I would like to read just one passage to start with. Will you please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew 9?
We will read from Matthew 9:35-38.
And Jesus went about in all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness.
But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd.
Then saith He unto His disciples, The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the labourers are few.
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth labourers into His harvest.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are before Thee. Speak, that Thy servants may hear. We praise and we thank Thee because Thou hast redeemed us. We are not our own; we are Thine.
How we do desire that we may serve Thy purpose. We know that in ourselves there is nothing to serve Thee, but Lord, Thou hast given Thy life to us, and Thou art working in us. We pray that Thou mayest have that which is for Thyself among Thine own.
We commit this time into Thy hand. We ask Thee to strengthen our inner man, as well as our outer man, that we may be able to enter into that which Thou hast for us tonight. Unto Thee be all the praise, and the honour, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
Our Lord Jesus went around in the cities and in the villages. He saw the crowds that came to Him, and He was moved with compassion. He told His disciples that they were as sheep, harassed and cast away, without a shepherd.
And the Lord said, “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that He may send forth workmen into the harvest.” Now, brothers and sisters, here you find our Lord Jesus using two different parables. One is the sheep and the shepherd; the other is the harvest and the workman.
What is it that the Lord is trying to speak to His disciples? The sheep are harassed; they are cast off. The reason for it is that they do not have a shepherd. The harvest is there. There is a harvest to be gathered, but where are the workmen to go out and gather the harvest?
God’s people are sheep, but sheep need shepherds. Without a good shepherd, the sheep will be harassed and cast away. There is great potential in God’s people, but you need people who can gather them, who can build them up and help them, so that there will be a harvest.
What I feel the Lord is saying here is this: here are the sheep, but where are the shepherds? Whether you call them shepherds, under-shepherds, harvesters, reapers, workmen, or whatever name you may call them, I think there is a principle here which is of essential importance. That is the need for spiritual leadership among God’s people.
It is true that God’s eternal purpose is the Body of Christ. As we have heard last night and this morning, God has an eternal purpose, and He is working to have that purpose fully realised. He is the One who is working. That is His purpose, and He will never change that purpose.
Sometimes we may think that God is like us. When things are going a little bit hard, we try to find an easy way out; we change the course. Sometimes we even quote the Scripture and say, “Does not God repent?”
It is true: God did repent, and He does repent from time to time. But the repentance there does not refer to His purpose; it only refers to His method. He may change His methods, but He will never change His purpose.
God’s eternal purpose is that He may get a people—a flock, a Body, a Bride—for His Son. This is God’s purpose, and we do need to look to the Lord to open our heart and understanding to see this.
But for God’s purpose to be realised, there is, in His plan, a divine principle of God’s working. God’s purpose is there, but how is God going to work out that purpose? In working towards that purpose—in God’s plan of operation—there is one principle which is of tremendous importance: spiritual leadership.
You may call it shepherds or under-shepherds, or you may call it whatever name it may be, but the substance is there. Spiritual leadership is a divine principle in God’s hand, in God’s operation.
Sheep are very innocent, to the extent of being naïve. If you leave sheep by themselves, they cannot protect themselves. They will get into all kinds of situations, and they cannot get themselves out.
They can easily go astray, and they are not like dogs that can find their way home. They have to be sought and brought back. If the sheep do not have good shepherds, only hirelings, then when dangers come, the hirelings will flee and the sheep will be devoured. Sheep need shepherds.
Spiritually speaking, God’s people are also innocent. Thank God, there is an innocence in God’s people. Everywhere you go, you will find God’s people are so pure, to the extent of being naïve.
Everywhere you go, you find God’s people do have a heart for the Lord. There is nothing wrong with God’s people. What is wrong is with those who lead them. What is wrong is that there is no one to lead them.
You remember in Matthew 15, the Lord said, “The blind leading the blind.” If it is the blind leading the blind, then both will fall into the ditch. What is of urgent need today among God’s people is spiritual leadership.
God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Even though God’s purpose was the nation of Israel, how was God going to get that nation? You find that He got the nation through Abraham, through Isaac, and through Jacob. It is through the divine principle of leadership that God was able to get a nation that He desired.
God’s purpose was to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt. That was God’s purpose, but He had to raise up a man, Moses, to lead them out of Egypt.
