Could we just bow together in a word of prayer and commit ourselves to the Lord?
Lord, we just bow together here in Thy presence, and, Lord, we do ask that Thou wouldst minister life to us all in spirit, soul, and body—every part of our being—this afternoon.
Thou knowest, Lord, always the difficulty of afternoon sessions, and we pray now, Lord, that Thou wouldst wonderfully undertake for us. Grant, Lord, that we may meet with Thee. Wilt Thou take these matters and write them upon our hearts?
We bring this time to Thee, O Lord, and we take from Thee all that we need for it, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I’ll just wait a moment while you get seated. I don’t know whether there is any need to close the doors at the back there. It keeps it cooler inside.
Now, what Stephen said about sweating in the service of the Lord deeply inhibits me. I’ve started already—dying. I don’t think any member of my family ever belonged to the tribe of Levi.
We have dealt with two matters in these times on Christian and spiritual leadership. We have talked a little bit about true authority, and in our second session we spoke about the necessity of anointing.
Before I go on to what I have to say this afternoon, I would like very much just to make two points clear in answer to questions that I have been asked about the anointing for service.
I was asked by quite a number of people whether an anointing is a kind of static thing, or whether you can lose the power of it, or whether it has to increase in power. I think one has to answer this way: the anointing is, in my estimation, a very real and distinct coming upon a servant of the Lord.
Even if that one is not over-conscious—and most are—that something has happened, and they know it is the Lord, everyone around is conscious that something has happened to them.
Now, just because a person is anointed with the Spirit does not mean that through the years they will not compromise that anointing or, in some way, contradict it, and therefore lose the power and operation of that anointing. I think that is a very important point to make.
The second thing is this: I think an anointing, while it may be an initial experience, can grow in depth and power. It is linked with what we are going to talk about this afternoon: the character of spiritual leadership.
In other words, an anointing can come upon someone who is quite young and has not got a great spiritual capacity. Up to their spiritual capacity, they can operate, and the Lord can convey something, communicate something, through them.
But the greater the capacity there is, the deeper the walk with the Lord, the greater the understanding of the Lord, the greater the expansion, as it were, of that person’s spirit in the Lord, the more the anointing can operate, and the more the Lord can convey Himself through that vessel.
So I hope that answers that question. Now, one other question was asked, which is a little the same: once an anointing is given, is it ever taken away?
Of course, I suppose people must think of King Saul, who was anointed, but whose anointing was taken away. I think this is a rather difficult question to answer, and the only way I can answer it at present is to turn you to Romans 11, when it says that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Now, if the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable, one would think that the anointing is also. I think we must see it in the light of what I have just said.
If a person compromises that anointing or contradicts it continually, there could come a point where, whilst it is there, it ceases any more to operate. It is, as it were, paralysed.
Now, I do not know—maybe Brother Stephen would be able to help us on this matter more—but that is as far as I can answer that question today.
Now, what I would like to talk about this afternoon is the character of spiritual leadership. I will not say anything further by way of introduction. I would like to talk straight away about the character of true leadership.
In my estimation, whilst the exercise of authority—and the fact of being under authority in order to exercise authority—is vital, and whilst the matter of anointing is necessary, essential, this matter of character is all-important.
We have all suffered from leadership which has very little spiritual character. Spiritual character, and spiritual experience—spiritual history—is vital to leadership in the sight of God.
First of all, the worker is more important to God than even his work. Let me repeat that again: the worker is more important to God than even his work.
God has in view an eternal vocation. He is not impervious to all the needs of His people down here, but there are times when, because He has a candidate for a high position in His eternal administration, He will take that worker, that servant, and put him or her on one side for a while, or allow the inexplicable to come in.
Why? Because the worker is far more important to God, in the ultimate, than even his work. The work is very important to God, but if it is a question of work with the worker having a poor character, God would prefer to take the worker out of the work and do something about the character.
So, in this matter of spiritual character, we must always remember that the worker is more important to God than even his work.
He took an Amy Carmichael, crippled her, put her on a bed for twenty-six years, and did a very real and deep work in her, which created and produced a ministry to those who suffer inexplicably. I do not know any other ministry that comes near to it.
In other words, that sister—I never knew her personally, but some of my friends, some passed on to be with the Lord now, knew Amy Carmichael very well indeed. She was a personal friend to some of them.
