I want that together: that You are our Maker, and You have made each of us to function, edify, and have purpose in the house of God. We thank You that every place and every person has a function as a member.
Help us, Lord, to exercise faith, to be willing to be counted for You, and to share our testimony of the good things You have done. Help us now as we consider these matters again, Lord. Keep us alert and apply these things to our own lives. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Before we take a question, let me just say this: what happens is, you get a word from the Lord, and you work it out and share it. All these things that we are talking about are a dynamic process. It is not like you know this process is even going on sometimes.
So I do not want you to get too technical. I do not want you to feel, “Well, it has not gone through stage three yet,” because that is not the way it happens. You receive a word and you share it. You share it imperfectly. You know in part; you speak in part.
Maybe a little bit of who you are leaks out. Some uncrucified flesh even leaks out. Listen, we are all in that same boat. That is why we bear with one another, and that is why Paul says, “Despise not prophesyings.” What he means by that is: listen to what God is saying, and take the brother to the cross. Just ask the Lord to help the brother. Be merciful.
I know there is one assembly that I go to on occasion, and they have such a critical spirit in the assembly that it is very hard for brethren to share. It is like they get picked apart: “Well, that scripture was a little weak,” and this and that. Listen, that is not the way it should be.
If we are growing together, we need to have that kind of openness where we can share. Nobody is going to share a perfect word—there is nobody yet. Even Brother Stephen is learning. So we just have to be very merciful in this thing.
God shapes everybody so differently. Look at all the different vessels that the Lord has used. This is amazing—the tremendous variety. That is exactly the way He wants it: no carbon copies, just a lot of variety.
Question: A lot of things you said today were confirmations of things for me that I had understood myself. But one thing I struggle to understand is this: when you come from a traditional church background, where the pastor is the only one who ever gets up at all, and you have a burden from the Lord, you never had the opportunity to share that.
So I am struggling to understand: should I feel free to do this? Should I go to those in authority and say, “Hey, I have this”? Is this the way we are supposed to function? It is probably a dumb question, but for me it is a new thing. Even though I have had these things confirmed, I have not always known what to do.
Response: That is a very good question. Let me ask you: do you go to an area fellowship meeting? A local group?
Let us look at 1 Corinthians 14, the passage we looked at, just to confirm what you are saying, brother Tom.
After sharing on the spiritual gifts, then the need for using love in the gifts, and then the preference of gifts, Paul comes to 1 Corinthians 14:26 and says:
What is it then, brethren? When ye come together, each one hath a psalm, hath a teaching, hath a revelation, hath a tongue, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.
The true life of the assembly has that kind of freedom. The reason I asked whether you were in an area group is that the context is talking about a group about that size. You come together, and ideally everybody should share something.
So, in that context, if you have a revelation or something the Lord showed you in Scripture, you share it. Our meetings should sometimes be that free, where anybody could share without having to check with anybody.
Now, when we have a larger assembly, such as this, gathered on Sunday morning, then we need to have some way of checking with people. You do not want to just stand up on Sunday morning and say, “I have something to share,” just as Jerry says, “Let us turn to—” because confusion could happen.
If you are feeling a stirring already, if you have some word in you or something like that, I would go to the brothers a couple of weeks beforehand and say, “There is something stirring in me. It is along the line of this. What do you think?”
If they say, “Yes, pray about it,” perhaps they may say, “Tom, there is also Brother Jim here, and he said he had a little something. How about considering doing fifteen minutes two weeks from now, and Brother Jim will do fifteen minutes also?” We could have that on a Sunday morning—just fifteen or twenty minutes.
The brothers are coordinated, and you would be surprised how the Holy Spirit coordinates these messages. You could actually have a couple of brothers share something like that.
I know what you are saying. Our background makes us think this is something special. Speaking the Word of God is a precious thing, but it should not intimidate us. We all know by experience now that pastors are very human beings.
But this thing of control in the pulpit and speaking the oracles of God has been made into such a thing that people are intimidated. In assembly life, though, do you know what is so precious?
I am now moving from Huntington, a little fellowship of people up in New York. It is a small group, but in that small group we have four brothers apt to teach, in a group of thirty people.
That is because they have had their chance. They have been given a shot, and over the years they have grown and learned—learned yes and no. Now we have four brothers apt to teach in a little assembly like that. It is a wonderful thing.
As opposed to some churches that have two thousand people, and you could not find two people who could share. Actually, you could, but they are never asked to get up and share. That is a shame. The whole body is sitting on its hands. It is a loss to the Lord.
So thank God we have this liberty. Now, it all has to be done decently and in order, does it not?
Again, in 1 Corinthians 14:31, Paul says:
For ye all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted.
He is talking about all learning. He is talking about the brothers who share, that you may learn; everybody also may learn; and you learn order. Everybody is helped, exhorted, and encouraged.
So, Tom, if the Lord is stirring, let us give it a shot.
Question: One of the great fears I have about stepping out in this area is that I will try to do it out of the flesh. We see such abusiveness in the church, and I am just like, “Lord, I cannot trust it.”
Response: Tom, let me just say this: you are already seventy-five percent safe. The very fact that you sense, “Lord, I do not want to do something out of myself,” is good. That is somebody who is aware that they can.
The people who are in trouble in the larger church are people who have no idea they are sharing out of their flesh. They are just sharing what they say is in their heart, and they have no idea they are sharing a lot of other stuff.