God’s purpose was to establish a kingdom and to build His house among His people, to dwell among His people. But in order to arrive at that tremendous purpose, He had to raise up David and Solomon to do that.
It is true that God Himself is working. God Himself is working out His purpose. But God’s way of working out His purpose is to raise up spiritual leadership to lead the people and to build the people, that God’s purpose may be fulfilled in His people.
This is a direction of God’s sovereign operation.
Even after the children of Israel had gone away from the Lord, as you find in the book of Judges, they had gone into the promised land, and yet very soon they strayed away from God. God had to raise up judge after judge.
When God raised up a judge, the nation returned to God. But the Bible says that while the judge was living, they served God; after the judge died, immediately they fell away again. Later on, even while the judge was living, they began to disintegrate.
In the books of Kings and Chronicles, you find the intimate relationship between the kings and the people. When you have a king whose heart is perfect toward God, a king who loves God, you find the whole nation begins to turn to God.
But when you find a wicked king, a king who did not fear God, the result is that the people fall away. Leadership is of such tremendous importance.
After the children of Israel were taken into captivity, you find the same thing. It was God’s purpose that the people should return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. But in order to have that realised, God had to raise up people like Zerubbabel, Joshua, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Under their leadership, you find the people began to work.
When you come to the New Testament, you find the same principle working. When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He chose twelve to be His disciples. With these twelve, with seventy, with one hundred and twenty, you find the Lord was using these to accomplish the work that He desired to accomplish.
It is true that, so far as the work of redemption is concerned, our Lord Jesus is alone. He does not need your help. No one can help Him. He alone accomplished the whole work of redemption, and thank God, He did.
But apart from the work of redemption—the gathering in of the living stones, the building up of these stones, the separating, and all these things—you find He raises up leadership to cooperate with Him, to bring what He desires into fulfilment.
It is said in Ephesians 4 that God gave to the church some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, with a view to the work of ministry, which is the ministry of the Body.
God raises up elders in the church to take care of the sheep. Also, you find in the Bible that there were people called leaders—leading brethren. In Acts 15, you remember Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem for that conference.
Afterward, the apostles and the church in Jerusalem wrote a letter to the different churches. When they sent that letter, they also sent two brothers to go with Barnabas and Paul. In Acts 15, it is said that Judas, also called Barsabbas, and Silas were leading brethren.
They were not elders, and yet they were leaders in the church. So, in other words, it is not a matter of what position you occupy. It is a matter of God’s divine principle of working.
God must have spiritual leadership among His people in order to bring His people into His full purpose.
That is what you find in 1 Thessalonians 5. We are told that we should remember those leaders, those who labour among us, those who take care of us, those who are deeply concerned with our spiritual welfare. These people, we need to regard and esteem.
You find in Hebrews 13 the same thing: remember those who had the rule over you; consider the issue of their manner of life, and imitate their faith.
So, brothers and sisters, I have a burden for this evening: to share with you on this matter of spiritual leadership.
Spiritual leadership is a must. Spiritual leadership is a necessity. Without spiritual leadership, God’s purpose cannot be fulfilled. God is looking among His people for spiritual leadership, and if He cannot find spiritual leadership, His work cannot be done. It is as important as this.
How does spiritual leadership come about? Spiritual leadership cannot be made by men. People may appoint some people into some position, but that does not give them spiritual leadership.
Spiritual leadership is not based upon natural talent. No matter how talented you are, how skilful you are, how intelligent you are, or how naturally capable you are, these are not the qualifications for spiritual leadership.
In other words, spiritual leadership cannot be made by man—neither by yourself nor by any other man. You may assume a position, or people may put you in a position, but without spiritual authority there is no spiritual leadership, no matter what position you occupy or assume.
Spiritual leadership comes from God. It is God’s choice; it is not man’s.
I would like to read you two quotations. One is not exactly a quotation, but a note I took in 1957.
In 1957, I visited England for the first time. There our dear brother took a number of us to Scotland for a time together. It was there that I first met our dear brother. When we were together in Kilspindie, in Scotland, spending, I think, a week or so together, we came together every morning just to wait upon the Lord.
During some of those mornings, our brother shared with us something that was upon his heart. One of the things he shared which impressed me very deeply at that time was on leadership. Of course, he spoke a great deal on leadership, but I would like to read you a note I took at that time.
