In the seventh chapter of the Book of Judges.
Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him, rose up early, and encamped beside the spring of Harod: and the camp of Midian was on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley.
And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.
Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and trembling, let him return and depart from mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand.
And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.
So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.
And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.
And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the people go every man unto his place.
Turn to two other Scriptures. In the First Book of Chronicles, chapter 28 and verse 9:
And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts.
The other passage is in the prophecies of Jeremiah, chapter 17, verses 9 and 10.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?
I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
There are some of you present this evening who have not been with us before in this conference. Personally, some of you do not know the Lord Jesus in a personal way.
Let me say, we are met as a company of the Lord’s people from many parts of the world, that we might receive from Him some light and instruction concerning His will where we are concerned at this present time.
In saying that, you will all understand and appreciate the nature of the ministry. But I believe that the word that is before us this evening may be linked with those who are not the Lord’s, and we certainly shall have that in mind as we go on.
There are two main things that have brought us together just now. One is the desire of the Lord—indeed, the purpose of the Lord—to have His people in such a condition and state that His glory is expressed and realized.
His people should really be in the enjoyment of all that He has provided for. He has provided life, and He has provided life more abundantly. He has provided spiritual riches and wealth, treasures untold and inexhaustible. He has provided a well of supply from which they can draw continually without failing. He has provided strength—His own strength. They should be a strong people.
Indeed, the Lord has made a great and many-sided provision for His people. But history shows that His people have not always been in the enjoyment of His provisions. There are many today who bear His name, carry His name, and are called by His name—Christians, Christ-ones—who are not in that enjoyment, not in that blessed state.
And insofar as that is not the case, the Lord is not glorified in them. Well, that is what the Lord wants. It is not an impossible thing—not just a bit of pious idealism, a high standard, a mountain summit beyond the possibility of attainment.
In this very place tonight, there are those who would testify that they know something of that: that Christ is today a fountain of life, not just a trickling stream. He is a fountain of life. They know something of how wealthy it is possible to be in Christ. They know something of the fullness of His wonderful provision, of spiritual food inexhaustible.
Some of us know something about that, and to us it is the evidence of the possibility of all that is provided for us in the Lord Jesus.
That is the one thing that is in view. I am quite sure that none of us are at the point where we cannot know any more. That would be a contradiction to what I have said. If it is inexhaustible, then we can never come to a place where we have got all that we can have.
Not any of us here would say that we have really attained unto all the Lord’s wishes and desires in these matters. Not at all.
But, indeed, there are those here—perhaps many in this company—who are not in that enjoyment. They are just striving to eke out a spiritual existence, as we say, to make ends meet. They are hunting for something upon which to subsist and keep going. They are living on a very poor fare. They are hungry, wanting more.
It may be that you do not feel that it is altogether helpful to be told about the things that are there for you. What you want to know is how you can get them, and how you can enter into that enjoyment. Well, we are saying some things about that, but that is not our particular point tonight. We may move in that direction later.
But the other thing that is before us—the other main thing—is the Lord’s way of moving. Sometimes, during the history of His people, when they have been in a poor spiritual state, weakness and starvation, failure and defeat, He has moved to bring into relationship with Himself, in a peculiar way, some instrument.
Sometimes it has been an individual; sometimes a company, who have come into such a knowledge of Himself in this fuller way, in the greater fullness of Christ, that they could be instrumental in bringing more of the Lord’s people into that good.
The Lord must have instruments with which to do His work, and vessels through whom to reveal Himself. He has moved like that.
And shall we not say that He is seeking to have such an instrument in our time, seeing that the need is so great and that there is really so little real knowledge and experience of those greater fullnesses that are in Christ?
Will He not bring a people near to Himself, and work in them in a peculiar way, so that He might make people envious—envious, looking on their food and coveting it, looking upon their wealth and longing for it?
Yes, by expression, by example, by manifestation, He would bring His people into a better position and a better condition. For those are the things that are engaging us in these days.
Now, this evening, in that setting, I have a word which will be a very simple word indeed. But simplicity does not mean that it is not very important.
It springs out of the passages of Scripture which I read to you just now, particularly as illustrated in that incident with Gideon, who was such an instrument laid hold of by God for the deliverance of God’s people from their poor condition.
The incident concerns securing a company, a band, by which the Lord could accomplish that deliverance and secure unto His people their rights of inheritance in Himself.
Remember, Gideon blew the trumpet, and there gathered unto him a great host. There were thirty-two thousand men. Of course, even that was a poor thing compared with the Midianites and all the rest; nevertheless, it was thirty-two thousand.
Now, the Lord said, “The people are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.” A terrible, terrible possibility.
Well, the first test was put: the fearful and afraid were to return. We have, I think, to admire these people for one thing, if we cannot admire them for everything. They were at least honest, ready to admit that they were afraid.
