Hi.
I have been asking the Lord, “Is there something that He might share that would give us a proper focus for the rest of the week? Something that would not be just mine, but something that He chose?”
I would have to say that for almost three years, you know, I have been tremendously moved, I believe, by the Lord to go back and study the life of David. I have gone through different phases of study and emphasis, but it has seemed that the Lord is—I do not know if it is just me, but I believe it is Him—as though an inner voice was saying, “There are some principles in the life of David that you are going to need, son. I want you to get hold of them.”
I have not continued in it all the time, but at different times I have tried to get back into some of the things surrounding the unique calling and ministry—the things that God wanted to do through David.
Tonight, maybe by way of introducing our little sharing, I want to share this burden of why we are really here. What is the focus of our burden these days, this week?
If you would turn with me tonight to the book of Acts, chapter 13. I want to read just a couple of verses that make the point I am thinking about. May I read it first in the King James, which you all no doubt have, and then I want to read it from another translation?
Acts 13, beginning with verse 22. I want the last portion, but we will read the whole verse:
And when He had removed him, He raised up unto them David to be their king;
to whom also He gave testimony, and said,
I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after Mine own heart,
which shall fulfil all My will.
Verse 36:
For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God,
fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption.
But there are two phrases here. First, “a man after Mine own heart, which shall fulfil all My will.” Then, in verse 36, “For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God.”
I do not know, but if I have tried after any one thing through the years, it has been, “Oh, dear Lord, let me sense what it was that made David to be a man after Your heart.” You are speaking. What was it? What was it? Is there something that You would indicate to this young man that I might more clearly grasp what it is—a man after Your heart?
The Berkeley translation, which I want to use, puts these phrases this way:
He raised up David for their king, of whom He testified:
I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man agreeable to My mind,
who will carry out My whole program.
A man who will carry out My whole program.
The other verse that we read, verse 36, says:
David, however, after serving his own generation in agreement with God’s purpose—
What I am interested in tonight is this: I wonder if, too much of the time, the reason we are prone to faint—the reason that, when we get into the midst of reverses and struggle in our calling and ministry under the Lord—is that we have not been living in the largeness of the framework of the purpose, the thing that God is really after.
There is something progressive. There is something of an unveiling as we go along further and further. I am concerned with people who are content to settle down with something that is good, and something that is better, without daring to cry out, as I sense in the heart of David, “Oh, God, to fulfil Your whole purpose—the whole program that You have in mind—that I might be properly related to it.”
Let us go back for a little bit tonight. I would like for a few minutes to lay this kind of background in Acts 13. Let us pick up the history of Israel.
Paul is saying—I think I will read it out of the Berkeley translation—beginning with the last part of verse 16:
Men of Israel, and all you who reverence God, listen.
The God of this people Israel selected our fathers,
and raised up the nation when they lived as strangers in the land of Egypt.
Then, with uplifted arm, He led them out from there.
For about forty years He endured their behavior in the desert.
Then, destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan,
He distributed their land by lot, all of which took about four hundred and fifty years.
After that, He gave them judges until the prophet Samuel.
From then on, they asked for a king,
and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.
After deposing him, He raised up David for their king, of whom He testified:
I have found David the son of Jesse, a man agreeable to My mind,
who will carry out My whole program.
Let me, just for a little bit tonight, see if we cannot go back and see the uniqueness with which God has used various men in the progressive unfolding of His program.
We will start with Abraham, the father patriarch. We will move on to his son Isaac, finally to Jacob, and the twelve sons who became the twelve tribes, who finally went down into Egypt in the time of famine.
You remember this period of four hundred years. They were not particularly concerned about that which God was really after, but they became a multitude of people. They increased, even in their slavery.
You know the story. In due time, Israel began to cry out to get out of her bondage. God’s unique timing is something we have always to recognize. Moses was ready long before the people were ready.
Finally, in God’s own timing, when the people were sick of their slavery and the deliverer had been prepared, we have God raising up a man with the unique ministry of delivering Israel, bringing them out. I will just put it down: he is the deliverer.
