I want to thank you again, the joy
that has been mine and my wife to
be with you these days.
I have thanked you again and again for
your praying for our physical needs.
I can't remember through the years of having
to battle as many days, but we've been
sensing the strength and support, the supply of
all of you.
I want to thank you for that so
much.
What I wanted to share this evening, I
could put several different titles to it.
Thought maybe I'd talk about wisdom hath builded
her house.
She hath hewn out seven pillars.
Then you'd want me to drill or draw
a house of seven pillars, so I can't
do that.
But I would like to talk to you
at least about seven very practical issues in
serving one another.
I think the further along I go, I
become keenly aware of the need for the
practical, aggressive action of God's people in dealing
with issues as we see them.
I've always tended to say, well, I'll pray
about it.
And then the Holy Spirit begins to say,
but you could do something, you know what
to do.
So tonight I'm going to deal with some
questions that I like to ask.
They will be very revealing, some things that
maybe can help us as parents, as individuals,
to really know how to serve and help
one another to bring a little more effectiveness
in our walk with the Lord.
I think I'll just put some of the
issues here on the board that you can
follow along with me.
The concern I have is that we will
recognize the imperative necessity of being very practical
and down to earth when it comes to
certain issues.
What do you mean by that?
Well, let me deal first of all the
difference between talent and consecration.
I'm increasingly aware in the religious scenery today
that's all about us, there's an awful lot
of individuals who have talents, giftings, abilities, and
they really want to serve the Lord.
I'm so grateful for that because I believe
that the work of the Lord requires folk
who have some skills, some gifting, and some
ability.
And yet the problem that I run into
is that there's so many folk who are
coming along and they're saying, oh, I'd like
to serve the Lord with my music.
I remember, for example, after the Second World
War, the dozens, probably hundreds of pilots who
had flown in the service, now they're coming
back.
Many of them really met the Lord in
a very wonderful way and they want to
give themselves to the Lord.
I don't know how many young men, pilots,
came to me and said, I'd like to
dedicate my ability to fly a plane to
the Lord.
Of course, you know, Missionary Aviation Fellowship, all
the different groups that were developed to be
able to use up some of this help.
Well, there's nothing wrong with wanting to fly
a plane for the Lord, but I found
myself asking this question on a number of
occasions.
What if God doesn't need any more pilots?
There's already a big waiting line, individuals who
would like to have their particular ability or
skill used for God.
And I don't like to be negative, but
I know there are times when you have
to deal very critically with the issue at
stake, because I don't read any place where
it says that I dedicate or give my
music ability, or my speaking ability, or my
plane flying ability, or any of these talents
that I have to the Lord.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your instrument, your
service, your, no, your body.
One summer, I had the privilege of being
the music director at a large camp in
Oregon.
For ten weeks, there was each week a
different flow of people, different speakers.
And I was privileged to not only lead,
but to also find special help, special music
for the meetings.
One of the things that I cannot forget
to this day, a certain sister who had
been invited to come out from Portland to
the camp where we were to sing, and
that particular night she stood with something of
the glory of the Lord and the overflow
of life.
I was so impressed, I sat there and
I wept.
I looked around and I saw many other
people weeping.
Well, I thought, this is wonderful, the presence
of the Lord.
Surely she has a lovely voice.
Fact is, she came out the next three
or four weeks, and each time I would
ask her to sing.
And each time, the same sense of God
singing through her.
I went to her after about the third
or fourth time, and I said, there's something
very different about your singing.
Could you, would you tell me what has
really happened in your life?
Then she explained, she said, for a number
of years I was in opera.
I found the Lord.
I began to sing in churches, choirs all
over Portland, Oregon, and was in much demand
and enjoyed all of it.
She said, there came a crisis in my
life.
Suddenly I lost my voice, and I couldn't
even croak.
It was so bad, I could not, I
could not speak.
I just lost my voice.
And in that period of several months, she
said, I began to cry out, oh God,
what has happened?
She looked at me and she said, you
know, I made the discovery that God wanted
me wholly consecrated to Him, broken before Him,
that He might use my voice in His
own way.
She said, up to this time, I always
enjoyed picking the songs that would show off
my qualities.
Songs that were a little more entertaining.
Songs that had, you know, more appeal.
She said, I made this promise to the
Lord.
From this moment on, I would ask Him
to make the choice, the content of the
word, everything that I did.
She said, I kept praying, oh God, through
this brokenness that you brought into my life,
would you release life to others?
That was probably 55 years ago, but it's
as real to me tonight as the night
she stood and said, I no longer sing
what I want to sing, but I want
to be an expression of His life.
Now, I'm saying this because we all have
talent.
We all have enablements.
We've developed skills, and thank God for all
of that.
But there comes a moment in which God
needs to break through and help us to
realize that it isn't our talent, it's our
availability.
Is anybody following what I'm trying to say
tonight?
I don't want to just have a little
private barking tree all on my own and
say, well, God isn't interested in our talents.
No.
The issue is this.
Has He ever taken us through the cross,
through the dealing, saying that everyone goes through
what my sister went through?
But more and more, I've become convinced of
the fact that all the talent we want
to present to Him, He sort of ignores
and He says, I just want you.
It isn't selective service with us.
I present myself, and I said to many
of these, what if the mission failed, that
you're flying planes?
