In coming to this seminar, to this retreat,
it makes me think of a hymn we
used to sing overseas, there's a sound upon
the mountains, there's a murmur in the air,
and the sound of coming glory thrills my
soul.
God is really working these days and it's
great to be around where he is working.
The theme selected for this retreat is the
man God uses as a true disciple.
Um, there are a lot of ways you
could go at this.
I thought I would take it up under
the subject of priorities.
What is, what are our priorities?
And I'd like to think with you, I'd
like us to examine our own hearts and
to ask ourselves, why are we really majoring
in life?
And some of the subjects we can think
about are, for instance, the Bible.
What place does the Bible have in my
life today?
Prayer, worship, my
family, the assembly, the local fellowship, the local
church, my secular occupation, making money, TV, the
honors of this world, security, hobbies, sports, recreation,
you name it.
Somebody said life is like a coin, you
can spend it any way you want, but
you can spend it only once.
Now, we all know where our priorities should
lie.
The first verse in the Bible tells us
that, doesn't it?
In the beginning, God.
Put God first.
When Elijah went into the home of that
widow, he said, make me first a cake.
Poor soul, she was just eking out an
existence and had enough left for herself and
her child, and then they were ready to
fold up and die.
And he said, make me first a cake.
I always thought, wasn't that a selfish thing
to say?
But it wasn't, because he was there as
God's representative, and he was saying, put God
first in you, and the barrel will never
go empty.
The crews of oil will never fail.
And then, of course, the words of the
Lord Jesus in Matthew 6.33 tell us
where our priorities should lie.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you.
We know those things.
The problem is how to implement them and
to test my priorities.
One way I can do it tonight is
this.
What can I talk most enthusiastically about?
It's a little temperature test that we can
take.
What do I get most excited about?
And what can I speak about with the
greatest enthusiasm?
And really, whatever that is, is the thing
that's having first place in my life, isn't
it?
Whether it's golf, or business, or politics, or
the Lord.
So I want to think about these things
with you in the hours that we have
together, and I'd like to begin with the
Bible.
Let's check on our priorities.
It's very easy for us to forget what
a treasure we have in this wonderful book.
Within the covers of this book, God has
given us his counsels and his purposes.
And in very many ways, this book is
about the most wonderful thing we have in
the world.
You come up here to Colorado and you
look out on the wonders of God's natural
creation, and they are wonderful.
But really, the wonders of the word of
God are more wonderful.
Do you believe that?
The revelation of God we have in the
scriptures is a far greater revelation than we
have in creation.
I think you have that brought out very
beautifully in the 19th Psalm.
If a carpenter takes me and shows me
a house that he's built, I can tell
some things about that carpenter.
I can tell you something about the type
of a man he is.
But if I sit down and talk with
him for a couple of hours, I can
tell a lot more.
I can look out upon the creation and
see a lot about God.
When I hear him speaking to me through
the word of God, I can tell a
lot more.
And I really believe that what you and
I are doing with the Bible today is
determining our capacity for enjoying heaven.
Do you believe that?
We are making our initial investment now in
the word of God.
And throughout eternity, God is going to be
revealing to us the treasures of this marvelous
book.
Throughout endless ages, he's going to be showing
us the wonders that he has stored up
here.
But my capacity for enjoying it all will
be determined by what I'm doing with the
scriptures today.
And the trouble is, it's so easy to
spend more time in the week on the
paper, Time Magazine, and TV, than in the
eternal word of the living God.
And these things should not be.
I think it was in the little booklet
Our Daily Bread the other day, the story
about Jenny Lind, the Swedish nightingale.
At the height of her career, uh, she
turned her back on it all.
And somebody said to her, Jenny, why did
you do it?
Why did you turn your back on it
all?
She said, it made me think too little
of this.
Well, that's the trouble.
The world is too much with us.
Late and soon, giving and spending, we lay
waste to our powers.
And it's just too easy for you and
for me to let a week slide by
and not be making that investment for eternity
in the word of God.
Some people say to me, you don't understand
brother, I'm not a student.
Well, I know a lot of people who
aren't students who became students through the scriptures,
the greatest university.
My father came over to this country from
Scotland, and I doubt very much that he
had an eighth grade education.
I doubt it.
But he was saved by the wonderful grace
of God.
And he started digging in the word of
God.
When he died at the age of 84,
he could preach the gospel.
He could minister the word of God.
He was an elder in the local assembly
and a powerful God.
A man that never had more than any...
Yes, exactly.
But he would come home at night from
his work and he'd study the word of
God.
And he'd go to the conversational Bible readings
and make meaningful contributions to them.
It's wonderful what God can do with a
man who's really given over to him and
who's willing to be taught.
So let us ask ourselves the question at
the beginning of this retreat, really, what am
I doing with the scriptures?
Am I going to be a pauper in
heaven, having majored on minors and really neglected
that which was of supreme importance?
And closely connected with that is the subject
of prayer.
And really, I speak to my own heart
in this.
I do believe that in eternity, one of
our greatest regrets will be that we didn't
pray more.
Somebody suggested that man never comes closer to
infinite power than when he prays in the
name of the Lord Jesus.
Isn't that something to think about?
Man never comes closer to omnipotence than when
he prays in the name of the Lord
Jesus and for the glory of God.
And I suppose that's why Hudson Taylor said,
learn to move men through God by prayer.
I really believe the work is done in
prayer.
I haven't always believed that, but I believe
it today.
I really believe the work of God is
done in prayer, not by might nor by
power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.
And how do we get in touch with
the spirit?
Through prayer.
And you know, we live in a world
where miracles are taking place all around us
every day through prayer.
And if we neglect prayer, we're missing out.
If we give our lives over to prayer,
our lives will crackle with the supernatural.
