I'd like to say something this morning that's
been burning my heart for quite some time.
I've been speaking along this line, thinking along
this line for quite some time.
This is Missionary Day, and there are many
negative approaches to this whole program of missions,
and rightly so.
When you really realize how little of the
world we're really touching by means of missions,
it's an appalling thing.
Although I'm not so sure that I feel
that this division that we make between home
and foreign missions is just altogether biblical.
Now, I hope you don't misunderstand me.
I heard Dr. R.
Brown make a statement one time, and I
said a loud amen.
He said this matter of home missions and
foreign missions, and by the way, Dr. Brown
was one of the great advocates of missions,
and traveled much and oversees missions.
He says this matter of talking about home
missions and foreign missions, he says those are
good bookkeeping terms, but God's program is world
missions.
And I really said amen to that.
I appreciate that.
That's God's program.
God's program is world missions.
And when we heard what we heard this
morning, I didn't get to hear all of
it.
It was tied up a little bit with
radio, but heard hearing Dr. Anderson on some
of those statistics, and really how little we
have accomplished, how little we've done.
We have to ask ourselves the question, really,
what's the reason?
What's really back of it?
And is there any possible solution?
But I do want to discuss with you
something that is very imperative for us to
see in this matter of world evangelism, world
missions.
The question was asked by Brother Anderson, has
God given us a task that he did
not expect us to fulfill?
Let me show you what I believe is
God's answer to that question.
And may I just say at the outset,
I believe with all my heart that God
had planned that in every generation, every person
should be reached some way or another with
the gospel.
I believe that with all my heart.
And I'll give you my reasons in just
a moment.
The thing I want to talk to you
about, I think, can be cataloged under three
topics.
The three absolutes to succeed, to have success.
We talk a lot about success in our
day.
Do you know that that word happens to
be used exactly one time in the Bible?
Let me read it to you.
It's not my text, but I'll read it
to you.
From Joshua, the first chapter, verse 8.
This book of the law shall not depart
out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate
therein day and night, that thou mayest observe
to do according to all that is written
therein.
For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous,
and then thou shalt have good success.
But I do want to talk a little
bit about the idea of success in this
world missionary evangelism program.
God has one world program with a variety
of ways of doing it in order that
we might be successful.
Now then, I'm sure that if we were
to ask just really what is success, I
doubt that we could classify as being authorities
on this subject.
Let me tell you what I mean.
Would you reckon if you had been living
during the time of Elijah, and when he
sat down there by the brook, poor fellow,
the ravens had to bring him food to
eat, and he was drinking out of the
brook.
Or when later on he was living in
an attic, in the widow's home, hiding away.
Would you call that success?
Oh of course when he was before Ahab,
that was success.
What about this other?
That was very very important to God's plan
and program.
Or take for instance Abraham.
Abraham a man of God, a friend of
God.
But he was living up there in the
hill country of Palestine.
He was living in tents.
Abraham possibly was one of the richest men
of his day.
Yet when the four kings and the five
kings had their war, and they no doubt
sent their spies out all over the country
to see whether there was anything worth taking,
they bypassed Abraham.
Just living up there in tents.
He's possibly not a very successful man.
Of course Lot down here, he's in the
government you know.
He's down here sitting in the courts.
He's a successful man.
Poor Lot died as a pauper later on.
But you see what I mean?
How do we gauge success?
What about Noah preaching 120 years?
I do not know how many people were
saved during his ministry.
There were none left at the time he
went into the ark except his own family
and Paul of all men.
I think if Paul were living today, I
think there would be a lot of us
curl up our lips and say, I wonder
if that man's really called of God.
I wonder if he's really doing God.
You know that man couldn't keep himself out
of jail.
He was always in jail.
He was always in trouble.
They were either stoning him or flogging him
or chasing him out or doing something with
that man.
But you know there is something about that
man that's tremendous.
And now as we look back, of course,
we can say, oh yes, he was a
very successful man.
But if he were living today, I just
wonder whether we would really say so.
But here's what you find about that man.
And this is a verse that intrigues me
through and through.