What if suddenly God wants you to be
a missionary, not a pilot?
So the concern I have tonight is basically
that when we come so often, it's a
selective service.
I know God wants me to be a
musician for Him.
Well, what if He doesn't?
I mean, what if your music ability is
not the thing God's after for you?
He wants you as an individual.
And as an individual, then He can use
you and maybe lay you aside for a
while, whichever He chooses to do.
I never forget being in a, I guess
I'd have to call it a hippie commune,
in the northwest many years ago, seated on
the floor with about 50, 60 young people,
real precious kids.
And secondly, I heard one of the young
men sitting there cry out, Oh Lord, help
Brother Vern to die to his ministry and
never preach again if you want to close
him up.
I thought, well, here's a 20-year-old
fellow who's suddenly gotten a revelation from the
Lord.
And I, you know, felt like the body
of Christ would be kind of hurt if
I wasn't on the road.
But you know, I never got away from
that fact.
God spoke to me that evening as I
sat there and said, Lord, really be a
loss to the body, but would you do
this?
What I'm wanting to say to us tonight
is this.
I believe there comes a time in our
life when we begin to recognize that it's
the brokenness, the availability, it is God having
a vessel that he can use in his
own way, not the way I choose to
serve.
Well, we've got seven, better get on a
little bit or we'll not get through very
far.
The thing that really burdens me is that
in the practical issues of our serving then,
we're giving some talent, something else, we're giving
ourselves to the Lord and he chooses how
and when and where.
I remember when certain mission fields were closed,
they couldn't get back to the area they
had been.
And the struggle with these missionaries waiting to
get open doors and so forth.
And it was at that point my wife
came along.
I remember saying to one of them, I
went to India and spent five and a
half years there serving the Lord.
And when I had to come home because
of illness, she said, I discovered I couldn't
get back.
The door was closed.
And she said, suddenly the Lord said, I
didn't call you just basically to India.
I called you to walk and serve me
wherever I want you to be.
Our choosing on the basis, well, God's called,
that may be involved, but the first calling
of God, the first issue with each of
us is, Lord, am I yours available to
you wherever you choose to send me?
And it was a real struggle when she
finally discovered she wouldn't be going back at
all, but marrying somebody who would be with
her for 44 years and then take her
home.
So we're saying tonight that in the process
of discovering the wisdom and the ways of
the Lord, it is not our talents we
present.
I actually believe that when we see ourselves
nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, buried
in the tomb with him, we come into
resurrection life.
The anointing of God only comes upon resurrection
ground.
So much attempt today to get the anointing,
the blessing upon the flesh.
God is very jealous for what he anoints.
That which comes through the grave and onto
resurrection ground, it is there the dove descends.
It is there the Holy Spirit comes to
anoint.
So a real consecration then is that which
comes on resurrection ground.
Well, let's move on to another.
In this process, this course of practical issues,
I've discovered how easy it is to miss
helping people to come into their own walk
individually with the Lord.
I like to call this one here assignment
with accountability.
Let me illustrate it this way.
When people come to me with a real
problem, I've been discovering they can be like
leeches that sap your strength and just drain
and next week they'll be back and back
and over again.
And maybe it's just me, but the Lord's
beginning to say, you give them some little
assignment to see how much they want to
really walk with me and come through the
issues.
And so I begin to say, I think
God has a special chapter in this book
of the Bible that would be a real
blessing to you.
Fact is, I'd like to give you an
assignment this week, all week long to read
that chapter over and over before the Lord
and then call me next Saturday and we'll
get together and let's see what God might
have said to you.
I'm utterly amazed how many people actually discover
they don't want to put much participation into.
They want to just draw from you.
I call this giving assignment and then developing
accountability.
I learned this from one of the brothers
who has been gripped by the larger window
of our book.
He says, I keep a whole stack of
them here on the shelf.
And when someone comes with a particular problem
or need, he said, I remember a page
so and so, here's a story, a short
story.
And I look at them and I say,
you know, I have a story that I
believe would help you tremendously.
Would you take this book home and read
the story?
He said, I don't give books to anybody
anymore.
He said, just moves from their shelf to
my from my shelf to their shelf.
But I encourage them to read this three
or four times and then call me.
He says, utterly amazing how the Holy Spirit
can work through this little assignment.
But they're becoming accountable.
Accountable, they call back and invariably they will
say, I read the next story and the
next.
Could I buy one of those books?
Of course, that's what we're after, you understand.
But it's the principle of developing some assignment.
I've been doing this now with some of
the men we're working with, and I begin
to realize that individuals just like to chat
about problems.
How many folk want to come and just,
you know, drain, sap your strength.
And if you'll discover, I'm talking about practical
issues of wisdom now, you discover a little
assignment that you can give them and then
hold some accountability.
Well, I just come to sense that what
it really often amounts to is if God
is speaking in a heart to a life
and there's a real issue at stake, we
don't want to get in between.
We want to bring them to the place
where they're, shout it to the Lord.
And they begin daily to say, oh God,
you can speak to me.
Otherwise, they'll be back to you again and
again.
And we want to get out of the
middle.
We've been used to bring them to this
place.
When I read a brother saying one day,
you don't have to be able to answer
all the questions that people have.
You don't have to be able to fix
all of their problems.
