to me and they said, “Listen. It’s gone longer than we thought, there’s still two more groups and we can’t say no to them. And the buses, all the drivers and all, there’s a certain time that they have to be there. They have to leave at that time. You have to cut the message short.”
I said, “How much time are you going to give me?”
“The most we can give you is ten minutes.”
I said, “No.” I said, “No sir. I have listened for two hours to this trash. And not one person in this whole gathering could have been possibly saved through one thing that happened here tonight. Look me in the eyes and tell me they could! Their blood is on your hands!
You stand there and tell me after all this rubbish that there’s still time for the last two that you don’t want to miss, but no time for the Word of God?
Sir, I’ve known you for a while. When did you backslide so much that you can look at me and say this is the way you want to win the world – that you bury the Word of God? You must be backslidden! What’s happened to you, sir? I will not preach for ten minutes, even if the buses drive off. I’m going to preach the time you gave me.”
And they all stood there, “Sorry! We’ll give you the time you need, don’t worry!”
So I stood, I stood and I preached. I wept through that sermon – I sobbed at certain times. But if you saw what God did that night, that those young people would have never seen in their lives had we buried the Word of God for entertainment.
I want to ask you from my heart, every one of you: when it comes to methods, to methods of how to reach the youth, to win the world, do you want to be like the world to win the world? Is that really how you think you are going to win them, sir? When’s someone going to stand up and tell you again, you’re wrong!
When are you going to allow a preacher, sir, when will you allow a preacher to stand up and tell you, we’re wrong! We’ve missed the mark – you’re wrong! You’ll never win the world by being like the world. You’ll never win the world by entertaining like the world.
And I learned something; it took a while to learn, but I learned something. There’s not a youth, not a youth alive, that doesn’t know the difference deep in his heart, when the first time in his life he hears someone singing who’s filled with God the Holy Ghost, and he’s not entertaining. There’s not a youth that doesn’t know, This is from God – and not all that. Don’t even think you are confusing them. You’re losing them, because they don’t know, but when the time comes when they hear someone, they’ll know you failed. This is what they should have heard. In their hearts, they’ll know it. Not one youth in this earth that won’t realize it the day God puts in front of them someone who’s not an entertainer in the pulpit of God.
Oh, is the world still in your heart – even by the way you’re trying to win the world? It’s written across you.
I’m going to speak now about Billy Graham – be careful now. Billy Graham – and I’m talking about many, many years ago now, when God took him to London. No matter what you say about him, accept this, please, from God tonight. I know what people are saying everywhere.
When Billy Graham was young, and God moved in London in 1953, this amazing movement of God. People were singing in the streets in their thousands, believe it or not. Thousands! London never ever knew that in history, so many had turned to Christ in the great Billy Graham Crusade of ’53. Next time he came, he was known now, he was known. That made the world know there was a Billy Graham, what happened in London.
Next time he came, within days he was in Buckingham Palace, with a young queen of England, and a young Prince Phillip. And Billy Graham was talking to the queen, and began to sense certain things about her, and said, “Your Majesty, have you ever given your life to Jesus Christ to save you?”
The queen said these words: “When I was fourteen years of age, Queen Mary, my grandmother, who was a born-again Christian, asked me the same question. And I knelt with her at that age and asked Christ to come in my heart.”
“Were you really saved? Do you read the Bible since you’re saved?”
“My Grandmother made me vow that I would never read less than four chapters a day for the rest of my life.”
“Have you read four chapters every day of your life, your Majesty?”
“Yes. This morning I read four chapters of the Bible. It’s not easy – it’s not easy. But I believe that I am saved.”
Suddenly Prince Phillip stood up and said, “Is it wrong – is it sin – is it wrong for me to play sport on a Sunday?” He likes his polo, horse polo. And he looked over and said, “Certain people think I’m wrong.”
