This has impressed itself and lived in my heart this morning. I feel it to be a very important and vital matter: called according to purpose.
We have seen just a little, I think, in the earlier hours of this conference, that God was sovereignly moving according to purpose. Then He came and uttered the call, “Gideon.”
God is still moving according to purpose—no more in the days of Abraham, or Moses, or Gideon, or David, or Elijah, or any other, than somehow until the purpose is reached. We need only realize that He is still moving according to purpose, and is still choosing according to purpose.
The purpose is comprehensive and quite clearly defined. From one end of his letters to the other, the Apostle Paul has given us comprehensively and definitely the purpose. We are not going to dwell upon the purpose this morning, but rather upon the calling according thereto.
The purpose is the object of God’s activities. The ultimate of the initial apprehending of life and calling into fellowship with His Son—what we variously call conversion, or being saved, or being born again—is the initial movement of God bringing us into relationship with Himself in Jesus Christ.
That purpose is more than that. It is the outcome of all the progressive training and discipline of those who have been brought into that relationship with Himself. These are not things or ends in themselves. Oh, this beginning and continuation of the Lord in our lives is moving on according to purpose.
May it be, dear friends, that you and I, and all the Lord’s people concerned, become gripped and mastered by that fact.
It is as though the Lord would come to us and say, “Stand at My side and look on. Look right on to the end, to the ultimate. Look with Me right over all time and all vicissitudes to the goal, and see a people who are showing forth, manifesting, My glory.”
“Called unto His eternal glory” runs alongside “called according to purpose.” Called unto His eternal glory—that is the ultimate; that is the purpose: the showing forth of My glory in My people.
There will, perhaps, be different degrees, of course:
One glory as of the sun,
Another glory as of the moon,
Another glory as of the stars.
The differences will be in glory, and those differences will depend entirely upon the people concerned: how much glory there will be in them and manifested through them will depend entirely upon how much their hearts are set upon His glory.
How far their hearts are undivided hearts—pure hearts—in that sense: no alloy, no mixture, no two things which cannot be reconciled. That is purity of heart.
Then He would say to us, “You see, that is the end. Is that the vision you see? Suppose you go according to that.”
Then He would say, “Now, for a moment, look around. Look around. Look upon the world which has not yet been brought into that initial relationship with the purpose. Then look upon all those who are the Lord’s. What do you see? How much glory do you see?”
How much is there that is contrary to the glory of God?
Then He would say, “Though I have called you according to the ultimate purpose, I now call you to some situation which exists and which is not in line with that ultimate purpose, in order that you may be used to bring it into line.”
That is purpose within the purpose. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham. The initial steps to get a people were taken with Abraham.
But look at the scene in Gideon’s day. It was not at all in line with the great purpose revealed to and intended for Abraham.
Look at this thing, please. He called Abraham with a whole purpose in view. Now He must call Gideon because something has interrupted the realization of the full purpose—something that has arisen, some contingency, some digression, some declension on the path of the called.
And so the Bible is full of these, shall we call them, intermediate callings—these occasional callings, these specific callings within the calling. This purpose has become a necessity in the light of the final thought.
The Bible is full of these particular callings: Moses is one; Joshua, another. We could go on with all these callings within the calling.
I think that we see the situation. Not one of you here this morning would say that the Lord’s people, as a whole, are right in the main line and direction of the eternal calling unto glory.
You would rather say, “Oh, no. Oh, no.” There is a very, very great deal that is not only short of the glory of God, but contrary to the glory of God.
We were trying to face that yesterday. When the people are as they were in Gideon’s day—weak and defeated, cowering before their enemies, starved and poor, without food and help—then there is no cohesion and authority by which the people of God are moving like an army with God.
That is something contrary to, and other than, the purpose of God. God moves sovereignly in the call to deal with that.
We have not time to trace this type of specific calling, made necessary because of a general declension. But I think probably you agree to that, mostly, at any rate.
But I want to follow that with this: divine help, divine support, and divine resources are always bound up with divine purpose.
If you are not in the specific thing that God wants done at any given time, you cannot count upon God’s support. You cannot just generalize about this thing, summarize it, and heap it all together as “the work of God,” without discrimination.
At different times and in different realms, God has to act specifically and distinctively. Within the whole compass of His inclusive purpose, there are special purposes because of situations which have arisen.
In relation to those specific purposes, we are in the present-time purposes of God; and God supports, God commits Himself.
Let us be very, very honest about this thing. There is a great deal of activity which is ostensibly for the Lord, but it does not have the Lord’s support.
The result is that everything has to be done to get support for that which is called the work of God. That composes the whole range of what is called organized Christianity: one great system launching schemes and enterprises, doing everything that power and wit can do to get support for it.
If God wants a thing done, and has sovereignly decided that that thing shall be done according to purpose, and He can get hold of people and bring them right into line with that thing, God will commit Himself to it and support it. He will lay the whole resource of Heaven upon the people and take it on His own shoulders.