But they had good reason to be afraid. These enemies were like locusts for number, spreading themselves right over the whole land. They had good reason to be careful and afraid, and they honestly said, “We are afraid, and we are glad of the opportunity of going home, thank you.”
Away they went. Ten thousand remained.
Still, the Lord had His basic difficulty, and He had to say to Gideon, “Still too many. Bring them down to the water, and I will try them for thee there.”
You know the rest of the story. The ten thousand were brought down to the water, to the river. And then the Lord, as it were, whispered to Gideon. He did not let the people know; that would have given the whole thing away. He kept the whole thing to Himself.
He said to Gideon, “Tell them to have a drink, and you watch. Those that lap the water with their hand to their mouth, as a dog laps, set them aside. Those that get down on their hands and knees, set them apart.”
So Gideon gave the order that the whole army could have a drink. And they did.
All unknown to themselves, they were being tried. “I will try them for thee there.” The word try here is a word which means tested under an ordeal. It is used in another place: “Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried in the fire”—an ordeal to discover something, to bring something to light, to bring something to the surface.
This water theme is said to give some support to the interpretation that has been placed upon this incident. It does not say so here, but the interpretation has been that those who got down on their knees to drink were thinking more of their own personal gratification than of the Lord’s interest in the day.
Those who merely lifted the water in their hand and drank were not thinking so much of that as they were of the real business on hand. I think that is a genuine interpretation. It certainly did indicate a disposition, and it is upon that that everything hangs: a disposition.
They were all thirsty, and there was nothing wrong at all in drinking of the water. There was nothing wrong with the water; nothing wrong with taking a drink at the water. Nothing wrong with that.
The difference was just this: some regarded the water as a necessity, while the others—the majority—made it an indulgence.
Some took it because it was absolutely necessary. But, having attended to the necessity, they were ready for the real business. The others were having a good time and just giving themselves up to it, so to speak. They were more occupied with the thought of getting as much personal gratification out of this as they could.
They were not wholly and completely concerned with the Lord’s interest, the great thing which was at stake at that time: the honour and glory of the name of the Lord in His people.
And that is the simple message.
It is a case of sifting unto vital service, trying with a special vocation in view.
Of course, in an elementary sense, salvation includes all kinds of people. Every type that you can think of comes into the matter of salvation. I am not talking about the whole mass of Christians and the matter of their being saved, and the ground upon which they are saved.
That may simply be, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” But I am speaking about something beyond that: the great vocation unto which we are called as God’s chosen ones, and the specific work that God needs to have done at a given time, and at times such as this.
Dear friends, we shall never be of any use to the Lord beyond the point where we ourselves know Him. Real service—listen—is limited to the point of the experience of the servant. You cannot go beyond that.
You cannot lead anybody beyond the point where you have gone yourself. You cannot give anybody anything beyond what you have got yourself. That is a real truth, a real test. You can give a lot of teaching and just get people nowhere.
And if you and I are going to serve the Lord in His very serious and solemn need of bringing, leading, people of His into the greater fullnesses of Christ, we have got to be a special kind of people.
The thirty-two-thousand type will not do, and the ten-thousand type will not do. It is the three-hundred type. The three-hundred type.
Well, He said, “By the three hundred I will save.” This is sifting down, reduction, in order to get to effectiveness. This is a kind of limitation that means expansion and enlargement. But it has to take place. It has to take place.
And so God applies tests and brings in His trials to get a peculiar vessel for a peculiar purpose. That, I feel, is His message at this time. It is not just a general kind of convention or conference, or general teaching to Christian people. It is something with a specific object.
The tragic situation amongst the Lord’s people today demands something after the order and kind of these three hundred.
Well, what are they like? What are they like?
The Lord has very simple ways and means of trying and proving, and they are often so simple that we do not recognize them as tests and proofs.
This was a very simple thing, was it not, for the whole ten thousand? A very simple thing: bring them down to the water; let them drink.
And the last thing, it seems, that would occur to any of them was that, as they came down to the water and took their drink, they were under a supreme test. The eye of God was upon them, and that eye was reporting to Gideon, you see.
They did not realize what was happening. This great sifting and selectiveness for this purpose was going on in some very ordinary and simple manner, outside their consciousness.
You know, you and I would rise to the occasion if an angel of God came to us and said, “Look here, now, you are called to a great piece of work for God, and I want you to give some proof that you are ready for it.” We would be very, very careful, watching everything, lest we should fail or be set aside—right on our toes, as we say, about it.
The Lord does not do it like that, friends. He has never done it with any of you like that. He has never done it with me. But He has applied just as serious a test in very simple ways.
I said, I think it was last night, that a gesture is a very, very indicative and significant thing—just a gesture. Here is the gesture: one man stands by the river and takes the water in his hand, all alert. Another gets down upon his knees and gives himself up to drinking.
