Last evening we began by sharing what we
called the imperative need of the hour.
We dealt with the first imperative, which we
called the need for an enlarged vision, living
in the largest framework of what God is
doing.
And then, of course, allowing him to expand
the inner, that what we see might become
inward reality.
I want to go on this morning with
another of the imperative needs that I sense
among the Lord's people.
I call it the imperative need for hearing
and understanding the voice of the Lord.
There's so many voices in the world today.
Everybody's talking.
And our promise is to keep our ear
tuned to the different voices, but to often
miss the voice of the Lord.
It has seemed ever since I was on
the East working up from Florida last January
up through the States, the Lord has kept
ringing just one simple verse to my heart,
found in Hebrews, Today, if ye will hear
his voice.
Now, for a long time I've made that
today the holy dispensation of grace, and it
is that.
But there is a sense in which the
Lord seems to say today, today, today, if
ye will hear his voice.
I think it's interesting, as we were saying
last evening, that to really know the Lord,
to really know him, and to come into
more intimate understanding of him and his ways,
is to realize that he has a different
voice for different people or for different occasions.
He doesn't always speak the same.
There's a different voice.
You sense that when you realize that various
of his servants speak with a different voice.
Remember Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said, when
I come to you, what voice shall I
use?
You go back and listen to the various
prophets as they're speaking, and sometimes it's a
pleading voice.
Sometimes it's like the voice of a clerk
in the court who is saying, Isaiah is
saying, Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye the
word of the Lord.
You see, our home is to somehow adapt
ourselves or our ears to a particular voice.
We say of a certain servant, my, I
like the way he speaks.
He just gets through to me.
The chances are he isn't.
He's just synchronizing with your temperament.
He may not be getting through.
I mean the real thing that God wants
to say.
I better back up.
He may be getting through.
But we're so prone.
We're so prone to adapt ourselves to certain
voices.
And this is why people in Christendom today
are gathered into little camps.
One says, oh, I like the voice of
Apollo.
My, the words flow.
How oratorical.
Another says, I like Peter.
He's so down to earth and practical.
He's been through all that I've been through.
Peter's my man.
And others gather because they like a teacher.
He speaks with that voice.
Well, I've been doing just a little background
and going into some of the Old Testament
expressions.
And I'm interested this morning for a little
while in the different ways that the Lord
speaks to get our ears or whatever is
necessary to awaken.
Yes, I think I will.
It's interesting when you look in the New
Testament as well as the New.
Remember that God speaks to individuals according to
where they are, what their condition is.
I'm thinking first this morning of what the
Scripture calls the ungodly.
Then I'm thinking of those depicted as the
sinner.
Then you have what is pictured in the
Scripture as the scorner.
God has a way.
He has a way of speaking.
And we'll take one more.
I think we could add others, but for
our purposes we'll just speak of the winter.
Turn to the first psalm for a moment.
You know it so well.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in
the counsel of the ungodly.
The term ungodly is used many places, in
the Old Testament especially.
We ask, who are the ungodly?
I think the ungodly represent just those who
say there is no God by either their
manner of life or by their words.
Remember the psalmist said, Psalm 14 and verse
1, The fool hath said in his heart
there is no God.
So the fool and the ungodly are the
same thing.
There's no God.
The whole manner, the whole course of their
life is that of the fact there's no
God.
They're not awakened, they're not sensitive, they move
on that basis.
What is God's voice?
How does he speak?
What is his way with the ungodly?
Well, I'm not dogmatic in this, but I
think he does, I think I've seen him
doing this over and over again.
The ungodly, the fool who says there is
no God, he just said, alright, if I
don't exist, I'll ignore you.
He doesn't say anything.
He lets them go their own way.
You read in the second psalm, Why do
the heathen rage and the people imagine a
vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves, the
rulers take counsel together against the Lord and
against his anointed.
Well, the great majority of those who in
their initial stage begin to just live a
life as though there's no God.