Yes, the presence of God—that is the proof of God’s call. He never sends out one of His servants at their own charges. He never gives out the commission and then leaves us to find the supplies required for its carrying out. He stands in for all the liabilities.
If these resources are withheld, something is wrong. The motives may not be wrong. The intention may not be wrong. The sincerity may be beyond question. But an idea and an enthusiasm have never, never been substitutes for divine purpose.
David found that out in the bringing of the ark on the Philistine cart. He made a very, very serious discovery, and the responsibility rested upon him for what happened.
The purpose of God must govern. Firstly, the whole—the ultimate—must always be in view, and everything must be brought into line with that. It just must be brought into line with that.
Everything has got to be considered and contemplated from this standpoint: How is that going to reach God’s end in the manifestation of His glory?
Then: What would God do now? What is God wanting to do now? What is God doing now in relation to that? What is the present movement, or what are the present movements, of God to which God has committed Himself?
Do you not agree with me, dear friends? I believe that the deepest cry in our hearts is this: “Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, bring me into the thing that You are doing. Deliver me from the things that I am doing for You, or am going to do for You, and that I think You want done.”
“Bring me not into things that are merely an abstract vision, but into what You are doing—what You are doing.” That is the big word: occupied now.
That is the deepest cry of our hearts, and that is a cry which enters into His heart: that we should be found not doing a lot of Christian work, or hunting round for a job in the work of God.
Oh, pathetic situation! There are a lot doing that—trying to find a job, a place in the work of God, going around all the time trying just to be taken on.
What is that? Is that calling?
Dear friends, I cannot tell you how badly I feel about that. My understanding with the Lord is this: “Lord, Lord, if You have not got a clear and definite place for me in something that You are doing, I am going to give it all up. I am going out.”
It is a very utter thing. No one ought to be looking for a place in the realm of God’s purpose. No, not at all.
There is a tremendous strength, as well as a tremendous value, in the consciousness of being bound up with a specific calling in relation to the full and ultimate calling.
I say there is tremendous strength bound up with it. It is a perfectly wonderful thing to know, to realize, that you are not just called to be a Christian in order to be saved from sin and its consequences, now and hereafter, and to get to Heaven.
There is a great, definite, divine purpose in your being saved. That purpose relates to now, in this life: that this life is to be characterized by something right, precise, and gathered into the ultimate purpose of God. There is tremendous strength in that and tremendous value in that.
But there is this further factor. Let no one think that this means that they are individual Gideons, or any other company of the specially chosen. We are not going to label ourselves “Gideons” or something else.
You must realize that God’s whole purpose embraces the Church. It is a Church purpose; it is not merely individual.
In line with that full thought of God concerning the Church as the called, you and I are part of a whole—of something comprehensive and inclusive. We are not merely individuals.
What I want to impress upon you, and what I want you to see, is this: it may be that you are called to be part of an instrument which is collective and corporate, which God is seeking to have for Himself for a need; and your definiteness of calling is a related one. It is not merely an individual and separate one.
I know how that appeals to our wrongly directed hearts. I know how, when a young man, I read about D. L. Moody and those well-known words concerning him.
Moody said that he had heard someone say that it does not yet appear what God would do with and through a man whose heart was wholly yielded to Himself. And D. L. Moody said, “I am going to be that man. I am going to be that man.”
Well, that was all right for Moody, and I suppose it was all true. But you know, there is an appeal in that to the self-life: “I am going to be a D. L. Moody,” or something like that. “I am going to be something.” There is an appeal in that.
No. The discipline of all who come along the line is that they have to be a part of something that God is doing—just a part; a part, but a part.
And it is in that whole, in that related way, that I have to have just as great a sense of being called as I would have if I were singled out as an individual. Have you got this?
You would have a tremendous sense of vocation if the angel of the Lord came to you as he came to Gideon, singled you out, mentioned you by name, and said great things to you personally. You would say, “That is calling indeed. I am called according to purpose.”
But we have got to have that in a related and corporate way, dear friends, just as truly and willingly: “God has made me a member of the Body, which is the vessel of His eternal purpose.”
As a member—not a member separate from the rest, but as a member—my eternal vocation has got to be very, very real. The ends of God may be reached through companies and through groups just as much as through individuals.
Having got that, let us go on. We must be very careful that we bring every phase, every aspect of the Lord’s movement toward His ultimate full purpose, into line with the great end.
The point and importance of that is that God has again and again raised up instruments, individual and collective, in relation to His ultimate purpose, and done something in their day which was quite definite, distinctive, and positive.
But the thing has become bound up with them, and they have become the beginning and the end of it. Then they have gone.
There has been a carrying on of the work that they started, but that distinctive and specific thing has not gone on. Something is now being carried on, but it is only being carried on.
All succession, all continuation, has got to be as definitely by divine purpose as the initiation. Therefore succession is not official; it is by anointing. It is by anointing.
You see, the Church does not belong to any one time or any one age. It is an eternal thing. It is the eternally elected vessel of the full purpose of God.
But the Church is the anointed vessel. You cannot carry on the Church with an organization. You cannot carry on the Church by any human means at all. The Church is constituted at the beginning by the anointing, and it is to go right on to the end by the anointing.
