I want to thank you again for the joy that has been mine, and my wife’s, to be with you these days. I thank you again and again for praying for our physical needs. I cannot remember, through the years, having to battle as many days; but we have been sensing the strength, support, and supply of all of you. I want to thank you for that so much.
What I wanted to share this evening could have several different titles. I thought maybe I would talk about wisdom having built her house; she has hewn out seven pillars. They did want me to draw a house of seven pillars, so I cannot do that. But I would like to talk to you about seven very practical issues in serving one another.
I think the further along I go, the more keenly aware I become of the need for the practical, aggressive action of God’s people in dealing with issues as we see them. I have always tended to say, “Well, I’ll pray about it,” and then the Holy Spirit begins to say, “But you could do something. You know what to do.”
So tonight I am going to deal with some questions that I like to ask, questions that can be very revealing—things that perhaps can help us as parents and as individuals to know how to serve and help one another, and to bring a little more effectiveness into our walk with the Lord.
I think I will put some of the issues here on the board so that you can follow along with me. The concern I have is that we will recognize the imperative necessity of being very practical and down to earth when it comes to certain issues.
What do I mean by that? Well, let me deal first of all with the difference between talent and consecration.
I am increasingly aware, in the religious scenery all about us today, that there are an awful lot of individuals who have talents, giftings, and abilities. They really want to serve the Lord, and I am so grateful for that. I believe that the work of the Lord requires folk who have some skills, gifting, and ability.
Yet the problem I run into is that so many folk come along saying, “Oh, I’d like to serve the Lord with my music.” I remember, for example, after the Second World War, the dozens—probably hundreds—of pilots who had flown in the service. Now they were coming back. Many of them had really met the Lord in a wonderful way, and they wanted to give themselves to the Lord.
I do not know how many young men who were pilots came to me and said, “I’d like to dedicate my ability to fly a plane for the Lord.” Of course, you know, Missionary Aviation Fellowship and all the different groups developed to use some of this help.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to fly a plane for the Lord. But I found myself asking this question on a number of occasions: “What if God does not need any more pilots?” There is already a big waiting line of individuals who would like to have their particular ability or skill used for God.
I do not like to be negative, but I know there are times when you have to deal critically with the issue at stake. I do not read any place where it says that I dedicate or give my musical ability, my plane-flying ability, or any of these talents that I have to the Lord.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Not your instrument, your service, or your ability—your body.
One summer, I had the privilege of being the music director at a large camp in Oregon. For ten weeks, there was each week a different flow of people and different speakers. I was privileged not only to lead, but also to find special help and special music for the meetings.
One of the things I cannot forget to this day concerns a certain sister who had been invited to come out from Portland to the camp where we were, to sing. That particular night, she stood with something of the glory of the Lord and the overflow of life. I was so impressed. I sat there and wept. I looked around and saw many other people weeping.
I thought, “This is wonderful—the presence of the Lord.” Surely she had a lovely voice. The fact is, she came out the next three or four weeks, and each time I would ask her to sing. Each time there was the same sense of God singing through her.
I went to her after about the third or fourth time and said, “There is something very different about your singing. Could you—would you—tell me what has really happened in your life?”
She explained, “For a number of years, I was in opera. I found the Lord and began to sing in churches and choirs all over Portland, Oregon. I was in much demand and enjoyed all of it. Then there came a crisis in my life. Suddenly, I lost my voice. I could not even croak. It was so bad. I could not speak; I just lost my voice.”
“During that period of several months,” she said, “I began to cry out, ‘Oh, God, what has happened?’” Then she looked at me and said, “You know, I made the discovery that God wanted me wholly consecrated to Him, broken before Him, that He might use my voice in His own way.”
She said, “Up to this time, I had always enjoyed picking the songs that would show off my qualities—songs that were a little more entertaining, songs that had, you know, more appeal. But I made this promise to the Lord: from this moment on, I would ask Him to make the choice—the content, the words, everything that I did.”
She continued, “I kept praying, ‘Oh, God, through this brokenness that You brought into my life, would You release life to others?’”
That was probably fifty-five years ago, but it is as real to me tonight as the night she stood and said, “I no longer sing what I want to sing. I want to be an expression of His life.”
Now, I am saying this because we all have talent. We all have enablements. We have developed skills, and thank God for all of that. But there comes a moment in which God needs to break through and help us realize that it is not our talent; it is our availability.
Is anybody following what I am trying to say tonight? I do not want to have a little private hobbyhorse of my own and say, “Well, God is not interested in talents.” No. The issue is this: Has He ever taken this through the cross?