And Billy Graham said, “No, it’s not sin. It’s not wrong for you to play sport on a Sunday. It’s not wrong for any unsaved person to play sport on Sunday! Even if you don’t play sport on Sundays, you’re still going to go to hell – unless you’re saved.”
What is happening on Sundays, you can feel the pulse of the church, how desperately far we are from reality and the Bible. You may say, “He’s a legalistic fellow, isn’t he.” Let me tell you something – now this is going to shock you. Charles Finney, D. L. Moody, John Wesley, Duncan Campbell – name them. Every man that God ever used in the world’s greatest revivals – George Whitfield – every single one – read Charles Finney’s sermons, Lectures on Revival, you would be stunned what he says – all of them say the same thing: the first thing that they noticed after God came to a land, when God came to a town, God came in revival, was the Christians. Sunday was a holy day.
Now you’re praying for revival; that’s what’s going to happen, if God answers your prayers in your life. It’s going to be a holy day. No desecrating. You won’t look upon people like me as law-ish or legalistic, or ‘too extreme’, ‘too far’, ‘can’t enjoy life’, ‘God made the day for us’, it’s made for us, not for anything else. Well, well!
Well then, the Holy Spirit convicted nation upon nation upon nation, through every major revival the world has ever known in its history on this one issue, God convicted them, wrongly, according to you!
When God comes in revival, and we’re back to where we ought to be as a church – and by the way, the revival is when a church gets right with God! When the people of God get so right with God that the lost are brought within days, within months, in their millions, they seek God – through our lives!
That’s revival. Awakening resulting from revival. When God’s people make God’s day a holy day … a holy day. Oh my.
With all the sport going on, Sunday sport, the major professional events, I used to remember the days when Christians in our country would listen to the news on the television and then the sports sections came – off. Sport was not allowed in their house. Slowly, I began to go back to the same homes after years, and suddenly I was conscious – they’re listening in on the sport now. Couldn’t miss what happened . . . “What’s happening?” Every major thing ends on a triumph instead of climax on Sunday! “What are we going to do?” “How are we going to miss?” So they missed church going to the great tournaments now in our church. Golf, tennis, rugby, cricket. Thank God for those in our country, even now, who will not play on a Sunday.
Whatever happened to the honor we gave men, whatever happened to the esteem we gave men when that film – I haven’t seen it – my one boy saw it in a church, told me about it, a film called Chariots of Fire. It reminded the world that God honors them that honor him. When a man who was the best in the world – no doubt of that – trained his whole being – his whole life for this moment, this point, in that which he was excelling in, though he was a godly man – excelling, and representing his country, and here going off to the country. Suddenly, there he’s told he’s to run on Sunday.
No. No!
Your event that you’ve trained your whole life for: this moment – Sunday – no. Do you know, he was in such a predicament, I believe, that the king – he wasn’t quite king then, he had to abdicate afterwards, but the king and the prime minister marched in to him. And the king ordered him, “You will run for your country, you will not let us down. You cannot do this to us.”
“No, I am sorry, I will not.”
The prime minister jumped up, I believe, and swore. I don’t mean it was in the film, but I believe he swore. He cursed, he said, “You will disobey your KING?” And this man said,
“I will disobey my king if he tells me to disobey the King of kings!”
So with disdain from his king, his prime minister, and many, many other people who couldn’t believe what they heard, he’s not going to run in the event. Somehow – God arranged it, by the way – just to tell the world . . . just to show the world how He’ll honor you if you ‘go too far’. This dear man was switching something he hadn’t trained for! This all worked out somehow, for someone who was trained for that particular event, could switch. But this particular event that he wasn’t geared for, that he hadn’t perfected, he was told to change to there. So he’s standing there now, his chance in the Olympics of winning gold. This thing that he’s now . . . an event he hasn’t trained for! A length, a distance!
So he stands there, and someone in the crowd, as he’s standing there ready on the lanes, the guns, standing, ready to go, someone – how? – someone – God did this, by the way – they didn’t even know who, he rushed off – crossed the Olympic track, put into his hands – that takes God to do this! You don’t get away with this in the Olympic games, you know, somebody running on the track – he looked in it, and there was a piece of paper:
“God honors them that honor him.”