They said that when she was young, she was like a wind. She was always active, rushing here, rushing there. In fact, they said one of the most characteristic things concerning her was to see her on a bicycle, with her hair flying behind her, cycling absolutely full speed across the compound.
Everything was done at a military pace. Everything had to be done swiftly. She was very energetic. God took her in the most incredible and sovereign way and put her on her back. Then began her worldwide ministry to the people of God through her writings.
Now, what God did in her is a good example of this matter: the worker was more important to God than the work she was doing. In the end, He had something higher in mind, not only for time, but for eternity.
Now, if you take your Bible, you will find this in two or three places. For instance, if you look at 2 Corinthians 1:3-10, we read these words:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and God of all comfort;
Who comforteth us in all our affliction,
that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction
through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
You see the principle? It is not just passing on pious phrases or passing on spiritual truths. Something happened inside that servant of the Lord that enabled them to speak to the problem in somebody else. Deep calls unto deep.
Now go on:
For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us,
even so our comfort also aboundeth through Christ.
But whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation;
or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort,
which worketh in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer:
and our hope for you is steadfast;
knowing that, as ye are partakers of the sufferings,
so also are ye of the comfort.For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia,
that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power,
insomuch that we despaired even of life:
yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves,
that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God Who raiseth the dead:
Who delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver:
on Whom we have set our hope that He will also still deliver us.
Now, here is a work being done in the workers—Paul and his little party. They are not just speaking out of the head, out of knowledge. They are speaking not only out of an understanding of the Word of God, out of illumination through the Word of God by the Holy Spirit, but they are speaking out of their own experience.
They are themselves having to prove the law.
Now, we have this again in the same letter, in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Some people will immediately say to me, “Then are you saying that we should never, those of us who have a ministry of the Word, ever speak about anything which is not our experience?” Of course, that is nonsense.
Supposing we were to confine ourselves to only what we have personally experienced. I mean, that is going to cut down ministry very much. We would never have too wide horizons.
When you think of what has been given to us in this Book, they did not always have a full experience. We could not describe the kingdom to come. We could not describe the things that are going to be, because we have not yet had our own experience of those things.
But what I am trying to get at is this: sometimes we who are leaders convey and communicate truth that is not yet ours, but God goes about making it ours. There are other times when we already have the experience, and out of that experience comes the ministry.
But you understand what we are saying. The principle is that, for God, the worker is in the end more important than even the work. In fact, I think we could go so far as to say that the worker is the work of God.
In the final analysis, what God does in His servants is the way He is going to work through them in others. So this matter is a very, very important one.
In 2 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul tells us that he was caught up to the third heaven, and he heard things that it was not even lawful for a man to utter. He says, too, that because of the exceeding greatness of the revelation of what had been shown to him, there was given him a thorn in the flesh.
By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch.
Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My power is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Now, here again we see the worker is more important to God than the work. If the work was so important to God, and not the worker, He could give these tremendous revelations to a man and then not bother about keeping the man humble and broken, and seeing that the man is totally dependent upon Him.
But because this vessel is so precious to God, and because, in the final analysis, that servant is the work of God, He will go to the extent of even giving him a messenger from Satan.
Conybeare translated this rather dramatically, but very vividly, and I think in a memorable way, as “the agony of impalement.” Now, that is a little bit more, is it not, than a thorn in the flesh?
Of course, if you have got a thorn in your foot or a thorn in your finger, after a while it is not long before your whole hand or arm throbs, or your whole leg throbs. You feel that little thing. But think of it as the agony of impalement, and maybe that will bring you nearer to an understanding of this messenger of Satan.
It was something which crucified the apostle. It was something that impaled him on a stake so that he could not move. He was so weak, he just had to, as it were, depend upon God.
Now, there again we see something: the worker is more important than the work he does. I hope this is not frightening you to death. Of course, those of you who are either beginning to serve the Lord or who, in fact, will come into the work of God—here we have a very important principle.
What you have seen so far with the eye of your heart, but which is not yours yet in true experience and history, God will go about making your experience and history. If you are a candidate for the throne, if you are a candidate for the bride, I can tell you that God will be very, very careful to make what you see your own experience and history.