We'll see the marvelous converging of circumstances in
our lives and our lives will be radioactive
with the Holy Spirit of God.
Let me give you some illustrations.
Back at Christmastime, some of our fellows were
praying about going to Mexico on a gospel
crusade.
They needed transportation.
They prayed, went to prayer.
We had these extended times of prayer and
they cried out to God for a vehicle
that would be big enough to take the
crowd down.
Save gas, don't take two cars.
It wasn't long after that that Jack Davies
told them that they could take the van
from the Fairhaven Gospel Chapel.
The only hitch was that you had to
have the drivers had to be over 25,
insurance.
Only one of our fellows was over 25.
What do you do?
Pray.
So they went to prayer and crying to
God to raise up somebody over 25 that
could share in the driving because they drive
around the clock.
They don't stop at the holiday inns on
the way down.
One of them got a phone call one
night from a fellow named John Berg in
Fullerton.
Heard you were going to Mexico.
I wondered if you have room for another
person in the van.
Yeah.
How old are you?
He was.
He was over 25.
So they were going to leave on a
Thursday morning at three o'clock in the
morning.
Wednesday afternoon somebody went into the room of
our fellow who was over 25, the driver,
stole his wallet with $350 and his driver's
license.
I think the driver's license at that point
was more important than the $350.
So what do you do?
You pray.
That night after it was dark, two of
them decided to go out in the neighborhood
and look, they didn't even have a flashlight.
So they started going around the neighborhood and
it was as dark as could be.
And they looked across the street and there
was the Chuck Burger there or something, a
hamburger place.
It wasn't McDonald's.
And they decided to go over there.
One of them looked on the ground, on
the ground beside one of the disposal cans
and there was a wallet.
The money was gone, but the license was
there.
There's a wonderful thing to prove God by
prayer, isn't it?
And these things are happening all around us.
Are they happening in our lives?
Do we see God working in this way?
I was reading in Now the other day,
a woman, a Christian worker goes into the
London airport and witnesses for the Lord Jesus.
She went in recently to the London airport
and she got hold of a stewardess of
one of the airliners and spoke to her
about the Lord Jesus.
And the stewardess was ripe.
She trusted Christ as her savior.
And then shortly after she said to the
worker, she said, look, I've got to go.
She said, my plane is leaving.
And the worker said, fine.
And she reached down in her bag and
she brought out a book by Francis Schaeffer
and she handed it to the stewardess.
And she said, read this if you get
a chance on the flight.
She shot up a prayer to God.
Girl gets on the flight, the flight goes
on, gets her work done.
She's sitting down in her jump seat, reading
the book and a man comes up to
her and he says, he says, you understand
what you're reading?
She said, well, I've only been saved a
few minutes, he said.
And he said, let me explain it to
you.
My name is Francis Schaeffer.
Do you think God answers prayer?
Really?
It's a shame we don't pray more, isn't
it?
Last year, we had one of our extended
times of prayer out there on the West
coast.
We started this time of prayer with a
confession to God, confession of our own sins,
of the sins of the church and the
sins of our nation.
And as the evening wore on, we began
to pray about the Chad Republic.
This was on a Friday night.
At that time, the president of the Chad
Republic was a very wicked man named Tombleby.
And he had begun a terrible career of
repression of Christians there.
He was requiring everybody, all the men to
take some very vile initiation ceremonies, which was
really initiating them back into the old heathen
rites.
Many of the men who went to the
initiation ceremony never came back.
Time magazine reported that they buried one Christian
man up to his neck in the sand
and let the ants finish him off.
Another man was placed, another Christian was placed
inside a drum, and they beat on the
drum until he starved to death.
And of course, we have friends over there,
missionary friends there, and there's a very strong
indigenous work among assemblies of God's people over
there in the Chad.
And this night, I think there are some
young people here who were at the prayer
meeting that night.
This night, we laid hold of God for
the Chad Republic.
On Sunday morning, I was driving to the
meeting, turned on the radio, heard the news,
military coup in the Chad, Tombleby slain.
It's been a new day for Christianity in
the Chad since then.
I want to ask you a question.
Do you think a group of nobody's praying
in San Leandro, California can influence the destiny
of a nation in Africa?
Well, it did.
It did.
It really did.
And I'd like to suggest to you and
to my own heart that prayer should really
have a higher priority in our lives than
it has.
We never come closer to omnipotence than when
we pray in the name of the Lord
Jesus and for the glory of God.
And then I think of the subject of
worship, too.
Am I really a worshiper?
I got a lesson years ago.
I was traveling back east and went to
Baltimore, and A.S. Loazo picked me up
at the railroad station and drove me to
his home.
When we came into the yard of his
home, he had two dogs.
One was a white dog and the other
was a black dog or something like that.
Anyway, when we got out of the car,
that white dog came and jumped all over
Mr. Loazo, slobbered all over his hands and
really showed the utmost affection for him.
Really did.
The black dog lurked in the shadows, didn't
even come near.
And Mr. Loazo said to me, that black
dog knows nothing about worship.
And it was a very powerful object lesson
for me.
I thought of my own life and how
you can be so busy in the work
of the Lord and neglect the subject of
worship.
I think it's a wonderful thing that God
made dogs.
A dog is a wonderful creature.
Many of you have dogs at home, no
doubt.
And I think God put those dogs there
to really teach us lessons.
They really do.
They're wonderful creatures.
And the loyalty and affection that they can
shower on others is really something.
I have some friends in Napa and they
have a red Irish setter.
And it's the most affectionate dog I've ever
known.
It's a leaner.
Whenever you go in the house, it comes
and leans its head right against your knee.
And it really does something for you.
I was going to say for your ego.
I don't know if it's your ego or
what.
But just to think that the dog cares,
that's all.
Well, recently their house was broken into.
And I guess the dog just gave the
robbers a royal welcome.