But, you see, bound up with that simple test is the heart. Oh, it is not just a sign. It is not merely that the Lord ordained that some should lap and some should go down on their knees in order to separate them. It is a sign of the heart. It is a revelation of a disposition.
This larger crowd are the people who want a good time, even in the Lord’s things—a good time. These others, I tell you, had a good time, but they were putting first things first.
The first thing is this work of God. It comes first, and everything else takes the last place or the second place. This is the thing that is on hand. The revelation of a disposition.
And you know, we show our dispositions in very simple ways, just as simple as that, as we go about our daily life and our daily work. Yes, the Lord’s eye is upon us there—in the office, in the workshop, in the study, wherever we are. The Lord’s eye is upon us, and our hearts are being revealed in just the way in which we go to work in the ordinary things of life.
We separate these things, you see: the sacred and the secular. In the church is one thing; in business is another. But it is not. Our qualification is in our disposition.
Not in our consciousness of being under the eye of God, but when we are not conscious of that at all, the disposition we are showing is the test. That is the test.
Oh, how many and how simple are the ways in which we show our disposition—just our inclination.
Of course, that does apply to every stage of the Christian life. I said that salvation includes people of all kinds. But if you are going to have a really thoroughgoing salvation, and not one of those inadequate things, those experiences which are anything but all that the Lord would have you have, you have got to show that you mean business.
That you really do mean business. That this thing is a very serious thing with you. You will get as much as your heart is set upon, and no more. And the Lord is looking at your heart.
We read those passages: David to his son Solomon, “God searcheth all hearts.” “Serve the Lord with all your heart.” The Lord searches all hearts. Those words of Jeremiah: the Lord trieth the heart. The heart, the heart.
And that is true of your salvation; it is true of your usefulness to the Lord. None of us will ever be used of the Lord in any very vital way unless our hearts are wholly set upon the Lord and His interests—not to have a good time, not to have a good time.
That is, as men speak: not to have every picnic that is going, not to have every diversion from the strain that may be available, not to have every escape from responsibility and application that can be had. Not a disposition like that.
But the disposition that recognizes how great is the matter in which we are involved, and that we are people wholly committed to that. Our own gratification and satisfaction is not allowed to affect or influence us at all. It is a heart wholly for the Lord.
Now, I tell you, the Lord has many ways of finding that out. I could not compass all the ways in which He does it, but what I want to say is this: the Lord will present a test.
It will not always be a question of whether the thing is right or wrong. More often it may be a question as to whether it is the good or the better.
If you are of the disposition of the great majority, you will always be asking questions like this: “Well, may I not? Is there any harm in it? What is wrong with that?”
There was nothing wrong with drinking water. It is not a case of whether it is wrong, or whether you may; it is whether you are obliged. You see, that is a disposition. You only go as far as you must, if you are like that.
What the Lord is looking for is always a minority—those people who never talk like that or think like that: “May I? Is there anything wrong in it?” They are always saying, “Can I do more than I am doing? Can I go further than I am going?”
“Is there not some fuller thing that the Lord would have than I know, than I am in, than I am doing?” A Christian like that always has in his heart: “Has the Lord not got something more than what I have known, what I am doing? Has the Lord not got something more?”
“My heart is set upon all that the Lord wants. I will never be satisfied with anything less, however good it is.” There may be many, many good things, but is there not something more than this?
Such are the people for whom the Lord is looking. And He who knoweth all hearts knows our disposition: whether we will accept something less, or never accept anything less than all that God would have, if He could have it.
The Lord allows opportunities to come for personal gratification. He presents something that demands hard work, and then He watches the disposition: whether we jump at that which offers personal gratification, or grasp an opportunity to skirt the hard work. The disposition—what governs us?
He sometimes presents something in His Word, brings you up against something in His Word. Now then, I will test this disposition. “Must I? Really, must I? Is that a command? And if I do not do it, shall I be breaking a command? Is it really necessary?”
And then we begin to go round to people whom we think are authorities, who know better than we do, who know the Lord better than we do, and say, “Do you think it is necessary for me to do so-and-so?” How often even godly people have said, “Oh no, I do not think it is necessary for you to do that.”
So often, when God has presented us with something, we go round, going round.
I remember many years ago—I give you an illustration of what I mean—I was visiting a certain home. I did not expect to go there that particular evening. I did not know why, but I knew that I had to go. I said to my wife, “I feel strongly urged to go there tonight.”
I went with this question. When I got there, we were quietly talking together. There was nothing special. Then there was a knock at the door, and a man was brought in and introduced to me.
He was a man who had had a very remarkable conversion in the army, in the old days when it was the barrack room. He had knelt down at his bedside with all the vile, blaspheming, drunken soldiers around him and prayed the prayer. He meant business with God.