There is one more scripture in this connection which is very interesting, in 2 Timothy 4:6. Here is the apostle putting into the most beautiful words his sense of going:
For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come.
Now, I suggest to you that if it was not in the Word of God first, no one would ever think of their death—of their decapitation—as being offered. But you see, here we see the worker is more important than the work.
The apostle sees his last months, or whatever they were, as being offered—being poured out as a drink offering. If you look back at Philippians, written probably from his imprisonment in Rome, although some think it was written in Caesarea in his earlier imprisonment whilst waiting to go to Rome, he writes in Philippians 2:17:
Yea, and if I am offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.
It is the same word again: “If I am being poured out as a drink offering.” He was himself something. Do you understand? God was doing something in him and, as it were, pouring him out.
Now, that is the first thing I would like to say this afternoon about the character of true leadership: the worker is far more important to God than even the work which has been given him to do.
Do not think any of us are indispensable. The work could be done by probably a hundred. I do not personally believe that anyone can do a job. God specially forms and produces people, but God is able, with any particular work that He has to do, to produce a number of people who could do it.
None of us are indispensable. But what He does in a worker is unique. No two servants of the Lord are absolutely alike. They are not peas in a pod. They are all different because of the way God deals with them.
Now, secondly, the second thing I would like to say about the character of true leadership is that it is a matter of seeing and hearing.
Above everything else, a true leader must see the Lord. What hope is there if the leaders do not see the Lord?
Now, I do not mean, as you must all understand, physical visions of the Lord—although personally I am not against anyone having a vision. I mean an actual vision of the Lord: the more, the better, in these days of stress and strain, as long as they do not lead us astray or make us big-headed.
But I am talking about that vision which is an understanding with the heart, with the spirit. In other words, the eyes of our heart. The apostle Paul said in Ephesians 1:17-18:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him;
having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling.
This matter of seeing is tremendously important. Jesus once spoke of blind leaders leading the blind, and both falling into the ditch. Church history is filled with the evidence of blind leaders leading the blind people of God, and both falling into the ditch.
Spiritual character, the character of spiritual leadership, is determined by seeing and hearing the Lord. There could be no matter more important than this.
If you want another example of this matter, then I could take the prophet Elijah. Elijah was the greatest of all the latter prophets of the old covenant. In Jewish tradition, he stands supreme with Moses. These two represent all that God ever did under the old covenant: Moses and Elijah.
That is why these were the two that appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Elijah was a man of action. I have often said I would love to meet Elijah, and one day I shall. I think he must have been an incredible character. If you know, as I do, all the country where he lived, he always chose the most dramatic country in the whole Promised Land to live in, seemingly.
When you think that he outran Ahab’s royal chariot, that was something. In the old days, horses were a mark of quality and of aristocracy, and it was the great pride of the king to have Arab stallions that could run like lightning.
I think it is an amazing thing that that man, after the contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and then that great prayer warfare, could run something like seventeen miles and get to Jezreel before King Ahab did in his chariot. That is some man.
I know all of you are now taking up jogging, but I mean, that is not jogging. The man must have had a heart that was strong. He must have had a body like an ox. He must have been in form like a cheetah.
He must have been an incredible person. Of course, we must say straight away that Elijah’s ministry was characterised by wind, fire, and earthquake.
If you really want good symbols to sum up the whole ministry of this man Elijah, surely it is this: tremendous wind. He was like a wind that stormed it. You remember how poor Ahab was always sort of saying, “Oh, him again.” It seemed wherever he went, suddenly Elijah appeared in front of him, just blown in by some tornado of God.
Of course, he was like fire when he brought down the fire from heaven through faith and consumed the whole sacrifice. It symbolised this man’s whole ministry. He was a man of tornado-like force and of fire.
He was a man of earthquake. He was a shattering man. He prayed and it did not rain for three years, and then he prayed again, and the rain came immediately. What a man. What a man.
But, you know, when Jezebel said to him, “I’ll have you, and I’ll do to you what you have done to my four hundred prophets by this time tomorrow,” it was an oath.
This great man Elijah, having outstripped Ahab in his chariot to get to Jezreel, fled for his life before this very feminine and coquettish woman. One word from her, and it seemed to pierce through him, and he fled.
