What a joy, joy to be with you and to have such open hearts to speak to. I just appreciate good soil. The planting is easy when God has prepared the soil.
I wonder how many are here this morning who were not here yesterday. All right, for those of you who were not here, I want to introduce our basic theme.
We are concerned for finishing the race well. I used, as an introduction, this statement from Dr. Clinton. He says, after researching six hundred individual leaders, both past and present, that most leaders do not finish well.
He observed that those who finish well seem to have some things in common. There are characteristics that are always manifest in the life. We are going to keep it in the positive, and I really want to speak to you this morning about some of the positive things that I believe can help you finish the race well.
Now, Dana and I are really on the same page. He is referring to a lot of corporate moving of God in the body of Christ, and the desperate need that we have today. My burden, in some ways, is to bring you to a place where every day you can live revived.
We said yesterday that those who really are fulfilling the way of God have a perspective which enables them to keep focused and see the broader view. They relate the present to the long range. We spoke about the difference between Bethel, the house of God, and Ai, just a heap of ruins.
This morning, our emphasis is going to be on those who enjoy intimacy with Christ and experience repeated inner renewal. How many believe that you might be revived every day? Well, this is the secret.
This is my burden: that God will bring us to the place where every day we can enter into the reality of His life. Tomorrow we are going to talk about disciplines. Do not miss it. It is disciplining.
But this morning, I would like for you to turn to the book of 1 John. We are going to talk about relationships.
I have always appreciated 1 John because it unfolds some very interesting lessons. By the way, it is necessary to tune the organ this morning:
That is A-plus. I have never had a group remember them all. Thank you for that. I really appreciate that.
How many believe God is really good? Can you experience it? Let me get just a little before I get into the message. I will chase one rabbit.
Ruth and I got married five years ago. I was very eager to take her to some of the places that I had been going to for years, and one of them was down in North Carolina at Hendersonville. We have enjoyed the fellowship there for many, many years.
So I introduced her as GGG. How many know what GGG is? Or you will now: God’s gracious gift.
Now, I can emphasize that, and people are saying, “Yeah, better than good.” Anyway, God’s gracious gift.
One of the young brothers—I think one of the elders in the fellowship there—had been head of a company that provided health equipment for a number of years. They were having struggles among the people. They were quarreling, families were having difficulty, and it was a pretty good business, but their relationships were not good.
When he heard that, I believe God gave him a special burden. He went to the whole group, about twelve or fifteen that worked there, and said, “We are changing the name of our company. From now on, we are GGG Supply.”
The wonderful part about this is that when everybody says, “Well, what does GGG mean?” he says, “You want to know?” He is able to explain that, in the last two or three years, the climate, the relationships, and the fellowship in that group have dramatically changed, simply because they have come to appreciate one another.
When we were back there, I think a year ago, he told my wife how the company had changed. I said, “Well, GGG means God’s gracious gift, but it means something else: gets gooder and gooder.”
And that is for sure. God is good, and it gets gooder and gooder. How many can say, “What I know of the Lord’s reality today is so much better than ten years ago”? Amen. I know that you know that.
Well, we are in 1 John this morning, and I want to draw three words out. Now, as a teacher, I am very concerned with using right terms. There is a looseness today in lots of situations, but we are going to look in 1 John, and I want you to see the difference between what I believe are biblical relationship, fellowship, and intimacy.
Those of you who were not here yesterday, I need to say this: God is primarily, above all else, a Father. The great majority of people will start with some attribute of God. He is love; He is grace; and they camp around that. Then there is another whole group that will camp around sovereignty and wrath, different aspects of God.
But we are saying this morning that we have a personal relationship with the Father if we have been born into that family. We are going to read now as John explains the privileges that are ours in this wonderful relationship.
You are acquainted with 1 John, so I will not need to go into a lot of detail, but he starts out by saying:
That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon,
and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
for the life was manifested,
and we have seen it,
and bear witness,
and show unto you that eternal life,
which was with the Father,
and was manifested unto us;
that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you,
that ye also may have fellowship with us:
and truly our fellowship is with the Father,
and with His Son Jesus Christ.
And these things write we unto you,
that your joy may be full.—1 John 1:1-4
I am so grateful today that, in the evangelical world, there is a great emphasis on the fact that it is not just a matter of knowing about God. There is entering into a personal relationship. That term is being used a lot, but sometimes it is being confused with fellowship.
You see, it is possible for an individual to enter into a birth relationship. As we said yesterday, God’s Spirit joins my spirit. Born from above, quickened, made alive—we enter a relationship.
There are many different kinds of relationship, but John, in this particular letter, is speaking about a family relationship: Father with His family.
I like to say this morning that if you are going to get in the same book, you are going to read about the Father and His purpose for Himself: to have a vast family of sons, all like the Lord Jesus. That is the book.
You move from the book to the chapter. The chapter that we are in this morning is the Father’s delight to exalt and put His Son in the central place, because everything that He is going to do is in and through His lovely Son.
So we are Father-satisfied; we are Son-occupied with Him. We are acknowledging Him. It is interesting that when you get to the same page, you begin to discover how God works out this bringing us into the full purpose, the full thing that He wants.
So I am just saying simply this morning that first you enter into His life: a relationship.
For years, I did not understand that relationship—a birth relationship—is something God gives. You may lose fellowship. You may wander your own way. But I think it is pretty clear in Scripture that God births, and that birthing is something for eternity.