I am not saying that everyone goes through what my sister went through. But more and more, I have become convinced that all the talent we want to present to Him, He sort of ignores, and He says, “I just want you.”
It is not selective service with us. I present myself. I said to many of these fellows, “What if the mission fields do not need your flying planes? What if suddenly God wants you to be a missionary, not a pilot?”
The concern I have tonight is that, so often when we come, it is selective service. “I know God wants me to be a musician for Him.” Well, what if He does not? What if your musical ability is not the thing God is after? He wants you as an individual. Then He can use you, and perhaps lay you aside for a while—whichever He chooses to do.
I will never forget being in what I would have to call a hippie commune in the Northwest many years ago, seated on the floor with about fifty or sixty young people—real precious kids. Suddenly, I heard one of the young men sitting there cry out, “Oh Lord, help Brother Vern to die to his ministry and never preach again if You want to close him up.”
I thought, “Well, here is a twenty-year-old fellow who has suddenly gotten a revelation from the Lord.” I felt as though the body of Christ would be kind of hurt if I was not down the road. But I never got away from that fact. God spoke to me that evening as I sat there and said, “Lord, it would really be a loss to the body, but would You do this?”
What I am wanting to say to us tonight is this: I believe there comes a time in our life when we begin to recognize that it is the brokenness, the availability. It is God having a vessel He can use in His own way—not the way I choose to serve.
The thing that really burdens me is that, in the practical issues of our serving, we are not giving some talents or something else; we are giving ourselves to the Lord, and He chooses how, when, and where.
I remember when certain mission fields were closed and missionaries could not get back to the areas where they had been. There was a struggle as they waited for open doors. At that point, my wife came along and said to one of them, “I went to India and spent five and a half years there serving the Lord. When I had to come home because of illness, I discovered I could not get back. The door was closed.”
She said, “Suddenly the Lord said, ‘I did not call you basically to India. I called you to walk and serve Me wherever I want you to be.’” The first issue with each of us is, “Lord, am I Yours, available to You wherever You choose to send me?”
It was a real struggle, and she finally discovered that she would not be going back at all, but would marry somebody who would be with her for forty-four years and then take her home.
In the process of discovering the wisdom and ways of the Lord, it is not our talents we present. I actually believe that when we see ourselves nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, buried in the tomb with Him, and coming in resurrection life, the anointing of God only comes upon resurrection ground.
There is so much attempt today to get the anointing and blessing upon the flesh. God is very jealous for what He anoints. That which comes through the grave and onto resurrection ground—it is there the dove descends. It is there the Holy Spirit comes to anoint. A real consecration, then, is that which comes on resurrection ground.
In this process of practical issues, I have discovered how easy it is to miss helping people come into their own individual walk with the Lord. I like to call this assignment with accountability.
Let me illustrate it this way. When people come to me with a real problem, I have discovered that they can be like leeches that sap your strength and just drain. Next week they will be back, and back again.
Maybe it is just me, but the Lord has been beginning to say, “You give them some little assignment to see how much they really want to walk with Me and come through the issues.”
So I begin to say, “I think God has a special chapter in this book of the Bible that would be a real blessing to you. In fact, I would like to give you an assignment this week: all week long, read that chapter over and over before the Lord. Then call me next Saturday, and we will get together and see what God might have said to you.”
I am utterly amazed at how many people discover that they do not want to put much participation into it; they just want to draw from you. I call this giving an assignment and then developing accountability.
I learned this from one of the brothers who has been gripped by The Larger Window book. He said, “I keep a whole stack of them here on the shelf. When someone comes with a particular problem or need, I remember a page or a short story.”
“I look at them and say, ‘You know, I have a story that I believe would help you tremendously. Would you take this book home and read the story?’ I do not give books to anybody anymore,” he said. “They just move from my shelf to their shelf.”
“But I encourage them to read it three or four times and then call me. It is utterly amazing how the Holy Spirit can work through this little assignment. They become accountable. They call back, and invariably they say, ‘I read the next story and the next thing. Could I buy one of those books?’ Of course, that is what we are after.”
It is the principle of developing some assignment. I have been doing this with some of the men we are working with. Individuals like to chat about problems. How many folks want to come and just drain and sap your strength?
I am talking about practical issues of wisdom. Discover a little assignment that you can give them, and then hold some accountability. If God is speaking in a heart and there is a real issue at stake, we do not want to get in between. We want to bring them to the place where they are sent to the Lord and begin daily to say, “Oh, God, You can speak to me.”
Otherwise, they will be back to you again and again. We want to get out of the middle. We have been used to bring them to this place.