He doesn't exist.
This is a matter of the heart.
They're going their own way.
God is largely silent towards them.
And I'm sure that this is our problem
when we're trying to fellowship or we're trying
to speak to our next door neighbor.
In his ungodly, foolish condition, we can come
with various experiences, various things, and he just
sort of smiles back.
You poor fool.
He doesn't believe in God.
It takes something to awaken him.
But in that category, God is very largely
silent.
I think before we get through, you'll see
why I say that.
He's silent.
You've all heard of the atheist who stood
on his little pedestal downtown Chicago.
If there's a God, let him strike me
dead and prove that he's real right now.
And he kept on railing for many minutes.
We wondered sometimes, why doesn't God strike a
man like that dead?
Well, he cannot be moved by our silly,
simple, our attitude.
I'm so glad of that.
And I suppose he looks down at that
raving little fool and says, I will not
condescend to even recognize him.
Silence.
The counsel of the ungodly, that is, those
who by their manner of life, by their
words are saying, there's no God.
Who are the sinners?
Nor standeth in the way of sinners.
I think we can realize through the Old
Testament that when God is speaking of the
sinner, and this term is used, it is
an individual who acknowledges that there is a
God.
Acknowledges that there is a creator.
One who has made all things, but who
does not know his power.
His delivering work does not know him in
any personal way, so far as his life
is concerned.
He just knows that there's one who's created.
But there's something about his whole private thing.
Oh, I wish I could know his delivering
work.
I wish I could know him in my
life.
The sinner.
You notice now when you read the Old
Testament especially, how often this comes up.
He knows there's a God.
He's aware of it.
He's seen his handiwork, some of his ways.
But he does not know any personal relationship,
any acquaintance in the living way.
The Lord has a voice to that individual.
He has a way of speaking.
It's a way of compassion.
And I believe that when someone is awakened,
I've seen on different occasions, people in their
ungodliness, their foolish heart going their own way,
and God moves into a community, and he
begins to awaken some people.
Something happens.
Suddenly, as sinners, they begin to acknowledge, oh,
there's a creator.
God has a compassionate voice to that individual.
I think we see it manifest in the
Lord Jesus.
It says, he was the friend of sinners.
Well, who is the scorner?
Who are the scornful?
The way of sinners?
Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
I think, I'm open for correction.
But I think that the scorners, those who
are sitting in a certain place or position,
are those who are religious.
Those who have arrived at some outward knowledge
about God.
And yet, in their scorning, they have not
really allowed him to invade and to work
out his purpose or anything he has for
their life.
They just know all about him.
They use the terminology.
They sit in the seat.
The seat.
In positions.
The scornful.
I think when Jesus moved on the scene,
and he saw the religious scribes and the
Pharisees of that day, his whole voice and
attitude toward them was one of derision.
They were scorning.
Couldn't recognize his voice.
That he was the one he claimed to
be.
And the scathing words with which he spoke
to those who were in positions, religious positions,
and yet had no real knowledge of God.
The scornful.
We have a religious world around us, so
to speak.
Lots of people who are both sinners and
scornful.
But they've gone a little further than just
being sinners.
They're scorning those who really want to go
on.
So Jesus spoke with a denunciating, a scathing
word.
Gee, why did sepulchers?
Beloved, I don't know.
But I'm inclined to believe that the closer
we move into an intimate knowledge of the
Lord and his mind, the more we share
of his spirit and his ways.
The same spirit that was in him will
begin to work in us in various situations
like that.
I am hesitant to be this personal, but
I've noticed for, I think, the last 10
or 12 years, I didn't understand for quite
a while, why it was that I could
go along in a series of meetings, you
know, the midweek crowd, those who have hunger,
crying out, wanting to know more of the
Lord.
And it seemed like there was something of
a flow of his voice and his word
to that group, and Sunday morning would come,
and I would have myself prepared with what
I thought would be a message for the
same group.