The fact that you even know that says to me that you are probably overcautious. I would not worry about it too much. Just be faithful. If the Lord gives you something, let Him work on you and deal with you, so that you can honestly say, “As best as I know, I have a clear conscience that this message is not an axe I am grinding.”
I have a burden for evangelism, so often when I share, evangelism leaks out. But the Lord does not say, “I do not allow you to speak on evangelism.” How can I not? There is a burden in my heart.
But I have to be careful that I do not give everybody the implication that everybody is supposed to be an evangelist. That is when we can go south, you know? Sorry—going south up north means going wrong. I do not know how to say it the right way.
The brothers are a wonderful thing. They keep us in check. There is safety when you have body life.
If we just get down to those with approved ministries, how does any ministry develop for approval? If you just locate four guys and say they are going to do everything, then the whole thing stops.
Question: You were talking about criticism. I do not go along with everyone saying, “Oh, wonderful.” If we have something we feel is not right, how do we express that without being critical?
Response: I think we have to be truthful. I really do. If you really got mixed up by what a brother was saying, or something was not clear, you do not go up and say, “Hey, brother, praise God, that was good.” You are sending him the wrong message, and that is wrong.
On the other hand, if somebody shares something and you really got something out of it—if you thought there was real life—it is good to say to your brother, especially if he is just stepping out on the water to see whether he can walk to Jesus, “Brother, that was a good word.”
So I think we should be honest. I believe in encouragement. I know there are some assemblies that believe you should never say anything positive to anybody, because it will go to their heads.
Believe me, the Lord deals with anybody who serves Him. The Lord deals with and humbles people. Sometimes you are speaking, and you can see you are off target—you have missed the mark. You beat yourself up enough, plus the fact that most of us are blessed with a wife.
There is the final court of appeals: the silence you experience driving home from the meeting. Rather than cause any harm, they just talk about grocery shopping, and now it has gone off.
Thank God for all of this. But the fact of the matter is, if we do share something in the body, we need to be open to correction. If we are not willing to be accountable, then forget it.
The charismatic thing where you share without accountability does not work. We need to be accountable. If somebody offers you a word of correction, do not fall apart.
One of the biggest problems we have with people who initially start sharing is that they get lost in what I call the battle of the lexicon and concordance—Lexington and Concord, the old Revolutionary War battle.
They get thrilled with three pages on the word faith. The next thing you know, we are all over the zoo looking up twelve, fourteen, or sixteen different Scriptures that have faith in them, most of them not germane to the message.
They got lost somehow in the shuffle. You realize that you are now doing a word study, but they lost the burden in the shuffle. Then they finally say, “Oh, I see I am out of time. I had three more verses.” They never got to share the burden because they went too crazy with it.
Somebody needs to lovingly say, “Brother, a little less concordance, a little more of what the Lord showed you in those few verses.” If we get a teacher mentality, sometimes we get killed.
A couple of verses should be able to hold the burden that you want to share for fifteen or twenty minutes. Do not go all over the zoo. You can fall in love with a concordance—it is like a prop. So just be careful on that.
Let us do part two, because it will probably evoke some more questions. Why do we not turn to Habakkuk 2, just as a starting place? This is a test in itself—see how fast you can turn to Habakkuk.
For those of you who are not there yet—Mord is not there yet, and he even has a thumb index. Only kidding, Bart. It is those pages that are stuck together. You have never separated the gold leaf on those pages.
One time in New York, when Lance came through, we gave him a brand-new American Standard Version, exactly like his old dilapidated one. It needed the same pagination, because he knew verses by where they were on the page.
Then he went off to Borneo to speak to some converted headhunters. They asked him a question from Genesis 41, and he could not find it, because his Bible stopped with Genesis 39 and picked up again in Exodus 12.
He was so tired from jet lag that he kept turning back and forth. “Wait a minute, I can find it.” He said the headhunters started looking sideways at him: “False prophet.”
Let us look at Habakkuk 2:1-4.
I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower,
And will look forth to see what He will speak with me,
And what I shall answer concerning my complaint.And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables,
That he may run that readeth it.For the vision is yet for the appointed time,
And it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie:
Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay.
When the Lord gives us a burden—He gave us a word, and it became a burden—we need to wait for that burden to become clarified in words.
This is exactly what Habakkuk did when he wrote his prophecy. He started out with a conundrum, a question he could not answer. He brought it before the Lord, waited on the ramparts for the Lord to speak, and the Lord did speak.
The Lord clarified that burden in such a way that Habakkuk could share it. It is a beautiful book as it opens up.
What I am saying is that when the Lord gives you a word, it sometimes goes into this kind of tunnel. It becomes a burden, and it wrestles with you. What we need to say is, “Okay, Lord, now I need this process of words.”
You would be surprised how important words are. Sometimes a whole message is keyed on the opening words you say. You have to ask the Lord for those words. There are just the right words.
Again, let us not get mechanical or expect perfection here. But have you ever seen a person read a Scripture and then sort of bumble for five minutes? You need the opening words that begin to take you down the line of explaining the burden and the Scriptures that you see.
First, the word came into us with this burden. Now the burden has to be expressed outwardly. That is where we are now: asking the Lord for light to explain the vision that we have seen.
When we are clarifying our burden, of course we need to use Scripture. There we do need to go to a concordance. If you are a brother and have a desire to share, I would get at least one thing besides a concordance: Vine’s dictionary.
