Emphasis and note in my heart this morning,
but I feel it to be a very
important and vital one, has to do with
this matter of being called according to purpose.
We have seen just a little, I think,
in the earlier hours of this conference, that
God was certainly moving according to purpose when
he came and sovereignly called Gideon.
And God is still moving according to purpose.
No more in the days of Abraham or
Moses or Gideon or David or Elijah or
any other, no more then than now, until
the purpose is reached and fully realized, God
will still be moving according to purpose and
will still be choosing according to purpose.
The purpose is comprehensive and quite clearly defined.
Through one brief letter, the Apostle Paul has
given us comprehensively and definitely the purpose.
We are not going to dwell upon the
purpose this morning, but rather upon the calling
according thereto.
The purpose is the ultimate of all God's
activities.
The ultimate of the initial apprehending of life
and calling into fellowship with his Son in
what we variously call conversion or being saved
or being born again.
However we put it, it is the initial
movement of God in bringing us into relationship
with himself in Jesus Christ.
But the purpose is more than that.
It is the ultimate of all the progressive
preparation, training and discipline of those who have
been brought into that relationship with himself.
These are not things or ends in themselves.
All this beginning and continuation of the Lord
in life is moving on according to purpose.
The great need, dear friends, where you and
I and all the Lord's people are concerned
is to really become gripped and mastered by
that fact.
It is as though the Lord would come
to us and say, now stand at my
side and look on.
Look right on to the end, to the
ultimate.
Look with me right over all time and
all vicissitudes to the end and see with
me a universe, people with those who are
just showing forth manifesting forth my glory, my
eternal glory called unto his eternal glory that
runs alongside called according to purpose.
Called unto his eternal glory.
Now the Lord says, you see that, that's
the ultimate, that's the purpose.
The showing forth of my glory in a
people.
He would perhaps say that of course there
will be different degrees of glory.
There will be one glory as of the
sun.
Another glory as of the moon.
Another glory as of the stars.
There will be differences in glory and of
glory those differences will depend entirely upon the
people concerned.
How much glory there will be in and
manifested through and by those people will depend
entirely upon how much their hearts are set
upon my glory.
How far their hearts are undivided hearts.
Pure heart in this sense that there is
no alloy, no mixture.
No two things which cannot be reconciled.
That's pure of your heart and blessed are
the pure in heart.
He would say that and then he would
say to us, you see that's the end.
You've got that vision, you see the purpose.
You're called according to that purpose.
Then he would say now for a moment
look around, look around.
Look upon the many who have not yet
been brought into that initial relationship with the
purpose.
And then look upon all those who are
the Lord.
And what do you see?
How much glory do you see?
How much going on to glory?
Ah, how much that is very, very contrary
to the glory of God.
You see?
Now then, he would say, though I have
called you according to the ultimate purpose, I
now call you to some situation which exists,
which is not in line with that ultimate
purpose in order that you may be used
to bring it into life.
That is purpose within the purpose.
The God of glory appeared unto our father
Abraham, the God of glory.
The initial step to get a people, that
step was taken with Abraham.
But look at the seed of Abraham in
Gideon's day.
Not at all in line with the great
purpose revealed to and intended through Abraham.
Look at this face.
He called Abraham with the whole purpose in
view.
Now he must call Gideon because of something
that has interrupted the realization of the full
purpose.
Something that has arisen.
Some contingency.
Some digression.
Some declension on the path of the call.
And so the Bible is just full of
these, shall we call them, intermediate callings.
These occasional callings.
These specific callings within the calling.
This purpose which has become a necessity in
the light of the whole final purpose.
Do you see the position?
I say the Bible is full of these
particular callings.
Moses is one.
Joshua another.
And so you go on with all these
callings within the calling.
I think that we see the situation.
Not one of you here this morning would
say that the Lord's people as a whole
are right in the main line and thoroughfare
and direction and way of the eternal calling.
Of the glory.
You would rather say, oh no.
Oh no.
There's a very, very great deal that is
not only short of the glory of God
but contrary to the glory of God.
We were trying to stress that yesterday.
When a people are as the people were
in Gibeon's day.
Weak and defeated before their enemy.
Starved and poor without food and wealth.
When there is no cohesion and authority under
which the people of God are moving like
an army with banners.
That is something contrary to and other than
the purpose of God.
God's movement in sovereignty is to call to
deal with that.
Have not I sent thee?
Thou shalt save Israel.
That's a specific calling made necessary because of
a general defensive.
Well, I think probably you'll agree to that
mostly.
At any rate.
But I want to follow that with this.
That divine presence and divine support and divine
resources are always bound up with divine callings.
