God has done in the last five or six, seven, eight, ten years—whatever it is—I’m not sure.
A little bit of review. Some of you were not here last night, but your wife did a good job, I understand. I hope you can do the same job for your wife when you get home tonight.
We were talking about the glory of the impossible. I’m constantly amazed at how it seems the Lord delights to work in impossible situations. I don’t think He sets them up, but He finds them all around, and He knows how to use them.
We were making some distinctions. I have a growing conviction that one of the greatest needs in this hour is discernment. I wish you could get it by the laying on of hands. I mean, I wish it could come in a moment.
I believe in discerning of spirits; surely there is a gift. But the discernment needed today, in this hour, I believe will come out of a relationship—a union with the Lord—in which God has taken men through things. They have come to experience the difference in things.
We were saying last night that I sort of feel like, oftentimes, if I can make a distinction between some things, the Lord sharpens it. For example, we were talking about whether we are really pilgrims, or whether we have come to grips with the goal that God has, or whether we are just interested in getting to heaven—a destination.
We were dealing with Moses in the school. Tonight, I would like to go on to the one whom God used to carry on the work of Moses. His name is Joshua.
I would like to talk about the possibility of the glorious. That is the other side of the coin: the glory of the impossible, but the possibility of the glorious.
Can I just say to us: I believe that God has called a people to really be so alive to Him that, in a very positive way, they can stand with God for the fullness of His nature today.
In an hour when everything looks so difficult, when people are panicking and there is a sense around us of the emerging time, we should not cave in to that spirit. We belong to the Lord, and His Lordship is going through.
I got hold of some cassettes. I’ll just talk for a little while, if you don’t mind. I have always enjoyed the book of Revelation, but I have never preached from it very much because all I saw was antichrist, beasts, plagues, and all these things.
Suddenly, I heard a man on a cassette who had sat with the Lord and saw what God was doing in the book of Revelation. Suddenly, it became alive to me. I thought, “Lord, You are really in control.”
I had only seen the underside of the rug. When I began to get a glimpse of what God was doing in the book of Revelation, I thought I would share it here, but we will not get to that. My heart was thrilled—really thrilled.
“Lord, You are in control. You know what is taking place.” Well, there is something today that I sense in the hearts of those who are really going on in the line of purpose with God. They are not disturbed by what is taking place. God is in control. He is working everything out, and it is on schedule.
Is that wonderful? I do not know what the schedule is, but I know He is on schedule.
I want us to turn to the book of Joshua tonight. I am just going to put quite a few things together, since we only have three times with you. This is what my wife calls a hash message, but she is not here, so we will not tell her.
Joshua, chapter 1.
We bow before Thee tonight, Lord. We do not need more words or more knowledge. Thou hast been so good to us.
What we really need tonight is a ministry of Thy life, Thy own encouragement to our hearts. Thou wilt enlarge our vision. Thou wilt help us to see that we have been called to be cooperators, participators with Thee, in much, much more than we realize.
Oh God, tonight, I pray for my brothers and sisters. Thou wilt give the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Thou wilt give us a heart to be so identified with Thee, so one with Thee, so alive to what Thou art really doing in this hour, that we can stand in the midst of the battle. We can stand with Thee for fullness.
How many times, these weeks and months, Thou hast pressed me in a new way to claim that we will not settle for that which is good or better, but to stand with Thee for divine fullness in this hour.
Help us to see what Thou seest, and we will be sure to give Thee the praise. We claim that Thou wilt help us to live in Thy expectation of what is going through—the divine possibilities of the glorious that Thou art working out in this universe.
Oh God, we bow before Thee, and we announce anew tonight that what we behold of Thy purposes causes us to stand breathless as we say, “God, Thou art wonderful, and Thy ways are wonderful.”
We thank Thee for this. I thank Thee for every heart Thou hast gathered tonight. May Thou have a word of encouragement. We will be sure to give Thee the praise, the honor, and the glory. We ask it in Thy lovely name. And everyone said, “Amen.”
Joshua 1:1.
Now it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord,
that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,
Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan,
thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them,
even to the children of Israel.Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon,
that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river,
the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites,
and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun,
shall be your coast.There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life:
as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee;
I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.Be strong and of a good courage:
for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land,
which I sware unto their fathers to give them.Only be thou strong and very courageous,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law,
which Moses My servant commanded thee:
turn not from it to the right hand or to the left,
that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth;
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein:
for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous,
and then thou shalt have good success.Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage;
be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed:
for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,
Pass through the midst of the camp, and command the people, saying,
Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye are to pass over this Jordan,
to go in to possess the land,
which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.
And to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites,
and to the half tribe of Manasseh, spake Joshua, saying,
Remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying,
The Lord your God giveth you rest, and will give you this land.Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle
shall remain in the land which Moses gave you beyond the Jordan;
but ye shall pass over before your brethren armed,
all the mighty men of valor, and shall help them;until the Lord have given your brethren rest, as He hath given you,
and they also have possessed the land
which the Lord your God giveth them:
then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, and shall possess it,
which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan
toward the sunrising.