This continuation of divine purpose requires fresh and ever-fresh anointings where specific vessels and instrumentalities are concerned.
You cannot get a conception of the divine purpose and then say, “Now we have a committee, and we will have a board, and we will have an organization, and we will have this and that in order to do this thing that God once did.” It just cannot be done.
You can have them, if you like, but you have got to take responsibility for everything. Every vessel has got to be God-chosen and God-anointed in relation to something that is eternal.
In our case, in our relationship to what God may be doing at any given time in our own time, we have got to come really under the anointing of the Holy Spirit for that.
Just as much as those who went before were chosen instruments, anointed in their calling to bring that instrumentality into being, we have got to be anointed if that thing is to go on.
Heaven has got to come in and carry it to the next stage. Nothing, dear friends, is an end in itself.
Everything is related to so much more of God’s intention—God’s purpose. Your salvation is no end in itself.
Any dealings of God with you are not an end in themselves. Anything that God has raised up and brought into being is not to become a crystallized, rounded-up piece of work with a hedge around it—something inclusive and exclusive.
Oh, everything has got to be kept open to the ultimate fullness of God’s purpose. We must be open to the Lord for something more, and something fresh, all the time.
That went so far, but God intended more. Have you not seen how many a thing started by God, definitely under His anointing—many an instrumentality serving Him wonderfully—has just gone so far and stopped?
Stopped. From that time it has gone no further. It has come under arrest, and it really belongs to the past, although it has been kept going. It is living on a tradition. It is living on a past. It is living upon a name and a reputation of the last generation, or generations ago.
There is nothing right up to date in fullness, because it was not realized that that was only in line with something more. It was never intended to be something by itself—the answer to the whole purpose. The comprehensive purpose was meant to swallow it up.
Some of you will perhaps see the point of this more than others. This is tremendously important: that we recognize that any vision that we have, any present aspect of things, any God-given vision for a specific time, is only related to the ultimate and must give place to the ultimate.
The fuller purpose must come in and swallow it up. Let us ask the Lord to save us from settling down into something less than He intends.
There must always be with us this sense, this deep consciousness: called according to purpose—not yet fully realized. There is a wonderful future with which we are related.
This is not the end of everything. We must have that sense. Have you got it? Have you got what we have here before Paul—something pulling you on, pulling you on, not allowing you to accept anything less than all God means?
That is vision in reality. Does your vision merely reside within the narrow limits of a piece of work that you are doing for God, or trying to do for God? Is that your vision? It is not adequate. It is not anything like being called according to purpose.
I have read in conjunction with these chapters about Gideon the latter chapters of the prophecies of Zechariah. You may wonder how they can be brought together, but they are counterparts.
Those latter chapters of the prophecies of Zechariah still have in view God’s full purpose and its realization where Israel is concerned.
You read in these prophecies the uttermost things said: that all over the world they will come and worship at Jerusalem; and if anyone will not come and worship the Lord at Jerusalem, there will be a curse upon him, upon his cattle, and upon all that he has.
It is a terrible curse, described in language that we today can understand perhaps better than Zechariah could understand when he penned it:
Their eyes shall consume away in their holes,
And their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
The atomic age. That is, all who will not come to worship the Lord at Jerusalem are going to be involved in that. Tremendous, is it not? A divine purpose.
But here I look at the Book of Judges and say, “My word, my word, something has got to happen to get Jerusalem into that position, to get Israel into that state, that all may come and worship the Lord at Jerusalem from every nation.”
Somebody has got to be apprehended. Yes, that is it. Gideon was apprehended in relation to that. So far as God was concerned, the full purpose was still in view when He took hold of Gideon.
It is like that. We may have conditions such as those in the days of Gideon, but the Lord has still got His full purpose in view. He will lay hold and say, “Have not I sent thee? Go, and thou shalt save Israel.”
May the Lord bring us into this new sense of divine calling and apprehending in relation to His full purpose.
That may be connected with something that is out of line, out of accord with that purpose. The purpose with which we are concerned within the whole purpose may be evangelism—it may be to bring in those who are called unto His eternal glory.
It may be any aspect of ministry, but it must be in full view of the end. It must be a reality. It must be under the anointing—not just some piece of work that we have taken up, or are trying to do, for God.
This is a tremendous call, a tremendous apprehension: “This is the thing to which God has called me—this, this.”
So many who are wondering about missing the way are in a state of ineffectiveness because they are in the wrong position. They are trying to do something that God never called them to do.
They have seen Christian work—such and such a thing—and so they have taken it up and are trying to do it. But there is no sense that God laid hold of them for that.
I wonder if you have grasped the emphasis this morning. All according to purpose—ultimately in its fullness; at present in some way necessary until the ultimate.
Whatever it is, it has got to be this: that you and I know that our lives are apprehended. Until we get there, and have that consciousness, there will be drift, there will be loss, there will be confusion. You have got out of the purpose.
May the Lord bring us, by a mighty new sense, into the thing with which He Himself is concerned at this present time.