And he ran, and he staggered the world as he flew past the biggest record that had ever been dreamed. Oh, how we esteemed him when we heard of that film, and how God had reminded the world afresh of how He’d honored him. How we all esteemed him!
Tell me, what’s happened to the world? What’s happened to the church that suddenly, even that we’ve buried in our argument; “Oh, come on now, we’ve gone too far”? Where have we forgotten those who God honored?
Where have we forgotten the esteem we’ve had for men who would lose titles, who’d lose everything they worked for in life to achieve, rather than deny God? Where have we forgotten to esteem and to copy them? To hold in reverence, men God so honored?
Oh, the Sabbath has been so desecrated by God’s people. No wonder the world has no restraint or respect for that day anymore.
What the world does on God’s day – is it in your heart?
Is it in your heart, child of God?
Are you crucified unto the world?
Is the world crucified unto you?
Is all you glory in . . . all you glory unto . . . sir, the cross? By whom – the cross of Jesus Christ – by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I to the world. Has not the time come for us, as Romans 12 says, to lay ourselves as a living sacrifice, be not conformed to the world, be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Tell me, does God need to do that to you desperately tonight? You need to get back, you need to get back in this world that . . . God, when I look at the world and the compromise in the church, when I look, Lord, at what’s going on, no one seems to want to hold a standard anymore. You’re ‘legalistic’, you’ve ‘gone too far’, your just law-ish. But God, when I look at how far we’ve gone, and God, I just need some stopping place, that I don’t go any further – no matter what the church is doing. I need, Lord, as never before in my life, when I look at what this world is doing. I need, very carefully, at this point of my life, to ask Thee very earnestly to keep the world crucified unto me, and the world – I unto the world. I need you, God, desperately – tonight.
Desperately.
Because I’m never, ever going to hear this thing said again in my life. I guarantee you that. I guarantee you that. And before I go back out there, I need to say to God from the depths of my soul, God, at this point of life, I desperately need Thee. I desperately need Thee. Whatever it takes to make it with my life, is crucified, till the end unto the world, and the world unto me. The world will be crucified unto me. When they look at me. When I look at them.
Dead!
I need it, God. Before I take another step. Because I might never ever, ever, ever, ever again have a place where I can stop in the holy presence of God. On everything. Everything that I’ve heard tonight.
Everything.
Everything.
I need to stop and have it written across me in bold letters:
“Finished with the world.”
I need it afresh, God. I may have failed, I may have compromised, I may have been affected, but I stop, and I say, “God, I come afresh, desperately, write these words across my life by the blood of Christ and the Holy Ghost! And let everyone in the world see it, no matter what it costs, but this! rather than that, and where they’re heading. I am crucified with Christ.
Crucified.
Those of you that know that before you go back out in that world, God wanted you to seek Him now in desperation that this will be written across you afresh by the Holy Ghost, in your heart, through your being. Let Him do it!
I want you to stand, those who desperately need God, desperately, as you’ve looked at your life, as you’ve looked at how you’ve been affected, and you say, “Not any further, God! I go back now. I go back to where I was.” Maybe for the first time you’re seeking God. God’s watching every one of you.
Come, every one of you, bow in silence now, utter silence now, in silence for one moment. And the prayer I pray, you pray in your heart – please, not with your lips.
Father, I pray for revival. Maybe I’m the one who would be the fastest to hate it when it comes, for the demands on every level it will make, where I’ve compromised. God, please, things have gone so far out there, and I have been affected, Lord. I want Thy forgiveness. Tonight I want to sober up, and stay sober no matter how drunk the world gets. No matter how drunk the church gets allowing the world to come in by becoming like the world. God, I don’t want to become like the world. Not on any issue. Not on anything. I don’t want the world to be in my heart, God. Please! I want to be crucified unto the world, and the world crucified unto me. I don’t want the world in my heart. From this day to the day I die.