But you do have the need to bring
them to the fixer and to make sure
that he and they come into some kind
of an awareness that he is their supply.
So I just share this with you because
some of you have such a desire to
help in a very practical way.
Learn to bring people into, I like to
say, accountability to the Lord and probably to
you for the moment to make sure whether
they mean business or they're just wasting your
time.
Well, let's move on.
Now, here's a principle that I often
spend a whole hour with, but let's see
if we can get through in five minutes
tonight.
I've often asked individuals, do you know the
difference between a principle and a rule?
Do you know the difference between a principle
and a rule?
Well, there are folk who've already discovered that
a rule is an outward thing that literally
grows out of a principle.
For example, when you go to the highway
to get your testing or get your driver's
license, there's what we call the basic rule,
the basic principle of the highway, to always
drive your car, to keep it under control
so it will hurt no one, including yourself.
That's the basic principle.
Always keep your car under control.
And out of that basic principle, there are
all the signs, the rules, the things that
go with it.
These rules flow out of what we call
the basic inward principle, the way a thing
is built.
I like to take all the things that
God has built into the fabric of the
universe and then see why rules issue out
of it.
Rules change.
Just reading some of the notes this afternoon,
and I remembered that in Topeka, Kansas, way
back when the car was first introduced, you
had to put a notice in the paper
you were going to drive through Main Street
two days ahead of time.
Now you laugh at that.
But the rules that issue out of a
principle, highway safety.
One of the problems we have today is
that so often we give individuals the rule
without giving them the principle or the inward
issue back of it.
I've said to parents so often, you tell
your child what, and you expect him to
obey.
Good.
It often helps to get back at the
what and tell them the why.
The what is important.
Oh, I could give a number of illustrations.
Let me say to some of you fathers
for a moment.
When you're trying to help your daughter dress
in a big coming way before the Lord,
I've asked daughters occasionally just this question.
Does dad ever question you about the garment
you're wearing when you're going out?
They always say, oh, does he?
Too short, too this, too that.
I say, what does he say?
The problem so often is we give individuals
the what, but we do not bother to
give them the principle back of it.
Back through the years, I've just been amazed
how many times when word gets out on
the campus that we're dealing with rules and
principles to be invited into a girl's dormitory.
Here's 40, 50, maybe young ladies saying, we
really want to walk with the Lord.
We really want to serve the Lord.
How can we do this in the most
honorable and appropriate way?
So I go into this little principle of
the way God has uniquely designed the male
and the female, a lot of them totally
in the dark.
What do you mean the way God has
uniquely designed the male and the female?
When your dad says you're going out on
a date at night, now be careful, be
careful.
Don't let that young man paw all over
you.
And they used to use different terminologies.
The issue is giving a rule or getting
at the principle back of it.
And when I've been able to explain to
them that God has wired the female in
a certain way so that generally by touch,
there's arousal, there's excitement, they begin to realize
not just the what, but the why.
Then I speak to the fellows and I
say, you know, it's very interesting the way
God wired you, designed your whole makeup.
Did you ever see them try to sell
Buicks with an ugly old man standing representing
it?
What are you getting at?
I'd like for you to write someplace in
the margin of your Bible tonight a little
word called defraud.
When I can explain that word defraud to
a young fellow or to a young lady,
suddenly they begin to realize the difference between
a rule and a principle.
Had a mother come to me one day
and she said, you know, we've got a
lot of young people in our church and
our fellowship.
But she said, it seems like all the
nice boys are other places, but it's the
fellows that are not too fond of who
keep coming after my daughter.
She said, why don't some of the nice
boys come?
And I spent a little time to explain,
mother, I believe you love the Lord and
I know your family loves the Lord.
But, you know, it's possible for folk who
would never violate and never break a rule
to violate a principle.
And I think I've observed your daughter violating
some principles by the way she exposes herself.
What do you mean?
Before we got through, she was utterly amazed.
Things that folk would call a rule and
total violation of a principle.
Let me illustrate what I mean.
It's out in Missouri.
Used to go by the highway.
There's a big church on the hill.
Had a great big billboard out there for
several months.
Flee this wicked adulterous world with all the
pictures of sin around it.
The centerpiece of the thing was a girl
in a bikini.
And I thought to myself, how dumb can
people be?
Am I meddling tonight?
I'm trying to say to us, it is
very possible.
Young men, we were walking around the lake
this morning.
He was really burned when he said, because
he's working with high schoolers, he said, why
is it there is such among our high
school, so many of them, they get tripped
up and they have the difficulty of problems
with sex.
And I keep saying, oh, Lord, help us
to recognize that this church meant well.
They're talking about things that would be rules
and the legalist way one wouldn't do.
But right there in the middle of the
billboard was a very violating, a violation of
a principle.
Why?
Because the male eye is always caught, always
grabbed.
And only God can help the male eye.
Remember how much of a blessing it was
as a young man when a brother came
to me and said, remember, Job said, I
made a covenant with mine eye.
Why then should I think upon a maid?
The eye sees the lust of the heart,
the mind reaches up and lust takes hold.
What are you saying this evening?
I'm saying, folk, there's some practical issues that
an awful lot of God's children violate.
They wouldn't break a rule, but we violate
principles.
And so you see, if there is a
young man petting, going through all that's involved,
arousing, stimulating a young lady, to defraud is
to somehow arouse and stimulate and not be
able to righteously fulfill.