They were back, but added to that was
a whole congregation, Sunday morning crowd.
And I could not understand for the life
of me why invariably on a Sunday morning
my whole spirit would seem to change, and
there would come a whole different note and
a whole different tone to that Sunday morning
crowd.
I'd try to accommodate and fit the front
rows.
Excuse me, but that's about what it amounts
to.
And yet there was something of a sensitivity
of the spirit that kept warning, speaking that
which the others needed.
And after a few situations like that, I
began to cry out at my bedside, Lord,
this is not me.
I came with another burden I don't understand.
Then it seemed as though the Lord began
to say, Look, if you're sensitive to my
mind and my voice, the more you understand
what it is to be identified with me
and my burden, you can expect that there'll
be a change of voice depending on who's
there.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
We sat one evening, about 35, maybe 40,
in a fellowship in a home, and the
Lord verified this sort of thing in a
way that I had not recognized.
A missionary returned from Africa, home on furlough,
sat in the midst of a service, fellowshipping
with us.
And strangely, there came into the midst of
that a great oppressing, confusing force.
And you sensed that the enemy was making
a real invasion.
And I saw this missionary sensitive to the
situation, suddenly shift from the theme that was
then in progress, and right in the midst
of it began to tell about a situation
they had been in just a few months
before in Africa, in which a spirit had
been cast out of one of their own
congregations.
And to my amazement, as we were sitting
there, I saw something rise in that missionary.
The spirit of the Lord that was rising
to stand against.
And she told the story.
And I bowed, as I looked at the
expression, and I sensed that something in that
spirit, in that missionary, and the Lord seemed
to say to me, you never deal with
the enemy in sympathetic, quiet tones.
There came a great peace.
I was looking at the outward and just
observing, and then I realized as the missionary
went along and began to deal with the
one who was in the room, there was
a real clash, and God's voice for each
situation may be different.
Now, we have the ungodly, and he is
largely silent.
They ignore.
He says, go on your own way and
rage.
There'll come a day.
The sinner, oh yes, there's the acknowledging, but
knowing not the power of God, or his
delivering work.
The scorner, religious, denying the power of God.
Who are the wicked?
Well, they're all wicked, you say.
God doesn't use the term that way.
He's quite precise.
If I understand the wicked, it is those
who are maliciously and deliberately aligned with the
enemy against God.
Now, that may be true of the whole
group, but I'm saying that there's something more
of the deliberate alignment, really imbibing the spirit
of the enemy in an all-out thrust
to dethrone or to get rid of God.
And it's this kind of wickedness that you
see the Lord dealing with in the Old
Testament in various places, and he deals with
it very severely.
He doesn't speak to it so much.
What does he say?
Well, one day he turned to Jonah.
He said, Jonah, the wickedness of Nineveh has
come before me.
The wickedness of Nineveh has come before me.
Was Nineveh the only city worthy of being
destroyed?
What about the other cities?
I don't know, but there comes a ripeness.
There comes a time when the ungodly or
the sinners move on beyond scorn and come
into a real alignment against God.
That is, they are joining with the spirits
of this world, the spirits of darkness against
God.
Now, I know there's a lot of that
in the other, but wickedness comes to full
fruitage and harvest, and he says of the
Ninevites, their wickedness has come before me.
Jonah, you go down and warn, and he
represents the warning voice.
Isn't it interesting how Jonah turns to go
his own way, finds occasion for a boat
going the other direction.
One chapter later when he comes, after his
whale, after his fish experience, he says, what
was it you said, Lord?
Well, my directions haven't changed.
Go to Nineveh.
And I've pondered it so many times.
I wonder if they would have listened to
Jonah, the first chapter.
First chapter, Jonah.
But here was a man who comes into
their midst half digested.
I think there were marks all over him.
And a man whose skin and his whole,
you know, plus a spirit and an emergency,
something deep within that begins to cry, and
he's beginning to say to them, God's going
to send judgment.