I don't know how many hundreds of times
I've gone back to it.
When he was warned not to go to
Jerusalem, that he would be, it would be
bad for him.
He'd be imprisoned or they would find him
and all of these type of things.
Here's his answer.
I want you to get it.
None of these things moved me.
Neither count I my life dear unto myself,
so that I might finish my course with
joy and the ministry which I have received
of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel
of the grace of God.
Here was a man who was a free
man in this respect, though we're often in
jail, who had this one life goal.
And that one life goal was to finish
the course that God had laid out for
him.
He didn't know what it was all the
time.
Very often we get interviewed, I'm interviewed, and
one of the questions that I'm sure that
they're going to ask towards the end of
the interview is, well now what are your
outlooks?
What are your prospects?
What are you planning to do?
You're planning to continue to enlarge the broadcast?
You're going to take on some more radio
stations and so on, so on, so on,
so on.
And when I give them this answer they
sit there so dumbfounded they don't know what
in the world have they been talking to
this fellow for.
He doesn't seem to know much.
All he says he wants to finish the
course that God's laid out for him.
But what is it?
Well I'll find out tomorrow's course tomorrow, and
the next course the next day.
Because I want to be able to say
what Paul was able to say when he
came to the close of his life.
There he was in jail again, in a
dungeon, joyous, happy, victorious.
He writes to young Timothy and says, tell
me, the day has come.
I am now ready to be offered.
The time of my departure is hand.
I've fought a good fight.
I've kept the faith.
I have finished my course.
By the grace of God that's all I
aspire to is to finish the course that
God has laid out for me.
I want to talk to you about that
course for just a moment.
That course that God has laid out for
us.
I'm not going to stay here, stand here
and say, now this is what God wants
you to do, and this is what God
wants you to do.
But I want you to see how God
planned.
How God purposed.
Under three headings.
The three absolutes for spiritual success.
When I say absolute, I mean something that
is irrevocable.
Something that is fixed.
The principles of God, of which the Holy
Spirit is the very center itself.
Like we call the law of gravity.
That's a principle that is fixed.
I pick up something and drop it and
it'll not go up, it'll go down.
That's simply a fixed principle.
Well there are fixed principles with reference to
spiritual success.
And they're clearly laid out in the word
of God.
And we've got to fit into this plan,
program, whatever we want to call it, this
program that God has laid out for us.
Let me name them first.
Number one.
The Holy Spirit has absolute sovereignty in the
planning, the directing, and the executing of the
work of the church.
It was Jesus Christ who said, I will
build my church.
I wonder how many of us recognize that
Jesus Christ said, I will build my church.
That was Moses' promise.
Moses was earnest, sincere.
He made one of the greatest decisions.
To join up, instead of being king, to
join up with his people.
But he still made the basic mistake at
the beginning of his life.
Thinking that it was partly his work and
partly God's work.
It wasn't until God was through training him
those forty years out in the desert that
Moses finally came to the realization, this is
God's undertaking.
We have to recognize that the ministry of
the word, world evangelism, is God's undertaking.
I will build my church.
The same Jesus that said, I will build
my church, also said, I will send the
Holy Spirit.
So while he, in person, is sitting at
the right hand of the Father, making intercession
for us, taking care of our affairs up
there, the Holy Spirit is designated to take
care of the affairs of the building of
the church down here.
Secondly, the Holy Spirit is absolute sovereign in
his choice of men, in his distribution of
spiritual gifts to these men, and thirdly, in
his choice of placing these spiritual gifts of
men in God's church.
And then thirdly, and this is very personal,
this sovereignty of God, the Holy Spirit, calls
for another absolute, and when I use the
word absolute, it takes irrevocable, positive, committal of
ourselves unto him, for his plan, his power,
his results, his purpose in his church, a
committal unto him.
Young people, you're often confronted with questions as
to what you're going to do, and finally
you may come to the perlacent position you
say, I have surrendered myself to go to
Africa.
Don't surrender yourself to go to Africa.
Surrender yourself to him, wherever he wants to
lead you, and if he wants to lead
you to Africa, that's his business.