I had a wonderful father. We spent many wonderful years in fellowship together. There were times I displeased him, but I was still in the family. My fellowship with him increased and enlarged through the years.
My dad was with the Free Methodist Church at their headquarters for years and was much appreciated. When he retired, he decided he would stay home, but he got back to work three times, so they had three retirement parties. This time they said, “You will not come back.” He was used anyway.
Dad and Mother really prayed for me because they heard that I believed a terrible doctrine called eternal security. I have said that is not a biblical term. I do believe in paternal security.
In other words, you are in the family. You belong to Him. He is going to chasten and do whatever He needs to do to keep you in fellowship.
Dad and I had a lot of fellowship. We really did. One day, when I went down to Florida—we went there every winter for a little bit—he had been listening to Charles Stanley and outlining ten messages in a row. The theme was eternal security.
I remember when he looked at me and said, “You know, Mother and I have been praying for you a long time that you would really see the light: that you can be lost; you can lose your relationship.”
But he said, “Stanley has convinced me that once in the family, once you belong to Him, once you have a relationship—” I will never forget my dad saying, “Thank God for Charles Stanley.”
To top it all off, my brother is a doctor, and do you know what book he got for Christmas? Dr. Stanley’s book, Eternal Security.
Well now, we are not stuck in doctrine this morning. It is not just principles. We want to know a Person, and that Person, who I believe knows the beginning from the end, I can trust.
Many people come to me and say, “What is God going to do with all these heathen who, in the darkness, have never once heard the name of Jesus?” I can give you three or four different solutions, but I simply say, “That is not my problem.”
I know One who will do things right. Everything I have ever experienced of Him is right, and I can trust Him to the end. He will do what is right.
It is wonderful to enter into a relationship of life. Now, when you maintain this—this is keeping revived, walking with Him—you come into light.
I oftentimes ask which really comes first when you are going to be converted: light, faith, or life?
I will just say it this way: in Him was life, and the life became the light. The Calvinist says you receive Him as your life in order that you can get light. Other folks say, “No, you have to believe.” But Scripture says:
But as many as received Him,
to them gave He the right to become the children of God,
even to them that believe on His name.—John 1:12
What is the sequence? Receiving life, and life.
We need to be very careful this morning because we often assume, just because people know some verses and know some truth, that they have light.
Read Watchman Nee. I forget which one of his books, but he really emphasizes the fact that you can have truth. That is objective. That is the logos. But one day God turns the light on in that particular verse, and you say, “Oh, I thought I knew that.”
How many have experienced that? Something you have known as truth—it is objective, very wonderful, it is logos—but, oh, when the light comes on, you say, “The light has come.”
I used to assume that because people knew verses, and knew the Scofield Bible as well as anyone, that meant they had light. It does not mean they have had light.
Watchman Nee, again and again, goes on to point out the fact that, oh, how we need to walk in light. Now, we need to be very careful in dealing with others. If you are going to fellowship with people, it has to be more than truth.
You can fellowship to agree in truth, but to enter into the reality is to enter into the life issue—the life issue.
This is kind of incidental. Watchman Nee, when he had gone through the States and ended up in London with my friend T. Austin-Sparks, was there nine months. Many of the books that we know and appreciate came out of those nine months of ministry.
Brother Sparks said to me, “While he was here, I never spoke once. God gave him the anointing.” That was a little secret. The room he stayed in, I stayed in. I slept in the same bed, anyway. So if there is anything special, now you know what it is.
Things rub off. Not really. I wish they did.
Here we are this morning. We are talking about the fact that the relationship we have with Him is life imparted. That life brings light. The fellowship we enjoy then is as we walk in the light.
This is why John is saying, as we read into this now, chapter 1, verse 5:
This then is the message
which we have heard of Him,
and declare unto you,
that God is light,
and in Him is no darkness at all.If we say that we have fellowship with Him,
and walk in darkness,
we lie,
and do not the truth:
but if we walk in the light,
as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanseth us from all sin.—1 John 1:5-7
I just have a sense that, walking in light, we are all failing. There are often things that come across our life from day to day. But the constant we have is that, walking in this light, the cleansing of the blood is always there.
I do not even need to plead it all the time. I am just walking in light.
Do not try to press people into your light. I have tried for a long time. It is very difficult, pressing them into the light that you have.
We were praying early this morning. You know, I realize there is instant coffee, instant tea, and instant pudding. I may believe in instant families.
Well, I can demonstrate that. We have one son, a lovely daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren. But when I got Ruth, I got an instant family. She has four children, sixteen grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
But when you are preaching fatherhood—my, I am chasing a rabbit. Anyway, I just want you to know this morning that there is something very wonderful about God bringing us into light.
You want to pray with me? My son, who is a very fine, honorable man, works in a very wonderful position at Raytheon. He has a wonderful wife whose name is Patty.
After all these years, they have been in and out with us in many places. They know that every place Vern goes is to a little group in a house someplace. Occasionally it gets bigger, but usually it is a little group.
They keep praying, “Oh, Dad, I wish you could get into bigger groups. I wish all that you know, they could know.” So I am really prayed for, and I accept it.
The thing they do not understand is that we have moved into a little condo area. We can walk through the back into a great big parking lot where Patty and Devon, my son, attend. It is a megachurch—not really big, but they do have seven thousand.