This is the distinct thing. If we would say of Moses, as we have said of David, that he fulfilled the purpose in his generation, the unique thing that God had for him was the bringing of them out.
It is interesting, however, that God was not interested merely in bringing them out of their bondage, merely getting them out of the world—Egypt and all that it represented. God wanted to bring them on into the possession, the things that He was after.
It is quite something when you can make a people alive to that. I say to us tonight, as I think I said on probably every other occasion last year, when people move out of merely relating God’s working and activity to what it means to them, and they get beyond that until the cry and yearning of the heart is what it means to God—what He is going to get out of it—then you enter a different kind of road. There will be a groan, but it will be a different one. It will be a different thing.
Well, you know, after Moses had fulfilled his ministry of getting them out of Egypt, as it were, into the wilderness—but not on into the land of Canaan—we have another man raised up. Joshua becomes the captain.
The uniqueness of his ministry was not to pull them out—Moses had done that—but to have them possess. Joshua would lead them into the possession, the fullness that God had planned, taking them on the next step.
Now, I am afraid that the great majority of the people never quite saw beyond the fact that they needed a little more land for themselves. Their possessing was mostly related that way, not so much to what it would mean in the testimony and the larger purpose of God.
It would have been wonderful if they had moved on, as it were, in the line of purpose and on to the full thing that God had. But very shortly we read of the men who outlived Joshua, after whose vision failed. Then we come to the period of the judges.
Turn to the book of Judges for just a little bit, chapter 2. Beginning with verse 16.
What had happened was that the people who should have moved on in the line of purpose—the whole program of God—were content. Content to get a parcel, content to get something that would be good for them; but they were not particularly alive to the larger thing that God wanted.
So they became captive to the various nations in Canaan that kept plundering and coming in. We read now in Judges 2:16:
Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges,
which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.
And yet they would not hearken unto their judges,
but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them:
they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in,
obeying the commandments of the Lord;
but they did not so.
And notice:
And when the Lord raised them up judges,
then the Lord was with the judge,
and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge:
for it repented the Lord because of their groanings
by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.
And it came to pass, when the judge was dead,
that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers.
What is the word? Everybody stay together. Well, you know, I forgot to give you instructions. When I get tired and I put my hand up like this, that means it is your turn. You remember that? Did I not do that last year here? Well, we will do it this year. This is your turn.
“And they returned, and corrupted themselves more”—and I want you to see: here we are in the pattern of purpose. There is a bit of reviving. There is a bit of awakening. But they go back further in their own way.
They corrupted themselves more than their fathers,
in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them;
they ceased not from their own doings,
nor from their stubborn way.
Well, you know the story. God was wanting a people who would move in and possess, a people who would come and become a peculiar testimony, a people who would delight to fulfil the program, the larger purpose of God. But they were content, at these times, to cry out, “Oh, God, we are in an awful mess. We are in an awful mess.”
Then there comes a time when God raises up the prophet Samuel. We come into Samuel’s ministry. All during this period, it says that there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
You begin the book of Samuel, and God looks down on a people not particularly alive to the thing God is after, just wanting now to keep out of the bondage, misery, and struggles of the Philistines and the different ones. God hears, gives them a deliverance, but they are not alive to the larger purpose.
Then Samuel comes on the scene, and it says in the opening portion of Samuel that in that day there was no open vision; that is, a word from the Lord was very unusual. It was a very precious thing. It was so scarce.
But God, in Samuel, once again begins to restore something of vision and something of insight back into the larger program. You know how the people begin to cry out in due time, “Give us a king.” Then we have King Saul brought to the throne.
I will not get into that tonight. Finally, we come to the whole unique period and ministry of David, which is my real burden, and then we move on to the ministry—the unique thing that God had for Solomon.
As I get into the ministry of David, it seems to me that the ministry of Samuel begins to awaken the people to something further—the purpose of God, something of the vision of what God is after. Then you have David stepping in on the scene.