But surrender yourself to him.
That's the important thing.
People are always seeking for better methods to
do God's work, while God is seeking for
better men.
You say, but don't we need methods?
Yes, but remember always God uses men.
Methods are necessary, but they're incidental.
God uses men to build his church.
Let's look at these three absolutes in more
detail.
The first one again, the absolute sovereignty of
the Holy Spirit in the planning, in the
directing, and in the executing of the work
of the church.
Let's think for a moment of the work
of the church.
What church?
Some people, the church is confined to four
walls.
Some people have a broader view to a
denomination.
Others have a view that will actually take
them to the so-called worldwide church, that
is those who are truly born of God,
regardless what their affiliation may be here, or
whatever denomination it may be.
They have a larger vision of the church.
But I want to say to this morning
here that the church even includes more than
that.
We have to recognize that the church began
at Pentecost.
That's nearly 2,000 years ago, and the
church that he's been building has been building
for nearly 2,000 years.
There have to be plans for this total
2,000 years, and there is no human
being that can possibly lay out plans for
a 2,000 year period for a worldwide
church.
This, of course, leads it only to the
Holy Spirit.
It is impossible for any man to direct,
regardless of how wonderful an organization he may
have and how much he knows about administration,
to direct such a work, even if he
were only to do it today with the
existing church today.
But to again take the church worldwide from
Pentecost until now, and then to totally coordinate
that, plus to execute what the plans are,
that's another thing.
Lots of times we have committees that never
commit.
God calls men individuals.
So here what you have is a worldwide
church from Pentecost until the day that he
shall take her to his side.
That has to be planned, that has to
be directed, that work has to be executed,
and it's progressive all the way through.
There's only one answer, and that is God
the Holy Spirit.
He's the only one that has absolute authority,
sovereignty, in this planning, directing, and executing.
Let's look at it in a little bit
more detail.
Jesus Christ said, I will build my church.
And before he left, he spoke to his
disciples, as you heard so well the other
night, from in Matthew 28, all power, all
authority is given to me in heaven and
on earth.
And now I want you to go.
And he gives a commission.
Then he says, Lo, I'll be with you
always.
Jesus Christ says, I'm going to build my
church.
All the authority has been given unto me.
I like another verse that sets this forth
more beautiful even than this one does.
I mean more clearly, a little more detail.
In the second chapter of the book of
Philippians, beginning with verse 6, 6, 7, and
8, we have the humiliation of Jesus Christ.
He became obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross.
But I want you to note, as the
ninth verse begins, it begins with the word,
therefore.
Very important word.
That little word, therefore, connects what we have
just read in the previous verses with that
which will just follow afterwards.
Therefore, he says, God has highly exalted him
and given him a name that is above
everything.
Then he tells what he's going to do
as a result of having that name.
Now what does he mean by that name?
That beautiful name we like to sing about,
but that's not what he's talking about.
It is a beautiful name, and I like
to sing about it, but that's not what
he's talking about.
He's talking about a name and authority.
Moody Bible Institute has a man whom they
have designated as president.
That is a name, but not just a
name.
That name designates authority and responsibility.
We in our country have a man by
the name of Ford, who's president.
The highest name in the country, as far
as worldly government is concerned.
The highest authority.
The greatest responsibility.
Jesus has a name that is above all
names.
Whether it be political, he will rule all
the nations of the world.
Daniel speaks of that.
That's not the aspect that we're interested in
here now.
But his name is above all names with
reference to the church that he's going to
build.
And he is going to direct this work.
Of course, he delegates it.
He says, I am going to send you
the Holy Spirit, and he is going to
be in charge of this work.
And so it's made available to us.
This person, this authority, yes.
This power, yes.
Together with Jesus Christ, yes.
Made available to us by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said to his disciples, just before he
went to glory, recorded in Acts 1.8,
you all know it, after that the Holy
Ghost has come upon you, ye shall receive
power, authority, and ye shall be witnesses unto
me to the ends of the earth.
There's your commission.
With the commission, however, before we can go,
there comes that authority.