So they began to listen.
They began to listen.
The wickedness of Nineveh has come before me.
You remember when he was about to destroy
Sodom and Gomorrah?
And all of the dialogue that goes on
between Abraham and the Lord?
What is it?
If there are so many righteous among the
wicked, so many righteous, so many righteous, so
many righteous, strange as it may seem, but
it is the mercy and the goodness of
the Lord that deals with men when their
cup has become full and wickedness has reached
its place, it is the mercy of the
Lord that says, we'll destroy.
It may not seem to you, but I'll
tell you when lives become aligned with the
enemy against God.
Well, I'm more interested in the next category
over here, which we will just call the
righteous.
Seems to be the Old Testament word, or
we'll say the just, as Paul puts it,
the just shall live by faith.
What is the Lord's word to those who
are his own?
Well, he calls them my sheep.
Old Testament, New Testament.
My sheep, no.
My sheep, hear my voice.
But even among the sheep, we have the
tragic realization that there are those who while
they come into a covenant standing with the
Lord, as his Old Testament people did, he
had separated them under his purpose, or whether
we through the new birth have been brought
into a living relationship with him and declared
righteous, the just.
God speaks even to those in their various
needs.
We have, I think we'll say, two categories
this morning.
There are those who are righteous.
The just shall live by faith.
They walk, they hear his voice each day.
Then we have those whom the Scripture speaks
of as backsliders.
Who is the backslider?
The Scripture tells us the backslider in heart
is filled with his own ways.
Filled with his own ways.
One who has come into covenant standing as
it were.
One who has come into a birth relationship
as we speak now.
God is wanting to lead them on into
his full thought and purpose.
But their heart is filled going their own
way.
There's something deliberate about the backslider.
He goes his own way.
He said in Jeremiah of the backslider, he
looked down upon them, he says, I am
married.
I am married to Israel.
I am married to them.
Well, what is his voice to the backslider?
Backsliding can take on sort of different caricatures.
Sometimes our backsliding can almost get to the
place of the fool who says, there's no
God.
I've met lots of individuals who have come
into a living relationship.
Something happened.
They wanted to go their own way.
A good job.
A mate came along.
They got married.
And you watch a period of time in
their life in which like the prodigal who
asks for what he can get.
The inheritance that's his.
And he goes out to squander.
He goes out his own way.
The Lord just seems to have to say
to them, alright, go.
There's no word to you.
There's a silence to those who want to
live as though there's no God even though
they had known initially a relationship.
May I say it kindly?
There's a lot more than we might realize
of that going on.
Maybe right here.
This going on from day to day without
an aliveness.
An aliveness to what God really desires as
though he doesn't exist.
Old Sunday rolls around.
Prayer meeting night.
But the rest of the time off in
the far country.
And the prodigal came to himself and coming
to repentance or coming to himself he comes
running back.
What's the voice?
What is the voice of the father to
the backslider?
It's that wonderful voice that says, oh my
son who has been dead.
Dead to who?
But you say, I haven't been dead.
That's because you live in that little box
I was talking about last night.
Lord, I say I just haven't been there.
Well, we'll get to that in a minute.
I'm not dead.
I'm not lost.
But you see, it's a matter of our
interpreting things in fundamentalism and our whole scope
today.
We only think of things as related to
man.
Man's own security.
Man's own relationship to God for what he
can get.
But all when the father speaks, it's my
son who has been dead.
Who's been lost.
Lost to who?
Lost to God.
Off in a far country.
Well, his voice is the same.
Sometimes there's warning.
Sometimes there is a real attempt to get
his ear.
But to the one who's in a far
country he has to come to himself.
I've spent hours pleading, begging, warning with some
who are in a far country until the
Lord just seems to say that's enough.
Let him go.
And had to wait ten years for them
to come to themselves.
Somebody says this morning, Brother Byrne, God does
seem a long way.
Seems far away.
Don't you get some issues confused this morning.