That's the kind of a dog I like.
Because when my friends came home, the house
was stripped and the dog was contentedly shut
up in the kitchen.
They had just closed the door in the
kitchen and left the dog there.
Well, they said, we're going to put an
end to that.
And so they got a young German shepherd.
And when we visited the home, we were
not to touch that German shepherd.
They didn't want us to pet that German.
That German shepherd was going to be a
man-eater, you know.
And anybody come near that house was going
to get it.
I was up there a couple of weeks
ago.
And you know that Irish setter had transformed
that German shepherd.
It was a real lover.
A real worshiper.
And you know, worship is like that, too.
It really is like that.
And when you think, when you think of
what the Lord has done for us, when
you think of God becoming man so that
as man he could die for us on
a criminal's cross, why, he deserves all that
we have.
And when you think, too, that the only
worship that God gets is what he gets
from redeemed lips, it isn't too much of
it.
And so at a time like this, and
I'm speaking to my own heart tonight, I
really think we should really rededicate ourselves to
this whole matter of worship.
Listen, there are too many brothers in our
assembly whose voices are never heard in public
worship.
And it would lift the tone of any
meeting just to hear that brother, young or
old, get up and say, Lord Jesus, I
love you.
David did that.
I've been impressed as I've been reading some
of the psalms, some of the simple things
that David said.
Nothing great about that.
No, nothing great about the great thing is
that he said it.
You know, the Lord, great is the Lord.
Well, I could say that.
Why don't you say it?
David said it.
Great is the Lord and greatly to be
praised and his greatness is unsearchable.
The Lord is good.
David said, I love the Lord.
That's just ABC.
I know it.
But we're not saying it.
We're not telling the Lord and he's waiting
for it.
I really believe that the Lord Jesus has
an appointment with me at that worship meeting.
And I believe he misses me when I'm
not there.
Sad to say there are all too many
who are really more concerned about a weekend
in the mountains than they are about an
hour at the throne.
When the Lord Jesus went to the house
of Simon the Pharisee, he said to him,
you know, the woman came and anointed him
and really worshiped him.
Jesus said to Simon, thou gavest me no
kiss.
He wouldn't think he'd have missed a kiss,
but he did.
He did.
Thou gavest me no kiss.
I'll tell you, one of the great things
that could really happen as a result of
our weekend here is if we'd determined that
our lives would be more fragrant for the
Lord Jesus in worship from now on.
And we'd let some of the other things
go by the board.
You say, how do you do it?
Well, I'll tell you just a practical way
in which to do it.
That is to dedicate Saturday night to the
Bible and the hymn book.
You ever think of that?
I personally like to have my Saturday nights
to myself and to sit in my room
with my Bible and the hymn book.
The hymn book God so often uses inspiring
worship really.
And those men said it in ways that
I can't say it.
They say what I feel but can't express.
And really some of the hymns are just
wonderful and they lift you right up to
the very throne of God.
Lamb of God, our souls adore thee while
upon thy face we gaze.
There the Father's love and mercy shine in
all their brightest rays.
Lamb of God, when we behold thee lowly
in the manger laid, wandering as a homeless
stranger in the world thy hands had made.
You can scarcely sit and contemplate words like
that without your heart overflowing in love and
praise and adoration to the Lord Jesus.
Are you a worshiper?
It's very pleasing to the Lord.
Mary was.
She chose the better part.
Service is good.
Worship is better.
I don't know whether Doug Fuller is here
yet.
I don't see him, but he gave a
lovely devotions one morning in our intern program
this year.
And he quoted some men who said, God
is more interested in our love than in
our service.
The heavenly bridegroom is wooing a bride, not
hiring a servant.
Let me say it again.
God is interested.
This may not be exact, but it's the
gist of it.
God is more interested in our love than
in our service.
The heavenly bridegroom is wooing a bride, not
hiring a servant.
That really shot through me when he said
that.
And I realized God had spoken to me.
So try it.
Try setting Saturday night aside just to be
quiet before the Lord, reading the scriptures concerning
the passion of the Lord Jesus and reading
some of those wonderful hymns in a hymn
book like Hymns of the Little Flock or
Believer's Hymn Book or Hymns of Worship and
Remembrance, things that are specifically set apart for
that.
These are really things of first importance.
And yet the things of life, the things
of the world can crowd them out so
that oftentimes we look at our hearts and
wonder whether we're stones or human beings.
Then I think about our family.
I personally believe that when God gives a
man a family, that's his number one mission
field.
I really believe that.
And I think it's a sad thing when
anybody has to say what the Shulamites said
in the first chapter of the Song of
Solomon, they made me the keeper of the
vineyard, but my own vineyard have I not
kept.
Of course, she said it really about her
own personal appearance, didn't she?
When she said it, she was dark and
swarthy, sunburned from working out in the vineyard,
her own personal appearance she hadn't kept.
But it applies to our families as well.
It applied to Eli's family.
Eli, representative of God among his people, but
he failed with his family.
David gave Adonijah a pass, as it were,
but he didn't rebuke him.
Years ago, it came over the radio in
northern Minnesota that there was a heavy frost
coming that night, and there was a woman
on a farm there, and she remembered that
she still had a few cucumbers and tomatoes
on the vines.
And so she took her two little children
and put them out in a little pen
in the yard and closed the gate, and
she went off down to the garden to
get the tomatoes and the cucumbers.
And when she came back, the little girl
was missing.
And the alarm was sent out, and men
spent all that night searching with great searchlights
for that little girl, and she was never
found.
The woman got her cucumbers and her tomatoes,
but she lost her child.
As you know, it's possible to practice through
that too, isn't it?
And I'm afraid that in too many cases
today that we give ourselves to the world
so much that we lose our children in
the process.
And not only that, but oftentimes we hold
before our children worldly ambitions and train them
for the world and for hell.