I read a brother saying one day, “You do not have to be able to answer all the questions people have. You do not have to be able to fix all their problems. But you do need to bring them to the Fixer and make sure that they come into an awareness that He is their supply.”
Some of you have such a desire to help in a very practical way. Learn to bring people into accountability to the Lord—and probably to you for the moment—to see whether they mean business or are just wasting your time.
Here is a principle that I often spend the whole hour with, but let us see if we can get through it in five minutes tonight. I often ask individuals, “Do you know the difference between a principle and a rule?”
A rule is an outward thing that literally grows out of a principle. For example, when you go to the highway department for testing or to get your driver’s license, there is what we call the basic principle of the highway: always drive your car so as to keep it under control, so that it will hurt no one, including yourself.
That is the basic principle: always keep your car under control. Out of that basic principle come all the signs, rules, and things that go with it. These rules flow out of the basic inward principle—the way a thing is built.
Rules change. I was reading some notes this afternoon and remembered that in Topeka, Kansas, way back when the car was first introduced, you had to put a notice in the paper two days ahead of time if you were going to drive through Main Street. You laugh at that, but rules issue out of the principle of highway safety.
One of the problems we have today is that so often we give individuals the rule without giving them the principle, or the inward issue behind it. I say to parents so often, “You tell your child what you expect him to obey. Good. But it often helps to get behind the what and tell them the why—why it is important.”
Let me say to some of you fathers for a moment: when you are trying to help your daughter dress in a becoming way before the Lord, I have asked daughters occasionally, “Does Dad ever question you about the garment you are wearing when you are going out?” They say, “Oh, does he? Too short, too this, too that.” I say, “What does he say?”
The problem is that we often give individuals the what but do not bother to give them the principle behind it. Through the years, I have been amazed at how many times, when word gets out on a campus that we are dealing with rules and principles, I have been invited into a girls’ dormitory.
There may be forty or fifty young ladies saying, “We really want to walk with the Lord. We really want to serve the Lord. How can we do this in the most honorable and appropriate way?”
So I go into the principle of the way God has uniquely designed the male and the female. Many of them are totally in the dark. “What do you mean, the way God has uniquely designed the male and female?”
When a dad says, “You are going out on a date tonight. Now be careful. Do not let that young man paw all over you,” the issue is whether we are merely giving a rule or getting at the principle behind it.
When I have been able to explain that God has wired the female in a certain way so that, generally, by touch there is arousal and excitement, they begin to realize not just the what, but the why.
Then I speak to the fellows and say, “You know, it is very interesting the way God wired you—designed your whole makeup. Did you ever see them try to sell Buicks with an ugly old man standing there as the representative?”
What am I getting at? I would like for you to write somewhere in the margin of your Bibles a little word called defraud. When I can explain that word to a young fellow or to a young lady, suddenly they begin to realize the difference between a rule and a principle.
A mother came to me one day and said, “We have a lot of young people in our church, in our fellowship, but it seems like all the nice boys are in other places. It is the fellows I am not too fond of who keep coming after my daughter. Why do not some of the nice boys come?”
I spent a little time explaining, “Mother, I believe you love the Lord, and I know your family loves the Lord. But it is possible for folk who would never violate or break a rule to violate a principle.”
“I think I have observed your daughter violating some principles by the way she exposes herself.” She said, “What do you mean?” Before we got through, she was utterly amazed at things folk would call a rule, which were actually total violations of a principle.
Let me illustrate what I mean. In south Missouri, I used to go by a highway where there was a big church on the hill. For several months, it had a great big billboard that said, “Flee this wicked adulterous world,” with pictures of sin all around it. The centerpiece was a girl in a bikini.
I thought to myself, “How dumb can people be?” Am I meddling tonight? I am trying to say that it is very possible to violate a principle while seeking to uphold a rule.
A young man we were walking around the lake with this morning was really burdened because he is working with high school students. He said, “Why is it that among our high school students, so many get tripped up and have difficulty with problems of sex?”
I keep saying, “Oh Lord, help us to recognize that this church meant well. They were talking about things that would be rules in a legalistic way, but right there in the middle of the billboard was a violation of a principle.”
Why? Because the male eye is always caught, always grabbed. Only God can help the male eye. I remember how much of a blessing it was as a young man when a brother came to me and said:
I made a covenant with mine eyes;
Why then should I think upon a maid?
The eye sees, the lust of the heart and mind reaches out, and life takes hold. I am saying, folks, that there are some practical issues that an awful lot of God’s children violate. They would not break a rule, but they violate principles.