Then, you know, he went right down into the desert by Beersheba, and there, under a juniper tree, he asked if he could die. An angel came and shook him and said, “Elijah, supper.” Not a word of rebuke.
Then he went to sleep, and just before dawn the angel shook him again and said, “Elijah, breakfast.” He ate, and then he went forty days and forty nights in the strength of that food—in the wrong direction, fleeing from Jezebel.
Not a word of rebuke from the Lord. Then, when he got to Mount Sinai, right down there on the southern tip of Sinai, God said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Then came a wind, tornado-like, and split the rocks. Then a fire hurtled through the gullies, burning up everything. Elijah never bowed. It seems he quite enjoyed it, like a firework display—tremendous.
Then an earthquake shook the whole place, and still he did not bow. He just thought, “This is tremendous. Power, power. Oh, the power of God.”
Then there was a quietness. In the Hebrew it says, “a sound of gentle stillness.” It was the voice of God.
Then Elijah wrapped his mantle over his head and fell on his face before God. God said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” In other words, remember what we said about anointing? He had no business to be there. Who told him to come down there?
Wind, fire, earthquake—Elijah was no stranger to that. Would to God every servant of the Lord had a ministry like that: tornado-like force, fire—the flame of fire—and earthquake power in its effect.
But God was saying to Elijah, “Elijah, Elijah, Elijah, you have missed the point of being a servant. You must hear.”
Elijah said, “Oh, Lord, I am the only one left. This lot have killed all the prophets, and I am the last one.” God said to Elijah, “Elijah, there are seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
In other words, what God was saying was that there were seven thousand who could hear the voice of God.
Now, all I am saying is this: this matter of seeing and hearing is all-important. Most of us who are servants of the Lord long for tornado-like energy to come upon us, to use us in our ministry, in our work, in our leadership; for fire, as it were, to consume everything—the flame of fire—that we may serve God acceptably; for earthquake effects, as it were, in everything we touch.
But to God, seeing and hearing is far more important. Those things—signs, wonders, whatever you like to call them—are important. Do not devalue them. Do not despise them.
But far more important in leadership, in the servant of the Lord, is a seeing heart and a hearing ear.
I do not know whether I need to say any more about that, especially in the days we are moving into now. There are going to come angels of light and ministers of righteousness, seeking to divide the flock of God, seeking to lead people astray.
There will be all kinds of pressures upon people. There will be messianic movements. There will be all kinds of weird things. There will be wonders and signs done, even by the powers of darkness, in the end.
We need to be men and women who see the Lord, who hear the Lord, and only in so doing can we lead the people of God aright.
Now, a third thing I would like to say about the character of true leadership is that we must be examples. All these things come one out of the other: examples.
1 Timothy 4:12:
Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example to them that believe,
in word, in manner of life, in love, in faith, in purity.
We have this again in 1 Peter 5:3:
Neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you,
but making yourselves ensamples to the flock.
Examples. No officialdom. No holding merely of status, but genuine example.
It is an interesting thing that when the apostle wrote the letters to Timothy and Titus and mentioned elders and deacons, all the qualifications he gave for them were to do with character: how they governed their children, how their relationship as husband to wife was going on, even what people said outside who were not saved.
Now, that is a very interesting thing, is it not? What do the unsaved people round about say about this believer? It is not anything to do with officialdom, with status, with title merely, as if you shove a person into an office and then they become an elder; you push them into a place and give them a title and immediately they become the function that we put them into.
No, no, no, no, it is not that. There has got to be character. It is an organic thing. This matter of example, I think, is very, very important indeed. We need to be examples in everything.
Now, we all fall short on this, do we not? What servant of the Lord does not fall short in this matter? If we really want to pick to pieces any servant of the Lord, we can. I do not care who it is.
I am quite sure that if we had the apostles here, including the apostle Paul, it would be possible to pick him to pieces if we wanted to. When you read some of the letters and look at some of the things we do not normally dwell on that he said, it is quite clear that those who knew the apostle Paul could pick him to pieces if they wanted to.
The fact that the churches in Asia turned away, I do not think was only a matter to do with the vision God had given him. I reckon that the Judaizers had got to work and probably said, “You see, the man is this, the man is that, the man does this.”
Nearly always there is some legitimate ground for picking to pieces a servant of the Lord.