I've often wondered why Corinthians said it's good
for man not to touch.
Well, they get very legalistic about that because
I, well, I've seen individuals say, oh, no
touch, no more shaking hands, no more.
That's not what we're after.
It's the principle involved.
And so I'm saying to us tonight, if
God once begins to get a hold of
this issue of outward rules, but inward principles,
hundreds of situations, I believe that when God
made us, designed us, He built into the
very fabric of the way we function that
we need a day of rest.
I know the Jewish Sabbath, Friday night to
Saturday night, God had built it in.
It was a time for them to get
apart, be occupied with the Lord, rest.
Now, we do know that Jesus said, Matthew
11, 28, come unto me all you that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
And all of this back here that God
had given the way of outward rule, all
of it finds its reality and its fulfillment
in Him.
But I like the words of old Dr.
Behan, who used to say, wouldn't it be
wonderful if God's people would really rest on
Saturday, so when they came to church on
Sunday morning, they'd be alive to the Lord.
Back in South Carolina, several years ago, we
went to church and then were invited to
go out to eat at noon.
Golden Corral, lovely place.
We stood in line, and to my utter
amazement, I heard the people in the staff
saying, the Christians are coming.
The Methodists will be first because they have
a 20 minute message.
The Baptists will be next, theirs is 40.
And the Pentecostals will be last, theirs is
an hour and a half.
Now, what do you think?
I'm not being critical.
It's just that I've heard them say, and
they're going to ask us why we're not
in church.
Are you there?
They're going to ask us why we're not
in church.
And they sort of sassily say, so we
can stay here and serve you.
Now, I'm not legalistic.
I'm not a Sabbatarian.
But I do believe God has built into
the fabric of the universe, the fabric of
things, the need for an individual to be
governed by the principle of time to rest.
And my wife, I've just been so grateful
for her having the same weight length.
You know, every now and then you get
caught in a situation where you're with people
and you go out to eat.
But wouldn't it be something, a real testimony
in a community if God's children would say
to the folk in all the restaurants, we'd
like to invite you to church and we're
not going to take up your time.
Are you following me?
No, you're not.
But that's all right.
I still believe that at some point, the
outward rules that flow out of inward principles
need to be better understood.
The thing that I'll deal with next is
what I call chasing a cause or
enlightened conscience.
Let's call it enlightened conviction.
We were driving the other day coming through
West Virginia.
Suddenly I looked up and then kind of
drowsing, I saw a great big billboard that
said, don't destroy my mountains underneath God.
I looked back again, I thought, God, somebody
really loves you and your world.
Don't destroy my mountains, God.
Some environmentalist, somebody with a real burden to
keep things in the natural state.
And I have no problem with some of
that, except that it gets to the point
where if you're not careful, people begin to
chase a cause.
People begin to chase some champion, some issue.
And the real concern that I have is
that the people who are chasing a cause,
let me say this, I have chased causes
as a young person.
My mother used to meet me every time
I'd come back after three or four months
and say, what's the latest cause, son?
I meant well, but I was always championing
a burden about something.
She knew it would pass away because when
you are really enlightened and something becomes a
conviction, I often say, what would you die
for?
Is there anything you would die for?
Any issue that's meaningful and significant enough that
you would die for?
Let me illustrate.
We sat in a large banquet table next
to me, happened to be one of our
Indiana Senators.
He was sitting at that table, I believe
eight, my friends, and in the course of
their fellowship that evening before he was to
get up to speak, they were agitating and
everyone were urging him to get school back
in the prayer, prayer back in the schools,
prayer back in the schools.
And he looked around, the seven or eight
around the table, he said, how many of
you have had prayer with your child this
week?
Not one of them.
So he stands up before this group of
maybe a thousand good Hoosiers and he says,
I want to explain to you folk the
difference between chasing a cause and having a
deep conviction.
And he looked down to that table, he
said, appreciate all you men, but if you
really had a deep conviction regarding prayer, you'd
have it in the home, even though we
need it in school, you'd have it.
Amen.
What are you saying tonight?
Just this.
Oh, we get so caught up in championing
issues and things and I'm for taking a
stand.
But I'm talking about the inward principle, the
inward reality, the real issues that I believe
God is after.
Well, several have come up to me this
last couple of days and said, when are
you going to talk about being offended right
now?
One of the messages, principles I'd like to
deal with through the years is best illustrated
by a little situation that took place years
ago when I was in Maryland, ministering in
a high school, the close of a morning
chapel.
I'd been speaking all week and the headmaster
came and he said to me, Brother Byrne,
we have a fine senior boy who has
suddenly really disappointed us.
And we don't know what really is involved,
but I've invited him to come into the
office.
And I wish maybe you'd come in and
counsel and let's see if we can get
at the root of his problem.
His tall, senior, handsome kid came in, slouched
down.
You could tell by his body manner he
was saying, well, I'm here, but I don't
intend to talk.
And he didn't for probably seven, eight minutes.
He was just there.
The headmaster was trying to draw him out.
Your attitude's been wrong.
You were behind the buildings today smoking and
you violated all these rules.
What's happened?
Finally, he blurred out and he said, you'd
be angry like I am if you had
a father like mine.
And then he would not explain.