If there is a young man petting, going through all that is involved in arousing and stimulating a young lady, to defraud is somehow to arouse and stimulate without being able to righteously fulfill the matter.
I often wonder why Corinthians says it is good for a man not to touch. People get very legalistic about that. I have seen individuals say, “Uh-oh, no touch—no more shaking hands.” No, it is the principle involved.
If God begins to get hold of this issue of outward rules and inward principles, it affects hundreds of situations. I believe that when God made us and designed us, He built into the very fabric of the way we function the need for a day of rest.
I know the Jewish Sabbath was Friday night to Saturday night. God had built it in. It was a time for them to get apart, be occupied with the Lord, and rest.
Jesus said:
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
All that God had given outwardly finds its reality and fulfillment in Him.
Old Dr. Bihn used to say, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God’s people would really rest on Saturday, so when they came to church on Sunday morning, they would be alive to the Lord?”
Back in South Carolina several years ago, we went to church and were invited out to eat at noon—Golden Corral, a lovely place. We stood in line, and to my utter amazement I heard the staff saying, “The Christians are coming.”
“The Methodists will be first because they have a twenty-minute message. The Baptists will be next; theirs is forty. And the Pentecostals will be last; theirs is an hour and a half.” They said, “They are going to ask us why we are not in church.” Then they sort of sassily said, “So we can stay here and serve you.”
I am not legalistic. I am not a Sabbatarian. But I believe God has built into the fabric of the universe the need for an individual to be governed by the principle of time to rest.
Would there not be a real testimony in a community if God’s children would say to the folk in all the restaurants, “We would like to invite you to church, and we are not going to take up your time”? I still believe that, at some point, the outward rules that flow out of inward principles need to be better understood.
The next thing I call chasing a cause or enlightened conviction.
We were driving through West Virginia the other day. Suddenly, I looked up while kind of drowsing and saw a great big billboard that said, “Don’t destroy my mountains,” and underneath, “God.”
I looked back again and thought, “God, somebody really loves You and Your world. ‘Don’t destroy My mountains’—God.” Some environmentalist, somebody with a real burden to keep things in their natural state. I have no problem with some of that, except that if you are not careful, people begin to chase a cause.
People begin to chase some champion, some issue. I have chased causes as a young person. My mother used to meet me every time I came back after three or four months and say, “What is the latest cause, son?”
I meant well, but I was always championing or burdened about something. She knew it would pass away. When you are really enlightened and something becomes a conviction, I often say, “What would you die for? Is there anything you would die for? Any issue meaningful and significant enough that you would die for it?”
Let me illustrate. We sat at a large banquet table, and next to me happened to be one of our Indiana senators. He was sitting at a table with, I believe, eight of my friends. In the course of their fellowship that evening, before he was to get up and speak, they were urging him, “Get prayer back in the schools—prayer back in the schools.”
He looked around at the seven or eight at the table and said, “How many of you have had prayer with your child this week?” Not one of them.
So he stood up before a group of perhaps a thousand good Hoosiers and said, “I want to explain to you folk the difference between chasing a cause and having a deep conviction. If you look down at that table, I appreciate all you men. But if you really had a deep conviction regarding prayer, you would have it in the home, even though we need it in school.”
What am I saying tonight? We get so caught up in championing issues and things. I am for taking a stand, but I am talking about the inward principle, the inward reality, the real issues that I believe God is after.
Several have come up to me these last couple of days and said, “When are you going to talk about being offended?” Right now.
One of the principles I have liked to deal with through the years is best illustrated by a little situation that took place years ago when I was ministering in a high school in Maryland.
At the close of a morning chapel, after I had been speaking all week, the headmaster came and said, “Brother Vern, we have a fine senior boy who has suddenly really disappointed us. We do not know what is involved, but we have invited him into the office. Would you come in and counsel with us? Let us see if we can get at the root of his problem.”
This tall, handsome senior boy came in and slumped down. You could tell by his body manner that he was saying, “Well, I am here, but I do not intend to talk.” And he did not, for perhaps seven or eight minutes.
The headmaster was trying to draw him out. “Your attitude has been wrong. You were behind the buildings today smoking, and you have violated all these rules. What is happening?”
Finally, he blurted out, “You would be angry like I am if you had a father like mine.”
He explained, “About two or three months ago, my dad shot all my pet pigeons.” His father had a boarding place for horses, and the hayloft was filled with choice hay. The pigeons were messing up the hay, and he said, “My dad shot them. He did not ask me; he shot them.”