If you are not in the specific thing
that God wants done at any given time
you cannot count upon God's support.
You cannot just generalize about this thing.
Generalize about it.
And just keep it all together this work
of God without discrimination.
At different times in different realms God has
to act specifically and distinctively.
So that within the all of the compass
of his inclusive purpose there are essential purposes.
Because of situations which have arisen and he
calls in relation to those specific purposes which
are the present time purposes of God.
And God supports, sponsors, commits himself to that.
Dear friends, let's be very very honest about
this thing.
There is a great deal of activity which
is ostensibly for the Lord which does not
have the Lord's support.
And the result is that anything and everything
has to be done to get support for
that which is called the work of God.
And that encompasses the whole range of what
is called organized Christianity.
It's one great system of launching schemes and
enterprises and doing everything that art and wit
and cunning can do to get support for
it.
If God wants a thing done and has
sovereignly decided that that thing, that thing shall
be done according to purpose and he can
get hold of a people and bring that
people right into line with that thing God
will commit himself to it and support it.
And lift the onus of resource from the
people and take it on his own shoulders.
Yes, the presence of God, the support of
God, the resources of God go with his
calling.
He never, it is an old old saying,
he never sends us a warfaring at our
own charge.
He never gives us a commission and then
leaves us to find what is required for
its carrying out.
He stands in to all the liabilities.
If these resources are withheld, something is wrong.
The motive may not be wrong, the intention
may not be wrong, the sincerity may be
not lacking.
But let it be understood that motive and
idea and enthusiasm have never, never been substitutes
for divine purpose, specific purpose.
David found that out, did he not, over
the bringing of the Ark on the Philistine
cross.
He made a very very serious discovery by
a very tragic accident.
He found that the responsibility rested upon him
for what happened.
No, the purpose of God must govern.
Firstly, the whole purpose, the ultimate, must always
be in view and everything must be brought
into line with that.
It just must be brought into line with
that.
Everything has got to be considered and contemplated
from the standpoint of how is that going
to reach God's end in the manifestation of
his glory.
And then, what would God do now or
what is God wanting to do now?
What is God doing now in relation to
that?
What is the present movement or what are
the present movements of God to which God
has committed himself?
Don't you agree with me, dear friends, when
I say that the deepest cry in our
heart is this.
Oh Lord, oh Lord, bring me into the
thing that you are doing.
Straighten me from the things that I am
doing for you and want to do for
you and that I think you want done.
Bring me not into things that are a
kind of abstract vision but into what you
are doing.
What you are doing.
That with which you are occupied now.
That's the deepest cry of our heart.
And that's a cry which enters into his
heart.
We should be found not doing a lot
of Christian work or hunting round for a
job in the work of God.
Oh, pathetic situation and yet there are a
lot doing that, not doing that.
Trying to find a job, a place in
the work of God.
Going round all the time.
Trying, trying to be taken on in the
work of God.
Isn't that terrible?
Dear friends, I can't tell you how badly
I feel about that.
My understanding with the Lord is this.
Lord, Lord, if you haven't got a positive
and definite place for me in something that
you are doing, I'm going to give it
all up.
I'm going out.
It's a very utter thing this.
No one ought to be looking for a
job in the realm of God's purpose.
No, not at all.
Well now, there is a tremendous strength as
well as a tremendous value in the consciousness
of being bound up with a specific calling
of God in relation to the full and
ultimate cause.
I say there's a tremendous value bound up
with it.
It's a perfectly wonderful thing to know, to
realize that you're not just called to be
a Christian in order to be saved from
sin and its consequences now and hereafter and
to get to heaven and all that sort
of thing.
But there's a great definite positive purpose in
your being saved.
And that purpose relates to now in this
life.
But this life is to be characterized by
something quite precise and quite definite in the
ultimate purpose of God.
Tremendous strength in that.
And a tremendous value in that.
But there's this extra factor.
That while that is true, and must be.
Perhaps I'd better stop here for a moment
or put in a parenthesis.
Let no one think that this implies that
they are individual Gideons or Elijah or any
other of this company of the chosen.
We're not going to label ourselves Gideons and
this and that, something else.
You see, you must realize that God's whole
purpose embraces the church.
It is a church purpose.
It is not just individual.
And in line with that full thought of
God concerning the church as the called.
As the called.
You and I are parts of a whole.
Parts of a whole.
Parts of something comprehensive and inclusive.
We're not just individuals.
And what I want to impress upon you
and I want you to see is this.
That it may be that you are called
to be a part of an instrument which
is collective and corporate.
Which God is seeking to have for himself
to meet a need.
And that your definiteness of calling is a
related one.