I remember Miss Sparker said years ago, when I was asking about Brother Nee, something that at the time quite shocked me, but since then has been quite a blessing. She said, “The higher a man goes, the deeper he can fall. And the greater a man is, the bigger his faults, and the more they are seen.”
I think it is true. I remember—not that I should mention this—a statement by a Muslim holy man from the sixteenth or seventeenth century which always amused me. He said, “Thank You, God, that the people do not know me as You do.”
In one sense, it is very true. If we really know one another, we can pick one another to pieces. But having said that, in all our frailty, in all our weakness, in all our tendency to collapse, we need to be examples above everything else.
It is interesting how the apostle says to Timothy to be an example: in word, in manner of life, in love, in faith, in purity. We need to take heed to that.
Now, coming out of that is another thing. It is really almost the same, but I want to underline another word which may help us. I think the character of true leadership is pioneering.
Pioneering, of course, is a matter of example, but the idea of pioneering perhaps focuses the thought better. What is a leader? A leader is someone who leads. So simple as that. A leader is someone who leads. He is a pioneer.
He is out in front, not at the back in some comfortable little office while everybody else is like cannon fodder on the war front. He is there in front.
One of the nice things I always feel, although it is very sad in the wars that we have had, is that in the Israeli army the officers lead the men from the top general right the way down. That is why, always in every war, the relative casualty figure is higher amongst the officers than the men.
This is not so with our armies—I mean the British or the Western European ones. The officers normally stay more in the background and the men go out in front. But you see, the old way was to lead the men into war, and if an officer could not lead them right in the forefront, he was not worth his salt.
So it certainly seems to me it should be amongst the people of God. Leaders are not those who never come to a prayer meeting, or never spend the night in prayer, or never know anything about real sacrifice, or never know what it is really to suffer in one way or another.
They are to be pioneers in all these things, right in the forefront of the battle. Pioneers.
It is interesting when we read in Hebrews 13:7:
Remember them that had the rule over you,
men that spake unto you the word of God;
and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.
That is a wonderful thing that could be said about any leader, is it not? That we should imitate their faith. They were pioneers, and we can imitate them in this matter.
Now, another thing about the character of true leadership is that there should be a genuine care and love for the people of God.
I must tell you that I find, again and again, the greatest disappointment in the work of God is to find people who are not really caring for the flock of God. It becomes apparent that they are there because they think they have a ministry or they think that they have a position. They want to be something in the house of God. They want to be something in the body of Christ.
They have not got a genuine love and care for the people of God. Now, not everybody can give their time totally to visiting or going to prisons or whatever else. I mean, in visiting, not everybody can do that.
But there is a vast difference between those who, for instance, are so full of genuine love for the people of God that it pains them and hurts them when things go wrong.
In other words, it is this genuine love and care that lies behind the visiting. It is not a duty. It is because they want to tend the lambs. They want to shepherd the sheep. They really want to do it because they care for the flock of God, and they care for the building up of the house of God.
Again, this matter of prayer: it is not that the leaders have got to drag themselves along to a time of prayer, or when they get together have somehow got to say, “Well, we ought to have a time of prayer.” Rather, there is such a pain inside over some of the problems amongst the people of God that they are driven before God’s face in prayer.
It is the love that results in a prayer warfare. It is not that we sort of say, “Now, now we must pray because prayer is an important duty.”
Rather, because we have such a care and love for the people of God, when we see the needs, when we see the onslaught of the enemy, or when we see some new phase into which we are moving, we are driven before God to cover it in prayer.
Genuine care and love. John 21: “Tend My lambs. Shepherd My sheep. Tend My sheep. Do you love Me? Tend My lambs. Shepherd My sheep.” A genuine love and care for the people of God.
Then one other thing I would like to say before I pass on to two other matters in connection with spiritual leadership and its character: a teachable spirit.
Folks, when we become something, it is strange that we suddenly have an unteachable spirit. I do not know what it is—whether it is an inferiority complex or what it is—that somehow makes us feel that we cannot be open to correction, or open to balance, or whatever else.
But one of the most important things about true leadership is that it will learn from anyone and anything. You can learn from the humblest old sister in the assembly. You can learn from the youngest newborn babe in the assembly. You can even learn from those who have a critical spirit.