He came into this home on this particular occasion, and I got into conversation with him. It was the first time I had met him. I found him very earnest. As we talked, I was all the time asking, “What is it all about? What am I here for?”
Presently he said to me, “Mr. Sparks, what do you think about so-and-so?” It was a water test.
Immediately he asked the question, I knew inside: that is the meaning of your being here and his being here. I said, “Why do you ask me? Does it matter what I think about it? Has the Lord said that to you?”
He said, “Yes, I think He has. I think He has. I feel pretty sure He has, but I wanted some confirmation, and so I am asking you.”
And I said, “Brother, if the Lord has said that to you, you just obey the Lord. Everything hangs upon your answering the Lord.” It is a real case. We talked; he went away; I went home.
Some time later, I was at home and along came the same man, without any arrangement. I noticed that he was a little bit shy of me this time, a little bit awkward.
We got talking, and he said, “I remember our talk here last time. After I left, I went to such-and-such a minister, of such-and-such a denomination, whom I knew did not believe in this particular thing, and I asked him what he thought about it.”
“He said, ‘Of course, no, that is not necessary.’”
I said, “No, Mr. So-and-so, if the Lord has spoken, do not be kept back.” Although I was not trying to press for this thing, I was taking the line of obedience to the Lord in whatever He says.
And the man came right back. He said, “Yes, I see, I see. I cannot get away from it. The Lord has brought me up against this.” “All right, brother, you know your way.” He went away.
It was some months before we met again. We did meet again, and this time there was a real arrest and deadness. We could not get any further at all. He would not come on to that again.
You see, he was afraid even to mention it, and we did not get any fellowship at all. But before he went, I said, “Well, brother, are you going on with the Lord? Are you going to obey the Lord?”
“I do not know. Everybody I speak to says it is not necessary.”
“All right, that is it. The Lord has spoken very seriously to you.”
One year later, in another part of London, right on the other side of London, I was walking along the road and saw a man coming toward me on a bicycle. As he got near, he recognized me. He wheeled round and fled for dear life in the opposite direction.
What did that mean? What did I hear of him? He had gone right away from the Lord, back into the world, right back into his old sin—a drunkard and a blasphemer—right back to what he was before he came to the Lord.
Now, that is a true story. The Lord presented a simple test, and he said, “Is it necessary?” Rather, oh, anything—anything that the Lord wants! Thank God for that.
He did what the Apostle Paul said he did not do: he conferred with flesh and blood, instead of being obedient to the heavenly vision. And how much hangs upon it—how much hangs upon it.
The Lord may present something: laying aside this thing or that thing. It may be a water test. He may bring a water test. Is it pride? Is it independence? Is it saying within yourselves, “We have Abraham to our father”?
Here is the question: are you going to do business with God? And I am sorry that I cannot tell you all the ways—there are such a variety of ways—but the point is here: God is always looking on the heart to see whether we really do mean this.
He knows the disposition, and He is seeking for a company of people who are not going to be influenced by anything—anything at all—associations, connections, or anything else which would in any way stand between them and all that the Lord wants.
Oh, it is a test that is very thoroughgoing. How often people have come face to face with an issue—an issue which the Lord might not have pressed right through.
You see, He does not always do that, but He is testing whether there is a back door out. Sometimes He brings us face to face with something, but He is not going to press that line through.
He did it with Abraham and Isaac: “Take now thy son.” Right up to the last minute, the last split second of the raised knife—and that was all. God did not allow him to go through with it, but He found his disposition.
The young man who had great riches came to the Lord Jesus, professing that he wanted to know about eternal life. Jesus said, “Go, sell all that thou hast, and follow Me.”
I am not sure that the Lord would have required the carrying out of that, but I believe He was testing the disposition.
We do not know how much time or space there is between the two things—the actual demand and its fulfilment—but it is just in that narrow space that we come to the point, that second, so to speak, where, if the Lord does not stay us, it is going through.
The Lord wants to know whether we mean business with Him or not.
Now, you see, it is a simple, very direct thing. But look how much hung upon those three hundred. What a tremendous thing God did. How He committed Himself to them.
What a wonderful thing: three hundred men against a multitude like locusts spread all over the land, and the whole lot of them thrown into confusion and defeated. The people overcame them—three hundred men. But what three hundred? What kind of men they were!
And it seems to me that the proof that they were of this kind was that they were prepared, as three hundred, to go on with the business. I mean, think what it required for three hundred men to look at that great multitude and say, “You are not going home. We are going on with this business we started, and we are going through with it.”
That was the kind they were. It proved that they were of that disposition, did it not? There they were, just three hundred up against tens of thousands. They did not shrink. They said, “We are going onward.”
Oh, for men and women like that. Only people of that kind, and of that disposition and that heart, can serve Him in this great business of recovering His glory in the earth.