Then he said, “Last week, my little dog walked down the aisle of the barn and vomited, and he shot my dog. I have a right to be angry with a father like that.”
To be honest with you, I wanted to shoot the father. But I listened the best I could for a moment, and I saw the reasoning and struggle going on within him.
I began to explain. “You know, you are confused like a lot of individuals. I would like to help you know the difference between a reason and a right.”
A reason and a right. He was bewildered. I said, “I believe God has worked in your life. I sense you love the Lord. But here you are in bitterness and confusion, and you think you have a right to be angry with the father who did this.”
“We do not agree with what he did. I do not think he should have done it. He should have counseled with you. But I would like to have you consider, for a moment, the difference between a reasoning and a right.”
I drew the little picture I have drawn so often. I explained, “When you trust the Lord, you become like a tree planted by the Lord. You belong to the Lord. You are the planting of the Lord, and God has planned for your life to live by the supply of the grace of God.”
“You are telling me that you struggle because you think your dad was wrong, and therefore you have a right to be angry with him, the school, and everyone else.” He said, “Well, I do.” I said, “No. There is a difference between a reasoning and a right.”
“If you are the Lord’s, Romans 5 says we stand in the grace of God. But God has a river of grace that can enable you to face any crisis or situation that comes, if your roots will go down to that river of grace.”
Grace is not only a favorable position in which we stand. Lance said it so well yesterday, I believe: God’s grace is the divine enablement to fulfill any situation, anything that develops. This river of grace is God giving us the desire, the power, and the ability to do or fulfill what God wills for our lives.
“Your roots can go down and take the desire and power to forgive your father for what he did. But if you are not careful, you can become like lots of individuals I know: a barren tree—planted, but barren.”
Instead of roots going down, they are offended with something someone has done. They are offended because God allowed it. They are going to live in barrenness the rest of their life.
I said, “Here are two trees. I want you to look at them, because you are making a choice today. I believe your roots are like this right now, resisting. God wants to give you divine enablement.”
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God.
He looked at me and said, “How do I get my roots down to the river of grace?”
I said, “James speaks about it. Peter speaks about it.”
He giveth more grace to the humble.
“What God wants you to do is lay aside this reasoning going on in your mind, because the Scripture says, ‘Casting down reasonings, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God.’ Cast these reasonings down, and your roots can go down to the river of grace. God will give you the desire and power to forgive your father.”
“What he did, we cannot justify. But your problem right now is with God, because He has provided availability and grace. You can cast down the reasonings. In fact, you have no right to be angry when the availability of grace—the desire and power God gives—is there.”
I saw him look at this. He said, “Whoa. You mean, that is my roots?” I said, “Yes, exposing them.” He said, “Well, I need to humble myself.” I said, “Yes. You cry out, ‘God, forgive me for judging You and my father.’”
I will never forget it. He turned around at the chair, knelt down, and cried out, “Oh God, forgive me. Cast out my reasonings. I have no right to be offended, no right to be angry.”
It did not take very long. He got up, and I saw the change on his face—the smile. He said, “I will be going home right away to see my dad and ask him to forgive me.”
The reason I keep emphasizing this is because every place I go, I am amazed at individuals who come up against something just as unfair as the shooting of the pigeons or the dog—things that develop in the church. The first thing you know, we are wounded and offended.
People ask, “What is wrong?” “Nothing.” Yet, if we were honest, we are offended because someone has done something or something has taken place.
I am utterly amazed in our city of Indianapolis, having been there over thirty years, how people escape from one place to another—offended, offended, offended.
I have to keep saying to folk, “Cheer up. God is after you. Sooner or later, He is going to find you in your offence. If you can be offended, you will be offended.” “Oh, not me.” Well, I am not sure about that.
I guess the reason I am so convinced of this is because I know how many times I have been on the verge of being offended with the Lord. Something was totally unfair and wrong. I could justify myself, but I was afraid and did not tell anybody.
God began to move in and say, “Look, if you will humble yourself, I will give you the desire to forgive these people for what they did. You are as wrong because of allowing offence in your heart.”
I am not sure that fits anybody tonight. But in very practical areas, it has happened since I got here. Individuals have come up and said, “You will never know: some years ago, when I saw this little picture of being offended, God spoke to me through it many times when I was about to bolt, move on, or go some other place.”
The practical issue tonight is basically this: if God has made provision, I have no right to reason about it. I must cast the reasonings down. I have no right. The availability is there.
The picture we are getting at tonight is this: if God is working any kind of wisdom in our lives, we begin to see that talent is one thing and brokenness is something else. God brings us to the place of being responsible for issues—accountability.