It is for people who do not know Greek, but it is very clear about the meaning of words. If you are especially touched by the word grace, you look it up and see charis, its different meanings, and the Scriptures where it is used.
Vine’s dictionary is very good. So I would say a concordance and Vine’s is a good way to start, because perhaps other Scriptures will help buoy up the thought you have from the one Scripture the Lord gave you.
When your burden is coming into light, just to be sure you are not off the mark, it is good to have some sort of commentary. It is good to check—perhaps in one of Stephen’s things, or in a book dealing with that particular passage—just to make sure you are not actually going against the context.
You would be surprised. Sometimes people share a word, and it may be a subjective, wonderful word, but it is actually not the context. It makes people feel a little uneasy when something is totally way off.
I remember a brother sharing one time about two or three gathered together, the Lord being in the midst, and the Lord doing what they say. He basically came up with the idea that the problem in the church is that two or three people can never agree together. So whenever it happens, the Lord automatically does it.
His thought was, “If you can just find two or three people who agree, the Lord will do it, because it is almost impossible to ever find that in the church.” Well, that was his burden, but that is not at all what the Scripture meant.
It does not say that if you want a Cadillac, and you can find two or three people to agree with you, then the Lord will have to do it. But that is what this fellow had interpreted.
Another brother shared, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” He somehow misinterpreted the verse and began to explain ways we can escape if we neglect so great a salvation.
The point of that verse is not to find ways to escape from neglecting so great a salvation. The fellow just read it upside down or something, and everybody was saying, “What is he saying?”
That is why it is good to look at a commentary or something. Look at those verses and make sure you have not completely twisted them upside down, which occasionally can happen.
Especially when I am thinking about a fifteen- or twenty-minute message, limit your Scriptures. Do not give too many. The Scriptures can obscure the thing, especially if you have a couple that really hit the mark.
Just use those Scriptures, and in that period of time work around those few Scriptures you have. As I said, do not get lost in that battle of lexicon and concordance. Just limit it.
Here is one more discipline: if you are going to share a message on a particular Scripture, a verse or two, memorize those verses. Memorize them.
Then you do not have to keep going back and saying, “Oh no, wait a minute, my initial thing—” Just memorize those two verses. It is not a big deal. You should be exercising enough on those verses that you have them memorized anyway.
Close your Bible and ask yourself, “Can I say those verses now?” It is a good discipline. That way, if you share enough, you will memorize some Scriptures. Hey, that works.
Then you want to find the words that can describe the main point. At some point in your preparation, can you state your main point in a sentence or two?
Again, I am thinking of one Scripture, one main point, and some illustration. Can you define your main point? Sometimes we get lost in the shuffle.
Have you ever heard a good message and just kind of gotten lost at the end? “Well, what happened here? What is the main point?” What happened is that the speaker got into three or four subpoints and lost the main point.
So just be sure you have the main point. When I am writing out notes, I will often put the main point up here in red, because at the end of the message I always want to go back to that beginning point and tie it up.
It is very important to be clear regarding the main point.
The rest has to do with how you embed the burden. Have you ever seen a brother read the Scripture and immediately share the burden he has right at the beginning? Why is that not so good?
First of all, the rest is not the climax. But more importantly, the burden will not be felt because it is not understood.
If you have read The Normal Christian Life, I will use an example. Watchman Nee was reading Galatians 2:20, and it came to him that he had really been crucified with Christ. He ran down the street saying, “I am dead! I am dead! I am dead!”
He was knocking on the saints’ doors, saying, “I am dead! I am dead!” They did not understand what he was saying.
Eventually, of course, he spoke on it. He embedded that reality in the understanding of how he came to that place. Then he said, “I am dead,” and everybody understood.
If you simply say, “The burden the Lord has put on my heart is—” you might as well close in prayer. Some people will get it, especially when we have been living together a long time and everybody knows you so well anyway.
It is like that old joke in the prison where you just call out a number and people laugh because they all know the jokes. You say, “Joke number forty-five,” and the guy laughs.
Sometimes you can say, “Let us turn to Galatians 2:20,” and people say, “Praise God, I already know your joke.” They know your burden because they know you.
But here is the point: embed the burden.
In my mind, nobody does this better than Stephen. Do not get intimidated, but he sets the stage before he shares a burden. He embeds it so wonderfully that when he shares that burden, you see it from twelve different angles.
All I mean by embedding is this: before you share the burden that is on your heart, at least share the context of the Scripture you are using.
Why was it written? When was it written? What was the situation? Then, when you share your burden, it makes sense.
A second way of embedding is to share with people the process you went through in coming to understand what this was.
The burden, “I am dead, I am dead,” in itself may be taken at face value without being understood. But if you share the process of how you struggled and wrestled with self-life, and how you came to the place where you were liberated and saw that you were crucified in Christ but living in Him—dead, yet alive—then when you say, “I am dead,” everybody understands.
Do not assume that everybody has gone through the same process you went through to get to that realization. One way you embed the burden is to share a little of your experience of how you came to see it.
You are taking your burden and sharing it in such a way that it prepares people to receive that wonderful message.
Usually, when the Lord has given you a word in the context of a fifteen- or twenty-minute message, He will not only give you a Scripture and a burden, but He will usually give you at least one real illustration. This is so valuable.