And they answered Joshua, saying,
All that thou hast commanded us we will do,
and whithersoever thou sendest us we will go.According as we hearkened unto Moses in all things,
so will we hearken unto thee:
only the Lord thy God be with thee, as He was with Moses.Whosoever he be that shall rebel against thy commandment,
and shall not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him,
he shall be put to death:
only be strong and of a good courage.
I think what I want to share with us tonight, in enlarging and bringing us into a little fuller understanding of what God has called us to, is this sense: it is one thing—very wonderful—to know that which God does by grace.
It is something else to know that which God wants us to qualify for, to qualify in. If there is any real need that I see in lots of groups today, it is first of all for people to be clear about grace.
There is an awful lot of fuzziness when it comes to the clear issue of what grace is, what grace really involves. I find that until this is clear in the minds of people, you can hardly take them very far. They do not know the way of grace and what God is giving by grace.
Let me just say, in making this first distinction tonight, it is helpful to understand what we mean by that which God gives by grace, but that which He leaves for us to qualify for, and that which requires our real cooperation and participation.
The tragedy is that once people really get hold of a sense of the grace of God, they park there, and they get all of grace. You can hardly say, “Don’t,” because there is such a definite need for His people to know what God gives by grace.
But I find that that group of people need to really understand that there are some things God is expecting His people to qualify for.
Paul says, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling—the outcalling—of God, which is in Christ Jesus.” So you get a war. You have people who say, “All of grace,” and really I am a part of that camp, except that God says there is room to qualify.
Then I move over to the people who only talk about qualifying, and they are hanging on for dear life lest they lose out, or they do not know what grace is. I say, “Lord, if You ever get the two groups married, if You ever help them to see that which You have given, but that which You want us to really possess.”
I do not know if I am making touch with anybody. Do you know what I am saying? Well, here in Joshua 1 we have some statements that I think bear this out.
He says, for example, in Joshua 1:2, “Unto the land which I do give.” He gave them the whole land of Canaan, and then it was given to them. He goes on to say, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.”
He goes on to talk about some things they need to really possess. How can you explain to people that they need to possess what they have? Some people think they have it in the bank account; it is not doing them a bit of good.
There comes a time in which there is a qualifying, and God is making real to us that there is the possessing, the reaching out. Here is the land of Canaan, and God has now taken Moses off the scene.
I have to pause for a moment and say that if there has been any one thing that has been encouraging and real to my own heart through these last fifteen years or so, it is what I call the continuity of God’s working.
I call it the “as I was” principle: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”
How many of you know we really stand on the shoulders of the previous generation? If you do not have any shoulders to stand on, you are in bad shape. It is wonderful if you had a father, a spiritual father, or a group of people that you can, so to speak, have the privilege of standing on in the past.
Some things you have to go through individually and make real for yourself, but there are many things in which you can stand on the shoulders of others, and God seems to take you on from there.
Now, I see this in Moses and Joshua. Moses has been God’s vessel. Joshua has been in training. Moses moves off the scene, and there is something of divine continuity.
I am always concerned when somebody comes along with something totally new that God showed them, and they are an isolated little something out here with a special revelation. If I know God is working, there is continuity. There are roots and history in the background. Do you follow that?
Thank God for the flow of the divine purpose. Look for the line of purpose in God’s working. I do not know how else to call it—the thread, that line of divine purpose.
Lots of things are being done that are good today. Lots of work for God. Hallelujah. I believe Barnabas did something for God, but somehow, when he separated from Paul, he was not in the line of purpose. Are you following me? Do you know what I am trying to say?
You cannot help but move around in various areas, and after a while you become conscious of the fact that lots of good is being done, lots of building for God. Paul says, “I thank God Jesus Christ is being preached.”
But something in my own heart keeps crying, “Oh God, if I have seen anything, do not let me veer from or come short of the unique line of purpose that You are working out.” I see this in what was passed on from Moses to Joshua.
I suppose God has been quickening this anew to me. I have been emphasizing grace so much to people, because so few people are clear in grace. But I tell you, there is a lot to qualify for.
God wants a people who are pressing on unto the very fullness of what He really is working out. I am just underlining to you something I am sure has already been very real to your own hearts.
He says in these chapters, “There are some things that I have given you, but I want you to move in to begin to possess.”
I was thinking this afternoon as I was praying: I would hate to tell you how many times I have taken my shoes off and literally tread around places—lots of times in ignorance—but just claiming, “Every place that the sole of my foot shall tread, Lord, I am taking this for You.”
I did not understand it. I had just read a verse, and it sounded good.