A teachable spirit is beyond price, because what it means is this: that a leader or a servant of the Lord is always going on. They are not static. They have not arrived.
Some people have got the idea of leadership as being like a tape recorder. You press a button and take in everything for a while, and you record it all. Then, at a certain point, when you become yourself a teacher, or a preacher, or a leader, or a servant of the Lord—in quotes—you press the button, and out it all comes.
Now, we do have to take in, but there does not come a time when we stop taking in. There are some people who are servants of the Lord who think the only way they can take in is directly from heaven. They have a kind of hotline to heaven.
They could not learn a thing from anybody other than the Lord Himself and some choice servants of the Lord that they feel are elite.
But in actual fact, the servant of the Lord can learn from Satan. You can learn more from what Satan does, and how he does it, and how God uses him and overrules him to blessing, than many other matters. You can learn from anything.
So the person in your assembly who is so difficult may be your greatest teacher in the hand of God. The other colleague who rubs you up the wrong way all the time may, in fact, be your greatest instructor in the Lord. A teachable spirit.
I do not know about any scripture for this other than, of course, meekness, but there is a very interesting phrase in 2 Timothy 2:24-25:
And the Lord’s servant must not strive,
but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, forbearing,
in meekness correcting them that oppose themselves;
if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth.
A teachable spirit.
Now, may I just say something about the production of such character? If this is the kind of character that leadership should have, how is it produced?
Well, it is produced in two ways, and only two ways. Upon that, I think we can be quite dogmatic.
It is produced through the work of the cross—no less, no more. Through the work of the cross. There is no other way for real character to be produced in a servant of the Lord other than their going the way of the cross.
What do we mean by the way of the cross? We mean a dealing with self all the way through. We mean a dealing with difficult people all the way through—how to deal with yourself and the problems that you find within yourself, how to deal with difficult people.
Only through the way of the cross can you learn how to deal with difficult people, how to deal with complex and, humanly speaking, insoluble problems that God will allow to come into your path. Only through the way of the cross will you learn.
You see, sometimes when we have a problem, our way is to attack it full on, especially if it happens to have personalities in it as well that are perhaps against you or something. So you want to just sort of go at it fully, but it is not the way.
God says, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” That which exalts itself shall be abased, and that which humbles itself shall be exalted. It is an infallible law with God.
Sometimes we deal with situations in the work of God as if those situations are merely flesh and blood. But if we go the way of the cross and know what it is to be crucified with Christ, and really to know what it is to live by the faith of the Son of God Who loved you and gave Himself for you, then you will find that sometimes the way you have to deal with the situation is to do nothing.
It seems to be the most stupid and silly thing in the whole world to sit there and do nothing, but that is exactly the way sometimes God will deal with the situation.
Other times, you must fully accept the kind of criticism that is levelled against you, or whatever, and learn from it, and even adjust to it. There are other times when the way of the cross means you stand up and say something.
Only God the Holy Spirit can show us which applies in any given situation. But what I am trying to say is this: the Word of God says—the apostle Paul said by the Spirit of God:
I have been crucified with Christ;
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
Jesus said:
Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone;
but if it die, it beareth much fruit.If any man serve Me, let him follow Me;
and where I am, there shall also My servant be.
Now, Jesus did not say “where I am”—I do not think He meant merely that where I am, one day My servant will be. Of course, that is true. I believe Jesus actually meant that if you will really follow Him, He will bring you to the place where you reign with Him now in that situation, because you have learned to fall into the ground and die.
Dear people of God, dear servants of the Lord, the problem is not living. The problem is dying.
People tell us again and again, “Oh, the problem is living. I find it so hard to overcome. I find it so hard to survive. I find it so hard to get above this thing. I find it so hard to maintain spiritual life in these circumstances.”
That is not the problem. The devil is getting you to look at the wrong aspect. That is not the problem. I tell you what the problem is: the problem is how to die.
I will tell you this: if you learn how to die, God will take care of how you live. When you go down, God takes you up. When you are broken, God will make you whole. When you suffer, God will glorify you. When you know what it is to fall into the ground and die, God brings a harvest. It is God’s business, not yours.
This is the principle of the cross. We have deep within us a self-preservation instinct. Therefore, you see, you cannot go this way but by the faith of the Son of God Who loved you and gave Himself for you.