In this regard, Kenny is a good preacher. I have not heard him preach a lot, but at conferences he brings out illustrations that are very appropriate to the point he is making. He obviously spends time on them. Do not think that just happens like this.
Pray about it: “Lord, what is an illustration that really points this out?” This is where the variety in the body of Christ really gives glory to God and shines.
We have one brother up in Huntington who has the best way of giving illustrations. It is just amazing. One time he talked about the old understanding of physics, where there were constants and variables.
That understanding lasted right into Einstein’s time, and Einstein turned the whole thing around. It turned out that the constants were variables and the variables were constant.
He shared that, and it brought in the kingdom in such a real, living way. It was a beautiful illustration. It made the message, and people still remember it ten years later.
Because he had a science background, he brought that thing in. We have another brother who is an engineer, and he always brings in very clear illustrations that make the point.
This is where the Lord uses your background. Here is the Scripture, and look at how the Lord illustrated this in this person’s life. It makes us so marvelous, because through illustration we see the point of the Scripture.
Even Jesus used parables because through parables you can see the point. So do not downplay illustration.
At the same time, brothers, do not use illustrations that are totally irrelevant. This happens when somebody gets hold of a book of illustrations and becomes fascinated by them. They share something that really has nothing to do with their point, though it was a great story.
Some preachers are totally unapologetic about this. They stand up, read a Scripture, and say, “You know, the other day—” and then tell some joke.
We have a brother up in Huntington who always begins with a joke. But it is just his way in. He is so nervous that he starts with a joke, so everybody waits for the joke because we know we are not going anywhere until he shares it.
It is usually something from his own experience up on Long Island. “An amazing thing has happened on Long Island: we got a Walmart. You guys have them all over, but this is our first one up there.”
He talks about his life in Walmart. It is funny, but he uses the illustration and brings it around to his point. That is the difference.
Illustration is important. Even in fifteen or twenty minutes: one Scripture, one burden, one illustration. Then people go home saying, “I got it.”
I spoke at the summer conference three times. Everybody tells me they remember the car wash. They have no idea what I spoke on, but they remember the car wash. That was one illustration, and it really brought something home.
Christian Chen asked me one time, “What book of illustrations do you use?” I said, “I do not have any.” He has a computer bank full of them, worked out in a database.
When you hear Christian Chen speak, he uses good illustrations too. He pulls out stories from the seventeenth century, stories from the Revolutionary War, stories from astrophysics. He has an unbelievable database.
Sometimes you have not understood what he set up until his illustration makes it clear. Cut that from the tape, would you please?
When you have your fifteen-minute message, ask a couple of questions about it.
Am I addressing a problem, or revealing an answer? Have I only gotten halfway through my burden, or have I seen the Lord in it and received something worth sharing?
You may still have a good burden, but you have to work it through. Otherwise, it may seem like you are just haranguing people and there is nothing there.
Is my main thought clearly presented? This afternoon, when you share, I am going to use these things as a basic reference.
Do the Scriptures used focus or obscure what I want to say? Sometimes that can happen simply by throwing too many Scriptures in.
Now, I always feel like I need to stop and give you a sense of the Lord’s life in this. Some people are very strong in the Scriptures but not so good with illustrations. Others are very good at illustrations but sometimes a little weak with Scripture. The Lord takes them both.
Do not lock it down too much. Some people do not know the Scriptures very well, but they surely know the Lord’s life, and the Lord wants them to share too.
How is Christ made central in this message? It should be obvious, but sometimes we take something from the Old Testament and give an hour-long dissertation on the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Lord’s name has not been mentioned.
Was a clear application made? Our Scripture, burden, and illustration should have a point. What is the application?
It is good to have an application for the saints—something we should pray about. After all, that is why we are sharing. The application may be, “Do we see the Lord more clearly in this?” or something similar.
Beware of chasing side issues. Side issues are red herrings, just like the battle of lexicon and concordance. People can get off on side issues and lose the main point.
You do not want to lose the main point. Everything should be heading toward that main point, not taking us way off to the side.
This is something none of us fully knows how to do: do not go beyond the life of the message.
If you have fifteen minutes of life and stretch it to forty-five, notice the people yawning. Notice Stephen with his head bowed, sort of praying for you, and realize you have gotten beyond the life.
Life is a wonderful thing, but everybody has a different capacity at a different time. It is not always consistent. I am advocating shorter messages, is what I am trying to say.
Do not start cutting off if you are in the right. Do not say, “Oh, I have gone too long. I am up to fifteen minutes.” No, no. If you have life, the Lord gives us life.
Paul could speak all night long and only have one interruption, when the boy fell out of the window. But he had life to do it.
I remember some of Watchman Nee’s training sessions. According to what they said, he would go on for hours speaking. The Ministry of God’s Word, which I asked you to read by assignment, is so deep and sensitive regarding the ministry of the Word.
He spoke that extemporaneously, out of the fullness of his heart, for hours at a time. There was life—lots of life there.
But that came from not speaking for several years. He was under discipline and was not speaking for several years during the war. When he was released, that was one of the first things released in the training, and it was a release of life.
When the Lord deals with us, there is more life. So do not go beyond your life.
I wish the Lord would give us a little life clock: “Oh, I see my time is up.” But most of us go a little over. A little over is okay. Do not get too legalistic about this.
If you get a little beyond yourself, retrace and get back to the main point. That is okay. But do not say, “I have to do an hour whether I have it or not.” It just kills us.