I remember many, many years ago in Seattle. A very godly man I was working with in King’s Teens had a real good ministry. He had been moving in the circle with me for a place, and I came back from Missouri to Seattle, where he was.
He met me at the door and said, “Get in the car, and I will tell you on the way.” We drove out to the edge of the city to a great big old abandoned place called Firlands, which later became King’s Garden. Many books have been written about it.
Mike said, “God is going to give me this.” I stood aghast. He said, “Three hundred and sixty acres of choice land, forty buildings. The tuberculosis sanitarium moved to a new place, and God is going to give it to me.”
Mike and I took our shoes off. We did not walk all three hundred and sixty acres, but we went over a lot of it, claiming it for God—he in belief and me in bewilderment.
I do not explain it. The more he talked, I was just utterly amazed at how God had spoken to his heart.
Two years later, after much litigation, he got it for a dollar. Someone said it was worth over ten million dollars at that time.
Everybody wanted it when it came up before the King County Court. It did not look like he would get it, but God—God. Well, it became quite a place. Mike has been with the Lord a number of years now.
But the principle is true, folks. How many of you know that God really wants us to expect and take more for Him? Really?
These are things that very few people have heard me say, because back in Indiana they say, “C. C. Fronti, conservative, consistent.” I am always saying, “Now let us get the principle and be careful.”
But God has been opening a new chapter to my own heart these last couple of years, saying, “Believe. Take. Expect. Claim. Take your shoes off. Walk around. There is more I want to give God’s people.”
I just want to encourage you tonight, as you are closing out chapter three or four and moving to the next place: I believe God is working. Do not think too small.
“As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.” Not presumptuous, but having our roots in the Lord.
Do you sense what I mean, then, by the difference between saying, “I have everything in Christ; God has given to me,” and recognizing that the increase of it has not been really wrought out and worked out in my life?
I have shared this before. There are those things that God gives us, but there are other things that He has to develop within us. For example, He gives us divine life when we are born again, but He has to develop character in us.
That is what we were talking about last night. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God could just give you an endowment of character—integrity, truthfulness, all these qualities—by the laying on of hands? “I impart to you.”
I tell you, there would be a long line, and I would be first in line, if it could come that way. As my own son has been growing up, I have thought, “Lord, it is wonderful to see You work, taking people through and developing them.” Some things have to be developed. There is a qualifying involved.
Other things God can give you. He can give you, for example, relationship. There is a relationship of father and son, but fellowship is a developed thing.
I remember when Devon was just a baby, and I had to fellowship with him on the basis of blocks. Our relationship was father and son, and I played blocks for a couple of years.
I was glad when he grew up to enjoy Tinkertoys. I mean, you can really build something with Tinkertoys, and that was a real improvement.
One day the Lord spoke and said, “Now you know the problem I have. Father and son, but he comes all the way down to My level of fellowship.” You understand this?
I have been saying for years, “Oh Lord, I can hardly wait for Devon to get interested in Ephesians.” I got news for you: he is on the way. He has moved home, and it is just amazing as we sit every morning and his heart drinks. He says, “Dad, I did not understand. Tell me more.” It is really something.
Fellowship increases. Fellowship grows. First you have a relationship, and that is given; it is established. There is a father-son relationship, or there is a bride-and-bridegroom relationship.
John writes about this in his first epistle when he says, “I write unto you, little children.” What do little children fellowship about? Two things: you know your Father, and you know your sins are forgiven.
How many of you can remember your first lisping, “Father, I have a Father”? You talked about, “I feel clean. I am forgiven.” That is fellowship at that first level.
Then he says, “I write unto you, young men,” and He fellowships with young men on another basis. What do young men talk about? He says, “You know the word of God, and you know how to overcome the wicked one.” Are you fellowshipping with Him on that basis?
You see the increase of fellowship: little children, young men. Then he says, “I write unto you, fathers.” I want to ask you, what would two fathers fellowship about? What would fathers talk about?
What does John say? “I write unto you, fathers, for ye have known Him who is from the beginning.” That was not meaningful until I realized that fathers talk about purposes for the family, going way back to the beginning of things.
He was from the beginning. Of course, Father God came to deal with Abraham in talking about divine purposes. So our fellowship increases as we go on. It is something of the Lord’s working.
There are twenty of these distinctions; we will not go into those tonight. Just let me say that there are some things God gives by grace.
How many of you know that He gives you rest in your spirit first? He says:
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
It is in my spirit. I puzzled for years because the very next verse says:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
I always puzzled, “Lord, You gave me rest in verse 28. What is there to find?” Except that this is a different rest. That rest is developed. You learn, you see.
“You shall find rest unto your souls.” It is something we learn to qualify for, and it is developed as we go on with the Lord.
This being true, God is awakening, I believe, many people to see today that while we have sort of settled down and rested in all that has been given to us, God says, “There is more to possess. I want to develop more quality, more in your life.”