It was not a direct quotation, but it was a note I took:
Leadership is a direction in which divine sovereignty peculiarly works.
I will read it again:
Leadership is a direction in which divine sovereignty peculiarly works.
Divine sovereignty is God acting Himself without consultation with anyone. That is divine sovereignty. He does not consult you nor me. So leadership is a divine choice.
True leadership bears the mark that it is something God has done. Universally speaking, there is nothing to support the natural. It is a peculiar manifestation of divine sovereignty.
The initiative of God is found in leadership. Men do not take the initiative. Leadership can never be of man’s assumption; it must be of God. It is not professional.
A leader is one who is there by the act of God. The apostle is a man with a mandate; he has a force behind him. Even if hell itself resists, he will fulfil his mission. This is the position of a leader.
I think it is very clear that leadership is not something initiated with man. It is God’s prerogative. It is God’s divine sovereignty. It is an act of God. He calls, He chooses, and He puts people in leadership, in the place where a person should be.
I would like to quote another one. I quote people who have already gone before us. Here is a quotation from A. W. Tozer:
A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the press of the external situation.
I think that is beautiful. He says a true and safe leader—such were Moses and David and the Old Testament prophets. I think there was hardly a great leader from Paul to the present day who was not drafted by the Holy Spirit for the task and commissioned by the Lord of the church to fill a position he had little heart for.
I believe it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that a man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. Strong words, but true.
The true leader will have no desire to lord it over God’s heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing, and altogether ready to follow as to lead, for the Spirit makes it clear that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.
The making of a leader, a spiritual leader, is a divine act. It is sovereign. It is not for those who are ambitious for themselves. On the contrary, you find that God puts people into leadership, a position that they try to avoid.
One day, a brother named Matthew was with Saint Francis of Assisi. Probably some of you have heard about Francis of Assisi. One day, when they were together, this brother Matthew began to speak aloud. He said, “Why is it? Why is it? Why is it?”
“Why is it that people follow thee? Why do people hear thee? Why is it that people obey thee? Thou hast neither beauty, nor intelligence, nor noble race. Why thee? Why thee?”
He was, as it were, trying to mock Francis of Assisi. When Francis of Assisi heard that, he bowed very low before the Lord. He raised his eyes and entered into an ecstasy. He was full of adoration and praise.
After a while, he turned to the brother and said, “Do you want to know why? Let me tell you why. The eyes of the Most High were looking upon the earth. He was watching both the wicked and the good, and His eyes were trying to see if there was any sinner as small as myself.”
“He has chosen me because I am nothing. He has chosen me to do His marvellous work, to confound the wise and the noble.” That was his answer.
Yes, brothers and sisters, spiritual leadership is a necessity among God’s people, especially in this time. God is moving among His people. Many are awakened spiritually to the Lord, and they do have a heart for the Lord. They are seeking and searching.
Dear brothers and sisters, as you look out, it is almost like our Lord Jesus when He was looking at these crowds. He was moved with compassion and said, “They are harassed, as sheep without a shepherd.”
Oh, dear brothers and sisters, one thing we need to ask the Lord is that He may raise up spiritual leaders—not just people who are ambitious, not just people who are put in a position, but true leadership.
God has to raise up spiritual leaders to lead His people into the realisation of God’s full purpose in His people. I wonder if this is something missing today, if it is something that we need to inquire of the Lord about and be before the Lord concerning in a very special way.
But it is true: spiritual leadership is of divine sovereignty; it is a divine choice. Yet when God chooses a person to be a leader, there is something that God has already wrought in that person.
In other words, it is God’s sovereignty. No one can assume a position of leadership. It is up to God; there is nothing we can do. Yet, on the other hand, God chooses leaders because He has already worked something in them. Because He has wrought that in them, He is able to raise them up as leaders.
For one to lead, he has to know the direction. For one to lead, he has to know where to go. Therefore, brothers and sisters, how necessary it is that God may find people on this earth who are open to Him, who are humble enough before Him to allow Him to work in them.
After He has wrought His work in them, then He can work through them to the people.
Look at Moses. Before God could use Moses as a leader, He had to do His work in Moses. Not only was Moses forty years in the wilderness, but there he had to be reduced to absolutely nothing.