Every now and then, because I have a desire to fellowship with them, I walk through the parking lot and go in. They have two services on Saturday night, usually about fifteen hundred each service.
I am amazed at just how much that church knows. I am really amazed.
Patty told me one day, “They have four elders that take turns. Each elder will speak on a Saturday and a Sunday. They take turns. They have four messages to give that weekend.”
She said, “Some time ago, I went up to John and said, ‘John, have you ever read The Ultimate Intention?’” He looked and said, “Well, yes. Why do you ask?” She said, “I thought I recognized a few things.”
“Oh,” he said, “years ago I was back in Texas, and I burned out in the religious evangelism of the day. I left ministry. One day a friend came along and said, ‘I think this book may enlarge your vision, and you will see that we do not live in just the redemptive box, but there is the larger purpose box of all that God has planned.’”
He said, “I was so gripped by that, God brought me back into ministry.” Then he moved to Indianapolis, and he was now one of the speaking elders at this large megachurch. He said, “That book transformed my life.”
Then he happened to look down at the badge. He said, “Fromke. You know, I think that guy’s name was Fromke. I know he has been dead many years.”
Patty said, “Well, not really. I talked to him yesterday.” And he said, “You are his daughter-in-law?” “Yeah.”
Now, Patty is quite aggressive. She is in charge of the small groups of seven thousand people. Of course, they do not get them all in a small group, but that is her goal.
She said, “Would you like to have some fellowship with my father?” “Oh, I would love it.”
Would you believe, for six months—no, it was about nine months—every Tuesday I met with John. We went over his messages that he was going to give the next Sunday. I mean, talk about privilege.
John had been caught by the fact that God wanted him to be a father, and he was a lovely father. I just enjoyed it, but most of all, his father heart for this big group.
So I keep saying, “God, You are sneaky. I have been wanting to preach there for a long time, and now You do it.” John was there all those months.
One day it was too much for him. I knew it would be. So he left and went to Florida to get away from this big thing. The only thing he ran into was hurricanes. Then he decided to move from Florida to Colorado, and there he ran into all the snow.
Run away if God is trying to deal with you—it is impossible. Why? Because He is after something: to conform us to the life of His precious Son, the Lord Jesus.
Oh, you can say this morning, “God, I am so glad You are the Conformer.” Vern tries to do it.
Let me start this way. We had a big lot that we lived in in Missouri for a long time, with some great big oak trees. I always wanted to get things done in order.
One fall, I looked down and said, “You know, I could rake about every week because the leaves keep falling.” I said to my wife, “I am going to get a long pole. I am going to knock all those dead leaves off and rake it once.”
She looked and said, “People going by would be sure to wonder what they think. Put your pole away.”
The Lord said to me, “This has been your problem too much of the time. You stand in the pulpit with a long pole. You knock dead things off of people’s lives. You get them all pruned, but they are dead.”
I wept, and I said, “Oh God, You use the pole. Do not let me do it.” God’s pole is better than anybody else’s. He strips and He cuts all these things away.
So we are saying this morning that God wants to bring us to walk in light, and that is what He is getting at here. Verse 7 again:
If we walk in the light,
as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanseth us from all sin.—1 John 1:7
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. That is sin—not sins, but sin—that indwelling thing within us that creates so much problem.
Now, the answer is this: if we are deceiving ourselves, if we say we do not have a nature within, verse 9 says:
If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and righteous
to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.—1 John 1:9
That is plural: the things that we do, the things on the tree that God needs to deal with.
I am just so grateful this morning that God is teaching us. Most of you are aware of what I am saying. Do not confuse relationship and fellowship. The religious world is doing it. Be a stickler for biblical terminology, even if you have to fight for it. No, forget that.
Relationship is one thing. Fellowship is something else, because we are in harmony.
There is something else we need to see, and that is: you pay the price of intimacy. When you move through the book of 1 John, it talks again and again of the various aspects of fellowship.
Let me just give you a little example. In chapter 2, he says:
My little children,
these things write I unto you,
that ye sin not.
And if any man sin,
we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous.—1 John 2:1
Then he goes on, beginning in verse 12. I want you to see three different kinds of fellowship:
I write unto you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven you
for His name’s sake.I write unto you, fathers,
because ye have known Him
that is from the beginning.I write unto you, young men,
because ye have overcome the wicked one.—1 John 2:12-13
John is speaking of three different levels of fellowship. First, fellowship as children. What do the kids talk about when they are first saved?
“Oh, He has forgiven me. That was just so real. He has forgiven me. I am in the family.”
The first thing we fellowship with one another and with God about at the childhood level is, “It is so good to be forgiven.”
Then you grow up and become a young man. Let us see what young men fellowship about.
I have written unto you, fathers,
because ye have known Him
that is from the beginning.I have written unto you, young men,
because ye are strong,
and the word of God abideth in you,
and ye have overcome the wicked one.—1 John 2:14
So, just to boil it down quickly: those who first enter into fellowship fellowship on the basis of the blessedness of sins forgiven. “Father, we are in Your family.”
Grow up and become a young man. What do young men fellowship about? “Hey, you know, the Word works. I tried it. The enemy was overcome. You are strong. The Word of God abideth in you.”
I know what it is like to see young men go through this stage of the reality of the Word of God as it works in their lives, and they are able to use it. The logos becomes a living rhema.