You say, “Lord, I am ready. Give it to me.” It does not come that way. It is wrought out in the school.
He says in that little verse, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” You know where His classroom meets? In the wilderness. One subject: learn of Me. Knowing more of Him.
I want to get on to what is involved here. This is kind of delicate, what I want to share with you now, and I pray that the Lord will help us to receive it.
I pray that we will recognize here that there is something God begins to develop in us, to really work in us and bring us into a life that claims and takes more.
You will notice, for example, in Romans 12. I think maybe we will read that. I would like you to notice it for yourself.
Romans 12, beginning with verse 3:
For I say, through the grace given unto me,
to every man that is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;
but to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Are you the Lord’s tonight? Then God has given to you a measure of faith. A measure of faith. You are a believer; the seed has been planted. The measure of faith is there.
The tragedy with so many of God’s children today is that they do not go on to what I call two, three, and four. They do not go on to the proportion of faith, the substance of faith, and the reward of faith.
He says a little further in Romans 12:6:
Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us,
whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith.
Maybe the Lord will help us say this tonight. It was such a real help to me in understanding that we have a deposit, a measure of faith. We are believers. The measure of faith is there.
What is God doing? I believe that He is trying to work within me a union with Himself and roots in the Lord, so there is an increasing proportion of faith.
Out of this union, this relationship with Him, I might be able to speak a word of faith.
Has anything touched the Richmond area that goes something like this: “If you just confess it, you can have it”? Or is that only in our area? Well, I guess they must.
The tragedy tonight is that we tend to overreact to hard-line faith and some of the extreme things in faith. We overreact, and I have found many a group just throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
They do not believe that you can claim very much or expect very much. It is a delicate line: knowing that which is really wrong, but what is right.
Everybody today is telling me what is wrong. I want to say, “Well, where is the discerning line? What is right?”
God wants us to take more. Some of the groups in Ireland and other areas that are abounding seem to be what I call hard-line faith people. They are claiming. God says, “Well, you know they are wrong. Why do you not do what is right?”
Are you following me? One day the Lord began to open this, and it was an encouragement to me. I just share it with you tonight.
I see the measure of faith that Joshua had, and all the history of his life in the background. He had been trained with Moses. I believe God was developing an increasing proportion of faith.
It was not just instant faith growing out of some new revelation, but there is a whole background that we get in his life. God, I think, gives us the history and the background in Joshua.
Here He is speaking in Joshua 1:8:
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth;
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.
I believe God develops a union with us, and out of that union there is one thing He is after: to bring us into the oneness of His own mind, so that there comes a time when we are so much one with the Lord that we can speak for the Lord.
Let me show you what I saw. I got this through Rhys Howells in the book.
Here in Joshua 1, after all these verses, finally you get to verse 10:
Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,
Pass through the midst of the camp,
and command the people, saying,
Prepare you victuals;
for within three days ye are to pass over this Jordan.
I stopped and said, “Lord, did You tell Joshua that in three days they were going to go over?” I call this the “in three days” principle.
You do not find any place where God has said, “Joshua, tell the people in three days we are going over.” You know what I really believe? I believe he had come to move in such oneness with the mind, the purpose, and the sense of what God wanted that he could speak for the Lord.
He goes to the officers and says, “Send the word out: in three days, we are going over.” Joshua, where did you get that? I almost hear him saying, “God allowed me to speak it for Him.”
How many read in John 15 where it says, “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will”? Oh Lord, that is too dangerous: ask what I will.
But it is all contingent on what? Abide in Me. My words abide in you. You become so much one with the mind, the purpose, and what God wants that He seems to say, “Okay, you declare it. I stand with you.”
I see why I said it is delicate and dangerous, because somebody is going to say, “Hallelujah, I have been wanting a new Cadillac. Lord, I take it.” Except that they do not come that way.
Are you out there? I am not sure I am getting through.
You mean, Brother Fronti, that God wants to so bring us into a union with His own heart and mind, and we become so one and abiding in Him, that He does not have to say, “Take your handkerchief out, blow your nose, tell the—”? You can almost begin to say, with the Lord, “Go get ready. Three days, we are going over Jordan.”
I am saying, then, that there has been a measure given to Joshua. I believe an increasing proportion of faith had been growing in his heart until finally it took substance.
The substance of faith. Faith is the what? How do you explain that? It is just something that rises up within you, and you become substance. He says, “Folks, get ready. Three days, we are going over.”
You can say I am reading into this, but when I heard Rhys Howells use it, I thought, “Lord, I have known that principle.” There is something wonderful about being so one with God and what you know He is after that you can speak, and God says, “I will back it up. Go ahead.”
You say, “That is dangerous.” I know it. That is why I am afraid to tell you. But I believe it. Three days.
You know what happened? They started getting ready, and they sent some spies over into the land. They came into the city of Jericho, and they met a woman there whose name was Rahab.