Something inside you says, “Don’t, don’t. If you lay down, your reputation will be destroyed by these people. If you allow this thing to go on, your ministry will be finished,” or whatever.
But the word of faith says, “Die.” God will take care of your name and your ministry and your work. It is a way of faith.
Now, do not just look at me as if it is idealistic. It is not idealistic; it is intensely realistic and practical. Your problem as servants of the Lord, as leaders, is to learn how to die.
You cannot expect all the other children of God in the flock allotted to your charge to fall into the ground and die if they do not see you falling into the ground and dying.
We can all preach an ethic. We can all preach a truth. But when it comes to it, we may deny it in our practice. So this matter of the cross is all-important. God produces character this way.
Think what happens when you have come to the place where it seems to be the end of everything, and you let go and you go down, and it seems as if all hell is let loose. Do not think that in a moment God raises you up, as we would like to think: you go down and before your head has gone under the water, He has taken you up and lifted you high.
No. God has—I was going to say, He does it solemnly, but sometimes I think He does it with great humour. He deliberately waits until we have gone down three times.
We are nearly drowned, normally, before finally, at the last moment, at our wits’ end, the Lord comes—and sometimes, I must tell you, beyond our wits’ end.
When literally we have had the sentence of death within ourselves, so much that we feel we are finished, and then when everything seems as if God has left three days for the body—you know, it is buried, it is finished—then He steps in and does something.
Now, when God touches the situation with a servant of the Lord who has fallen into the ground and died, He always does it completely. When you come out and see what God does, those who were against you have disappeared. The enemy has simply fled. It is gone.
Then you have your own experience of the Lord. There is more spiritual character. What is this spiritual character? It is the way of faith.
You have learned that if you trust God, you will not be put to shame. You trusted the Lord when every voice in you said, “Don’t be silly, don’t be silly. You will never come out of this if you do not do something.” But when you died on it, God finally acted.
Then you came through, and there is something deep within, like a solid rock. You know that God is utterly dependable.
The trouble with so many servants of the Lord is that their hands are upon the work of the Lord in a vice-like grip. Many servants of the Lord kill the work of the Lord because of their grip on it.
That is why so often God has to take us this way of the cross. It is the producing of character.
Now, may I say something else? The second thing about the producing of such character is through the Holy Spirit.
If there is any servant of the Lord in this place this afternoon who is afraid of the work of the Holy Spirit, you will not be enabled to serve God.
Anyone who is afraid of some aspect of the person and work of the Holy Spirit will never be able to serve God acceptably. I will tell you why: because you cannot fall into the ground and die except by the Holy Spirit. You cannot put to death the deeds of the body except by the Holy Spirit.
We can make the teaching of the cross, the way of the cross, an abject, heavy, dull bondage, and people are sort of all going round like shadows. It is not the real thing at all. Jesus does not bind us; He frees us.
The way of the cross is not to put us into bondage; it is to bring us out into liberty. It is to deliver us from the old man. It is to deliver us from the old creation. It is to deliver us from that old world and its ways.
So the Spirit of God—His Person and work—are all-important in the producing of this character, of this kind of character. I am speaking not only of His indwelling, but I am speaking of His empowering. I am not only speaking of His fruit; I am speaking of His gifts.
Do not despise anything. People have sometimes come to me who, for years and years and years—now forgive this little word; I do not want to cause great fuss and bother, but it is just a short digression—have despised the gift of tongues.
Then they say, “You know, I have sought the Lord for years about things, and He has not given it to me.” Of course not. You do not think you can trample some gift underfoot and say, “It is kindergarten. It is just childhood. It is nothing. I do not want it. I want the Lord. I do not want it.”
Then you expect that the moment you see something else, God will just shower it upon you like that? Not so.
God is very careful. Never—if you may, I hope you do not misunderstand me—He never casts pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot.
We have to have a right attitude to God. We have to have a right attitude to the gifts of God. We have to be pure in heart. This does not mean that we have not got a twistedness up here in the mind, but in our spirit there is an essential purity.
We want the Lord. We are honest with the Lord. We are prepared to go the whole way with the Lord.
This matter of the Holy Spirit—His Person and His work—is vital. There can be no character produced in any servant of the Lord unless the Holy Spirit is the agent.