The concern I have so often is when I see individuals who have lost their focus. Here is one thing we call direction, and direction in life should have what I like to call the real focus which the Lord is working.
How many times I have sat with someone—like the other day, sitting on a plane coming back from San Diego with a young doctor beside me—and said, “What plans do you have? What would you like to be twenty-five years from now? What are you looking for?”
He said, “I do not know.” I said, “You will surely live twenty-five more years in the normal course. What would you hope? What would be your expectation? What would you like to be twenty-five years from now?” “Well, I really had not considered it.”
I am amazed among God’s own children how few individuals begin to sense the sharpening of the focus—what God is really after in their life.
This began to take on meaning to me when I began to realize that in the Apostle Paul’s life and ministry, there came a day of direction. In that moment of direction, there began to be a sharpening of focus.
Let me give it to you in one verse: Romans 1:1.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.
Years ago, I walked in after a service one night, ready to fall asleep, turned on the radio, and heard the familiar voice of Charles Fuller—the old-fashioned revival hour. He said to the radio audience that night, “I want to speak to you about the calling of God, the unfolding of the way God leads a life, and the sharpness of focus.”
He said, “It has been a real help to me to discover what Paul says: ‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.’ I see the general calling, the special calling in his life, and the specific thing that God was ready to work out in his life.”
That little word, “Paul, a bondsman; Paul, a servant”—one whose ear has been pierced, one who has given the total direction of his life: “Oh God, from this moment on, I belong to You.”
I have been hearing the testimony of young people who say, “There came a moment in my life, years ago, when I knew the basic direction was set. I have not really doubted since.” What is that basic direction?
The problem at this point is that you qualify first in learning this: we are bondsmen; we are slaves. We have given up the rights to our own life. We choose to serve.
I believe the degree to which the Apostle Paul entered into this first sphere of serving—giving himself as a bondsman—was in the church of Antioch. There, among the prophets, he had given himself in ministry, serving the Lord.
Then the time came when God moved him into the more special thing He had: “Separate Me Barnabas and Saul.” It would never have happened if there had not first been the fulfilling of servanthood—the general calling in his life.
Because Paul was faithful in the special, in the churches that he planted, the time came for the specific thing God was going to work out in his life: the ministry of the letters written to all these churches.
So many people want to get into the focus: “I want to get my life really focused. I would like to get to the specific.” It will never come until you pay your dues as a servant and move into fulfilling the special. Then the specific thing God has for your life can unfold.
Through the years, that little principle Charles Fuller planted in my own life has been: “Oh God, I really want to know how to be Your bondslave—my rights given up, my ear pierced, sensitive to know what You really want.”
As God was able to move Paul into the more special thing—thrusting him forth in the planting of churches—finally there came the specific thing. We are blessed with it today when we pick up the letter to the Ephesians, the letter to the Colossians, and all the letters that were written. It could never have happened otherwise.
So the question tonight is this: If God has a basic direction in our life, am I following on faithfully to allow the special and the specific to unfold?
I expect there were those saying, “Paul ought to be out planting more churches. He has committed himself to this whole issue with Caesar. To Caesar he will go. Poor Paul—he could be out so much more used.”
You can never measure from God’s viewpoint what He is working in a life until you see the real blessing—not merely the churches planted, but the specific thing in the letters Paul wrote.
I am always interested in the fact that there are some things given to us and then some things that have to be earned.
I have often looked at two groups and said, “Were you ever given a position of responsibility before you were prepared for it?” Almost everybody says, “It happens all the time.” We get a position—something given to us—and then we have to learn how to earn the right authority in it.
There is an individual in the Old Testament who went through this problem. The people of Israel cried out, “Give us a king. Give us a king.” They wanted to be like the other nations. God heard them, and He gave them a king. He raised up a man who looked just like they wanted. His name was Saul.
I have often asked, “Do you know why, in God’s picture of the thing, Saul was anointed with a vial or flask of oil, but years later David was anointed with a horn of oil?” Was there a difference? The oil was probably the same. One represented the flask; the other, the horn.
Saul was given this position—made king. God was saying, “This is man’s way. I will acknowledge it and give him a place, a position, but he is going to have to develop in his life some inward preparation.”
Most of us get positions at times long before there has been any inward reality, preparation, or character produced. God gave King Saul open opportunities to obey, develop, and come into earning his position.
By contrast, God worked in a young man called David, herding his sheep and taking care of his father’s flock. David went through crisis after crisis—the bear he killed, the lion he killed—all these things. I believe they were his inward preparation.