You ought to read that, if you have not. I would like you to notice a couple of things that lady said. Joshua 2.
Joshua 2:9. Listen to what Rahab says:
I know that the Lord hath given you the land,
and that your terror is fallen upon us,
and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.
For we have heard—
Here they are out there fearful about going in and taking it, and the city back there is fearful about them coming.
Verse 16 says:
And she said unto them,
Get you to the mountain,
lest the pursuers meet you;
and hide yourselves there three days,
until the pursuers be returned:
and afterward may ye go your way.
They knew that there were men who had gotten in, and the word was around. They were hunting for these spies. She says, “You get over to the mountains, lest the pursuers meet you, and hide yourselves there.” How long? Three days.
After the three days are up, they get back, and the three days have been spent in preparation. Are you following me now? The spies get back. How did Rahab know three days?
Verse 23:
So the two men returned, and descended from the mountain,
and passed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun,
and told him all that befell them.And they said unto Joshua,
Truly the Lord hath delivered into our hands all the land;
for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us.
Joshua says, “Three days.” I call it the substance of faith. There comes a time when my oneness in relationship with the heart of the Lord and my fellowship with Him lead God to say, “Go ahead. Declare it. I stand with you.”
This is speaking out of a union with Him—prophesying according to the proportion of your faith. There is substance, and then the reward. Three days later they come back and say, “Yes, they have already fainted. Let’s go in and take them.”
The reward of faith is that which God gives.
This was made doubly real to me this summer when my parents were getting ready to move to be with my sister down in Florida. Mother and Dad lived at Winona Lake, Indiana. They planned to retire and finish out their years there.
The Lord began to change things, and I knew they needed to be with my sister. We needed to sell their home. We looked around the community and found there were thirty-three homes for sale, some of which had not sold for several years.
As I sat with Mother and Dad—they are in their eighties now—and we were praying, my sister was going to come, the whole family. Everything was contingent upon selling the house and getting them moved.
One morning as we were sitting and praying, I said to Dad, “We are going to sell and leave here by August 15. You phone my sister and tell her to come, be here, ready to leave by the fifteenth.”
Then I backed up. Who said that? But there was an assurance in my heart.
Mother said, “We will have to rent the place. Nobody can sell a home around here. All the people are having difficulty, interest rates, and all the rest.”
The Spirit whispered, “Three days.” It was that three-day principle.
Then I began to think and reason and analyze. How many have an analyzer? I thought of all the possibilities and the problems, and all the family coming, and all that. But I had really spoken the word: the fifteenth of August.
Well, to shorten the story, on the fourteenth we moved out and got down to Indianapolis. But what was involved? The Lord had to help my parents to see that if they were praying and standing with God in the line of what He wanted, God could move, and He would.
I said to Dad, “We really need to pray that one of the household of faith—somebody who is praying someplace for a house—if God will bring things together, would quicken in faith.”
Every house I had ever sold before had been to somebody in the household of faith. That always meant I had to bring the price down where I could not pray, “Lord, You skin them and help me,” and they could not pray, “Lord, You help me and skin them.” It had to be mutual.
I said to Dad, “God will really honor and God will really bless if we just pass it on, because all blessing comes from the Lord.” Suppose you have to cut it down.
It came down to the last two days. We had two buyers—actually, three contracts. All three were Christians, loved the Lord.
But the one who got it—the morning of the decision, the Lord awakened my dad, and he said, “It is that young preacher who is moving here from Pennsylvania who needs it.”
God sold it, and we moved on the fourteenth. My sister says she looks back and does not know how it happened. It was in three days—speaking the word of faith—and the reward of faith came.
Oh Lord, that is such a feeble little story. If I were really a man of faith, I would give people real good examples. But it is real to my heart tonight. Do you follow?
Have you ever dared to speak a word of faith because you knew you were in the line of purpose? You knew it was for God’s glory. You knew it was going to be a blessing to somebody else. God was so much in it that He could not help but say, “Go ahead. Three days. Pass over Jordan.”
All right, I will leave that with you anyway. It has been more real to me since August, as I have come to sense God saying, “I want a people who are so one with Me that they can speak for Me.”
“I will be glorified, and I will demonstrate My own hand through them.”
In this I begin to see another distinction that has been helpful through these last years in my own heart. One of the problems most of us have today is that we have never distinguished the difference between a principle and a rule.
A principle, as I am using it tonight, is something that is built in. It is the very fabric of things. A rule is sort of imposed upon the situation.
A principle is something more inward in its nature. A rule is more outward.
Let me see if I can illustrate it this way. When I was a boy growing up in a Christian home, Mother had established a little rule when we sat down to the table to eat. The rule was that none of us could start eating until we had said the blessing.
We had grace, or whatever you call it. As far as I knew, it was just a rule. Mother never seemed to bother to give me the principle back of it. For a hungry boy, it was a hard rule.