Then you come to fathers. Question: what do two fathers talk about? What would they fellowship about?
The father heart. The father heart is always interested in the purposes of his family—not just bringing them in, but bringing them to the place where they fulfill destiny. They fulfill something of the purpose that God has.
When I see fathers fellowshipping together, and the real father heart is there, I sense the concern for their purposes.
I am so glad when my son and I can sit down. He is concerned for the three children. We talk about their purposes. Are they fulfilling destiny?
There is David, the oldest. I remember when he was born, dedicated to the Lord. There is Kyle, and then Laura. When we talk really about things that matter to our hearts, father to father, it is purposes.
As we said yesterday, this is why I believe God selected Abraham as the prime pattern and example of a father. Abram becomes Abraham. Fatherhood is expressed.
Once you get the touchstone I am talking about, you see that you have a Book more than just principles. You have a Book that has its reality in the Person: a Father who puts His Son on display.
The proof of relationship is new birth. We have nature and increasing hunger. You know, I get kind of concerned when I see someone who says they are born from above, but they have no appetite for spiritual things.
I am honest about it. Every baby I have known, just a matter of hours in there, is crying for food. Crying for food.
We who are born into this world have a nature that desires the flesh. It is the old nature. But when God comes by His Spirit and imparts a new nature into us, that new nature gets hungry. It wants food.
I have to be honest with you: we have some wonderful grandchildren, but I kind of wonder sometimes about their hunger. The world, the flesh, these things—the new nature desires the things that are spiritual.
I remember when, after all my years in a wonderful Christian home, going into a Christian university college out in Seattle, getting out and spending my first year in ministry, I missed the Lord.
I think I was born again. They just say, “No, he got more consecrated,” but that is all right. I will fellowship on their basis. But I had no hunger before.
Everything I looked for in the Book was something to preach, something to speak, something to share. Would you believe that the first month after I came to what I would call a real birth crisis, I learned a hundred verses of Scripture?
Hungry. Those are the ones I still remember.
What is the proof that you have a new birth? That you have a nature within. When people consistently feed the flesh, consistently feed the things of this world, I begin to wonder.
This whole thing we call feeding: there is an increasing hunger, and appetite goes along with it. What is the proof of a relationship?
How do you maintain fellowship?
O send out Thy light and Thy truth:
let them lead me;
let them bring me unto Thy holy hill,
and to Thy tabernacles.—Psalm 43:3
Truth is an outward thing—wonderful. Let that lead. But also there is the reality of light, God entering into personal reality.
Fellowship, then, is on the basis of truth and light. I know that some of you have been praying these days. I hear it. You are saying, “Oh God, bring our young people, bring us into the place where it is more than just knowledge and information, having the right truth.”
That is good. But when the light breaks in, that truth becomes inward, subjective, personal, real.
Well, I really want to get on to this because there is what I call intimacy.
John goes on to speak of the fact that we have life. Life moves us into light. The logical step next is the love that follows. In Him was life; the life became the light. The more I understand, to know Him is to love Him.
I have said on occasion, you know, I thought I really loved Ruth when we got married, and I did. But the more I plumb the depths of her character, the lovely qualities that God has wrought in her life, I tell you, there is a new love, a new appreciation.
Love flows out of what you see and know in another. To really know Him is to love Him. To really know Him is to love Him.
I sort of have a feeling that there are some characteristics that go along with this love relationship that are unique—something that represents more than just fellowship.
When Dana got that page out of my script last night, he was talking about John. I wanted to tell you that when John, in his older age, was not able to preach, he just had one message. You remember what it was? They would bring him in, and he would say, “God is love.”
I question whether we know that until we have been pressed into circumstances where you love people in spite of what they are. That is body life. They do not change a pile. You just say, “Thank You, Lord, for giving me the opportunity to demonstrate.”
My sense is that this intimacy always has some rather peculiar characteristics. Everyone that I have known who has entered into what I call living intimacy with the Lord has had the Lord put a bridle upon them that sort of uniquely sets them apart for intimacy.
A number of years ago, I got hold of a little booklet. You may have read it: Others May, You Cannot. You ought to get it. It is a tremendous book.
Others May, You Cannot speaks of the fact that, in the general, there are individuals God is working on. He is going to bring them into life, but until He does, you learn to love and to fellowship. Others may, but you cannot, because I am pressing you into a new measure and a new kind of intimacy.
I had found that book years ago, and one day I discovered it again. The Lord said, “This will help you,” because I knew He had put a bridle on me that I did not really like.
It was in ministry. He said, “I want you to walk with Me and not be professional.” People often say, “What is your profession?” All I can say is, “I am serving the Lord.” That is not so bad. But then you say, “I am a bondslave.” They say, “What is that?”
A bondslave is someone who is a love slave.
We are getting at this morning the fact that others may do things, but uniquely, He says, “I do not want you to.”
So I heard Him say, “Here are three bridles, three things in this bridle. I do not want you to be professional. You just walk with Me and learn to serve.”
“And I do not want you to be sensational.” Everything about my makeup loves to get attention in a sensational way.
“And then I do not want you to be commercial.” Others may; I do not want you to.
I read that book and happened to go into Dallas for some ministry. I was speaking on a Sunday in a church fellowship, and a lady came up afterward and said, “My friend dragged me out. I did not want to come tonight, but she insisted. I am glad I did.”