You may need an enlarged vision as we
were speaking last night.
But while God's enlarging the vision, his first
word to the backslider, the one who's been
off on his own private binge, living his
life up for himself.
God's first word when he comes to himself
is come back home.
Come back.
There's a place where the father receives.
My speaking, the Lord speaking to someone this
morning.
He's drawing you back.
All these wasted months and years you've tried
that little thing.
But the emptiness of it all.
But I'm more concerned for that which will
include the greater portion of us.
And that's the third this morning.
Maybe not so much deliberate backsliding filled with
his own ways.
But I think that the Scripture speaks of
a more refined sort of backsliding.
We use another term.
We say one who is out of fellowship.
One who is out of fellowship.
We love this term in the New Testament
picture that John gives us.
Walking in the light is his in the
light.
We have fellowship.
Brothers, sisters, there is a fellowship that we
are called to that's very wonderful.
First Corinthians says, we are called into the
fellowship of his dear son.
When does that happen?
When this first calling into fellowship dawns on
us and we awaken to a new relationship.
He's my father.
I have an elder brother who goes alongside.
One who is very close.
We are called into fellowship with him.
And I say to us this morning that's
a very precious and wonderful thing.
When we realize that God has called us
to an intimacy in which we have a
sharing, a mutuality, the blood cleanses, a conscience
that we might really enjoy a sharing life
with the Lord.
And you know when that fellowship has been
broken, something has come in.
We confess our sins.
He is faithful and just to forgive us
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
But that first fellowship I'm talking about fits
into that little box I was referring to
last night.
For years, that's the only fellowship I preached
about.
The only fellowship I was alive to.
It's all I realized.
Well, thank God, it's wonderful.
I'm not minimizing it.
But don't stop at the gate.
Don't sit down where you started.
That fellowship that we are invited into in
which the Lord in his initial stages speaks
with such blessedness.
My little children, he says.
How wonderful.
And then the scripture says we are invited
into the fellowship of the gospel.
The Lord doesn't stop.
He's doing everything he can in your life
to crowd you into an enlarged way.
The fellowship of the gospel.
What does it mean?
That which I have experienced.
That fellowship that I have with the Father
and with the Son.
I have to what?
Say it louder.
I have to share it.
I have to tell others.
And so we begin to mouth it.
We begin to gossip it.
Or we begin to fellowship with others.
Not only the fellowship that we have, the
living relationship, but the fellowship with others.
And it's the fellowship of the gospel.
The good news.
Something has happened.
That's a blessed day when the Lord enlarges
and we begin to share.
And we know.
We know when there begins to be that
flow.
That enlarging flow and we sense the Spirit
of God who is working within.
We call it the fellowship of the Spirit.
You meet someone else who has just been
awakened and immediately you have a mutuality of
fellowship because the same Spirit in you fellowships
with them.
And this fellowship of the gospel can be
an enlarging thing because it's good news.
Not just the good news of being saved.
But I'm always amazed someone comes up saying,
I have heard some more good news.
This is where you find fellowship in your
various experiences.
Whatever they are.
I don't try to take them away.
Just get them aligned.
You can't take a man's experiences away.
You just say, praise the Lord.
Let's go on.
Because there's more fellowship ahead.
There's more fellowship ahead.
I used to spend quite a little time
trying to take the experience away because I
hadn't been in it myself.
But you can.
Just well save your breath.
There's the fellowship of good news, whatever it
is.
The fellowship of the good news.
Then there comes a time when somehow all
that we've been sharing, all the fellowship we've
been enjoying, God seems to take us through
a whole different period.
There's a real cry within that says, Oh
Lord, if I just had more power to
share what I know.
We've all prayed that way.
Oh Lord, for greater utterance.
For greater power to share that which I
already know.
And of course we thought He was going
to send a package of power.
Or plug us in in a new way
to some great resource or supply.
But in our praying now for an enlargement,
He begins to send the fellowship of His
suffering.