God was beginning to develop inwardly in David spiritual authority and preparation. There is an authority given by man from a position, but the authority God is after is like a horn that grows and develops.
A horn, when an animal is developing it, is a picture of authority. I remember back on the farm in Dakota, one day my grandfather turned to my uncle and said, “You see that roan cow out there? I want those horns off by night.”
We stood and observed. The first thing I realized was that those horns were keeping all the other animals two or three feet away. What was it? The authority that issued because of the horns.
It came tumbling back, and I thought, “Oh God, there is in the Scripture a picture of the horn that grows, the horn that develops—the inward authority that comes out of character.”
You spend all this time preparing David. A little horn is growing. Could it be that the vial represents man’s giving a position, while God allows preparation to take place? The real preparation of the Lord is the horn that is growing and developing within.
I have heard individuals say, “Well, that means the horn can grow. I can earn the position because of what God has begun to work in me through the principle of learning to walk in obedience with Him.”
The question tonight is basically this: Do we just have folk with the vial of oil, or do we have those in whom God has developed the horn—the oil of life out of which springs the character and qualities He is after?
Let us bring it to a close by simply saying tonight: if there are practical realities God wants to work, may He somehow help us recognize that, in the course of training and practical issues, He is saying, “I would prepare you if your ears were pierced—if there were an openness and real sensitivity.”
In the meantime, all the practical issues may not mean much. But my burden is, “Oh God, raise up some of us who know how to minister and serve one another”—when we see a real need, stepping in and saying, “You have got a reason, but you do not have a right. You are chasing a cause. Is this worth dying for? God wants to enlighten you.”
You may have some direction, but you need to qualify in serving as a bondsman so that the sharpness of focus can really be fixed and settled in your life.
I am grateful, and I close with this tonight, for some of the individuals God has brought into my life through the years—things that still stir and shake my heart.
When I was a much younger man, back in 1948, there came a crisis that was a real sharpening of the direction of my life. I had been ministering for several years on the West Coast, often slipping into Yakima, Washington, to be with my friend and minister on the radio with him.
We left a conference on Monday morning, after closing out the day before. We gathered in a circle and invited a missionary from Korea, who had been through much revival and blessing of the Lord, to ride with me from Yakima to Portland, near where she lived. Another missionary and my partner were traveling with me.
We reached the edge of Yakima and suddenly were hit head-on by a young man driving a stolen car, making a getaway and losing control. He came way over into our lane and hit us head-on. His car almost instantly burned and went into flames. Traffic backed up, and they were able to pull my car away from it. We were all unconscious.
The lady sitting next to me, Daisy, had poured out her life in Korea. She had been back home maybe six or eight months. She seemed to show up wherever I was holding meetings, constantly praying and nudging me to make sure my heart was really focused toward Him.
Daisy went to be with the Lord that day, along with the young man in the other car. I was stunned when, after about nine or ten days, I came out of the coma and discovered what had happened to her.
Some months passed, and I got a letter from Daisy’s mother saying, “You might like to have the diary Daisy wrote in the last six months after she came back from Korea. There are some very wonderful things hidden in it.”
I was pleased and felt honored. I clipped out one little portion and pasted it from one Bible to another, because it has spoken again and again to my heart. I will read it to you tonight. She had typed it out from an April Digest in 1948.
A young soldier wounded in the Battle of the Bulge heard the army surgeon speak to him tenderly: “You are going to be all right, son. The only bad part is that you have lost the leg. We had to amputate.”
“But,” gasped the soldier, “I did not lose it. I gave it.”
To this Daisy wrote:
The best years of my life—not lost,
But given to my Lord.
Not to an organization, nor a cause, nor even a mission field,
But to Him.
Therefore, it is all right if He is so satisfied to put me aside.
Perhaps He does want the remaining years of my life; perhaps not.
But can I not trust His wisdom and mercy?
She wrote that in her diary on April 13. On Monday, May 6, she went to be with the Lord.
I had seen Daisy the day before. There was a strange hush in the arena, probably a thousand people sitting there, waiting to see what was next. Unannounced and uninvited, I remember Daisy walking all the way down to the platform, standing behind the microphone, and saying, “I felt impressed before we went on to tell you that I am so burdened for America.”
“I have come back from revival, and where we have been on the field we find such casualness, such coldness, such indifference. Thank God for many of you here, but we all need a fresh touch from the Lord.”
Looking up, she said, “I would gladly give my life if it would be the means of bringing awakening to this area or to our country.” That was all she said. Nobody had invited her. She went back and sat down.