We really do.
I was brought up in a Christian home,
and I really thank God tonight for the
background I have, but I might as well
be honest too and say that I can't
remember anybody ever holding the work of God
before me as a desirable way in which
to spend my life.
I was encouraged to go out and make
a name for myself and the community and
get a good job, shoot for the top,
but I can't remember anybody ever holding the
work of the Lord before me as a
desirable way in which to spend my life.
Isn't that sad?
My brother went off to Bible school, and
I can remember an aunt of mine saying,
whatever you do, don't you do that, Bill.
And I said, don't worry.
I had no intention of doing it.
I knew I wanted to be an investment
banker, and nothing was going to interfere with
that.
That's it.
And we have a whole sense of priority
so warped nowadays.
I know many Christian parents today would be
very glad to have their children serving the
Lord.
And just perhaps one more.
I'd like to ask tonight, what priority do
we give in our lives to the local
assembly, to the fellowship, to the local church?
I would guess that most of us don't
really realize how important the assembly, when I
use the word assembly, I mean that local
fellowship, how important it is to God.
First of all, the importance of the fellowship
is seen by the place that's given to
it in the New Testament.
Think of the vast portions of the New
Testament that are devoted to the subject of
the New Testament church.
It must be important.
It formed a very important part in the
ministry of the apostles.
Wherever they went, they spoke enthusiastically about it.
I don't know if you've noticed it, but
it's almost a mum subject in evangelical Bible
conferences today.
Did you ever hear the subject of the
church roached?
And yet Paul had a two-fold ministry,
and the church was part of that ministry.
In Ephesians chapter 3, Paul said that he
was called, first of all, to declare among
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
That's the gospel.
And he said to make all men see
what is the administration of the mystery.
That's the church.
Paul didn't think his ministry was complete unless
he kept the two in balance, the gospel
and the local fellowship.
The subject of the church forms the capstone
of scriptural revelation, Colossians chapter 1, verse 25.
A rather obscure verse, but maybe we could
just look at it for a minute.
Colossians chapter 1, verse 25.
It says, Well, if I am made a
minister according to the dispensation of God which
is given to me for you to fulfill
or complete the word of God.
To complete the word of God.
The subject here is the church, the mystery.
And he says, Whereof I am made a
minister.
That is, a servant of the church, of
the mystery, to complete the word of God.
What does it mean?
Well, I believe it means this, that when
Paul gave us the truth of the New
Testament church, that completed the word of God.
Oh, you say, just a minute, brother.
Revelation was added after that.
That's true.
But there was no new important doctrine added
after the doctrine of the church.
That was a capstone.
When Paul gave us that, he gave us
the capstone.
And the church is an object lessened to
angelic beings.
Ephesians 3.10. They look down and they
see the manifold, the variegated wisdom of God
in the church.
And I'll tell you, that would be enough
to spend hours just meditating on.
How do angels see the manifold wisdom of
God in the church?
Well, it's really a wonderful thing when you
stop to think of them.
You take a group like ourselves and what
we've been saved from, how the Lord Jesus
came down into death valley, into a very
jungle of sin, as it were.
And he took people of every culture and
every background and every social strata and all
the rest and saved them by his matchless
grace and embarked on this tremendous program of
conforming them to the image of his son.
And he puts us together in the church
to get the rough edges knocked off and
to develop graces in our lives that could
never be developed in any other way.
It's a wonderful thing.
It's an object lessened to angelic being.
The assembly is the only unit on earth
to which God has promised perpetuity.
That is, only to the assembly, to the
church has he said, the gates of Hades
shall not prevail against it.
I know there are a lot of good
Christian organizations in the world today and I'm
not here to say a thing against them,
but I want to tell you, I believe
the assembly, the church is central in God's
plan.
And I believe if my life isn't bound
up with that church, I'm missing God's best.
I really believe that.
I really believe it with all my heart.
The church is spoken of as the fullness
of him that fills all in all.
I love some of these expressions of Paul.
It seems that the words seem to bend
under the very weight of the ideas.
Imagine that the church is the fullness of
him that fills all in all.
What does that mean?
Sometimes it's just a jumble of holy words
to us when we read something like that.
But I like to illustrate it like this.
If this is Christ and this is the
church, the church is the complement of Christ.
It goes to make up the complete human.
Now really only grace would ever say that.
Imagine the Lord Jesus in any sense intimating
that he's not complete without us.
I think he could get along very well
without us.
No, it says the church is the fullness
of him that fills all in all.
When I read that, I stand in awe
and worship.
It's the body of Christ.
Just think of that, the body of Christ,
the bride of Christ.
How can you think of anything that expresses
more intimacy and affection?
And I believe the church is the unit
on earth that God has chosen to propagate
the Christian faith.
I really believe that.
And I'm glad for the great work of
the Spirit of God in our day, creating
a new emphasis on church renewal.
I believe this, that the weakest assembly of
God's people in the world today means more
to God than the greatest nation that exists.
Do you believe that?
Just think of something.
Maybe some of you are from an assembly
like that, a weak assembly, and sometimes you
get discouraged and you wonder if it's worth
it.
Listen, that assembly means more to God than
the greatest empire that has ever existed.
You say, why do you say that?
I say that because it says in Isaiah
that the nations to God are as a
drop in a bucket and a fine dust
to the balance.
He never says that about the church.
He says the church is the body of
Christ and the bride of Christ.
And I believe that the humblest elder in
an assembly of God's people means more to
God than the President of the United States.
Hmm.
Why all this fuss about the presidency and
so little about the elders?
You say, well, where do you ever get
such far out ideas, MacDonald?
Well, I'll tell you.
Just go through the New Testament and find
the...
How many verses can you find me that
will tell me how to be a good
President of the United States?