Moses himself said that the lifespan of a person is threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength, fourscore years. When God called him to that work, he was eighty years old. In other words, in his own estimate, he was at his very end.
God had to reduce him. God had to empty him. God had to empty him of his eloquence, of his might, of his talent, of his ambition—of everything of himself.
God had to bring him to that point and work that in him until he realised that he was but a bush, a thorn bush, and nothing else, ready to be consumed. Yet, by the grace of God, he was not consumed.
God has to work in a person before God can use him. But more than that, even Moses’ forty years in Egypt were God’s sovereign arrangement.
I remember our brother also said to us, “A leader is one who must not only know where to lead to, but also what to lead from.” In other words, he has to know where he has to lead them from. He has to experience it.
A leader will be put into situations, not for himself. Sometimes a leader is put into situations that seem to be wrong, even unnecessary for himself. Yet, through such situations, he is to know the people; he is to know where he will lead them out of.
In other words, everything that God is going to do to the people has to be wrought out in him first. He is the embodiment of the work that God is calling him to do.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is not just that we go out to do some work. The work that God is calling you to do, the leadership that God has given you, is already being done in you.
You are not a stranger to that. You have already allowed God to make you acquainted with the whole situation and its principles. Because of that, God is able to entrust you with leadership. Otherwise, it will be the blind leading the blind.
Spiritual leadership is a very costly thing in the process of making. Not only is it very costly when you are in a leadership position, but the very making of leadership is costly.
In John Bunyan’s autobiography, Grace Abounding, I think we read how God used him. John Bunyan tried to tell us his own experience and sometimes why it was so difficult for him to get saved.
“I desired to be saved.” Some people do not even have a desire to be saved, and God saves them. Here you find John Bunyan very anxious about these things, and yet, even then, he went through times of depression. He went through much, and he was still angry and nothing seemed to happen. Sometimes he would go wrong.
Thank God, because John Bunyan went through all these things, he was able to help people into salvation. To be a leader is to be one in whom God has to do some work—more than in anybody else. Are you willing to let God do such a work?
We often think of leadership as a very glorious thing. Oh, how we long to be leaders! Among the proud disciples, you find one thing they thought about all the time: who was the greatest? Every one of them wanted to be first.
Even at the very last, when our Lord Jesus was already in Jerusalem for the last time, you find the two sons of Zebedee got their mother involved and tried to ask the Lord to allow them to sit on the right and on the left, in positions of importance and leadership.
The Lord said that among the nations, the leaders and the kings lord it over other people. But this is not so among you. If you want to be first, you must be the least one.
The Lord said that the Son of Man came to serve and not to be served, and to give His life a ransom for many.
Dear brothers and sisters, for the sake of God’s purpose and for the sake of God’s people, we need to commit ourselves to the Lord. We need to give ourselves to the Lord so that we are willing to allow Him to work everything that He wants to work out among His people—let it first be worked out in me.
Unless we have such a willingness, God is not able to use us as leaders.
Again, leadership is not based upon the natural. Some people are born leaders. It is natural for them to lead. But that is a very dangerous thing—very dangerous.
God either has to strip them completely, or God has to deal with them so drastically that they are reduced to nothing before God can really use them as leaders.
Do not think that because you are not a natural-born leader, therefore God will not choose you. God always surprises us.
We are talking about true leadership. We are talking about the true work of God. We are not talking about work as such, as people in this world would recognise it. We are talking about how God’s purpose can be done.
Again, it is God Himself who works, but He works through the leaders.
How does leadership come about? It is by way of discipleship. If a person is not willing to follow, he is not fit to lead.
If we are not willing to follow the Lord, the Lord said, “If anyone desires to follow Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” If we are not ready to follow the Lord wherever He goes, we are not fit to lead.
One day, someone came to the Lord and said, “Lord, I want to follow You.” He was a scribe. The Lord said, “Do you know what it means? The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.”
Brothers and sisters, are we committed to the Lord? Do not think first of leadership; think first of discipleship.
Are you a true disciple of the Lord? Have you committed your life to the Lord in such a way that He is able to break you, to move you, to make you as it pleases Him? Are you that committed?