It's not just an individual and separate one.
I know how that appeals to our romantic
hearts.
I know how when a young man, I
read about D.L. Moody.
And read those so well known words about
D.L. Moody.
He said that he'd heard someone say that
if God could get hold of a man.
He would show what he would do with
and through a man.
Whose heart was wholly toward himself.
And D.L. Moody said, I said I'm
going to be that man.
I'm going to be that man.
Well that was all right for Moody.
And I suppose it's all true but you
know there's an appeal of that to this
man.
I'm going to be a D.L. Moody.
Or something like that.
I'm going to be.
Rather the emphasis is upon the first three
words.
Listen, I'm going to be or the first
four words.
I'm going to be.
There's an appeal.
No, no.
The discipline of all that may come along
the line of our having to be a
part of something that God is doing.
Just a part.
Just a part but a part.
And it is in that whole.
In that whole.
In a related way.
That I have to have just as great
a sense.
Listen.
Just as great a sense of being called
as I would have if I was singled
out as an individual.
Have you got that?
Tremendously important.
You would have a tremendous sense of vocation
if the angel of the Lord came to
you as he came to Gideon.
And singled you out.
Mentioned you by name and said great things
to you personally.
You would say that's calling indeed.
I'm called according to purpose.
But we have got to have that in
a related and corporate way dear friends.
Just as strongly and really.
God has made me a member of the
body which is the vessel of his eternal
purpose.
And as a member.
Not as the whole body.
And not as separate from the rest.
But as a member.
My eternal vocation is found.
It's got to be very real.
Very real.
The angels of God may be reached through
companies.
Through groups.
Just as much as through individuals.
Having got that.
Let us go on.
We must be very careful.
That we bring everything.
Every part.
Every aspect.
Of the Lord's movement toward his ultimate full
purpose.
Into line with the great end.
The point of that.
The importance of that is this.
That God has again and again raised up
instruments.
Individual and collective.
In relation to his ultimate purpose.
And by them.
Done something in their day.
Which was quite definite and distinctive and positive.
But.
The thing has become bound up with them.
And.
They have become the beginning and the end
of it.
And when they have gone.
Well there's been a carrying on of the
work that they started.
But that distinctive and specific thing.
Has not gone on.
It's something now being carried on.
Carried on.
And the responsibility.
Is lying upon men.
To carry it on.
And then.
There is a reverting.
Again.
To this.
This other way.
Of.
Getting support to carry on.
Now my point is this.
All succession.
All continuation.
Has got to be as definitely by divine
call.
As initiation.
Therefore.
Succession.
Is not official.
It is by anointing.
It's by anointing.
You see.
The church.
Does not belong to any one time.
Any one age.
It is an eternal thing.
It is the eternally elect vessel of the
full purpose of God.
But the church is the anointed vessel.
You cannot carry on the church with an
organization.
You cannot carry on the church by any
human means at all.
The church is instituted at the beginning by
the anointing.
And it's got to go right on to
the end by the anointing.
So that.
This.
Continuation of divine purpose.
Requires fresh and ever fresh anointings.
Where specific vessels and instrumentalities are concerned.
You cannot get a conception of the divine
purpose.
And then say now we'll have a committee.
And we'll have a board.
And we'll have an organization.
And we'll have this and that in order
to do this thing that God wants done.
You just can't do it.
You can have them if you like.
But you'll find that you've got to take
responsibility for them.
For everything.
You see.
Every vessel has got to be God chosen
and God anointed.
In relation to something that is eternal.
And not of time at all.
And not of this earth.
And in our place.
In our relationship to what God may be
doing at any given time.
In our own time.
We have got to come really under the
anointing of the Holy Spirit for that.
Just as much as those who went before.
Who were the chosen instruments of God to
bring that instrumentality into being.
Just as much as they were anointed in
their calling.
We have got to be anointed.
If that thing is to go on.
Heaven has got to come in.
And carry it to the next stage.
We cannot.
Nothing dear friends is an end in itself.
Everything is related to the so much more
of God's intention.
God's purpose.
Your salvation is no end in itself.
Any dealings of God with you are not
just, just for the time.
They are not an end.
Anything that God has raised up and brought
into being must not become an end in
itself.
A crystallized rounded off piece of work.
With a hedge rounded.
And that is something inclusive and exclusive.
Everything has got to be in line with
and open to the ultimate fullness of God's
purpose.
Therefore.
We must be open to the Lord for
something more.
And something fresh all the time.
That went so far.
But God intended more.
Have you not seen how many a thing
started by God definitely under His anointing.
Really an instrumentality serving Him most wonderful has
just gone so far and stopped.