Not many.
How many verses can you tell me about...
give me about the work of elders?
Oh, you say quite a few.
I can give you 1 Timothy 3.
I can give you Titus chapter 1.
Peter had a lot to say about it
in his book.
You know, that's right.
A lot of it.
Why?
Because it's important to God.
And don't ever forget it.
I'll never forget years ago, back at Emmaus,
I said to a young fellow, Alan, what
would you like to do?
You know, when you become a mature Christian,
what would you...
He said, I'd like to be an elder
in a local assembly like Brother Chapel in
our assembly.
The only young person I've ever heard say
that.
That is very good.
I'd like to be an elder in a
local assembly.
To tell you, he had his priorities right.
He really did.
And I believe that the visitation work in
that local assembly of yours is pure religion
and undefiled.
I don't know what kind of visitation is
going on in your assembly.
But I read in James, pure religion and
undefiled is to visit the widows and fatherless
in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted
from the world.
And I was impressed in the choice gleaning's
calendar recently.
And with this, I'm going to close.
There was a quotation from John Nelson Darby
to George Vesemius Wigrum.
Some of you Greek scholars know Wigrum, I
think.
It's really interesting that his middle name Vesemius
means 20.
He was the 20th child in the family.
George Vesemius Wigrum.
Well, Darby wrote this to him and it
really surprised me, but I believe it's true.
He said, I think the visiting part is
the most important part of the work.
The clock strikes the hours and the passersby
hear it, but the works inside make the
clock go and keep the striking and the
timing right.
I think that visiting should be your substantive
work and take all else as it comes.
I dread much public testimony and especially so
if there be no private work.
And that was written by a man who
turned his back on wealth and luxury in
Ireland.
He was brought up in a castle in
Ireland and when people pass the castle, their
noses went up and they say, it's so
nice to know the Darby.
And he turned his back on all of
that and on a position of rank in
the church of Ireland.
He went out, traveled for 26 years in
Europe without unpacking his suitcase.
He lived for days at a time on
milk and acorns.
One day he sat in a cheap Italian
boarding house and cupped his chin in his
hands and sang, Jesus, I, my cross, have
taken all to leave and fall thee.
When he died, his collected writing still 34
volumes.
He left a New Testament assemblies everywhere he
ever went.
There's many of them in the world today
and he says, I think visitation is the
most important part of the work.
Where are my priorities tonight?
Am I really giving the Bible the place
it deserves in my life?
Prayer, the quiet time.
I didn't mention that.
My family, the local fellowship.
Or am I really majoring on minors, becoming
an expert in underwater basket weaving while above
us burns the vision of the Christ upon
the cross.
Shall we pray?
Father, we will pray tonight that during this
weekend when we're together and we have a
chance to get away from the rat race
and just look out over our lives, we
do pray, Lord, that you'll give us the
grace to face things honestly and if things
have really become rather turned upside down in
our lives and if we're spending our lives
in that which really doesn't matter and if
we're neglecting with all kinds of theological excuses
the things that we really should be doing,
we pray, Lord, that we might do business
with you in great waters this weekend.
We ask it in Jesus' name and for
his sake.
Amen.
One of the questions is what is your
relationship with a local assembly, meaning my own?
Elder?
Deacon?
In subjection?
Well, the answer is I'm not an elder.
I'm not a deacon.
My ministry is more of an itinerant work,
but I do have a home assembly and
I am in subjection to the elders of
that assembly.
That's the Bethany Gospel Chapel in Oakland, California.
Also during the week I work with the
discipleship intern training program and that is under
the elders of the Fairhaven Chapel and it's
a work strictly in connection with a local
assembly, but I could not be an elder
in the Bethany assembly because I'm not there
sufficiently.
I do carry on with the visitation program
at Bethany, but I think to be an
effective elder you should be there on Lord's
Day and meeting the people and entering into
the life of the assembly and because of
my ministry in other places I'm not able
to do that.
If I don't answer the question, feel free
to just speak out because that would be
best.
What would you suggest that a younger man,
20 to 25, do to help in the
area of visitation?
Well I think it's ideal first of all
when an assembly has a visitation training program
and when those who feel that the Lord
could use them in this work come out
regularly, maybe on a weekly basis, when there's
a definite training schedule going on and then
when they move out a trainer and a
training.
This is the ideal.
Rather than just telling a man to go
and do the work, it's much better if
somebody would take him by the hand and
take him out and show him how it's
done.
Some of my colleagues are in Detroit this
weekend putting on what they call a shepherd's
seminar.
I think they have about 200 people coming
to it, men, and that's exactly what they're
doing, trying to help the assemblies there in
the Detroit and surrounding areas in setting up
this type of a visitation program among other
things.
Of course a young man can do it
on his own, but I think it's much
more effective if he goes out with an
older man who knows how to do it,
who knows how to take the Word of
God and apply it to the various situations
that you meet.
Since you would encourage your children to enter
the service of the Lord, does that mean
that a trade or college is not being
in the service of the Lord?
And then there's an illustration here of various
concentric circles, trade, college, service for the Lord.
Actually I'm going to spend some time on
that in the messages that follow.
Let me say this, I don't think it's
right to encourage a young person to go
to college just for college's sake, just for
the status that's connected with it.
I think that's wrong.
I don't think God ever intended every young
person to go to college.
I think that a trade is very honorable
and probably neglected in this country.
The great thing is to be in the
will of God and to be in the
place that God wants you.
There is a book out now which I'm
very fond of.
I buy it in quantity and give it
out.
The title of it is Secular Work is
Full-Time Service and it gives a very
needed emphasis today.
But if you will excuse me from not
saying more about this, I will be.
I'm not walking away from it, but I
will be taking it up in more detail.
What are some additional suggestions you have on
how we can learn to worship?