I expected somebody to ask me the reason for the rule. In those days I would have said it was the Depression: so everybody gets a fair start. Food was scarce, you know.
Do you know there are lots of parents who tell children what to do, but they do not get to the life back of it? We have a whole generation that reacts toward rules, laws, and outwardness, and has never gotten hold of the principle back of it.
The principle is the way God has built things and made them to work.
I came to realize that the rule we had was, “Say the blessing,” or “Say grace.” But what was the principle back of it? What is the principle back of it? You can give me a verse:
In everything give thanks:
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
What is God really after when He is working the principle out in our heart? He is saying, “I want to bring you into a union of heart with Me—a thankfulness.”
It is not that You impose these rules and laws. It is to bring you into a constant appreciation of Him.
I say to a lot of people who have digestion problems, “You thank the Lord and then grumble. No wonder it does not digest.”
When I came back from New Zealand the first time, I stopped in a hippie commune out in San Francisco. It was a big home like this. They did not have any furniture; they all sat on the floor.
They invited me for a whole week to be with them—a whole group, about twenty young fellows who had just met the Lord and had left their old lifestyles but were on the way. It was a wonderful week, but very different.
I remember sitting at that lovely long table that first night. They did have a table and chairs. We sat down, and they gave me a place. I bowed my head and waited for them to say the blessing or the grace.
There was a silence, and all of a sudden I heard a brother say, “Hallelujah, Lord, I’m so hungry for potatoes. Thank You.” Another fellow said, “Lord, beans! I love string beans. Thank You, Lord.”
They just went around expressing their thanks to the Lord. I suddenly realized I was going through my little ritual, fulfilling the rule, but they had gotten hold of the principle. They were thankful to the Lord.
Then the Lord said, “Who said you had to bow your head and close your eyes? Who made that rule?” Are you following? I remember Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Thank You, Father.”
Isn’t it amazing how many things we do—little rules, laws—and we miss the principle of the thing, the principle that is really back of it?
I believe that when you understand the principle, it brings you back to the person of the Lord Himself, who is the One who governs and controls all the principles. It brings us back to Him.
Suddenly, I began to make some real searches through the Word because I became convinced that most of our religious battles center in people living by rules and outwardness. They get hold of this and never press into the principle.
Often back in Indiana, when some young people come and they are all enthused about something, I know they have gotten hold of a little detail, a little rule, something external. I smile and say, “You missed the principle.”
I know it is wrong because if you know what the principle is, you know what rules rightly work out of the principle.
Young people, there are some young people and some parents here tonight. Pretty soon you will have this real problem. Some of you have babies.
There are so many young people today who have had their parents say to them, “Now you are going out tonight with a friend, with a date, and so forth. Don’t, don’t…” The emphasis is on giving them rules—what to do or what not to do.
But so seldom do we press back to give the principle back of it. What is built in? What is God really after?
Bill Gothard speaks of the fact that you do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. Now, that is a rule, isn’t it? Have you ever read the commentaries where they try to explain the principle for that? If you want to laugh, really do it.
It is amazing how people miss the principle back of why you should not put dairy products and meat products in your tummy at the same time, because they digest at different rates.
One commentary says, “Imagine taking that little goat and boiling it in its mother’s milk.” I mean, it is a real appeal beyond your emotions. They miss the principle—just a rule.
We have all done this, you see. The whole religious world is in collision because of rules, details, and externals, instead of the principle.
I believe that as God takes His people into the principle of faith, we are not wrapped up in techniques and methods, but in the principle of faith.
Turn to 1 Corinthians 7. Let me ask you this: how many of you have ever had people throw verses at you? I mean, the context is not important. What it means is just a rule, just a verse. “This is it. Believe God’s Word. I’m going to stand upon it.”
Versiology, anyway.
Suppose one morning you say, “Lord, I think I said to folks, read two verses and really meditate and get them. You will not need any more. That will be enough for the day.” So you start in 1 Corinthians 7 with verses 1 and 2.
You start reading verse 1:
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me:
It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
You say, “Lord, I did not know that was in the Bible. I think one verse is enough for today. Don’t touch.”
You meditate for a while and think, “Lord, I am going to obey Your Word—every jot and tittle. I am going to be utterly faithful to Your Word.”
You get to work an hour late. As you walk into the office, you see a sister you have not met for a long time. You reach out your hand to say, “Mary—excuse me—how are you?” Suddenly, you remember the verse, the rule.
Now, you say, “Vern, do not make it so. You exaggerate.” How many of you know people handle the Book like that? They really do. I have had verses, rules, externals thrown at me. If you do not know the principle back of it, you are really in trouble.
You say, “Vern, what is the principle back of that?” This will help you, parents.
Years ago, I never ceased to thank God for an elderly man who said to me one day, “Do you know that God inwardly has built and wired the male and the female so very differently?”