She stuck out her hand. She said, “My name is Ann Murchison.”
I said, “That is interesting. Last week I was in one of our fellowships in Kokomo, Indiana, and I glanced through the book you have written.”
She said, “Oh, you know the Lord?” Her face lit up. She said, “Yes, I do.” I said, “That is interesting.” She said, “I need to have some more fellowship with you. Would you come out to our place tomorrow?”
By the way, the Murchisons owned the Dallas Cowboys. I had known that. I had been in Tom Landry’s ministry a time or two. Thank God for the boldness and the stand they had.
We went out to their palatial home and met the butler. He said, “I forgot that all the staff are off today, so you are going out to eat at the club.”
I got in the back seat with Ann. We drove out, and the Lord has always put me in difficult places and asked, “Are you going to be obedient?”
As we were driving out, I said, “You know, I accept the fact that your husband is a Christian.” “Yes, he is a baby Christian. Do not expect too much.”
I said, “Well, Tom Landry seems to have a tremendous testimony.” “Yes, he does. They both know the Lord.”
“So what do you do when you are traveling in this ultra society of all these wealthy people and the whole sports world?” She whispered to me, “I wrote a little book some time ago, Others May, You Cannot.”
I thought, “She is on the line. That is my page: others may, you cannot.”
I said, “Well, I will be praying for you, because I sure would like to have the Dallas cheerleaders with a little more clothes on.” Now, this was a long time ago, and they started it all.
Sometimes you say it is wonderful to move. Yeah, it is, except you have to be obedient sometimes.
She looked over, and she said, “Would you pray? I have to wait God’s timing for life to come. Others may; I cannot.”
That has been so real because, in the commercial world, it is so easy to get your ministry—your life—from the commercial.
One of the things the Lord said was, “I want you to always either give or sell your books at cost.” I said, “But Lord, nobody else will.” He said, “That is all right. Your bridle is different.”
The hardest thing has been to keep from being sensational because, you know, you like every now and then to grab somebody’s attention, and to be professional.
Some years ago, I picked up the phone, and the lady at the other end of the line said, “Dr. Fromke, are you the one who preaches or the one who practices?”
I have a well-known brother who is a doctor. I whispered over the phone, “I am not sure just which one.” I said, “We both do both.”
She said, “Really?” I said, “I know him pretty well. He loves the Lord. He not only practices, but I watched him preach in some very difficult things.”
You see, when I first started out, the Lord said, “If you are going to really trust Me, I do not want you ever to take an offering.” I said, “But God, that is really different.”
He said, “You remember Rees Howells and all the things God put him through?” Well, you ought to read that sometime.
For almost thirty years, we moved around, making it hard for God, but He loved to provide. He loved to provide. I could tell you tremendous stories of God’s provision just because we refused to take offerings.
How many believe in offerings? I do too. But God says, “I want to do something in you that is different.”
I suffered for a long time until one day I was talking to Brother Sparks. His ear blinked. He said, “You too?”
If you knew him very well, he would allow people to pay his expenses, but never any honorarium.
Now, I am not prescribing this. I am just describing what God has done in my own heart through the years.
I will explain tomorrow when we get into it, but you know, God knows how to give you the cattle on a thousand hills. He knows how to do the impossible things.
Folks said, “Your books will never get out. You are an unknown person.” That is fine, but God knows how.
In our publishing company, not very many have books that go to a million copies without sensational advertising or anything.
I am only saying, “Lord, You know how to do things. You know how to provide, and we have never been without simply because You are the source.”
Now, my big concern is somebody is going to say, “That is the bridle I am going to wear. Thank You, Lord.” No, no, no. Be sure the Lord gives it to you.
I have picked up other people’s bridles for a while, and they are really galling. They are very difficult.
I say, let God determine what bridle He puts upon you. When I found in Brother Sparks a heart—something of the same thing that we shared—there was no sensation, no commercializing, no professionalism, just servants of the Lord.
What we are saying this morning is simply this: God, sooner or later, is going to bring every one of us into a place where our love for Him will be unique.
There are things that others may do, but there are unique things that the two lovers have in mind.
I wanted to put this on when I heard Dana speaking last evening because God surely gave him the gift of preaching, and people are praying that I will at least be able to help.
Tozer says, “Preaching must be the present voice of God to a particular people.”
I have loved and appreciated the writing of A. W. Tozer for many, many years. One of the things, when you read him, is that you know he is speaking critical distinctions that are important.
When I used to go into the Akron area, there were seven Christian and Missionary Alliance churches. They moved among them quite a bit. When they would get together, you would be amazed how difficult it was for them to fellowship.
They all had the same name, but differences in so many ways.
One of the brothers I went to often was at Lover’s Lane—lovely term, Lover’s Lane. One day he saw some light, and he left the church. He came to Indianapolis and joined us in our ministry and was a real blessing.
But Jack had such a burden for all of the Christian and Missionary Alliance pastors that, as we prayed together, he said, “I am going to send every one of them The Ultimate Intention.”
Of course, I said, “Amen. They need it.” Six hundred pastors got a book, and in many of their lives it was just the right timing. God was working.
Now, A. W. Tozer was the editor of the Alliance paper. A lot of these pastors who had gotten hold of the larger picture—God’s purpose and the eternality of things—began to write to the editor and say, “Would you include this article?”