No wonder Paul is saying that I may
know Him and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His suffering.
May I say it kindly?
It's awful easy at this point.
For the individual who has been accustomed to
the voice of the Lord in a certain
way and a father sharing in a certain
way.
Suddenly we wonder where he is.
The fellowship of His suffering.
And the Lord still speaking.
Isn't that wonderful?
But He's changed His voice and He's changed
His way.
The fellowship of His suffering.
I can see Joe now.
As he finally finishes his mission to Nineveh.
With great expectancy.
My!
The man who has just had success.
Goes off on the hillside now to watch
the Lord send judgment.
There he sits waiting.
Waiting.
Has Jonah been in fellowship with God?
Yes, he's known the fellowship in the whale
in which he cried out as a repentant.
He came back.
Then it says, the voice of the Lord
came unto me.
Then he went to Nineveh.
He shared the good news.
Well, it was good.
Didn't sound so good to them.
But there comes a time when you've shared
the fellowship of the gospel.
You may be sitting where Jonah sits now.
You know where he is?
He's waiting.
Now, Lord.
Reign judgment.
But he doesn't.
He doesn't.
And Jonah has difficulty understanding.
Jonah's going through the fellowship now which is
some real suffering.
Murmuring, pouting, complaining Jonah.
Beginning to see an area within him he's
never realized before.
Now, let's just be very open about it.
Jonah's sitting there looking.
Is he a backslider?
No, I don't think so.
Not really.
Is he in fellowship with the Lord?
Well, it depends on what you mean.
What fellowship?
God's pressing us to an enlarged fellowship.
We're going to get to the next phase.
What fellowship are you going through?
What's your fellowship?
What's the measure of your fellowship with him?
And I've always loved this.
Hear the pouting, complaining, murmuring prophet.
Lord, I wish you'd kill me.
Until you've been through that stage, I wonder.
I used to really be hard on Jonah.
But I can't anymore.
There's been too much of it in my
own inner spirit that God has had to
drag right out into the open.
I couldn't understand Elijah when he wanted to
die.
The fellowship of his suffering.
You see, our problem is we get all
confused with what we think God is going
to do.
And we may see what he's doing.
We may see the what.
We may see the what of God's doing.
But he always has a how that requires
the day-by-day voice of the Lord.
Today, if you will hear his voice.
May I go on just a bit in
an enlargement?
I was awakened with this a couple mornings
ago.
It has been something that has seemed to
just press me in a whole new way.
I was reading.
I copied down the very verse that our
brother started with in 1 Chronicles chapter 12.
There were men of Issachar who had understanding
of the times of what Israel ought to
do.
I've preached from that verse for a number
of years.
But the other morning, I must confess something
else dawned on me.
The great problem throughout the generations has been
people who can get a hold of the
what.
Abraham saw a lot.
He saw what God was going to do.
He's going to have a family.
He saw what he was going to do.
And that's God's larger framework.
But he didn't see how he was going
to do it.
He didn't see how he was going to
do it.
And I wonder about I wonder about David's
consulting with these men who knew what God
was going to do.
And that was all good and proper.
The very first verse of the 13th chapter
says, and David consulted with who?
With these captains.
He consulted with these very men who had
an understanding of what needed to be done.
And on the basis of that, he goes
ahead.
I expect, beloved, I expect that they said
Israel needs a gathering point.
Israel needs the ark back in the midst.
We need to be able to worship.
We need this.
This is what we need.
And so he goes ahead to do the
thing that seemed right.
But he didn't have today's word from the
Lord.
He was out of fellowship.
How can I bring this home to us?
Yesterday's word is alright.
But God has a word for today.
And if there is any difficulty in Christendom
this morning, it is right at this point.
How were you going to do it, Lord?
Well, you know what David did.
He rushed ahead with a brand new cart.
A Philistine cart to do the what?
The man of understanding.
And that's as far as they could go.