He said, “The female is aroused, stimulated, and excited primarily by touch, and the male is aroused, stimulated, and excited primarily by sight.”
I began to see the way God has built things, the way God has planned, built into the very fabric of life.
In the last twenty years, when I shared this on campuses, I have been utterly amazed to have fellows say, “Oh, that’s why Mother said that.” Now they were beginning to get the principle back of it.
The whole world is much wiser than a lot of us. Have you ever noticed, when they are selling mousetraps, automobiles, wholesome bread, or whatever, what they catch the eye with? Some girl in a bikini, do they not? That is right. It is to capture the eye of the male.
You never see them put a fellow with knock-knees and hairy legs in a bathing suit. Do you? They want to turn on what they see, really.
I am not wanting to be unkind. I am simply saying tonight that I am utterly amazed how many hidden principles there are.
A mother came to me some time ago and said, “Brother Vern, I’m so disturbed. Why is it all the wolves are chasing my sweet little daughter, and the nice boys do not come around?”
I turned to that mother and said, “Mother, do you really want to know?” She said, “Do you know?” I said, “Well, I know some things.”
I know that your daughter has some for-sale signs out. That mother was a spiritual woman in some ways. I said to her, “Mother, you would not break a law or a rule, but you are violating principles you do not even know.”
Can you see the difference? There are many hard-line fundamentalists who never break a rule or a law and yet unwittingly violate principles.
Finally, I said to her, “The way your daughter dresses, she is violating some built-in principles that I believe God is teaching His people.” She could not believe what was involved.
I did not plan on this, but we bought our fellowship house. It had a lovely big swimming pool. What was wonderful became a real opportunity for God’s children.
I have some convictions, but also some principles. It took a couple of months for me to be able to say to them, “Now, we would not break any rules or laws, would we? But maybe we might violate some principles if we do not know what principles are.”
I thank God that the group really came to oneness of heart and mind as we said, “We will let families check it out and use the swimming pool, but we are not going to have a lot of mixed bathing.”
I do not know who this is helping or hurting, but it is something to consider. Why? Simply because you would be amazed how the eye is captured. The devil is out today to capture, and principles are violated.
You pray your way through on it.
What does this say in this little verse down here? I think the lovely principle is this: I would not defraud anyone. He says, “Defraud ye not one another.”
In our fellowships throughout Indiana, we have a lovely way of embracing one another. I think God’s people love people; we love one another. I do not have any problem with embracing.
But I often say to the young fellows, “If you sense in your spirit you might be defrauding…” Can I give you a definition of defraud? To defraud is to rouse or to stimulate and not be able to righteously fulfill.
To rouse or stimulate, and not be able to righteously fulfill.
How many of you can see, then, that the battle which rages in the religious world is that some people tend to live by the rule and the letter? You know what we call them: rigid fundamentalists. Jot and tittle—this is what it says.
How many of you know those who embrace the principle and get back to the deep meaning of the thing are called liberals? Except that we are neither, are we?
What are we? People who know the right marriage of both in their right place. Thank God for principles, but thank God also for the rules that rightly grow out of principles.
I feel like I lost most of you. We will not go on.
All of the collision that is going on in the religious world, I find, is settled when people get through to some bedrock principles and are not all the time boggled with details and little externals.
“Do you believe this or that?” I just say, “Hallelujah, I got hold of the principle.”
Do you read the Book, meditate, and live in it to know the mind and the deep-rooted principle? I call it the ways of God—the ways He has made things to work.
I believe this is true when you see here in 1 Corinthians. Obviously, we do not say, “Do not touch,” because that would mean I could not shake hands. But I would never defraud a sister, and sisters would never defraud a brother by anything that they did, once they had come to a little insight of the principle of the thing.
I keep pleading with parents: as quickly as you can, bring young people, bring children, to an understanding of the principle back of it.
When a godly man said to me years ago, “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?” I saw that your eyes see and grab hold, and your mind begins to follow through.
It will be a real help, because this is a wicked world today, folks. Apart from knowing something of God’s way, we fall into the lifestyles, the patterns, and all that is going on in the world.
I believe God wants to raise up a counterculture of people who, in community, are beginning to be alive unto the Lord. They stand with God for what He wants and do not have to be all the time open to the invasion from that which is outside.
But we have to know where we are and what we stand for in ourselves.
Oh my. Come back tomorrow. We will finish it out. But let me say this in conclusion tonight: if God is leading His people to take more, to be more positive—not negative—do not say, “Yes, yes, yes, I know the principle.”
Once you get started in this, you can go back into so many places in Scripture and find where God has hidden some very lovely principles.
Turn over to Deuteronomy for a moment. I will show you what I mean. Deuteronomy 22.
Beginning with verse 9, you have what is called the law of separation, the rule for separation. Do you know that God has built into the very fabric of what He is doing a principle of separation, and out from it we develop certain rules or laws?