Watch out for vague expressions—sort of shibboleths, clichés.
We all know we need to go to the Lord, seek the Lord, and that Christ is the answer. But if you just say that all the time, we will give you a hundred because you are in Sunday school class, and if you say the answer is Christ, you have to give credit.
But the reason for your message is to show how Christ works this particular thing out. Be careful that we do not just end up saying, “Brothers, what we need to do is seek the Lord.” Well, okay.
“We need to pray. Let us be before the Lord.” These are wonderful phrases, but we use phrases too casually sometimes, as though we are all some kind of super-spiritual people.
I find that the more regular words you can use, the more people will understand. We are not fraught with terminology, but we have our terminology.
When visitors are around, I am sensitive to our terminology. If we use too much of our testimony terminology—church vision and all this kind of stuff—people get lost. “What are they saying?”
I have visited church movements that are so laden with terminology that you cannot understand what they are saying. Witness Lee and the Local Church are an example. When you read their literature, you need a concordance for their terminology.
I was talking to Brother Dale King, who was involved in the Berachah ministry under Colonel Thieme in Houston, Texas. Colonel Thieme was a colonel in the army who became a preacher—a very good preacher, especially on prophecy and end-times matters.
He had a one-hour discipline, six nights a week. You went there at eight o’clock, and at the end of the hour he shut the Bible, said the prayer, and everybody went home.
But that fellow had so much terminology that you could not understand what he was saying. It was like the Worldwide Church of God and Armstrong terminology. There was a lot of baggage there. When he said “kingdom,” he did not mean what we mean by “kingdom.”
So be aware of terminology. It can kill us. People need to know the simplicity of the Bible. Do not get too terminological.
Honestly see, as best you can, whether your illustration really illuminates the point. Does this make the point? Does it shine on the point?
Ask this question, because it will get to the bottom of whether you have an axe to grind: Am I feeding the sheep or clubbing the goats?
The people you have there on Sunday morning—why are they there? They could have taken the day off and slept in. They bit the bullet, took up the cross, came to the meeting, worshiped, and now they are listening to you. They have really put up with a lot.
So do not go haranguing them. What we need is for people to come faithfully, because they are there.
You know how preachers do that. That is what they call clubbing the goats, or haranguing the choir. The choir is there faithfully every Sunday. Why get after them? They are paying their tithes. They are there every Sunday. That is all a Christian has to do, so why are you getting after them?
Do not go clubbing the goats. It does not edify anybody to talk about people who have done this or that. Forget all that. Feed the sheep.
The sheep are there to be fed. They want to see the Lord. That is it. This is who you are dealing with, so be very gracious and loving to them.
Deal with your own sense of inadequacy before, and not during, the message. No apologies. No excuses. Just share what the Lord has given you.
We have all heard preachers standing there with spotlights on them, saying, “Lord, hide me behind the cross.” We all have this feeling that if we could just disappear now, it would be good.
So we get up there and point out who we are by saying that we just want to hide, that we do not want any credit, that we did not do a good job, that we were up late last night with the kids. People are saying, “Please, just share.”
I have grown to appreciate people more and more when they come anyway for a prayer meeting. You have to give people a silver star just for showing up. They went through all kinds of overcoming to even get to the prayer meeting.
Do not harangue them. Let us love them. Thank God for the saints who come on Sunday. Just love them. Appreciate that they are there.
One thing God had to do with me in training me from being a Baptist minister to being a human being—which was a difficult transition—was put me on a regular job for several years.
You work a regular job and you are exhausted. Forget all this spiritual claptrap about, “Why did you not read the Bible for three hours today?”
When I was working hard enough and long enough, and I dragged into the prayer meeting, I had to overcome just to get there, thank you very much. I did not need somebody telling me that I was not prepared for something or other. Thank God I got there.
Fortunately, this is the route God sent me through to get some of that ministerial attitude—“I know it all, and you guys need a good chafing”—out of my suit.
Let us not chafe one another. Thank God that God gives us all a way, as we go along, to find the Lord, have devotions, read the Bible, and study. He gives us all a way.
As you are able to take that way, as God gives you grace to take that way, the Lord will use you as you are able.
Practically speaking, some brothers will only be ready to share maybe once every six months. It takes them that long by experience to find something living to say. Do not expect that you should share every week.
For some other brother, maybe once a month he has something really living to share. For another brother, he could do it weekly. It depends on our portion of what the Lord is sharing with us and how much free time we have.
The more free time you have, the more likely you can have something to say on a regular basis. So even with this matter of, “Let us all share, brothers. You can all prophesy, so we can all be encouraged,” it does not mean you have to come up with something every week.
Here is what I like: when you receive a word from the Lord—something special from something you have read or heard—grab it. It is like a tow rope in water skiing. Just grab that thing.
It will lift you up out of the water, and you will find life beginning to churn. You will find some Scriptures, some illustrations, and something will begin to come. He will prepare it if you will just grab it.
But do not lose that thing in the water. “Oh, I had a great idea. What was that? I cannot remember.” Say, “Lord, swing the boat around.”
And you know what? He does. He will swing it back around. You might have to walk up and down a little while, but then you say, “Oh, I remember it now.” Write it down.
Then you get going down the road, and maybe six months later something comes out, or a month later something comes out.
To you young brothers who are here, do not be afraid or feel as though you are in some other category. The story of church history is full of young people who led the way.