He becomes the unifier of a motley group of people. Here are all these scattered tribes. They have never been unified in a kingdom. They have never been unified in purpose. They have never seen much beyond just the little plot, the lot that had been parceled out to them.
Now, this is my burden tonight, just something of a bird’s-eye view of what I would like to say. There may be someone who has come here in your own journey to know where God would lead you on, and maybe what He is doing in this hour. What is the focus and the thrust?
You might say, “I have been through the ministry. I understand what it is to have a ministry like Moses, getting people saved and bringing them, as it were, out of Egypt.” Praise God. That is wonderful. We thank God.
Or you may have actually said, “Thank You, Lord, I see that there are saved people who are pretty poverty-stricken. They have never come to possess much of what there is in Christ, much of the increase that the Lord wants to make available. What we need is to get people to grow in grace and to possess more of their possessions.”
Well, that is wonderful, and that is a blessed ministry. I thank God for everyone who hungers for that. That would constitute something of the ministry of Joshua.
I think I can say this has been my burden. This has been my burden. Then I went for a period—and I think you will not be hard with me if I use the past tense—but I went for a period when all I prayed and all I saw was revival.
I moved for almost eight or nine years from church to church, saying that God would give a revival, an awakening as regards to people. It is wonderful. It is wonderful when people in desperation, like we have pictured here, begin to cry out, “Oh, God, we need deliverance from the Philistines. We need deliverance from the awful bondages of that which is pressing in upon us.”
You read that God sends the judge, He sends the deliverer, He sends an awakening. But I began to see, some years ago, as I would go into one place, the Spirit of the Lord would awaken and quicken some people. We had something of revival.
I would come back the next year and say, “Well, Lord, it is going to be wonderful to get back to this people. I remember how blessed, awakened, and alive they were last year. I can hardly wait to get back.”
Do I need to tell you the rest of the story? Only to my heavy heart, I discovered that they needed another revival—another shot in the arm, another springboard, or whatever. I do not mean to be light about it.
You cannot move around among God’s people very long before you begin to cry, “Oh, God, why are not more people being led out of Egypt?” That is necessary. “Why are not more people beginning to move on with Joshua to possess some of the things that You want to make available? Lord, why do we not see more reviving?”
I like to call it continuous revival. But then, as my friend Armin Gesswein says, that is really not God’s plan—continuous revival—because that anticipates the fact that there ought to be this: “Lord, is that the best You can do? This?” No.
I do not think revival is God’s norm. It is only because of the state we are in. It is because of the lack of faith. Is it possible that God can envision a people, take a group of people in a fellowship, enliven their hearts, and so bring them into the focus of what He wants?
I know it is the ideal, but I still believe in the ideal. There does not have to be this continual falling away and reviving. There can be something of steady progress, moving on to the larger purpose.
What I am trying to say tonight is this: I believe in revival, but I do not believe it is the answer. I do not believe it is the greatest need of this hour.
I do not believe it is the greatest need of this hour.
I am open for correction, and if you want to take me aside, I will have some time, I am sure. But this is my burden tonight: God is wanting to focus some people on something of a larger framework.
When I read where it speaks of David coming in his generation to fulfil the will of God, and the unique and distinctive thing, I wonder if God is wanting to enlarge our framework. While what the judges went through was something wonderful, and we can call it the period of revival, yet it says in the last verse that every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Every time I read that, it strikes me. It strikes me deeply, because God seems to say—and He has been saying it to me for some particular years now—“Young man, your day of just moving on your own is over.”
“Your days of just going as you would, doing what seems right in your own eyes, working for God, are over. But I have another bridle that you have not been wanting.” I am not sure I wanted it, if I should be honest with you.
But there is something that bridles the life to the place where you cry out, “Oh, God, just to fulfil the larger thing that You want.”
We will get into more of what Samuel’s ministry meant and where King Saul fits in. I think it is kind of a parenthetical thing, really. I do not believe that King Saul’s ministry was the full or highest purpose of God.