In Ephesians, the second chapter, and in verses
five and six, we have been raised together
to sit together with him in heavenly places.
I heard a missionary say one time, rather
amusingly to me, he said, you know, so
many folks are sitting in the heavenly places,
they're no earthly good.
There's a little truth in that too.
But the thing I want you to see
is this.
Unto him were given those names, the final
authority.
The Holy Spirit is exercising that authority here
in building the church.
He has committed to us this power.
Not that he's given us his power, he
is that power.
Oh, that we might recognize this fact.
It'll change our whole life.
So many times we want to do something
and we say, no, Lord, I need power
for this.
I need help for this.
Don't pray that way.
Recognize that he is the authority, he is
the power, that he is indwelling us.
And commit yourself to him and say, Lord,
I commit myself to you, here are my
lips, here are my everything that you have
chosen to use, and you just use them
now in your power, in your grace.
Be strong in the Lord and in the
might of his power.
Not ours, not something given to us.
I'm just a mighty small vessel.
I cannot hold very much power.
But when he comes and indwells me in
his power, that's all the difference in the
world.
There's therefore no reason whatsoever that there has
to be any failure in this ministry of
ministering the gospel to the ends of the
earth, simply because the Holy Spirit is in
charge of the whole program, the whole plan
of executing it of everything.
He even worketh in you, the will.
He even works with our will.
And then he worketh in you to do
our part, of course, is to receive.
But let's go on.
Number two.
The Holy Spirit has absolute sovereignty in his
choice of men, and this is very personal
and yet very important.
He chooses the men.
And then in his distribution of gifts to
these men, and when I say men, I
do not mean masculine gender, talking about people.
Thirdly, and it is his to choose where
he's going to put these gifted men in
the ministry of building the church of Jesus
Christ.
First, he chooses the men.
Jesus said to his disciples, John 15, 16,
you have not chosen me, but I have
chosen you.
I've chosen you, and I have ordained you
that you should go, that you should bear
fruit, that your fruit should remain, recognizing that
all you need to do is ask the
Father in my name, and anything that there
is needed for what you're going to, what
I'm calling upon you to do, he'll supply
it for you.
He is the great I am, what your
need is.
And so the Lord has chosen.
When Ananias was being sent to Paul, or
Saul, in Damascus after he'd had that experience
out there on his way to Damascus, and
he was talking to the Lord about it,
God made one statement to Ananias that I
want you to get.
God says to him concerning Saul, he is
a chosen vessel unto me.
And then he outlined what he was going
to do, where he was going to use
it.
This is God's prerogative, if you please, the
place to choose a man that he would
like to choose, and he can choose him
as he wants to choose.
In my early ministry I was, became quite
discouraged at times why God may have chosen
me for what he chose me for.
But then one day that thing began, that
that thing was settled, as little by little
other things were settled.
But especially from 1st Corinthians, the first chapter,
and I'm reading this from Philip's paraphrase, he
says, verse 26, For look at your calling,
your own calling as Christians, my brothers.
You don't see among you many of the
wise, that is according to the world's judgment,
nor many of the ruling class, nor many
of the noblest family.
He didn't say not any, he said not
many.
But God has chosen what the world calls
foolish, to shame the wise.
He has chosen what the world calls weak,
to shame the strong.
He has chosen what the things of little
strength and of small repute, yet even things
which have no real existence, that's where I
belong, to explode the pretensions of the things
that are, that no man may boast in
the presence of God.
He does the choosing, that's it.
There's no, nothing left there to chance.
There's nothing left there to election even, while
God can look after the election too.
God chose Abraham, why?
I do not know.
God chose Isaac over Ishmael, we possibly know
a little bit more why.
God chose Jacob, the schemer, over Esau, the
big-hearted man, why?
God knew.
Nothing left to chance, popular vote, not even
self-choice in this thing.
Secondly, the Holy Spirit has absolute sovereignty in
distributing spiritual gifts unto men.
Oh that men might learn that today, in
this confused Christian world.
Listen to just a few verses.