He was bombarded. Finally, he wrote to my friend Jack, who had left the Alliance, and said, “No more of this. Fromke is too idealistic.”
I do not know if that was good or bad.
When you live in the larger frame of things, and suddenly you realize God did not bring us into the world so He would have somebody to save—if God’s primary activity is salvation, then men had to fall so God would have somebody to save.
That is the theme of the book. But when Adam turned to go his own way, God rescued him and brought him back to the line of purpose.
I have to be honest: in the next few years, I had a little bit of an offense toward Dr. Tozer. I kept praying, “Oh God, open his eyes. Great man like this—what he could do.”
Would you believe the Lord answered? One day we were at the same meeting. I remember sitting across the table.
Did you ever meet, or do you know much about A. W. Tozer? He was a mystic and a prophet. He always spelled it black and white.
That noon, as we sat down across the table, he said, “Brother Vern, I just need to tell you, I do appreciate The Ultimate Intention.”
Some years had gone by. I had been waiting for it because I knew that a man with that big a heart would understand. But he was prejudiced because, when you are losing pastors and everybody who gets the larger vision has a tendency to say, “I have seen something.”
How many are with me this morning? Not quite. Well, I will run that through again.
What you are saying then is this: if we really come to walk with the Lord and are occupied with pleasing Him, fulfilling what He wants, the chances are pretty good He will bring us into an intimacy with Himself.
The price of this intimacy: there is the general—others may; the particular—you cannot. You can always expect the Lord to take you into some kind of intimacy uniquely marked.
Husband and wife have an intimacy. People who walk with the Lord can share burdens.
I have been privileged now for a number of years to have God bring men into our lives who have been key men in the area.
I remember one man. I was speaking in a church, and Art came and said, “I will have you know I am a born-again Episcopalian.” I wanted to say, “That is fine. God will forgive you,” but I did not.
God began an amazing fellowship with us. Not only did he print some of our books, but we began to meet together all the time. Every time I would go someplace, he would say, “Can I go along and be with you that week?”
He had a big publishing company, but it was well manned and taken care of by the staff, so he would go with me.
The interesting thing about Art was that he had good connections. He had connections with everybody in the city.
For many months, any time Governor Bowen needed some help, he would call Art. He would say, “Art, where are you going to be Tuesday night? We have our prayer meeting.”
We would say, “What do we pray about?” He said, “We are trying to keep gambling out of Indiana.” Dr. Bowen was a medical doctor, but he was the governor. He said, “I am determined. We are not going to open the floodgates.”
For months and months, we would pray, and he would say, “This is what we need.” I believe that God delights in bringing His people into hidden situations where you can count for Him.
How many know there is a difference between having position and having influence? Some of your husbands know who has the position, but you know where the influence is.
Position is one thing. Influence is something else.
Over and over again, Dr. Bowen would say, as they were working in Congress, “It is stalled again.” It was only after he left office and went to Washington, D.C., to a bigger office. But it was a wonderful thing to see God working in the hidden way.
Position, yes; influence. Somebody was there.
More recently, we have had a brother we meet with when we are home every week. I would say Brother Larry has connections like nobody else in Indianapolis.
He knows people, and they know what he stands for. When we gather on Wednesday mornings to pray, he comes with many critical issues simply because God has given him opportunity to know people and have connections.
I mention that this morning because I would like to take a commercial time-out now. I would like to encourage you to get the latest book that came out just last week. It is called Why God Intervenes.
We have put together some very unique stories of how God has intervened into situations, just to demonstrate and show His fingerprints.
One of the stories you will read there is about two orphan girls down in the Martinique area. Their parents died, and finally, when they were getting into school, they were sent off to France.
After four years in finishing school there, it was time to return to their island. As they were on their way, way back in the earlier years, they were overtaken by pirates.
One of the girls, whose story you read about, was taken on board. The captain said he would give her to someone, and she ended up in the palace in Turkey. It is a tremendous story of how God worked in her life.
She had a baby, and in due time she was able to instruct that little one who had been born in the palace there.
Now, her other friend, who had been in France, married Napoleon. You talk about God getting into hidden places.
Why? Because it is the glory of God to position people, to get them in a place—not so much a position as influence.
The whole Bible is full of God putting different ones in unique places.
Dana was talking about Hezekiah last night, and I wanted to say, “Amen.” Hezekiah was the best king they had had, with all the reformation that took place.
Then God brought him, as He does most people, down to the final issue of crisis in his life. Isaiah told him, “Get your house in order; you are going to die.”
Do you know what Hezekiah did? He turned his face to the wall, and he went through all the good things he had done. In the simple way, he was saying, “God, after all I have done for You, are You now going to take my life?”
I am in full accord with all that my brother said last night because Hezekiah stands out as one of the most amazing and wonderful kings in what he did. But even at the end, he failed.
Why? What was the wrong prayer that Hezekiah prayed?
I think Hezekiah, when he heard that he was going to die, should have done as the pattern Man does:
Not My will,
but Thine, be done.
The Lord Jesus Himself, when He faced His situation, said, “Not My will, but Thine.”
Hezekiah got fifteen more years, but they were not purposeful. They were not good years. Well, read the story.
That introduces another interesting story. One day I was speaking in a conference with Brother Sparks. A big tall man walked up at the close of the meeting and said, “My name is Hal. I am president of this company. Did you know they found the missing day?”