But finally, we focus our attention on the unique thing that God is wanting to do through David. I am held in awe when I see the principle—the way by which God established David: the struggle of the wilderness, the final time when the key men of Israel came and presented themselves to him and said, “David, we have come to you. We will be on your side.”
God used his life, the uniqueness of his ministry, to unite all the scattered tribes and finally to bring all the material that was necessary for the building of the temple.
I may not have gotten as far as some of the others. I would that our brother would take us on, and I trust it will be so, into all that is involved in the testimony and the real temple that God is building.
But I seem to be burdened and impressed in my own spirit with the uniqueness of the ministry in which David is bringing all these isolated, scattered tribes into a place where finally they give up some of their own little bits of sovereignty. They come to submit. They come to really crown him in his rightful place.
Oh, I wonder if there is not a greater David along the way who is calling some people out. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am only a dreamer, but I wonder if, in our coming, there might not be something of the larger focus, the larger purpose that God has.
Could He bring some people to the place where you say, “Lord, Lord, let me sense a little bit of what is involved, as it was said of David: one who could live with a whole heart to fulfil the whole program of God.”
I do not know. But I tell you, when you see something, you get caught. You get stuck with it, and you wish you had never seen it. I hate to say that. It is sort of a confession.
I have cried out so many times through the years, “Lord, I wish I had never seen that.” The responsibility of it, and the inability to get rid of it.
I have attempted—I do not mean that it has been a knock-down, drag-out—but there have been those inward murmurings and complaints that seem to say, “Lord, it is such a burden. Nobody else appreciates it. Nobody understands.”
You get all alone with the Lord, you know, out there murmuring and complaining. You know what I mean. He finally says, “Look, you think you are alone.”
Well, I think maybe there is something of the joy of coming together like this. “Lord, are all these people here for the same purpose I am here? Have they all seen what I think I have seen? Are they all interested in the larger program, the things that are Your burden for this hour?”
Well, I may be disillusioned, but I believe you are. I believe so. I believe there is something very sovereign in God working at this hour, not only in our getting here as individuals, but in the very fact of our meeting.
I do not believe that is to be boasted of. It is just something we think.
Well, I must not go any further. But I do want to say to you as individuals tonight: there is something of uniqueness that God has for you, something of a unique ministry and calling.
Lord, do not let us settle for something less, to be content with just a part of the program. I do not know how to say it, but I know that the groaning of so many is, “Why are you not content with just getting people saved? Is not Moses’ ministry enough? Is not that sufficient—just getting them out of Egypt?”
I think my dear mother prays every night in the week. She has come so many times and said, “Son, son”—and she means so well. If you do not think this tears at your heart, it gets so close.
But someone says, “Son, you do not get people saved like you used to. What has happened?” That is hard.
“You do not have the big crowds you used to have.” Well, that is not important. That means nothing. But when the enemy can come in and say, “Look, look, if you have just learned and determined to go on for the whole program of God, even though nobody understands or others do not appreciate”—you see?
I believe we should say to you tonight that there is something of the uniqueness that God has to work out through every life—not just what He did through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; not just the place that Moses fulfilled, and Joshua, Samuel, and David.
One of the men whom I have counted as a real brother in the Lord said to me some years ago—and I will never forget the ringing words—“One of the marks of spiritual fulfilment in any life is the uniqueness of that ministry and calling that God has for me.”
The mark of spiritual fulfilment. Oh, how fond we are to see somebody who is being used, you know. You read an autobiography or a biography. I do not know how many people are trying to be George Müller. That is a lofty aim. Or someone else.
Oh, brother, sister, God has something of uniqueness to work out in your life. Your willingness to accept that particular thing that God has marked your life for will be the point at which the cross will really cut.
I used to wonder what the cross was. I used to wonder what the cross was so far as ministry is concerned. I honestly believe that it is the individual, full-hearted choice to fulfil the unique and distinctive thing that God has marked that life out for, when relatives and close friends and everybody else disagree and misunderstand.
That is where the death comes—in fulfilling your ministry, the calling that God has.