Do not feel that you are not qualified. Every brother has the grace of God. According to the proportion of your faith, take a step and be willing to share. Do not try to overstep and be something you are not yet.
But if you share according to the proportion you have, it will be a blessing to everybody. Maybe the brothers can work it out so that two or even three of you share for fifteen minutes on a given Sunday. This is the place to start.
We do not ever want this place to become so sacred that any brother cannot share. That is how we will all be blessed.
Once again, I will go back to where I started. Sunday morning may not be the place to just start out cold. The fellowship group is a good place to start. Share your testimony. Gospel witnessing would be great.
For young people, if you had some gospel meetings, one or two of you could share a testimony and somebody could share a fifteen-minute Scripture. When I was a young Christian, I was saved at twenty.
From the time I was twenty to twenty-five was when I did most of my gospel work. Many people got saved. Do you know why? Because I was a brand-new Christian, but I was sharing the gospel. There was such a living thing.
God loves it when young people and newly converted people share the gospel. It is so living.
I do not know if you have read Watchman Nee’s books on assembling together, but one chapter says that the first priority of meetings for all church life is gospel meetings. You should have a gospel meeting every Sunday.
You should bring in your friends, the young converts should share their testimony, and a young brother should preach the gospel. That is the way they did it in China.
It is really true. Now that I am an old fuddy-duddy, I preach the gospel and people say, “Yeah, that is because you are over the hill. You have no more temptation from the world anymore. You are defanged.”
A young person who has really been changed and loves the Lord is a powerful witness in a gospel meeting.
These are the places to start. Then, here, give it a shot—fifteen or twenty minutes. Nobody is looking for an hour-long teaching message from somebody who is just starting.
But we really would like to hear what is in every heart, because that variety, the illustrations, and the things the Lord is doing are what make the body say, “Praise God.”
Everybody has a psalm, a revelation, a prophecy. So let us step forward by faith. Say, “Okay, Lord, I do not know if I have a gift or not.” Forget about whether you have a gift. Others will tell you if you have a gift.
You have grace, and by faith you step forward. Let us see if He makes charis come through. That is up to Him.
It is interesting: sometimes you have a gift in one context, and in another context you do not.
There is a brother I know on the West Coast. I have known him for years, and he is one of the best brothers. He is one of the responsible brothers out there, a trustworthy brother, with real discernment of spirits.
To this day, he cannot speak his way out of a paper bag. He is hopeless. He will read a Scripture, get all over the place, and forget his place.
Not only did his wife tell him to sit down, but the brothers did too, and he agreed at the end. Yet he is such a good brother. He has his place.
If he were to witness the gospel, his testimony would be unbelievable. But he is just not a speaker. He does not get up except to make announcements or something.
There are some brothers whose ministry is welcoming people at the door and doing other kinds of things in the body of Christ, but not speaking.
But in the final analysis, do you believe this? God’s grace can enable you to do anything He wants you to do at a given moment.
Suppose we all went on a tour to Russia. At some moment, they might say, “Brother Enoch, preach the gospel.” He would open his mouth, and the Lord would give him grace to do it.
Then I might say, “See that person over there bowed over in pain? Go over and pray for them.” God could use Dan, even if he does not have a healing gift. God’s grace is available.
At some moment, God may use you for healing, prophecy, preaching the gospel, being quiet, discerning, a word of wisdom, or a word of knowledge. That is God’s grace. It is unlimited.
A gift recognizes, in a sense, that this brother has grace that comes through in this particular way. In another way, it says he is limited: he has this gift. Grace is the big picture.
By the grace of God, in some circumstances you may be called upon to do something you never thought you could do.
I often wonder about Timothy. When Paul says to him, “Do the work of an evangelist,” there are two clear opinions.
Some people think Timothy had the gift of an evangelist that he was not using, and Paul was saying, “Come on, come on, come on. Get out there and preach the gospel.”
Others believe, as I tend to do, that Timothy was not an evangelist by gift. But by the grace of God, it was necessary for him to do the work of an evangelist.
There was an open door, an opportunity, something there, and they needed the gospel. “Timothy, do the work of an evangelist.” Even if you are not an evangelist, by the grace of God, at this season evangelism is necessary. Do it.
Do you believe God could give Timothy the grace to do the work of an evangelist, even if he was not an evangelist? Absolutely. Absolutely.
The Lord can give you the opportunity to share a word with everybody. We will see if there is a gift in there. Even if there is not, just sharing the life of the Lord is wonderful.
If you have the life of the Lord in you and He is giving you something, then share it in a proper period of time. It will be a blessing to everybody. You do not have to be a speaker. You just have to be a liver. That is all.
Question: My question relates to what you are sharing and your relationship with the audience. How do you maintain the right sensitivity without becoming overly sensitive? Sometimes a speaker can see there is no relationship or connection with the audience.
Response: Mac is asking about our relationship to the audience when we are speaking. Sometimes we notice that people are not paying attention, or they are yawning. How sensitive should we be to that, and how much should we work at being related to the audience?
This is a big question. A couple of things come to mind. The more mature an audience is, the less you have to work them. They are there, they are hungry, and they want to know. You just have to share.
The less mature they are, the more you have to work them. Young people have to be worked with. Jim cannot just get up there and talk to young people; he has to do little shenanigans, because that is how they are.
Kids have a limited attention span. You have to stick in there and do things to work with them because they are young. They are not going to sit there for an hour while you just roll on.