I kind of paused for a moment. I did not want to tell him I knew no day was missing.
He said, “We are responsible for IBM’s equipment that projects off into the heavenlies.”
A friend of mine who was a jeweler said one day, when a fellow asked, “Will this keep perfect time?” “No,” he said. “It will keep accurate time, but only God’s universe keeps perfect time.”
It would have to be. There would be collisions of all these things in the universe if they did not keep perfect time.
Hal said, “With all the projection, if we are planning a hundred years or a thousand years ahead where something is going to be, one day all the equipment stopped.”
They called in IBM and said, “Something is wrong with your equipment.” They went through it and said, “No, there is nothing wrong with the equipment, but what you are feeding into it is wrong.”
Well, there is a day that seems to be missing. My friend Hal said, “We had one of our partners who was a Christian. He said, ‘You know, I remember reading back in the Bible about a day when Israel was about to be overcome by the enemy.’”
Joshua began to cry out, and God heard. He asked the sun to stand still in order that they would not be swallowed up and overcome by the enemy.
He got the Bible out. They said, “Yeah, well,” and put the day back in, except they were still forty minutes short. You have to be perfect in these things.
The same fellow said, “You know, I also remember one day when Hezekiah was told, ‘I will give you a proof.’ Let the sundial go back ten degrees,” which is forty minutes.
They put the forty minutes in. Well, you read the story. It is amazing how the missing day was found.
Now, guess who is trying to disprove that? The whole world over. But I knew Hal well enough to know we would meet one another. It seemed like we were going through Atlanta once a month and meeting at the airport.
I would say, “Where are you going?” We would have a good time of fellowship, a real kind of intimacy, because we loved the same story.
What are you saying this morning? God wants you to be sure of a relationship. What is the proof of it? A new nature.
Which nature are you feeding? The old nature of the flesh? I wish you could get it eradicated. I have been with groups who believe that it can be so crucified that it never rises again, but I have not had that experience.
I am seeking it, but I have not found it yet. All I am saying is, there is a constant either walking after the Spirit or walking after the flesh.
What is your appetite this morning? The world?
If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.—1 John 2:15
Get the right preposition. You see, it is one thing to love. We have love for the Father.
When I read one of the old mystics say that he had to repent of his love because it was so feeble, I did not understand the difference between our love for God and the love of the Father.
Love for has its source in me. Love of has its source in Him.
God sheds the love of God, the love of the Father. This is something that comes from another source.
Constantine, back in the days when there was a real struggle, was trying to decide this particular thing: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.”
He kept saying, “That is not our love for God. That is the love of God.” Different source.
I need to quit. Can I ask you a question this morning? There is something in your heart that has an appetite. You say, “Oh God, I really want to please You.”
Be a Father-pleaser.
Who for the joy that was set before Him
endured the cross,
despising the shame,
and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.—Hebrews 12:2
He is a Father-pleaser. I am claiming these days that we are together that everyone whose heart is being exercised will say, “I want to be a Father-pleaser.”
“Invite me into such intimacy with Yourself that You can put a bridle on me, and I can walk with You, even though it means alone.”
I used to wonder what the cross was. The unique cross that each of us bears is the unique thing God asks of us. That is your cross. That is your way of dying to what other people think: the uniqueness of the bridle that you get to wear.
I have met a few people who wear that bridle. They have been very unique.
I remember back in the Asheville area, I was speaking one day. A colonel who had just retired came up at the end of the service and said, “I am just out of the service and on the bread-and-butter circuit traveling. But this afternoon I got the answer I have been looking for.”
He was a British-Israel man, one of their key men. When we went that afternoon into the picture of Israel, broken off as branches, he stood with tears looking over the group and said, “You wonder why Vern got up and said this afternoon he was changing his message.”
“I was struggling,” he said, “and he changed it for me. I needed this word from Romans.”
He had a daily radio broadcast in the Flatiron Building down in Nashville. The next day he went home and told everybody on the radio that he had been saved, that he had been born again.
Imagine the Episcopalian rector in the church suddenly telling everybody that he had just met God. That created quite a stir.
So he invited me to come back to the Biltmore, and he gathered in all his radio audience. I remember walking into the service that evening with a couple of my friends and looking over all those furs and all those Cadillacs. I thought, “Oh God, how did I get into this?”
Bob got up and said—he did not know any better—“I want to introduce the man who saved me.”
I knew right then I was in for a bad evening. What he meant to say was, “The man who helped me.” But by that time, no.
I got up to speak to about four or five hundred in the audience that evening, and I spit cotton for about twenty minutes. I mean, I just could not get anything together.
Finally, the Lord said, “Obey Me.” So I said, “You know, I should have denied that introduction and straightened things out. I do it now.”
“How many know I am not much of a speaker by now?” They all agreed.
I said, “Would you pray that, if God has a word for you tonight, He can give it?”
When I opened my eyes, I saw a little lady in the front. I had seen her before, but not really. The Lord said, “You speak to her and you will get through.”
So I ministered, and she pulled it out of me. I did not know this seventy-eight-year-old lady had a prayer ministry, and God had brought her there that night just to help.
He had her there. We got through with her help and the Lord’s.
What was interesting about it was that I had a bridle. Bob got up and said, “No, I happen to be in charge of this meeting, and I do what I want to do. I know Brother Fromke will not take offerings, but I am going to take one anyway, and he has no choice.”