So may I underline this: I have said something about anointing yesterday, so I do not need to say a lot more on this, but the Person and work of the Holy Spirit is the most vital constituent in the producing of spiritual character.
Now, I would like finally to say this. There are, as far as I can see—there may be more, but as far as I can see—three injunctions, almost warnings, given to leaders.
Of course, I am not thinking of the one that says, “Be not many teachers, brethren,” for they have a harder time of it in the end. But I was thinking of this: take heed to yourself.
If you just want to take the scriptures, we will not be able to look at them all, but Acts 20:28 says:
Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock,
in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops.
Now, is that not interesting? Here are men who are elders, who are bishops, who are overseers, and the Lord is saying to them, “Take heed to yourselves.”
It seems a strange way of putting it. You would have thought He would have said, “Take heed to the flock which I have given you, over which I have made you overseers, and then just remember yourselves.” But the apostle says by the Spirit of God, “Take heed to yourselves.”
If you go through the Word, it is very interesting. In 1 Timothy 4:16 we read:
Take heed to thyself, and to thy teaching.
In 1 Corinthians 10:12, the apostle says:
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
Galatians 6:1 says, when you restore a person, remember yourself, lest you also be tempted. Take heed to yourself.
No servant of the Lord is beyond going off the rails. If we take the Word of God as it stands, it seems that nearly every great servant of the Lord in the Bible, certainly in the old covenant, went off the rails at the end.
Having been used of God in the most tremendous way, we find again and again that they did the most terrible things. Noah got drunk. Abraham lied and did other things. Where should we go? Everywhere we find the same. We are not any different. Take heed to yourselves.
Then the second thing is this: guard what has been committed to you. What an interesting word that is. Guard what has been committed to you.
Do not just think that it is there and it cannot be taken from you. You cannot be robbed of it. Guard what has been given to you.
Look at 2 Timothy 1:14:
That good thing which was committed unto thee guard through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us.
Or again, 1 Timothy 6:20:
O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee,
turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called.
Guard that which has been committed to you. Has God given you something? Has God deposited something in you? Is there something of Himself which He has given to you to contribute to the people of God? Guard it.
Guard that vision which He has given you. Guard that understanding that He has so mercifully granted to you. Guard that experience which He has given, that it does not evaporate or drain away or become a cause of pride. Guard that which the Lord has given to you by the Holy Spirit.
Thirdly, stir up the gift which is in you. 2 Timothy 1:6:
For which cause I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God,
which is in thee through the laying on of my hands.
What an interesting word that is: stir into life. It is the thought of stirring embers in a fire. Stir it. Poke it. Give it a good poke. Get the ash out.
You know, some servants of the Lord, as we get older, there is a lot of ash. It is not that there was not a tremendous amount that God has done in our history and experience, but as we get older there is ash, and more ash, and more ash, and more ash.
If you know anything about a living fire, it is simply this: ash deadens it. You have got to rake all the ash out and stir the embers, and they will burst back into flame.
It is not that the gift which God has given you is slowly disappearing or evaporating or fading. It is there, but it is being clogged by dead ash.
Get rid of it. Stir up the gift which is in you, and it will spring back by the Holy Spirit into life and power. Fresh fuel will be added to enable you to go on to the end of the ministry that God has given you.
Spiritual character: the most vital matter in connection with Christian leadership. May God grant to us all to know this kind of character.
May we be conformed to the image of His Son more and more, from day to day, from year to year. May it be true of us, as it says in Proverbs:
But the path of the righteous is as the dawning light,
that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
May it be so with all of us. Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we pray that the Holy Spirit Himself will take these words, poor as they are because of the vessel, and somehow, Lord, engrave them upon our hearts and in our spirits.
Lord, blot out anything that is not right or that is in some way out of balance, but, Lord, keep within us alive and clear all that has been spoken by Thee.
So, dear Lord, we pray that we might be true leaders. We know, Lord, we are living in a day when, as never before, leadership is required.
Oh, Father, raise up men and women who will be leaders amongst Thy people, who will lead them aright, who will be true pioneers and examples, who will lay down their lives for the flock, who will know the power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Oh, Father, we pray that Thou wilt do this with all of us, and we ask it together in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.