He said, you know, about two, three months
ago, my dad shot all my pet pigeons.
This father had a boarding place for horses
and all the hayloft was filled with choice
hay.
And the pigeons were messing up the hay.
And he said, my dad shot them, didn't
ask me, just shot them.
And he said, last week, my little dog
walked down the aisle of the barn and
vomited and he shot my dog.
He said, I've got a right to be
angry with a father like that.
Well, I would have to be honest with
you.
I wanted to shoot the father, but I
I listened the best I could for a
moment and I saw the reasoning, the struggle
that was going on within him.
And I began to explain, I said, you
know, you're confused like a lot of individuals.
I'd like to just help you know the
difference between a reason and a right.
A reason and a right.
He's bewildered.
He said, you know, I believe God has
worked in your life.
I sense you love the Lord, but here
you are in a bitterness and a confusion
in your mind.
And you think you have a right to
be angry with the father who did this.
We don't agree with what he did.
I don't think he should have done.
He should have counseled with you.
But I'd just like to have you consider
for a moment the difference between a reasoning
and a right.
And I drew this little picture that I've
drawn so often.
I explained to him, I said, you know,
when you trust the Lord, you become as
a tree planted.
You belong to the Lord.
You're the planting of the Lord.
And God has planned for your life to
live by the supply of the grace of
God.
Now, you are telling me that you have
a struggle because you think your dad was
wrong in what he did.
And therefore, you have a right to be
angry with him and with the school and
everyone else.
He said, well, I do.
I said, no, there's a difference between a
reasoning and a right.
You see, if you are the Lord's Romans
five says we stand in the grace of
God, you are planted the grace wherein you
stand.
But God has a river of grace down
here that can enable you to face any
crisis, any situation that comes if your roots
will go down to the river of grace.
There's a definition of grace that we need
to be clear about.
It's not only a favorable position in which
we stand.
Lance said it so well yesterday, I believe
it was.
God's grace is the divine enablement to fulfill
any situation, anything that develops.
And so I like to say that this
river of grace is God's giving us the
desire or the power or the ability to
do or fulfill what God wills for our
life.
And your roots can go down and take
the desire and the power to forgive your
father for what he did.
Now, I said, if you're not careful, you
can become like lots of individuals I know,
a barren tree planted, but barren.
And instead of roots that go down like
this, they're offended with something someone has done.
They're offended because God has allowed it and
they're going to live a barrenness the rest
of their life.
And I said, now, here are two trees.
I want you to look at them because
you're making a choice today.
I believe that your roots are like this
right now, resisting.
God wants to give you the divine enablement.
Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the
grace of God, your roots can be like
this.
He looked at me, he says, well, how
do I get my roots down to the
river of grace?
He said, James speaks about it.
Peter speaks about it.
He giveth more grace to the humble.
He said, what God wants you to do,
just lay aside this reasoning that's going on
in your mind, because the scripture says, casting
down reasonings and every high thing that exalts
itself against the knowledge of God.
Casting these reasonings down and your roots can
go down to the river of grace and
God will give you desire and power to
forgive your father.
What he did, we can't justify.
But your problem right now is with God
because he has provided availability of grace.
You can cast down the reasonings.
In fact, you have no right to be
angry with the availability of grace, the desire
and the power that God gives.
I saw him look at this and he
said, whoa, you mean that's my roots?
Yeah, exposing them.
He said, well, I need to humble myself.
Yes, you cry out, God, forgive me for
judging you and my father.
And never forget, he turned around at the
chair, knelt down and cried out, oh God,
forgive me, cast out my reasonings.
I have no right to be offended, no
right to be angry.
It didn't take very long.
He got up and I saw the change
on his face, the smile.
He said, I'll be going home right away
to see my dad.
Ask him to forgive me.
Now, the reason I keep emphasizing this is
because every place I go, I'm amazed at
the individuals who come up against something just
as unfair.
The dad who shot the pigeons, the dog.
Things that develop in the church and the
first thing you know, we're wounded, we're offended.
People ask what's wrong.
Nothing.
And yet, if we were to be honest,
we're offended because of someone, something has taken
place.
I am utterly amazed in our city of
Indianapolis, having been there over 30 years now,
moving around and after a while, you get
into various churches and I'm just amazed how
people escape from one place to another, offended,
offended, offended.
And I just have to keep saying to
folks, cheer up.
God is after you.
Sooner or later, he's going to find you
in your offense.
And if you can be offended, you will
be offended too.
Oh, not me.
Well, I'm not sure about that, but I
guess the reason I'm so convinced of this,
because I know how many times I've been
on the verge of being offended with the
Lord.
Something was totally unfair, wrong.
I could justify myself, but I was offended.
Didn't tell anybody.
So God began to move in and say,
look, you'll humble yourself.
I'll give the desire to forgive these people
for what they did.
Yours is wrong because of your allowing offense
in your heart.
I'm not sure that that fits anybody tonight,
but in the very practical areas, the fact
is it's happened since I got here.
Individuals have come up and said, you'll never
know some years ago when I saw this
little picture of being offended and God has
spoken to me through it many times when
I was about to bolt, move on, go
some other place.
The practical issue tonight is basically this then.
If God has made provision, I have no
right.
Can reason about it, but I cast reasonings
down.
I have no right.
The availability is there.