Don't misunderstand now.
We're not drawing a different construction.
We're simply saying that men could go just
so far.
But David, David had to have a personal
word that would take him further in the
fellowship of what God was doing.
That thing exploded within my heart and it
caused me to cry out, Oh Lord.
Oh Lord.
We've seen something of what you're going to
do.
What we believe you want to do.
Lord, how are you going to do it?
How?
Don't let it run ahead.
Well, David went through some suffering.
You know the story.
Great suffering.
Abraham went through the suffering all those long
years waiting for a son.
The what?
Of the Lord's working.
I wonder if there isn't something of that
timing is the problem in a lot of
us.
Maybe this morning.
Well, here we are.
In fellowship, well, you can say this morning,
brother Frankie, the Lord's the Lord's wonderful.
I've had a precious time this morning.
I don't know how large your box is.
I don't know how much the Lord's been
able to take you into his fuller mind.
He's taking you through the participation, the fellowship
of his sufferings that he might really make
known the measure of life power, resurrection power.
But I was reading last night, you remember,
of another fellowship.
What was that?
In the third chapter, the fellowship of the
mystery.
Oh, there goes some more walls and the
enlargement comes.
The fellowship of the mystery.
This is what is the burden of my
heart these days as we were trying to
say all that God all that God would
bring us into the knowledge of his son
in such a way that the eyes of
our understanding can be enlarged and we can
really see that which he is working toward.
Now it's easy to stop and say it's
a mystery and therefore you'll have to wait
for the Lord to share it.
That's a way out.
But that's really what it is.
I've tried for years and the Lord keeps
always shutting me up by way of saying,
look son, when you get it all outlined
and they can get a hold of it
with their mind, that's just the trouble.
They'll have the what?
I want them to know him.
Not only the fellowship of his suffering but
the fellowship of the mystery.
And our dedication our seeing will come into
a whole new framework once that gets hold
of it.
What is the voice of the Lord?
It's the way God communicates to you what
he wants to share whatever it is.
And I thank him this morning in a
whole new way that we've I think come
to sense that there's the still small voice
and then there is the blasting voice.
There's the time of silence.
There's the time in which he takes one
into the suffering.
There's the fellowship of having seen the larger
thing or that which really is primary in
God's heart.
And then in awe just having to say,
oh Lord only you can do it.
Only you can do it.
Maybe we can put this in a little
larger way this morning as we're saying when
you're talking about being in fellowship with the
Lord I guess that's true but what's the
measure of it?
What's the measure of it?
God is moving on and as we walk
with him in the new unfolding light he
keeps saying this is the increase of fellowship
that I want to bring you into.
I'm concerned.
Let me see if I can put it
this way.
We had a missionary a former missionary friend
visiting us last week and I heard her
laughing and just sort of praising the Lord
in the other room and she walked in
where I was sitting and she said, read
this.
She stuck a book under my nose pointed
to a paragraph happened to be a book
by Dr. Tozer one of the editorials that
he's written.
And I can't remember the title of the
chapter but I sure got the impact of
it.
The place I started reading was went on
like this there are so many of the
Lord's children heading away out in the wildernesses
these days who get together and they lament
and moan and say oh if we just
had a pastor who could really feed us
if we just had someone who could really
share a word with us you could only
hear Tozer say humbug that's kind of an
abrupt word but he meant it.
Then he went on to say you people
who have that mentality and that attitude and
then you condescend and say but praise the
Lord we've got a library of tapes and
he used the term of Billy Graham and
Dr. Reese and we can listen to these
and get our food.
And you know what he said?
Humbug.
Now I'm after something.
He said when will you wake up to
realize that you can have the voice of
the Lord to your own heart.
Now I know that he was appreciating as
much as any of us do those whom
the Lord is using but the good becomes
the enemy of the better.
And the better can get right in the
way of keeping us from God's and it
has caused me to wonder if we ought
to have any tape recorded.