Of course, the word disciple cannot be separated from the word discipline. A disciple’s life is a disciplined life. As we commit ourselves into the hand of our Lord, we leave it with Him to discipline us.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the way to leadership. Are you ready for it? Many aspire for leadership, but few are willing to be disciples of the Lord.
As a matter of fact, there is only One in the whole universe who is fit to lead. You and I, none of us, is fit to lead. God has raised up one Leader.
You remember it is said, “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.” Only our Lord Jesus is fit to lead. Why?
Because He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. Even though He was equal with God, and it was not something to be grasped at, yet He emptied Himself. He took upon Himself the form of a servant, and being in the likeness of men, He further humbled Himself before God.
He was obedient to the Father even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Brothers and sisters, when our Lord Jesus came to this earth to be a man, how completely He followed the Father—every step of His way, even unto death and the death of the cross.
Because of that, God has made Him the Leader. Spiritual leadership is in Christ.
If anyone says, “I am going to lead. I am able to lead. I am a leader,” you disqualify yourself. It is Christ in you who leads.
If it is not Christ in you who leads the people, you mislead them. Oh, dear brothers and sisters, how we have misled God’s people! We think we know; we think we see; we are in a position to lead; we are ambitious; we think we are capable; we try to lead—and both fall into the ditch.
I think we need to realise one thing: we are not fit to lead. We must learn to follow the Father, to follow the Lord. It is the Lord in us who leads.
How is it that the Lord leads in us? Again, you find that it is a mystery. It is the Lord who leads, and yet He leads in you and through you. Outwardly, it looks as if you are leading, but actually it is not you; it is the Lord. Now, how can it be?
It is because, by the Holy Spirit, the Lord Himself is so organising you, so working in you. God has not only made known to you His mind, but God has worked in you in such a way that He has such a place in you.
That is your spiritual authority, and that is spiritual leadership.
Look into the life of Paul. Here you find this man, the Apostle Paul. Of all the people that God has used, Paul certainly is one of the greatest vessels and instruments in God’s hand for the purpose of God concerning His people.
Paul was a master builder. How God used him to build that spiritual house! He was certainly a great leader. God had given him such leadership for the Body of Christ.
But, dear brothers and sisters, you find that everything God used Paul to bring people into the realisation of the Body of Christ, God first wrought in him.
Before his conversion, he was a great man, a Pharisee. Paul was not an unknown person. He was a great man. He was born in Tarsus. He was educated in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, the great teacher. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was a big man.
There on the road to Damascus, this man Saul was such a person. He was not only learned; he had such a dynamic personality. We are told by tradition that Paul was very small in stature, yet he was a dynamic person, no doubt.
He had such driving force. He wrought such havoc among the believers in the beginning. Then God met him on the road to Damascus and reduced him to nothing.
He met the Lord. Never before had he acknowledged anyone as greater than he was. He had to lead. Now he met the Lord and said, “Lord, who art Thou?”
He said, “Lord, what shall I do?” His whole life was surrendered to the Lord. He allowed the Lord to work in him to such an extent that Christ had such a place in him.
Whatever Christ had worked in him and was being in him, that was his authority, that was his ministry, and that was his leadership. It was not Paul.
Strangely enough, I do not know who gave him the name Paul—whether he took it up himself or whether somebody else gave him that name—but you know Paul means little.
So far as he himself was concerned, he was no longer Saul, a great man. He was Paul—little. He even said that he was the chief of sinners, less than the least of all the saints. Yet, dear brothers and sisters, there is no doubt that there was spiritual leadership in that man.
He said, “Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ.” Oh, how he followed Christ! How he was a disciple of Christ! How he allowed Christ to break him and make him!
He said, “Not I, but Christ.” “In my body I bear the dying of Jesus.” “I die daily, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in me and in you.” This is spiritual leadership.
So, dear brothers and sisters, may we be before the Lord. I feel that this is something of urgent need today among God’s people.
Let us cry unto the Lord to raise up spiritual leaders—true leaders—in whom God has already wrought the work that He wants to fulfil.
May we be before the Lord tonight and say, “Lord, we are in Thy hand. We do not choose this. We do not try to get it. But we are here in Thy hand. Whatever Thou wantest, have Thy way.”
Can we have some time of prayer together, to pour out this burden before the Lord, that the Lord of the harvest may raise up spiritual leaders for the need of His purpose and His people today?