And stopped.
And from that time it has gone no
further.
It has come under arrest.
And it belongs, really belongs to the past
although it has been kept going.
It is living on a tradition.
It is living on a past.
It is living upon a name and a
reputation of the last generation or generations ago.
There is nothing right up to date in
fullness.
Why?
Because it was not realized that that was
only in line with something more.
It was never intended to be something by
itself.
The ultimate full purpose encompassed that and followed
it up.
It was related.
Now some of you will perhaps see the
point of this more than others.
It is tremendously important that we recognize that
any vision that we have does not stop
short with the thing that we are in.
It does not stop short with the present
aspect of things.
Any God given vision which is for a
specific time is only related to the ultimate
and must give place to the ultimate.
And the fuller must come in and swallow
it up.
Oh let us ask the Lord to save
us from settling down into something less than
He intends.
There must always be with us this sense,
this deep down consciousness we are called according
to purpose not yet fully realized.
There is a wonderful future with which we
are related.
This is not the end of everything.
We must have that sense.
Have you got it?
Have you got what we have here before
called this sense of divine destiny?
Is this something calling you on, pulling you
on, not allowing you to expect anything less
than all God means?
That is vision in reality.
Or does your vision just reside within the
narrow limits of a piece of work that
you are doing for God or trying to
do for God?
Is that your vision?
It is not adequate.
So called according to purpose.
I am as close but...
Or does your vision just reside within the
narrow limits of a piece of work that
you are doing for God or trying to
do for God?
Is that your vision?
It is not adequate.
So called according to purpose.
I am as close but...
I have read in conjunction with these chapters
about Gideon the later chapters of the prophecies
of Zechariah.
Of course you wonder how they can be
brought together.
But they are part and counterpart.
Those later chapters of the prophecies of Jeremiah
still have in view God's full purpose and
its realization.
Where Israel was concerned.
Oh read them.
You...
You are amazed.
You are almost bewildered.
What is said there of God's purpose yet
concerning the land and the people.
I hear in these prophecies.
You have the uttermost things said.
That all, all from all over the world
to come and bow and worship at Jerusalem.
And if anyone will not come and worship
the Lord at Jerusalem there will be a
curse upon him.
And upon his cattle.
And upon all that he has.
A terrible curse.
And it is described in language that we
today can understand better than Zechariah could understand.
When he penned it.
Their eyes shall dissolve in their sorrow.
We understand that don't we.
Their tongue shall wither in their mouth.
The atomic age.
That is.
Now all who will not come to worship
the Lord at Jerusalem are going to be
involved in that.
That's tremendous isn't it.
A divine purpose.
But here I look at the book of
Judges.
And I say my word.
My word.
Something has got to happen.
To get Jerusalem into that position.
To get Israel into that state.
Where all will come and worship the Lord
at Jerusalem.
From every nation.
Yes.
But Gideon.
This is the point.
Gideon was apprehended in relation to that outlaw.
So far as God was concerned the full
vision was still in view when he took
hold of Gideon.
And it's like that.
We may have conditions.
Such as those in the days of Gideon.
But the Lord has still got his full
purpose in view.
And he'll lay hold and say.
Heaven are thy sent thee.
Go and thou shalt save Israel.
From this unto this.
All that there might fall upon us dear
friends.
This new sense of divine calling and apprehending.
In relation to his full purpose.
But meantime it may be connected with something
that is out of line.
Out of accord with that purpose.
And the purpose where we are concerned.
Within the whole purpose.
Is this.
It may be evangelism.
It may be to bring in those who
are called unto his eternal glory.
It may be any aspect of ministry.
But it must be in full view of
the end.
It must be a related thing.
It must be under the anointing.
And not just some piece of work that
we have taken up.
Are trying to do for God.
But this sense of tremendous calling.
Tremendous vocation.
Tremendous apprehending.
This is the thing to which God has
called me.
This, this.
So many there are who are wondering about
missing the way.
Are in a state of ineffectiveness because they
are in the wrong position.
They are trying to do something that God
never called them to do.
They have seen Christian work is such and
such.
And so they have taken it up and
they are trying to do it.
But no there is no sense that God
laid hold of them for that.
Trying to do it.
I wonder if you have grasped the emphasis
this morning.
Call according to purpose.
Ultimately in its fullness.
At present.
In some way necessary unto the ultimate.
Whether whatever it is it has got to
be this that you and I know that
our lives are apprehended lives.
Until we get there and have that consciousness.
There will be weakness.
There will be loss.
There will be confusion.
We have got out of the purpose.
The Lord draws by a mighty new sense
into the thing that he is himself concerned
with at this present time.