Well, first of all, of course, we learn
from others.
I think that in the very act of
attending meetings, worship meetings first of all, and
you can discern when worship is real, can't
you?
You can discern when a man is really
touching the throne.
You learn that way.
You learn through being quiet with the Word
of God and meditating upon the Lord and
upon what He has done for us.
You learn by reading books on the subject.
I don't know how many of you have
ever read The Suffering Savior by Crumaker, but
if you can read that and not want
to worship the Lord, there's something very...
is to be alone with the Lord, to
be quiet.
And that's what's so hard nowadays, isn't it?
Because so many other things are always intruding
on our time.
But just meditating on Him and on His
love for us and who He is and
what He has done for us.
Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul,
my life, my all.
Can you expand on the priority of the
family?
I know of a man whose wife left
him and he couldn't understand it because he
was out every night in the Lord's work.
Well, of course, we know too many examples
of this.
The priority of the family.
I think that the family altar is very
important.
I really have no way of knowing how
widespread it is today, but I'd be interested
to know, for instance, how many families gather
every day at the table and read the
Word of God and pray.
I wasn't brought up in a very affluent
family, and my parents were both immigrants into
this country.
But the lasting memory I have of that
home is being at that rickety wooden table
in the kitchen, and after the meal, we
took out the Bible.
It wasn't a question of choice, it was
just done, that's all.
And my father would read the Word of
God every day in the family altar.
And then we'd get down by those wooden
chairs.
There was a family, and we prayed together.
My lasting memory, a lot of else has
faded into oblivion, but that made a tremendous
impression on me.
And those were days when my parents were
struggling to keep the house over our heads,
the Depression, and there wasn't enough money to
pay on the mortgage and all the rest.
And we were really knit together, believe me.
No danger of that family flying apart.
We were really bound together.
I think a family altar is a wonderful
thing.
After all, doesn't the Scripture say, bring them
up in the fear and admonition of the
Lord.
Parents really should be prepared to spend time
with their children.
Terribly sad stories.
There was one again in Our Daily Bread
this week that some of you read it,
the man who had the book to write.
He had to write the book.
A little kid came and wanted him to
spend time.
He couldn't, he had to write the book.
He wrote the book and lost the child.
The child filled with resentment.
And I've had young people come to me
just filled with a bitter resentment because they
felt their parents shrugged them off when they
needed them most.
I'd be nice if some of the rest
of you shared on some of these.
Would somebody like to add to that?
Feel free to do so if you'd like.
The quote, the Lord is more interested in
our love than our service.
I have always thought that love for God
is demonstrated in service and obedience.
Love equals obedience.
Of course that's true, and I think it's
a good comment.
You can't separate these things.
And yet, where there is true love, there
will be true service too.
But the fact remains that we can be
too busy in service and neglect to just
come into the presence of the Lord and
pour out our praise to Him.
And He really values that.
He really values it.
Yes?
Would you expand on that?
Would you explain?
The fact is that we get a feel
of this in life, you know.
Some children are very, very affectionate, aren't they?
They really love it.
Some kids can be just as cold as
ice.
And that's the way they leave you too.
Well, doesn't God put these things into His
creation to teach us lessons?
He responds to that too.
And He loves it when His people come
before Him.
In fact, in the simplest terms, as a
child of a father, just expresses the worship
and adoration of our hearts.
That's certainly true.
Incidentally, that's an element that we don't often
find in our worship meetings, what God does
think of His Son.
And yet it is rather fundamental.
Thank you.
Would you share something of your discipleship ministry?
Also, how might we apply the principles in
our local fellowship?
Well, a few years back out in California,
we really realized that there was a terrible
crisis in assemblies.
And that crisis was a lack of strong
spiritual leadership.
And many of the were closing down.
And God burdened our hearts to set up
this program.
We don't feel we have all the answers.
Believe me, we don't.
But we've tried to go step by step
on our knees.
God burdened us to set up a program
where young fellows who are highly motivated and
who are willing to give themselves to work
in a local assembly, not full-time work,
just working perhaps as leaders someday in a
local assembly would come together not only for
training in the Word of God, which is
very, very important, but for the practical know
-how.
Just if I can use myself as an
example.
Nobody ever told me how to take a
funeral.
Somebody died and they said, Brother Bill, would
you take the funeral?
It was just like throwing a baby into
the water and saying, swim.
You know, my legs turned to India rubber.
How do you take a funeral?
Nobody ever took me to a hospital to
visit people in the hospital.
Nobody ever helped me prepare a message that
I remember.
That probably accounts for a lot.
But we felt it was really very, very
important to do this.
And as we checked around, we found there
were a lot of people, there were a
lot of men that wanted to do things
in the local assembly and they didn't know
how.
And so there were certain principles that came
to our minds.
First of all, we wanted these fellows to
come into an assembly that was already functioning
and doing these things.
That was one of the musts.
We wanted fellows who were highly motivated, who
were willing to make sacrifices for the Lord,
would give themselves to this.
And so what we do is we have
studies in the Word of God with them
every morning, Monday through Friday, 8.30 to
12.
And we try not only to give them
the overall view of the Bible, but also
to take up every subject that we feel
would be of importance to them if the
Lord should ever raise them up to be
elders in a local assembly.
Then and then they go out on practical
Christian work.
Monday night, Fair Haven has their visitation program.
This semester, half of them will go out
on evangelistic visitation, half of them will go
out on pastoral visitation.
They'll switch around next semester.
So they go out with a trainer and
they go into the homes.
And really some remarkable things happen.
Last year, I think it was last year,
Mike can probably correct me on this, but
what was this year?
Gene Gibson and Fred McHugh went to a
home to visit a couple.
The woman is in fellowship in the assembly,
the man was not.
Actually, they went to make a slide tape
presentation for the seminar that they're giving now.