Again from 1 Corinthians, this time the twelfth
chapter, beginning with verse four.
I'm going to read from Philips just a
few statements.
I'll just read some statements.
Men have different gifts, different ways of serving
God.
God works through different men in different ways.
Each man is given his gift by the
Spirit, that he may use it for the
common good.
Behind all these gifts is the operation of
that one same Spirit, who distributes to each
individual as he wishes.
He chooses a man.
He has a task for him.
He has a course outlined for him.
He gives that man the gift for that
particular course.
No one else can fit that place.
Keep that in mind.
Thirdly, the Holy Spirit has absolute sovereignty in
delegating these gifted men to the various positions
in the ministry to be performed.
He uses a picture of the body in
this twelfth chapter, and it's a very interesting
picture.
Let me read just a few statements again.
I'll pass over.
You won't follow me, because I'm just going
to read statements.
It's very interesting.
All have been baptized by one Spirit into
one body.
All have had the experience of the same
Spirit.
We've been made to drink of the same
life, says King James.
Now the body is not one member, but
many.
But God has so arranged all the parts
of one body according to his design.
For if everything were concentrated in one part,
how could there be a body at all?
The fact is, there are many parts, but
one body.
Then he goes on describing this and the
purpose for which all of this has been
ordained.
Just a couple of more verses.
Now ye are together the body of Christ,
and individually you are the members of him.
And in his church God has appointed, and
then he mentions the messengers and the preachers
and so on.
No, we are God's, we are, we find
God's distribution of gifts is on the same
principle of harmony that he has shown in
the human body.
I have a healthy body, thank God.
And the basic reason would be that the
various members of my body are functioning properly.
And so it is, should be in the
body of Jesus Christ.
I'm building my church.
It is his responsibility to delegate these individual
gifts of men that he has chosen and
to whom he has given the gift that
they are to be delegated to their particular
responsibility.
Absolute his is complete, and yea, it is
complex, sure.
Man has been given no choice in this
matter.
He is absolute in his sovereignty in administrating
all of it.
This brings me now to my third point,
which is very, very personal.
If then, and it is no if really
in the sense of a question mark, since
then the Holy Spirit is absolute sovereign in
every detail of the ministry of the church
of Jesus Christ.
And the commission is a worldwide commission, not
to this generation, to every generation, including this
generation.
And since he is in charge, he has
a perfect plan for total world evangelism.
So that as we heard a while ago,
not 90% of all of the efforts
are being spent on 11% of the
people, or 10% of the efforts of
evangelism are spent on 89% of the
people.
That's very unbalanced, and the Holy Spirit is
not responsible for that.
We are responsible for that because we do
not fit into the plan that God has
called for us.
Very important to find that.
So the Holy Spirit is sovereign, and this
sovereignty calls for an absolute committal unto the
Holy Spirit.
Not a committal to a job.
That was Moses' problem.
Moses had surrendered himself, first of all, to
a task.
To perform the task of emancipating the people,
believing that his people, his own people, would
believe that God would use him to emancipate
them.
He had surrendered himself to that task.
That was good as far as it went.
Forty years later, at his graduation exercises at
the burning bush, he began to realize that
his surrender had to be made to God,
and God only, for whatever, wherever, whatever it
was.
That's why God allowed him to be turned
down by Pharaoh, to be turned down by
his own people, so that he had no
one else to look to but just God.
And God may have to bring us, and
many times he brings us to that place
where we are left absolutely alone.
We say, now all I can do is
depend on God.
We should have started there, but sometimes that's
the only way he can get us to
that place.
Absolute committal unto him, for his gifts, for
his choice, for his plan, for his power,
for his results.
In this generation in which we're living, we
have possibly one of the finest illustrations from
the scientific world of what we're talking about
here.
The scientists have been able to perform tremendous
feats.
They orbit the world, never forget when they
first orbited the moon, and finally landed on
the moon, and so on and so on.
But one day I read a statement somewhere
that the Russians, also orbiting the earth, and
they said when they came down, they said,
well, we looked for God up there, but
we didn't find him.