Well, let's move on quickly.
The picture we're getting at tonight is this.
If God is working any kind of wisdom
in our lives, we begin to see that
talent's one thing, brokenness is something else.
God brings us to the place of being
responsible for issues, the accountability.
Well, let's just take a couple more before
we close out tonight.
The concern I have so often is when
I see individuals who have lost their, put
it this way, they've lost their focus.
Here is one thing we call direction and
direction in a life should have what I
like to call the real focus in which
the Lord is working.
What do you mean by this?
How many times have I sat for a
little bit, sat the other day in the
plane coming back from San Diego, young doctor
sitting beside me and I said, what plans
would you have?
What would you like to be 25 years
from now?
What are you looking for?
He said, well, he said, I don't know.
I'm going to live.
He would surely live 25 more years in
the normal course.
What would your hope, your expectation, what would
you like to be 25 years from now?
He said, well, I really hadn't considered it.
The fact is, I'm amazed among God's own
children, how few individuals they are who begin
to sense the sharpening of the focus, what
God's really after in their life.
This began to take on some meaning to
me when I began to realize that in
the Apostle Paul and his own life in
ministry, you get a little unfolding in the
fact that there came a day of direction
and that moment of direction, there began to
be a sharpening of focus.
Let me give it to you in one
verse.
It's Romans chapter one and verse one.
This all came to meaning to me years
ago.
Many years ago, I walked in after service
one night, too tired to fall asleep and
turned on the radio and heard the familiar
voice of Charles Fuller.
Now probably 90% of you have the
idea who he is or was, the old
fashioned Revival hour.
And he said to the radio audience that
night, I want to speak to you about
the calling of God, the unfolding, the way
God leads the life in the sharpness of
focus.
And he said, it's been a real help
to me to discover what Paul says.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to
be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God.
He said, I see the general calling, I
see the special calling in his life, and
I see the specific thing that God was
wanting to work out in his life.
That little word, Paul, a bondsman, Paul, a
servant, one whose ear has been pierced, one
who is given the total direction of his
life.
Oh, God, from this moment on, I belong
to you.
I've been hearing the testimony of a few
young people who said, there came a moment
in my life, there came a time some
years ago when I knew the basic direction
was set.
Ever any doubt since?
What is that basic direction?
Well, you see, the problem at this point
is that you qualify first in learning, and
this is so appropriate for what we've been
seeing and hearing.
We are bondsmen, we are slaves, we've given
up the rights to our own life.
We choose to serve, and I believe that
the degree to which the Apostle Paul entered
into this first sphere of serving, bondsman, giving
himself, there was in the church at Antioch,
these prophets, he had given himself there in
ministry, in serving the Lord.
Then the time came when God could move
him into the more special thing that he
had, separate me, send out Barnabas and Saul.
It would never have happened if there hadn't
been first the fulfilling of the servanthood, the
general in his life.
And because Paul was faithful in the special,
the churches that he planted, the time came
when the specific thing that God was going
to work through his life, the ministry of
the letters that were written to all of
these churches.
See, so many people want to get into
the focus, just wanted to get my life
really focused, like to get to the specific.
It'll never come until you pay your dues
as a servant, and you move into fulfilling
the special.
Then the specific thing that God has, and
I just can't help but realize tonight, how
through the years, that little principle that Charles
Fuller planted in my own life has been,
oh God, I really want to know how
to be your bondslave.
My right's given up, my ears pierced, sensitive
to know what you really want, and the
degree to which that, God was able to
move him into the more special thing, thrust
him forth in the planning of churches.
And then finally, the specific thing that we're
blessed with today, when we pick up the
letter of Ephesus, the letter of Colossae, the
letters that were written, could never have happened.
So the question tonight is this, if God
has basic direction in our life, am I
following on faithfully to allow the special and
the specific to unfold?
I expect there were those who were saying,
Paul ought to be out planning more churches,
he's committed himself to this whole issue with
Caesar, to Caesar he will go.
Poor Paul, he could be out so much
more use.
You can never measure from God's viewpoint, what
he's working in life, until you see the
real blessing, and not the churches that he
planted, but we have the specific thing in
the letters that Paul wrote.
Well, let's move on to another.
I think I'm always interested in the fact
that there are some things that are given
to us, and then that have to be
earned.
Certain things that are given, things that are
earned.
I've often looked at an individual, I said,
or two groups, were you ever given a
position of responsibility before you're prepared for it?
And almost everybody said it happens all the
time.
We get a position, something given to us,
and then we have to learn how to
earn the right, the authority in it.
And I began to explain, you know there's
an individual in the Old Testament, who went
through this problem.
People of Israel crying out, give us a
king, give us a king.
They wanted to be like the other nations.
God heard them, and he gave them a
king.
Raised up a man who looked just like
they wanted, his name was Saul.
And I've often looked at an individual said,
do you know why in God's picturing of
the thing, Saul was anointed with a vial
or a flask of oil, but years later,
David was anointed with a horn of oil.
Was there a difference?
The oil was probably the same.
One represented the flask, the other the horn.
And I go on to explain, the fact
that Saul was given this position, made king,
God is saying, this is man's way.
I will acknowledge, give him a place, a
position, but there's going to have to develop
in his life some inward preparation.
Most of us get positions at times, long
before there's been any inward reality or preparation
or character produced.