And these people were told in advance that
these people were going to come and that
pictures would be taken.
Do you know the man found the Lord
that night?
It's all on tape and in pictures.
Things are going on brightly for the Lord.
Fred McHugh will never forget that.
And then, of course, on other nights, they
have cell groups in various homes, Bible study
groups during the week.
Each one is expected to disciple another man
during the year.
Actually, they do much more than that.
Thursday, they go out on campus, evangelism.
They have counseling, and all kinds of practical
Christian work opportunities right now.
Each of the fellows has been assigned a
Sunday night before the breaking of bread, and
each one is going to take up some
specific aspect of the glory of Christ before
the people remember the Lord.
Each one of them has that assignment.
So, by the time they finish, they should
have engaged in many of the practical Christian
activities that they would ever have to do.
If there are funerals, we take two of
them with us in each funeral.
Weddings, they're taught how to handle the wedding.
No stereotype, but just helped how to do
it.
Am I forgetting something, Mike?
Yes, they have to study too.
General idea is 15 hours of class, 15
of study, and 15 of practical Christian work.
Actually, the practical Christian work, I think, goes
much more than that.
I wonder how much we should support and
fellowship the organized church structure in missions and
gospel ministry.
I'm really not sure I understand.
I hate answering a question when I don't
feel that I really know what it means,
because I could be shooting.
I wonder how much we should support and
fellowship the organized church structure in missions and
gospel ministry.
Anybody want to explain that to me a
little bit further?
Well, I don't mean that it's worded poorly,
but I could be answering it and not
hitting what the person had in mind.
Okay, well, that helps me now.
Thank you very much.
Actually, I think every one of us before
the Lord has to set up certain standards
as far as our stewardship is concerned, and
I will just share with you.
I don't know that these are the last
word, but I'll share with you what some
of my standards are.
First of all, I feel a special responsibility
to those who have gone out for the
sake of the name, looking to the Lord
for the supply of their needs.
I feel a special responsibility to them.
In other words, there are some Christian workers
who go out and they have been provided
a Mercedes-Benz and a guarantee of so
many hundred a month.
Well, I don't criticize that, and God can
use that, but I feel personally more obligated
to those who are really spending the time
before God in prayer, looking to Him to
supply their needs.
Secondly, I feel a special responsibility to those
who are building a work according to what
I believe to be New Testament principles.
I think this is very, very important.
Now, don't misunderstand me.
I know there are wonderful works going on
in the world, and I don't never have
fellowship with them, but my prior responsibility, I
feel, is to those who go out with
the gospel, playing for the gospel, see New
Testament assemblies established and strengthened.
I think this is fundamental.
I have a personal thing in my own
heart against well-publicized appeals for funds.
This is personal.
Please, I'm not pressing it on you, but
when I get these expensive brochures begging for
funds, I have a place to file them
myself.
And don't misunderstand me.
I believe God uses these works, but it's
just, you know, I have my own principles
that I try to operate on, and that's
one of them, but I prefer those who
do not.
Now, you have to make exceptions, too.
The Bible societies have really been a handmaiden
to all of our missionaries and have done
a wonderful work, and I don't think you
can go wrong investing in the Word of
God Bible societies.
And then Christian radio, really reaching out to
places where we could never reach.
I think we have a responsibility to these,
so we want to work it out.
It's something you have to hammer out in
your own anvil before the Lord.
Does that answer your question?
If not, feel free to ask, well, we've
gone through them rather hurriedly.
Are there any other questions that anybody would
like to ask from the floor?
Well, actually, spiritually, there's no distinction between domestic
and foreign missions.
It's just something that we use to express
ourselves, but I think the principles are the
same, whether you're working in this country or
overseas.
Is that what you mean?
Well, those are general statements.
And let me say something to that.
First of all, it depends on what country
you're from.
I would think that generally speaking, American missionaries
overseas are much better provided for than British
missionaries.
And I'm sorry to say this, but it's
caused really conflict in the mission field because
of the difference, especially when you have American
and British missionaries working on the same field.
It's difficult.
And people that would give you the shirt
off their back in this country or in
their homeland, let me say, you get over
there and somebody goes down and gets a
letter of fellowship and you didn't get one
and you're in the devil's territory and the
green-eyed monster.
Very, very difficult, really.
As far as being provided for in this
country, I can only testify that in 1947,
I felt God leading me to spend my
full time in the work of the Lord
and I have found that God pays for
what he orders.
And I have never known a moment of
worry with regard to finances.
I have had a problem and the problem
has not been where the money was coming
from, but how to be a faithful steward
with what the Lord provided for me.
So I just say, I know there are
men that have had needs, but I can
only speak from personal experience that God has
been most faithful in providing all of my
needs and I've had much more to put
to work for the Lord than I ever
did when I was an investment banker in
the First National Bank of Boston.
Well, I couldn't honestly say that.
I couldn't really honestly say that America's the
most needy mission field.
I'll tell you why.
You can go down to a local drug
store and buy a copy of the Word
of God.
You know what I mean?
You can turn on a radio and hear
the gospel preached in all its fullness.
Really.
You can't say that about Senegal where Brother
Gerhard is going.
Really.
I think there are portions of Africa that
have been wonderfully well evangelized, but what about
Turkey with 35 million people and around 50
born-again Muslim Turks in the whole country?
And then I couldn't say when I've seen
some of these countries that America is that
kind of a mission field.
The Lord knows we're a needy people.
We need revival.
The Lord knows that.
But as far as the availability of the
gospel here, there's no country in the world
like it.
Yeah, all you have to do is look
at the car in front of you and
it's got the gospel on the bumper.
Really, you don't see that in other countries.
Do they have that in Germany, Gerhard?
Few.
Not many though.
Yeah, a few.
You did have it in Germany.