No, they didn't find him, because they weren't
looking for him, but the thing I want
you to get, and this is the point
I want you to get.
They never would have orbited the earth had
they not obeyed to the minutest detail every
law and principle that God had set down
in nature.
They would recognize him no more than a
pharaoh would recognize God.
But nevertheless, God has set out what people
nowadays call the laws of nature, the principles
of God, gravity and all the rest of
it.
God has ordained all of it, and man
has learned to harness these laws of nature
and the laws of God, and to obey
them to the minutest detail.
And in doing so, I cease not to
marvel when they say at such and such
an hour, minute, second, at such and such
a space in this particular place in the
Pacific Ocean, they're going to land.
How do they know all that?
I tell you, it's tremendous, friends, and that's
the way it is, unless we obey to
the minutest detail.
God's plan, God's program will never evangelize the
world.
Jesus Christ said in John 15, and you
heard that great song a while ago, I
am the vine, you're the branch.
Abide in me, and I in you.
There you have it.
Actually, the translation is, if you abide in
me, I will abide in you.
You'll bear much fruit, and so on.
But the verse that the Lord gave us
back in about 38, 39, 35 years ago
now, 36 years ago, was Psalm 37, 5.
I've lived on that, we've lived on that
over and over again.
Commit thy way to the Lord, trust also
in him, he shall bring it to pass.
When he gave that verse to us, it
was moving a young family from Oklahoma to
Nebraska with $65 in my pocket, and the
contract to start broadcasting.
Just commit that way unto the Lord, just
trust in him, he shall bring it to
pass.
I remember two months went by, it was
the fifth day of July.
I was down about as far down as
I could get because there hadn't been a
letter all week, and the verse that the
Lord gave my wife that day is a
verse that you might smile at, but the
verse he gave her that day wasn't, though
he slay me, yet will I trust him.
I pouted and I did everything this way
and that way, and the only verse the
Lord gave me was, yet thou wilt yet
praise me for this day, mark it July
5th.
I remember going to the post office about
a month later picking up a letter and
it came from Africa, from a young missionary
that we knew.
As I tore the letter open there was
a $5 bill, American $5 bill, and the
letter simply said, God told me to send
you this for your radio work.
I stood there and I all at once
I looked at the letter and it was
July, mailed on July the 5th, right there
in the post office I broke before God.
When God made it known to me, you
don't worry about the finances, I'll take care
of that, this is my work, not yours.
That $5 that day paid for one day's
broadcast.
God's doing a little better in it today,
I mean a little larger, I shouldn't say
better.
Today the budget today is $8 million a
year, he's still looking after it.
He says, don't you sometimes worry, why should
I worry when he's got the worries?
And he doesn't worry.
Commit thy way unto the Lord.
That's only one aspect, that's just one aspect.
The ways of the broadcast, all of the
other details, the ways of the life that
God has set before you.
Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also
in him, and he shall bring it to
pass.
That's why Romans 12, 1 and 2, present
your bodies unto God a living sacrifice.
That's a paradox.
A living sacrifice, death, living is the opposite.
How are you going to do that?
If any man will come after me, let
him deny himself, take up his cross, his
place of having died to self, put yourself
at his disposal.
Some general was supposed to have gone to
some great president, I think it was Abraham
Lincoln, during the heart of that war, and
said to him, some thing like this, we'd
better pray that God get on our side.
And the president is supposed to have said,
it's not a matter of God getting on
our side, it's a matter of our getting
on God's side.
Quite a difference, quite a difference.
He shall receive power after that the Holy
Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall
be witnessed unto me, unto the ends of
the earth.
This is God's plan of worldwide evangelism.
But you say, oh, we're just so few.
I know we're just so few.
I'm just one, you're just one.
But if you're just one, and I'm just
one, and the other fellow's just one, and
the other fellow's just one, and we put
ourselves totally at God's disposal, absolutely at God's
disposal, and allow Him to take over, the
world evangelism will be taken care of.
That's God's answer to it.
And God hasn't failed.
If there's been any failure, it's been ours.
I trust God has spoken to our hearts.