But relating to the group is tough, because you cannot always go by those signals. Some people fall asleep automatically when you open the Word. Some people are simply tired.
I have gotten to the place where I do not watch that too much myself. I think it can really throw a person off. But if there is a restlessness among the saints, then I pray inwardly and say, “Lord, help us come back into life.”
There are so many extenuating factors. It is hard to tell. Remember when Lance told the story of going to the Lapps in Norway or Sweden, somewhere up there?
The first time he went, he spoke and they sat there totally deadpan. He thought he had completely missed the mark. He thought, “I had better finish up. They are just dying.”
He told his best jokes and nothing happened. They were sitting there looking like they were dead. He got through and had practically given up the ghost.
Right at the end, he noticed all the people had tears in their eyes. They had really been touched. One of the brothers on the podium had to point it out: “Do you see that out there? They are really moved.”
But the Lapps are a people who do not tend to be demonstrative. I am fortunate because I get immediate feedback in New York—everybody is Italian.
I am speaking, and people are reacting right away. But some people are not quite as demonstrative. It is a little tough to read.
I would not put too much on it. But in the long run, if I see that always happening, I think I have to say, “Lord, I need more life when I share.”
Question: The odds of people staying attentive probably increase directly in proportion to the length of the message. You said fifteen or twenty minutes. Is there an optimal length?
Response: I think there is a relationship. A half hour is a good time. I think most people in our fellowship context can last a half hour with no problem.
After a half hour, people begin looking a little away from their notes toward their watch. But it depends again on life.
When there is life, people do not notice the time. There have been exceptional times when I have gone over the limit and people have said, “I did not even notice the time.” Thank God for that. Then there are other times I will not mention.
Question: If you have a burden, it seems to me that the responsibility is to share the burden the Lord has given you. But if you are a gifted teacher, you may be able to stand up and teach in a different, engaging style. Can we draw that distinction?
I have listened to very engaging speakers on non-spiritual subjects, and they are very good at what they do. But speaking should be about revelation. There is a fear that it could become about standing up there and mesmerizing the crowd rather than bringing something from the Lord.
Response: Amen. We need to be clear, but in the end God is the One who wants to be seen. You cannot always go by what people say. I have been in meetings where someone said, “I did not get anything out of that,” while someone else said, “That was great.”
Here is the point. I am talking to brothers, some of whom have been speaking a long time and some who are new at it. When you first put your foot in the water, you can say spiritually, “I just want to share the Lord’s revelation. I want to get out of the way.”
But when you are first up here, you are very self-conscious. With time, you lose that self-consciousness. You become less conscious of yourself and more conscious of the Lord.
You have to get through those initial times when you are apt to feel very self-conscious. Have you ever seen a brother say, “I just have one minute to share something,” and then take twelve minutes? He just cannot stop.
When you are up here and very self-conscious, it is hard to be Lord-conscious. I am being honest with you. It is tough to be Lord-conscious when you are very self-conscious.
But there is a little time period where the Lord gives you enough burden that you share it anyway. After a while you start to say, “I do not have to worry about myself so much. I am just going to share the Lord.”
That takes a little while for most people. People who are just starting are often very nervous. They sweat, and they have a hard time finding the Scriptures. That is what I mean by self-consciousness.
We need to bear with that, with long-suffering, and help them get over those first times. Ernie fainted the first times he spoke. He got up in a pulpit, hyperventilated, and fell down.
Look at him now. He can go on for six hours as one exhale.
It is hard not to be self-conscious when you are first starting out. But the more you share, the more you realize: it is not about me; it is about the Lord.
Question: In terms of natural human instincts, people often remember the first and last things you say. Studies show that people remember the beginning and the conclusion, so it is important to bring it back home.
Through the last eight years of education, when writing papers, I have learned that you have to keep refining your thesis. You turn in a paper, and the teacher asks, “What are you trying to talk about? What is the thesis?”
That is what has been coming back to me: continually refining the thought, taking it back to the Lord, asking, “What really is the point here? What is it, Jesus?” You hone in on that, get something clear and concise, and then everything develops from that.
Response: Have you ever been in one of Lance’s sessions where he says, “I want you, in one sentence, to tell me what God’s eternal purpose is”? Most people cannot do it.
The clearer we can be about what we really want to say, the more it will come across. No doubt about it.
It is helpful to articulate those couple of sentences several times. The first time you talk to the brothers about sharing, say clearly what it is.
Maybe there is an opportunity there. I usually talk to my wife and try to get it clear early on. Usually, halfway through, you realize, “Man, it is just clearing up.” She says, “I understand. You have your gem there.”
Praise God. That is right.
There is a problem with people who are skilled in speaking and who speak even when they do not have a burden.
Question: The fear I have is that I have opportunities to speak. I can do it, but I do not want to speak merely because I can.
Response: That is a good thing to know, because in the end people will pick up on that too. This is not to say that if you are a capable speaker—if you can make presentations at work and do these things—you should not speak here. That is not the point.
The point is to rely on the Lord, be clear about your burden, and not just say, “It has been four weeks. I think I want to speak. Let me go to Spurgeon’s sermon notes and see if I can come up with something.”
More importantly, suppose somebody asks you to speak. You may feel very good saying, “I do not have a burden.” That can be good. You do not want to just say yes.
But maybe you had a little word and forgot it. This is a process. When someone says, “Would you be ready?” it puts you in a position of having to be before the Lord.