I don't know whether that answers your question,
dear.
Well, we do have a great needy.
We do have, but really the need is
just so vast.
Like in the Muslim world and the communist
world, you just can't get too excited about
America as a mission field, really.
I mean, you've been in some of those
other places.
Anybody else?
About the question of being in subjection, the
question about elders and all, do you feel
that everybody should be in subjection to somebody?
I feel everybody should be anchored to a
local church.
I don't think there's any precedent in the
New Testament for what you might call a
freelance.
For somebody who doesn't have his roots in
a local church and who is under the
discipline of that church, I think such a
thing does not exist in the New Testament.
If you mean being under the umbrella of
some independent man, I don't agree with that.
But is that what you had in mind?
No, I was wondering about whether every believer
should be tied in.
I really believe it.
I think it's very, very important, an important
principle of the Word of God.
Do you consult the elders in your meetings
considering concerning your identity?
They don't expect me to do it on
the details.
Like if I get an invitation to go
down and have four weeks of meetings in
San Jose, they don't expect me to.
But on major moves, I do share with
them and seek their prayer fellowship.
Recently a situation has come up and one
of the elders came to me and said,
Brother Bill, we don't want you to become
involved in this.
It could ruin your ministry.
And I said, I respect your advice and
I will abide by it.
Okay, time tomorrow.
Okay.
Building versus no building?
Building versus home?
Okay.
Well, as far as the New Testament is
concerned, for the first two centuries, I believe,
the services were held, the meetings of the
church were held in the home, the universal
gathering place.
And certainly in the book of Acts, it
was what you might call a household church.
There's been a great return to that in
the day in which we live, and there
are some very strong advantages of a household
church.
First of all, the church remains mobile.
When you have a huge building program with
the mortgage and all the rest, the church
is really pretty tied down.
It's not in the same position to hive
off when it's under that tremendous financial burden.
And in fact, usually a church like that
doesn't want people to hive off because they
need the help with getting the mortgages paid.
The household church is much better in a
time of persecution.
It can go underground much more easily.
From a business standpoint, it really doesn't make
very good sense to build an expensive building
and use it three or four hours a
week.
No business could operate on that basis.
If you buy a great printing press, you've
got to use it more than three or
four hours a week.
So really, that part of it doesn't make
good sense.
But that isn't the whole story either.
As the work grows, as you have Sunday
school, it can be very difficult.
In a home, you run out of bedrooms.
Also, it can be very difficult for a
family if their home is used week after
week.
It can be very difficult for the wife
if the whole routine of the home is
disrupted, all the furniture has to be moved,
and all the rest.
I don't think that the word of God
clearly legislates on it one way or the
other.
I must confess that personally, my sympathies are
with the household church.
And I feel when it outgrows the location,
the thing to do is hive off and
start another one.
But really, in order to do that, you
have to have strong leadership.
Otherwise, it's going to be disastrous.
So it's not a clear-cut issue.
If you're going to be fair, you're going
to say there are really arguments on both
sides.
I say if you do have a building,
use it for the Lord.
Use it around the clock.
And don't worry if it gets a little
messy at times.
Where there are no oxen, the crib is
clean, but much increases by the strength of
the oxen.
Just on the idea of, you said, hiving
off and maybe starting a second meeting, shouldn't
this be done?
Should a meeting split from a period of
time?
Should the two meetings maybe meet separately at
times, meet together other times?
There's no way of legislating on that.
I would imagine that the usual way is
for a group living in a geographical area
to meet in a home bible study at
first and watch it grow.
See people, see them indoctrinated in the truths
of the church, and then with a happy
fellowship of the other group, start breaking friends.
I would think that would be the norm.
But even then, you can go in and
just preach the gospel in a place and
see a work started.
So God hasn't really just limited us to
one method.
Anybody else?
Yes?
Well, I
think it's scary in contemplation and enjoyable in
retrospect.
Like when you look forward, well I mean
that, you know, when you look forward to
it, it's kind of awe-inspiring and you're
really scared.
But when you all gather together on a
Monday night after you've been out visiting, the
enthusiasm is terrific, you know.
Without breaking confidences, you share, you know, triumphs.
And although your visit might have been a
dud, somebody else's will be very good that
night and it'll pull up all the spirits
of the people.
So I think that it's just like everything
else in Christian life.
You fear when you enter the cloud, but
really you have wonderful experiences.
It might be good sometime if the brethren
in this area would have these brothers from
Fairhaven come and put on that Shepherd Seminar
and they have visual aids to get the
idea across.
They put it on in Seattle and I
must say, to the glory of God, it's
really revolutionized the lives of the assemblies up
there in Seattle.
They have almost 200 meetings this weekend in
Detroit.
They put it on in Oakland and really
it's a new day for the assemblies in
the Bay Area.
They went back from the seminar and they
started to do it and the work started
to grow.
If you carry on a visitation program consistently,
it will pay off.
It really will.
I can't name any place where it's happening
and where they're still growing, probably because I
don't know enough.
I know an assembly that did have a
building in Cleveland years ago, the Grace Mount
Assembly.
They had a hive off and their numbers
went down precipitously, but only for a short
while.
Pretty soon they built up to normal again.
It wasn't long before they had another hive
off.
Again, their numbers took a nose dive, but
very soon they had to put an addition
on for their Sunday school.
They had a third hive off.
I think the third was probably down in
Akron.
If I'm not mistaken, they've had four hive
offs from the Grace Mount Assembly.
And whether those were hives?
I can't answer because I don't know.
Okay, maybe we can just put the Lord
in first.
Father, we thank you for this time together
and we thank you for stirring up our
pure minds by way of remembrance of many
of these things.
We pray that the word might become flesh
in our lives as we go away from
the retreat.
We pray that the shockwaves might be felt
in assemblies throughout this whole area.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.