I suppose that will give license to somebody to go out and do their peculiar, unique thing they have always wanted to do. Well, go ahead. It will only last a little while. God will bring you back. He has a place for every life.
But I say tonight, “Oh, God, do not let any of us go through this rationalizing of the mind that says, ‘Those people do not believe in this. They ought to do this. They ought to have more altar calls, and they ought to—’”
My heart goes out to say, “We are concerned for every bit of it, but more and more to be alive to the larger program that God has for the time.”
I believe this is the reason people are fainting. I wish you could see some of the mail that we get: missionaries all over the world throwing in the hat, as it were, not going back to the field; pastors who are leaving their pulpits.
Because God, in His own wonderful way, has dried up the ministry that they had, and they would not go on.
I guess you have to go through that to know what I am talking about. Oh, how the phase of the work that God once made so real and so effective—and then, lo and behold, it becomes a dry well. Just utterly dry.
You go back and try all the devices, all the means, to re-implement it, and even pray harder, and draw attention to your prayer in a different way.
Oh, cheer up if there is a heart here tonight that has been going through something of real drought. You can look back at all the blessed hours and the good period, but do not look back. Look ahead.
Keep your eye on the larger thing that God is doing. There is a new well. There is an anointing for the thing that He has ahead, but not for the thing that I choose if I want to settle down.
Oh, be happy about it. God will not let you settle down very long. He begins to stir up the nest and enlarge the basin.
Well, this is my burden tonight. That is all I have to say. I guess I had better quit.
But I do want, during these days, to live in the larger framework. Do not let anyone go out and say, “If people are not evangelistic—” I suppose we will see, as we did last year, people being brought out of Egypt, saved.
I trust Joshua will lead every one of us on to really possess. I do not think we need to spend any time here. We can go right on to David, really seeing what He has and becoming alive to the larger purpose, the program of God.
Dear Father, in the midst of our stumbling tonight, we are just trying to see. Maybe there are those who, like my own heart through the years, have cried out, “Oh, God, to be a man after Your heart, to be a woman after Your heart.”
I look out at these people tonight. I believe that there is an echo in so many of their hearts. I see it on their faces, as though to say, “Oh, God, do not let me settle for anything. Do not let me see my life and ministry as just related to what it will mean to me or what I will get, but, oh, to see it related to the whole program, the larger thing that You are after.”
We pray, Lord Jesus, that Thou wilt hold every one of us steady in Thy hand tonight.
Let every man fulfil the ministry that he sees, and that particular phase of calling which has the anointing of God upon it. But, oh, God, save us from trying to resurrect anything that Thou hast written Ichabod upon—anything, Lord, that was a past.
Save us from trying to resurrect it, and move us on, dear Lord, until we are more purpose-conscious than we are anything else. Not that we want to be alive to doing for our lives and ministry, or alive to our own calling, but alive to be that which will satisfy Thine own heart and which will bring pleasure to Thee.
And we can be the man after Your heart, that which Thou didst desire. Dear Lord, we commit ourselves to this.
We pray that there will be no looking merely to man, but, oh, God, that our eyes will be fixed upon Thee. There will be the sense and awareness that no speaker comes with anything unless there is an open heaven, unless there is a clear word from the Lord.
No one comes to share anything unless the anointing of God gives it, and there is the release in us and the large receptivity in Thy people.
Oh, we link ourselves together in believing and acclaiming tonight that these shall be days of fulfilment for Thee. We do not chart the path. We do not tell Thee what we are after. We do not come with our own designs or our own themes around life.
Remove us this evening, in some service, this service, with a strange sense that we are utterly dependent upon Thee, meeting by meeting. I pray tonight, dear Lord, that Thou wilt enlarge the framework of our consciousness.
Enlarge, dear Lord. It has been too small. Enlarge it until we can say what it is to fulfil Your purpose for our generation, the unique thing that You have for our individual life.
I believe Thee to do it. Thou hast said Thou wouldst do it in these days. We will give Thee the praise, the honor, and the glory, for Thou alone art worthy. We ask it in Jesus’ name.