Most of us who remember that look back on the day before, when she had said, “I would gladly give my life.” It is little things like this that keep nudging and impressing me to say, “Oh God, I do not want to just somehow finish. I want to run to win.”
I want Paul’s spirit of pressing toward the mark for the prize. It is not a matter of years; it is a matter of a spirit that says, “God, I want to finish triumphantly.”
We lay in the hospital for eight days unconscious. When I awakened one day, a young man had come all the way from Portland. He had heard about it on the radio. We had been on the radio, and the station there kept a prayer vigil around the clock. People were praying for the recovery of my partner, the other lady in the car, and myself.
I remember awakening for the first time, wondering what it was all about. Suddenly I heard a voice. The young man said, “I heard about this on the radio, and God sent me to pray for you. I had two flat tires and had to find a hitchhike to get here, but I know God sent me because He wants me to pray for you.”
Here was a strange voice, somebody I had never met, standing over me and saying, “God sent me to pray for you.” The difficulty was that both my eyes were bandaged. The doctor feared that I would lose my eyesight.
But God sent him. The short of the story is that I believe the Lord touched a back that was broken and a knee that was pulverized. I believe God did some miraculous working, because in the next weeks we began to recover. There was an awareness of the healing hand of the Lord.
One day, a lady who had been in Seattle walked in. In Seattle, she had heard over the radio about the accident and had alerted many friends there to pray. She said to a close friend, “I wish you would go to Yakima—just 130 miles—and sing this song to Brother Fromke. I have heard that he might lose his eyesight unless there is intervention.”
I had never seen her, but I remember hearing a lovely voice as she began to sing:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
The things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
She explained that her friend, Helen Lemmel, who wrote that song, had sent her to sing it for me. They gave me an autographed copy, and she prayed that God would touch my eyes.
Then she explained, “You know Helen Lemmel has been blind since about the year 1904 or 1905. She was blinded in a particular situation, but all these years the cry of her heart has been, ‘Oh Lord, I am so glad You have given me spiritual eyes.’”
She began to claim and pray. You can be thankful that God did touch, because while there has been weakness, there has been a good recovery of eyesight. I kept rejoicing and saying, “Oh God, what a privilege to have Helen Lemmel’s song, and not only that, but to have her praying. She knew what it would be like to be blind.”
One day I was sharing this in Switzerland. The sister who was playing the piano started to play “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus.” I got up to speak a few minutes later and explained how precious that song was to me and how wonderful it had been—the way the Lord ministered to me when I was almost sure I was going to lose my eyesight.
I had no more than gotten through when Brother Sparks walked up, put his arm around me, and said, “I knew Helen Lemmel personally. She moved from Seattle down to California, and one day I got a call from Helen.”
She said, “Brother Sparks, I have a choice to make. With all the new types of surgery and all they can do to repair eyes, they tell me my eyesight might be restored. Would you pray with me that, if this is God’s choice, I will know to enter into the surgery?”
He said, “We will be praying.” He went back, I think a day or two later, and she said, “I have decided not to.”
She said, “God has given me through the years such insight—such inward spiritual insight—that I am afraid if I had the other, I might miss it. Anyway, the first face I would like to look upon is my lovely Lord.”
I share this with you tonight because God brings issues across your life through the years, and they are benchmarks—things that rivet you to the fact that there is a focus to your life: finishing the race triumphantly, with a pressing spirit.
I keep crying, “Oh God, I have been so privileged through the years to know individuals who not only had direction, but the sharpening of focus—until the one cry of the heart was, ‘Oh God, just to know You, as it pleases You.’”
I share my heart with you tonight simply to say: Do you have a focus? Has He been sharpening it? I do not think any of us sitting here these last few days can doubt that there has been a whole new awareness within: we are called to be servants.
He is the One who serves in this. It is by the river of His grace. It is not our own; it is by His supply that we live. But the sharpening of the focus is, “Oh God, let me fulfill the race triumphantly.”
Father, I pray tonight that You will take some of these bits and pieces and make them meaningful in the lives of some of the parents. Help them to recognize that it is one thing to tell the what, and another thing to give the why behind it when they are talking to a son or daughter.
Help them to recognize the principles behind, which will make the what—the thing they are asking—more meaningful.
I pray tonight that You will lift us and move us just beyond having gifts and talents to give to You, but allow the brokenness and the daily consecration within our life, so that there can be, out of that, the overflow of Yourself.
I claim, in this closing moment, that with all we have learned this week and all that we have said yes to, You will summarize it in the one statement: “Yes, Lord, we hear You speaking. We choose to finish the race triumphantly.”
And we will give You thanks and praise and honor and glory. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.