Here is the rule, here is the law:
Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with two kinds of seed:
lest all the fruit of the seed which thou hast sown,
and the increase of the vineyard, be defiled.
Why would you not sow mixed seed? Why do you not sow mixed seed? They fight. When harvest time comes—let’s just imagine it is oats and barley—they mature differently, and they have great difficulty at harvest time.
One day when I was pondering this, the Lord said, “Well, Vern, if you would sow less of your own words and more of My seed, there would not be so much mixture.” I knew what He meant: Lord, the pure seed of the Word.
I read the next verse:
Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.
Why do you not put an ox and an ass in the same yoke? They have a different gait, different stride, different temperament, different strength. They will both have a raw neck by evening if you put them in the same yoke.
Then the Lord began to whisper and say, “This is why My children do not go out and try to yoke up and get into service.”
The principle here is that the ox is the one who is broken; the ass is the one who is unbroken. How can two people really flow and move together in service and work unless there is a brokenness wrought out in their lives?
I got hold of a verse in my early years about going out in twos. For the first ten years, I always took someone along. I remember the first brother who went along. After about three weeks, you begin to—
I was praying in my room, “Lord, break Spence. He is really precious, but he really needs to be broken.” One day I overheard him praying, “Lord, if You do not break Vern, we will not be together very long.”
Break the unbrokenness here. This is our problem in all our flowing and serving together.
God is not just talking about an ox and an ass. He is saying there is a necessary separation until I have been able to bring a brokenness into life.
Then I read where Isaiah said:
The ox knoweth his owner,
and the ass his master’s crib.
One knows whom he is submitted to; the other knows where he gets fed. “Lord, we have a lot of folks who need to know more than where their feed is.”
Lord, help us to be able to work together, to get the principle of it, not just say, “Do not yoke. Do not do this.”
You say, “Well, read the next verse.” He says:
Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts,
as of wool and linen together.
Ladies, it is your turn. Why do you not put wool and linen together in the same garment? Wool shrinks; linen holds. What else?
The principle back of it, I think, is that God is saying wool is always a picture of that which has sweat in it. Linen is always a picture of that which represents righteousness.
I was praying over this, and the Lord said so clearly one day, “Sure is a lot of sweat tonight in your message.” “Lord, what do You mean?”
I realized why, when the priest went back into the holiest place, he wore only linen—no garments of wool.
I have been claiming in a new way, “Lord, I know there is a difference between the ministry of linen—that which is the endowment and the anointing that comes—and that which has lots of sweat in it.”
See, what I am trying to say is: we get stalled in verses and apply verses to people, but go back to the principle.
I am not going to answer this one. I am just going to read the rule and let you hunt for the principle. It says in verse 5:
A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man,
neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment;
for whosoever doeth these things
is an abomination unto the Lord thy God.
Is that a rule or a principle? Can you ask God to give you the principle in it?
Next time I come—ten years—we will see how far you have gotten. Or meet you up there someplace. I am interested, utterly interested, in how many folks struggle over what that verse means because they have a rule and they do not know the principle.
But I will say this, just to give you a little clue: it is very wonderful how God, in His separating, makes things distinctive. The devil’s master strategy is to obliterate all lines of distinctness.
That is why his strategy today is for a unisex haircut. Sorry about that, but make male and female alike. Do not let there be any distinctiveness.
Bring the world into the church and the church into the world, and pretty soon we will all be Christianized. Do not let there be any distinctiveness.
God is calling a people not just to outward separation, as it were, but to know the principle: we are a distinctive, unique creation that belongs to Him.
Lord, take us to so live in Your Word that we get more than merely meditating on rules and verses. Are you catching what I am trying to say? Bring us to the place where we get the principle and the inward reality of a thing.
Then You can cause our hearts to flow together, and there is something of a new positiveness. We can take more for the Lord.
Father, tonight, I claim for my brothers and sisters that Thou wilt so bring us into a sense of knowing Thy mind, to knowing Thy ways, that which is really built into the fabric of the universe—how Thou hast designed it and planned it.
How wonderfully Thou hast made us: the uniqueness and the distinctiveness with which Thou hast made us, even as new creatures, those who belong to Thee.
May we be more effective in our fellowshipping, in our working together, in our planting of the seed, in our knowing the garment that we wear as we go forth.
Oh God, tonight, Thou wilt just create a new hunger in Thy people to really so live before Thee that Thy mind and their mind become one. They know the inward principle of a thing.
Thus the principle of faith can operate, and they can dare to claim, to stand, and to say, “In three days, we are going to take.” It becomes substance, and Thou bringest reward.
If I have not been able to get through to them tonight, I claim Thou wilt make it real. Encourage their hearts to believe and expect more. We will be sure to give Thee the praise, the honor, and the glory.
We ask it in Jesus’ lovely name. And everyone said, “Amen.”