By what I would dare to watch on that box that is in my home.
By what I would dare to do on God’s day.
By what I would dare to do to win the youth.
By what I would dare to do in the name of entertainment in the church.
By what I would dare to do, Lord.
By the places I would go, or the company I would keep.
By the way I dress.
I don’t want to live in legalism; I don’t want to live in bondage, law-ishness – that’s ugly, Lord. But I want spontaneous, without any rigid disciplines and hard, hard taskmaster. I want to live out of love for Christ, spontaneously, a standard, a standard that is so high that everyone in this world would know: I am crucified unto the world.
I don’t want to look down on any soul, as far in the world as they are. I don’t want any soul to feel I look down at them. I want them to look at me and see in me more love than they see in the eyes, in the words, than any other soul they know on earth. Love them through me. I don’t want to look at them in judgment, I don’t want to speak in judgment, not once in my life. What I heard tonight, Lord, can seldom be said straight. My life needs to just win – by the way I dress, by the way I live, by the way I preach.
My God, I want Thee to so work that written across my life, without a word I say, the world will see: Finished with the world!
When I won’t turn in the way, don’t let anything be in me, not one little law-ishness that’s ugly, let Christ-likeness be seen in me. And Lord, Thou art holy. “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” God let me be as holy as Thou art holy, in obedience to Thy commandment. I could never be as beautiful, ultimately, as Christ. I long to be as holy as it’s possible to be to make a man. And I ask Thee to do it by the blood of Christ tonight.
I ask Thee to come, Lord, and take my heart, and take my being. God, being filled with the Spirit, their hearts being cleansed by faith – by faith in the blood, cleanse my heart and fill me now. Take control of every faculty of my being, for I lay my life as a living sacrifice, and I do not want to be conformed to the world anymore.
I want to be transformed this moment by the renewing of my mind, and I renew it, I allow Thee by the Holy Ghost through this message tonight, through these illustrations, through these people I’ve heard of one after the other, right down to that man that wouldn’t do sport on Sunday, though his king looked at him in disdain. I’m sure his king never respected a man in the world more than that. I’m sure of that, Lord. Even at that moment he might have looked in disdain.
God, help us – help us! Help us! Help us to be so crucified to the world and the world unto us. But to be the instrument that can win the world every step we take. That what they see in us, they’ll long for. Bring the world back to God through us, Lord! Through us being Christ-like, and holy, without any compromise. Because when we compromise, we lose the right to win the world.
Take us now, hold us close to the heart of God. Every step we take, till the day we die, don’t ever let us compromise with the world again. In Jesus Christ’s name, Amen.
Listen. Listen carefully before I leave this pulpit. You dare not be offended with this man. If you knew my heart. I don’t know how desperate you are for revival, but I am desperate. I am desperate.
Do you know why? – and that’s why I dare to preach these things – because if revival doesn’t come, within a short, short while you will weep for your country America. Don’t forget these words now. Get desperate.
Within a very short time, there’s not one man in this building that will not weep for America when you see what comes. God, make us desperate for revival! Because when we get desperate, God will rend the heavens, and heal the land. God will give you another Finney, another Moody; there’s still another Whitfield, another Jonathan Edwards. Your land will turn back to God when you get desperate. Get desperate, like I am. And you won’t judge me for what I preach. You’ll say this with your life. You’ll say this message with your life. God bless you as we seek revival – nothing else.
Because nothing else will save America!
Keith Daniel preached Finished With the World during the 1997 Prayer Advance at Christ Life Ministries in Virginia, USA.
This message has been amended from its original form under the instruction of Brother Daniel. You are welcome to copy this material, with the understanding that it is Keith Daniel’s wish that it not be revised, altered or abridged from this form. Please include this paragraph in any form of reproduction. Thank you!
For more information about Brother Keith and his ministry, please visit