So the Lord said, “Take it and give it to that little lady.”
The next day I went to see her and found out what she had been and the unusual life that God had given her through the years. It was Alice Royce.
As I walked up, she met me at the door and said, “Oh, I just got some stationery, and I have a bill for—I forget the amount. I just asked Father to provide it.”
I said, “Well, I came to bring this offering to you.” She said, “How much is it?” I said, “Oh, that is exactly to the penny what my bill was.”
I knew I was in God’s presence. I went for five minutes and stayed three hours.
To shorten the story, this goes back to last night again. I have been a Finney man—Revival Lectures, lectures to professing Christians, everything that Finney wrote.
I knew that Finney had two men who were responsible: Father Nash and Abel Clary. I had always been saying, “Oh God, would You provide somebody?”
Would you believe that for one year, every place I moved through Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, Alice showed up? She knew everybody. She would just find out where I was going to be, and there she was. She would sit and pray. She prayed constantly.
Doors opened all the way to the lieutenant governor in Georgia that I never could have opened. She prayed.
To walk with God.
At that stage, I was not married, so I said to her, “You know, there is no point in you riding buses to the next place. Why do you not ride with me?” At that stage, I was twenty-nine and she was seventy-three.
So we rode together. She kept opening up the Song of Solomon. Now, that had not ever been my favorite book, but it was hers.
She opened the Book and opened the Book—things that I never could have seen.
One day, she was living in Marion with one of our close friends. Lois told me that Alice got up as usual that morning, walked into the breakfast nook, looked out the window, and saw a bird.
She said, “Oh, that is my bird. That is the one I have been waiting for.”
Alice turned and said, “Lois, I will be leaving you today. I am going home. I have been waiting for that bird a long time.”
What would you do if you knew you had five or six more hours?
I believe she so walked with the Lord continually that she did not change anything. She had already been walking with Him.
By the way, there is a new book out, Thirty Days to Live. Anybody read it? Rick Warren wrote it. I am going to get it pretty soon because I would like to know what you do the last thirty days, just in case you are not totally in.
I will never forget when Lois looked at me and said, “Alice went through all her correspondence, just normal. I did not realize all that she meant, but she had her noon meal.”
Do you know what she had every meal? She rode with me often, and we would stop occasionally to eat. She had toast and two hard-boiled eggs every meal, continually.
I said to her one day, “You know, it smells kind of sulfurous.” She said, “Yeah, but that sustains me.”
Alice laid down for her afternoon nap. We do not know for sure, but Lois went in to see her about two o’clock, and she was gone.
That is my prayer: quick entrance.
Ruth, did you hear that? I am not planning to make up a load right now, but when the time comes.
What are you saying? I have been with some people through the years who created such a desperate hunger in my life to just really walk intimately with Him. Every one of them had been peculiar.
Shake your head. They have all been a little bit peculiar, some more or less. So cheer up. Join the crowd.
Now, the world says peculiar, but when your Christian friends say peculiar, that is something else.
I have to quit. Oh, I do need to do one more thing. I would like to have a little contest between now and when we leave on Saturday or Sunday.
I would like for you all to put a caption to this picture. As evidence for those who win the contest, I would like to give you some of the books I am trying to get rid of.
Here is the picture I want you to put a caption to. Can you all see that?
This is Harry, and this is Andy. They are both elders in your fellowship.
What I want you to do is give me the best caption that you think describes this situation. Are you seeing it? Wonderful wheels all up here. What would be an appropriate caption to that?
We were down in Florida a couple of years ago, and all the Chinese churches from the Florida area were there—there must have been ten or twelve different places. I put this up and thought, “Let us see what they come up with.”
The Chinese have kind of an unusual knack for getting at things. I copied down the captions they gave.
Well, you come up with your own. I am going to be liberal enough to give ten people who win this contest the best caption. We will agree what is the best caption.
How many will cooperate? I mean, seek the Lord for a real good answer. How would you describe it?
In fact, just as they say on television, we will double the offer. Instead of three books, if you get it in sometime tomorrow, we will give you ten books to everybody who wins the prize.
Now, these are so that you can share with others, you understand—for you and others. So, see you tomorrow. Maybe we ought to put this up someplace so you can look at it again.
I am really trying to change. You know, I have had friends all the time say, “Well, have fun.” I used to say, “I cannot. I am going to church.”
I just really believe that God’s people not only should enjoy the Lord, enjoy one another, and enjoy life. I have been converted. The joy of the Lord.
All right, let us pray.
Father, here we are this morning. We send Your people out with a new confidence that the Lord Himself is going to bring us beyond just relationship into fellowship, in new and increasing ways of knowing You, and into an intimacy, even though it means sometimes others do not understand.
Others may; we cannot.
Never cease to thank You for Ann Murchison, who really planted that in my heart. So I began to realize how wonderfully You can move people in every strata, every area of life. They can wear a bridle without imposing on anybody else, just being what You want them to be.
Oh Lord, raise up in these days some encouraged people who can go out and find the opportunities every day, in the midst of circumstances, to be what You want them to be.
We will give You the praise, for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
How many know God is good? And Jesus is Lord. And it is time to praise. Hallelujah.
Do you want the last one?
This is the day which the Lord hath made;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.—Psalm 118:24
Go out rejoicing. Who is going to close the service?