You know why?
There are times when I believe God has
had a specific word for that hour and
he wanted to say something to that group
that was for them and it doesn't fit
the general situation out here but we take
it out and want to play it to
everybody.
I'm concerned that God will give us wisdom
and good judgment.
I think I have picked up books and
I've listened to tapes when something within my
own spirit kept crying out that's not general.
That doesn't fit the general.
That belonged to a specific occasion.
Well you have to know the voice of
the Lord.
God has a wonderful way of speaking and
of course it's all true but it finally
gets around to whether it's his special specific
speaking to you at the point of your
fellowship.
This was brought into sharp focus to my
heart a number of years ago when I
was laid on a bed in a hospital
with an accident.
Unexpected.
Well, both of us the lady missionary who
had 17 fractures had given up to die
and we likewise.
And after I gained consciousness about a week
later the daughter of this missionary who was
up on another floor, the daughter came in.
She was quite disturbed and quite broken.
And she shared with me she said you
know poor mother has been really through it
this morning.
Two friends have come in and read some
verses of scripture to her and in the
name of the Lord commanded that she be
healed and rise up and get out of
bed.
Well if you could have seen a woman
with 17 fractures reading
a word of the Lord.
The daughter looked at me and she said
but mother understand that there's a difference between
God's general word and God's specific word for
the situation.
And she said I saw mother look back
and smile and say well if the Lord
wants me to get out he'll break all
these casts and help me.
But in the meantime I'm not listening to
you, I'm listening to him.
You see our problem as we move along
in the fellowship with the Lord is we're
prone.
We're prone.
I've been so prone to listen to someone
who comes along and we're fellowshipping but their
measure of fellowship and that which the Lord
presently may be taking me through is far
different, far different.
God is crowding you into a place where
every last thing outwardly that you depended upon
he's bringing to know that he might teach
you what it means today if you will
hear his voice.
I've just started this, I want to go
on tomorrow with it.
But oh I'm concerned for us this morning.
I'm trying to just re-echo what has
been said earlier.
It's so easy for us to get a
hold of a lot of the things, a
lot of the things that the Lord has
generally said.
But he's wanting to speak in a very
specific way today if you will hear his
voice.
What kind of fellowship do we enjoy?
This is a measure of our fellowship?
Praise the Lord.
A clear conscience cleansed by the blood, called
into fellowship of the Lord Jesus.
It's wonderful.
But he's going to walk on the fellowship,
the fellowship, the fellowship, the fellowship and we're
only in fellowship when we're in the full
light of all that he has shown us
and living up to the full measure of
it.
Lord, we thank you for your voice
down through all the generations.
Sometimes you've been silent when we've acted like
a fool.
You've come in compassion, you've been a friend
when we didn't know the real power, the
working, the delivering work of God in our
lives.
Sometimes we came close to scorning even after
we've known you.
We've belittled others because they've gone on in
a fuller measure of fellowship.
Don't let us scorn anyone this morning just
because we can't understand or we've not arrived.
Oh Lord, don't let us get in the
seat of the scornful.
We're not looking at just the religious world
out here but there's so much scorn even
among those who belong to you.
And Lord, even sometimes in our best desires
and ambitions there's been wickedness.
We've gotten aligned with purposes, with things, with
the enemy.
But Lord, here we are this morning.
We do ask that there will be the
increasing, increasing fellowship.
Some of my brothers and sisters have been
going through the fellowship of suffering.
And it's in these moments that it's so
easy to question like John did when he
was in prison.
But Lord, we believe that you're raising up
hearts and lives all over this country and
all over the world who are being expanded
into the larger thing, the fellowship of the
mystery, that which you're working towards.
And we thank you.
Give us each one this morning a deep
inner cry that says Lord, help me to
hear your voice.
And help me to be your voice when
I know your spirit.
Sense the spirit.
Help me to be your voice.
We ask this in Jesus name with thanksgiving.
Amen.