And you see how God was giving King
Saul openly, open opportunities to obey, to develop,
to come into earning position.
Now, by contrast, God works in a young
man called David, herding his sheep, taking care
of the father's flock, all these things.
David goes through crisis after crisis, the bear
that he killed, the lion that he killed,
all these things, I believe are inward preparation.
Do you know why?
Because God is beginning to develop inwardly in
David, the spiritual authority and preparation.
They begin to say, what do you mean,
Lord?
He said, you know, there's an authority that's
given by man from a position, but the
authority that I'm after is like a horn
that grows and develops, a horn.
When an animal is developing a horn, picture
of a horn is something of authority.
I remember back on the farm in Dakota
one day, my grandfather turned to my uncle
and said, you see that roan cow out
there?
I want those horns off by night.
We stood and observed and looked.
The first thing I realized, those horns were
keeping everybody, all the other animals, two or
three feet away.
What was it?
The authority that issued because of the horns.
Oh, it came tumbling back and I thought,
oh God, there is in the scripture a
picture of the horn that grows, the horn
that develops, the inward authority that comes out
of character.
You spend all this time preparing David, a
little horn was growing.
Could it be that your way of saying
the vial represents man's giving a position?
God allows preparation to take place, but the
real preparation of the Lord is the horn
that's growing and developing within.
I've heard the individual say, well, that means
that the horn can grow.
I can earn the position because of what
God has begun to work in me through
the principle of learning to walk in obedience
with him.
The question tonight is basically this.
We just have folk with the vial of
oil, or do we have those in whom
God has taken the horn?
The oil of life out of which springs
the character and the qualities that he's after.
Well, let's bring it to a close by
simply saying tonight, if there are any practical
realities God wants to work, may he somehow
help us to recognize that in the course
of training, practical issues, he's saying, I would
prepare you if your ears were pierced, there
was an openness and a real sensitivity.
In the meantime, all the practical issues may
not mean much, but my burden is, oh
God, raise up some of us who know
how to minister to serve one another by
when we see a real need slipping in
and saying, you know, you've got a reasoning,
but you don't have a right.
You're chasing a cause that is worth dying
for.
God wants to enlighten you.
You have some direction, but you need to
qualify in serving a bondsman so that the
sharpness of focus can really be fixed and
settled in your life.
I'm grateful, and I close with this tonight,
I'm grateful for some of the individuals God
has brought into my life through the years.
Things that still stand to shake my heart,
when I was a much younger man back
in 1948, came a crisis that was a
real sharpening of the direction of my life.
I've been ministering for several years on the
West Coast, quite often slipping into Yakima, Washington,
to my friend ministering on the radio with
him.
We left a conference on Monday morning, closed
out the day before, gathered in a circle,
invited a missionary from Korea who had been
through much revival and blessing of the Lord,
invited her to ride with me back from
Yakima to Portland, near where she lived, another
missionary and the partner who was traveling with
me.
We reached the edge of Yakima, suddenly were
hit head-on by a young man driving
a stolen car, making a getaway, losing control.
He came way over into the far lane
where we were, hit his head on.
His car almost instantly burned, went into flames.
Traffic backed up and they were able to
lift my car away from it.
We were all unconscious, we were there.
The lady sitting next to me, Daisy, had
poured out her life in Korea.
She'd been back home maybe six or eight
months.
She seemed to show up wherever I was
holding meetings and just constantly praying and nudging
me to keep sure that my heart was
really focused toward him.
Daisy went to be with the Lord that
day, along with the other young man in
the other car.
I was stunned when after about nine or
ten days came out of the coma and
discovered what had happened to her.
Some months passed and got a letter from
Daisy's mother saying, you know, you might like
to have the diary that Daisy wrote in
the last six months.
She came back from Korea.
You might like to have the diary.
Some very wonderful things hidden in it.
I was pleased, felt honored.
I clipped out one little portion and pasted
it from one Bible to another because it
has spoken again and again to my heart.
I read it to you tonight.
She wrote, typed it out, the way you
look at it, from an April Digest, 1948.
A young soldier wounded in the Battle of
the Bulge heard the army surgeon speak to
him very tenderly.
You're going to be all right, son.
The only bad part is that you lost
a leg.
We had to amputate.
But gasp, the soldier, I didn't lose it.
I gave it.
To this, Daisy wrote, the best years of
my life, not lost, but given to my
Lord, not to an organization, nor a cause,
nor even a mission field, but to him.
Therefore, it is all right, if he is
so satisfied, to put me aside.
Perhaps he does want the remaining years of
my life.
Perhaps not.
But can I not trust his wisdom and
mercy?
She wrote that in her diary, April 13th.
Monday, May 6th, she went to be with
the Lord.
I had seen Daisy that day before.
There was a strange hush in the arena,
probably a thousand people sitting there, waiting what's
next.
Unannounced, uninvited, I remember Daisy walking all the
way down to the platform, moving up to
stand behind the microphone and said, I felt
impressed before we went on to tell you
that I am so burdened for America.
I've come back from revival and God's dealing
where we've been on the field, find such
casual, such coldness, such indifference.
Thank God for many of you here.
But she said, we all need a fresh
touch from the Lord.
And she said, looking up, I would gladly
give my life, if it would be the
means of bringing awakening to this area, or
to our country.