You may have to go to the concordance, go to the Word, and seek the Lord. We do not want to just throw things out.
If the brothers in responsibility ask you to speak, they must see something the Lord has shown them about you. How do you respond? Do you shrink back from responsibility, or do you say, “There will be a word. I will take that as being from You, Lord”?
You heard Brother Stephen talk about the discipline when he first joined with Watchman Nee. At that time Watchman Nee was quite sick, so they had Sunday morning and Sunday evening meetings.
Stephen’s job was to be ready every Sunday. He only found out Sunday morning. He got a note from downstairs—he lived upstairs—that said, “You speak,” or, “I speak.”
He had to be ready every Sunday. That is a discipline. But Stephen is a teacher.
The only people you can really lay this on—“Look, we want you to speak on this topic”—are teachers. Most people cannot do that.
I remember one time we asked Stephen to speak on the family. He said, “Well, I do not have a family.” We said, “We would like you to speak about it.” “I do not have children.” Of course, he gave the best word we ever heard on children.
You see, because he is a teacher. He goes to these Chinese conferences, and they set the topic. It is not like he says, “I have a burden.” They say, “We want you to speak on this,” and that is it.
A teacher is able to do that, but most people cannot. Or we will start on the assigned topic and somehow get back to our burden.
I remember Jerry and me being in Brazil one time. They asked us to speak on some topic—I forget what it was—but Jerry spoke on what he had a burden for.
He said, “Our topic is the crisis in the church. My burden is—” and he spoke three messages. Jerry has a prophetic side to him. No nonsense. “This is what I think.” That is what he does.
But if you put him in a box and say, “We want you to do this,” he does not have the facility Stephen has to speak on virtually anything. It is amazing.
Only a teacher can usually be asked to share about a specified subject. Although we can sometimes say, “We are doing a series for several weeks on loving the brethren. Let us all be before the Lord about this. See if the Lord gives you something. Maybe in a few weeks you could share.”
That gives people latitude. But when you know you are speaking on something specific, that is where it is tough.
Comment: Brother Stephen shared several years back that there are three elements that need to be seen in ministry: an inner witness, a witness by the assembly, and fruit that verifies the gifting. If any one of those is missing, perhaps you need to step back.
Response: Lenny is saying that there are three ways you can know if someone has a gifting.
First, they have to have an inner conviction themselves: the Lord is saying, “I want you to do this.”
Second, the saints also say, when the person shares, “This is from the Lord.”
Third, there is fruit from that ministry. These are three ways that confirm a gifting somebody has in their life.
We are talking about before that happens. We are all in grace. Let us just share and get to that point somewhere.
There is also the Scripture that says a man’s gift makes room for him. If it is a gift, the Lord will give opportunity or present opportunity.
If you are approached and someone says, “Brother, would you share?” then you need to trust the life of God, trust the gift and the guidance, trust that the Lord can make the supply, and go ahead in obedience.
I almost look at it as a matter of obedience. If there is gifting that is recognized and you are asked, trust the life of God to make the supply, and then go.
Amen. There again is somebody aware of a gift, now called upon to do something. Because of that faith, he trusts the Lord, obeys, and the Lord gives him something. It is amazing how the Lord gives us something. It is a miracle.
Comment: There is a lot of the Lord’s life here that we just do not hear. That is my concern. It is reasonable to say, “Hey, brother, do you have something to share?” A brother may not have anything because he has not been thinking about it.
He has not been exercised before the Lord to say, “Maybe I do need to be responsible before the Lord, that He might give me something that I can share.” Not necessarily on Sunday morning. It might be on a Friday night, or in a one-on-one conversation.
The concern is to take up that responsibility—actually expecting the Lord to deal with things and give us something. If we cannot share it, perhaps He will leave it.
Response: In the Lord, we need to encourage one another. “The Lord gave you something. We have seen something. I think you ought to be able to share that.”
That gets the focus off speaking and helps us with sharing. It might simply be encouraging.
That is certainly the way it was at the beginning. There were no professionals. It was you and me being faithful, that is all. That is all there is today in reality—no professionals, just you and me being faithful.
Comment: We think so much of speaking as being from up there, but a lot of it comes out of Bible study. When you are preparing and looking at the Word, that is when the Lord is speaking to you.
Then other people come and say, “The Lord showed us something,” and you begin to find that way. Do not look at Bible study as something you merely have to attend. It is preparing.
There may be an opportunity to share, and then you share what the Lord showed you at that time. That is an easier way than just standing up there to begin with. You receive encouragement from the brothers and sisters.
Response: Amen. Jim, can I ask a question? When you do your area fellowship meetings, what do you call them?
Response from audience: Fellowship groups. Bible studies.
Response: Do you ask different brothers to lead one night and that kind of thing?
Response from audience: Usually, for a few years, they studied before. There is no central person, but they go to groups.
Response: You do not even have to lead. I remember growing up, when we had our Tuesday night Bible study, we had a brother named Floyd. Floyd always encouraged us: “You read. You can read that, and you can read other books and come into the Bible.”
We read 1 Corinthians: someone had a psalm, someone had a teaching. That was the way a lot of those colors came in. You shared what the Lord showed you.
You do not have to be the leader. Something can come out, and I think it registers for others.
Well, the sisters are calling us for lunch. We are going to eat until one o’clock. So let us enjoy our time together, and then we will come back together and begin.