That's all she said.
Nobody invited.
She went back, sat down.
Most of us who remember that, look back
on that day before when she had said,
I would gladly give my life.
It's little things like this that keep nudging
and pressing me to say, oh God, I
don't want to just somehow finish.
I want a run to win.
I want Paul's spirit of pressing toward the
mark for the prize.
Not a matter of years.
It's a matter of a spirit that says,
God, I want to finish triumphantly.
We laid in the hospital for eight days
and conscious and then awakened one day.
A young man had come all the way
from Portland.
He'd heard about it on the radio.
We've been on the radio and the station
there kept a prayer vigil around the clock.
People were praying for the recovery of my
partner, the other lady in the car, and
myself.
One was dead, two were dead, the other
fell.
I remember awakening out of, for the first
time, wondering what was all about.
Suddenly, a voice speaking to me and a
young man said, I heard about this on
the radio and God sent me to pray
for you.
He said, I had two flat tires and
had to finally hitchhike to get here, but
I know God sent me because he wants
me to pray for you.
Now here's a strange voice, somebody I'd never
met, standing over before me and saying, God
sent me to pray for you.
The difficulty was this, both my eyes were
bandaged.
The doctor was fearful that I would lose
my eyesight and he said, but God sent
me.
And short of the story, I believe that
the Lord touched a back that was broken,
a knee that was pulverized.
I believe God did some miraculous working because
in the next weeks, we began to recover.
There was an awareness and a sense of
a hand, the healing hand of the Lord.
One day, they said a lady walked in
who had been in Seattle.
In Seattle, she had heard over the radio
of the accident and alerted many of the
friends there praying.
She said to her close friend, I wish
you would go to Yakima, just 130 miles,
and sing this song to Brother Framke.
I've heard that he might lose his eyesight
unless there's intervention.
I never saw her, but I remember standing.
I could hear a lovely voice as she
began to sing.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in his wonderful face.
The things of earth will grow strangely dim
in the light of his glory and grace.
She explained to me that her friend Helen
Lemel, who wrote that particular song, had sent
her to sing it for me and to
give me an autographed copy.
She was praying that God would touch my
eyes, and then she explained.
She said, you know, Helen Lemel has been
blind from the year four or five.
She was blinded in some particular situation, but
all these years, the cry of her heart
has been, oh Lord, I'm so glad you're
giving me spiritual eyes.
She began to claim and to pray.
You can be thankful that God did touch,
because while there's been weakness, there's been a
good recovery of eyesight.
I kept rejoicing and saying, oh God, oh
God, what a privilege to have Helen Lemel's
song.
Not only that, but to have her praying.
She knew what it would be like to
be blind.
One day I was sharing this in A
.C. Switzerland.
The sister who was playing the piano started
to play the song, Turn Your Eyes Upon
Jesus.
Look up to speak a few minutes later.
I explained how precious that song was to
me, how wonderful it had been, because the
way the Lord had ministered to me when
I was almost sure we were going to
lose our eyesight.
I no more got through with that.
Brother Sparks walked up, put his arm around
me, he said, I knew Helen Lemel personally.
She moved from Seattle down to California.
One day I got a call from Helen.
She said, Brother Sparks, often she visited Westmoreland
Chapel, she said, I have a choice to
make.
With all the new types of surgery and
all they can do to repair eyes, they
tell me my eyesight might be restored.
She looked at Brother Sparks and said, would
you pray with me?
If this is God's choice, that I will
know to enter into the surgery.
He said, we'll be praying.
He went back, I think a day or
two later.
She said to him, I've decided not to.
She said, God has given me through the
years such insight, inward spiritual insight.
I'm afraid if I had the others, I
might miss it.
Anyway, she said, the first face I'd like
to look upon is my lovely Lord.
I only share this with you tonight because
God brings issues across your life through the
years and they're benchmarks, the things that rivet
you to the fact that there is a
focus to your life, finishing the race triumphantly,
pressing spirit.
I keep crying, oh God, I've been so
privileged through the years to know individuals who
not only had direction but the sharpening of
the focus until the one cried the heart
is, oh God, just to know you and
to please you.
Well, I share my heart with you tonight
just simply to say, do you have a
focus?
Has he been sharpening it?
I don't think any of us sitting here
these last few days, but what there's been
a whole new awareness within, we are called
to be servants.
He's the one who serves in us.
It's by the river of his grace.
It is not our own, but by his
supply that we live.
But the sharpening of the focus is, oh
God, let me fulfill the race triumphantly.
Father, I pray tonight you will take some
of these bits and pieces and make them
meaningful in the lives of some of the
parents.
Help them to recognize it's one thing to
tell what, another thing to give the why
back of it.
When they're talking to a son or a
daughter, help them to recognize the principles behind
that will make the what, the thing they're
asking, more meaningful.
I pray tonight that you'll lift us and
move us just beyond having gifts, talents to
give to you, but allowing the brokenness, the
dealing, the consecration within our life until there
can be out of that the overflow for
yourself.
I claim in this closing moment that all
that we learned this week, all that we
said yes to, you'll summarize into one statement.
Yes, Lord, we hear you speaking.
We choose to finish the race triumphantly.
We will give you thanks and praise and
honor and glory.
But we ask it in Jesus name and
everybody said amen.