Well, this is a privilege.
I know you're excited about my being here,
but I'm more excited about being here than
you can realize.
I've been looking forward to seeing some of
you for a long time.
Some of you have changed a little bit.
I really don't know.
I often ask people to give their testimony,
but when I'm asked to do it, that's
another thing.
I've been praying for the last two or
three days, asking how I could somehow focus
something that wouldn't be on me, but would
be beneficial and would focus our attention to
the Lord Himself.
And this is what I've come up with.
I was with a friend of mine.
We had a conference back in Florence, Alabama
a couple of months back.
And he used a diagram that I'm going
to use tonight.
It's out of Richard Foster's book.
I don't know which book.
I just borrowed it from Peter.
So I'm going to use that as a
way of explaining the history of God's dealing
and working in my life.
And it'll show you how many times I've
missed the way, and how faithful He's been,
and how patient He's been.
But I discover I'm not the only one.
I'd like to use this title for what
I want to say tonight.
I hunted for a Scripture verse.
Usually you ought to have a Scripture verse.
I couldn't find anything.
So this is what I want to talk
to you about.
The main thing is to keep the main
thing the main thing.
Should we say that all together or do
you need to repeat it?
The main thing is to keep the main
thing the main thing.
Now the question is, what's the main thing?
We'll talk about that Sunday.
But I'm going to be getting around to
it all these times together.
What I want to say tonight basically has
to do with the struggle and the longing
of my heart all the time to be
obedient to the Lord and to cut through
to the main issues in life.
I like wholeheartedness.
One thing I hate about somebody is a
slowpoke dragging their feet.
That's not me.
My wife and I, she's a little slower
than I am.
When we walk, we always got a problem.
But I have a problem with a lot
of people that are just sort of dragging
their feet.
Because there's one thing that has been a
desire in my heart, and that has been
to be all out and wholehearted.
It has problems though.
It really does.
And you'll see it as we get along
in our testimony tonight.
What I want to do in this is
to show you what I'm going to call,
or what Richard Foster has called, the main
stream or the river of God.
And then we're going to see some areas
here where we sort of get out of
main stream.
And if we're not careful, get off and
become a little eddy and a whirlpool out
here.
Lots of activity, but no progress.
As I look back and I see the
faithful dealing of the Lord and His working
in my heart, I think that these six
things really picture something of a struggle and
a desire to really press on.
I have to say that I'm very grateful,
first of all, that I was born into
a family, a mother and dad who really
loved the Lord.
Mother reminded me for many years that when
I was in the womb, she prayed.
She prayed that I would become a servant
of the Lord in her church.
And when I left, it was a real
disappointment.
You have no idea how she suffered.
It was a good church, but I got
off into college after having left South Dakota
and went to Seattle where I entered a
school that was of that denomination and got
all the way through with a heart seeking
God.
I look back at those early years as
a boy growing up.
We had what we called a fall and
spring revival every year.
And part of the frustration, the difficulty that
I went through was I was back at
the altar every fall and spring getting saved
over and over again.
Some of you have never been through that.
Some of you don't know what that involves.
But I remember as a boy really longing
to please the Lord and yet being typical
and mischievous and all that went with it.
And each time I'd get up and I'd
pound my fist and I'd say, pray for
me that I can hold out to the
bitter end, whatever that is.
Well, I went through that in college as
they had fall and spring revivals again.
Never sure, never really sure of salvation.
And one day when God in His wonderful
mercy showed me the grace of God that
it wasn't my hanging on to Him to
keep saved, but that He had taken hold
of my hand and that which I had
committed unto Him, He would keep against that
day.
The revelation of grace was a wonderful thing
to my heart.
The fact is that's all I spoke about
for a long time, the grace of God.
And it keeps being wonderful.
You'd have to have been through the background
of what I went through and have realized
the awful uncertainty.
You know, I don't want to be light
about this, but I actually got to the
place where I said, Lord, I'll never be
able to live this kind of life.
I'll never be able to hold out.
All I need is ten minutes at the
end to get right.
You have no idea if there's any kind
of honesty and sincerity.
You have no idea what a struggle it
was.
How could, you see, how could?
Well, it all depended on me, but the
grace of God was a wonderful thing when
suddenly I realized that it's what He did,
not what I was doing.
So that was a shock to my mother
when she discovered I believed that, and my
dad.
But I look back and I see how
God has led, God has directed through these
years.
After we graduated from college, I moved in
Youth for Christ.
I was on the West Coast, went to
Salem, which was the capital of Oregon.
We were directing a serviceman's center just as
the war was closing.
And when the serviceman's center closed, we started
a youth center.
And I had privilege for three years of
ministering in Salem as a Youth for Christ
director.
We had large crowds of young people going
into the high schools day after day in
the five or six areas around.
The strangest thing began to develop in the
midst of this.
There was something of God putting a deep
hunger and a long in my heart for
something besides activity.
You see, all I can remember is that
I was performing to please God and to
keep safe.
That was before the revelation of grace had
come to me.
I was performing.
I was wanting to please God.
And there was a tremendous desire.
And then I got invited to a conference
over on the coast.
We took the gospel team, quartet and trio.
I had been on the radio as a
speaker at the center there.
And I still feel like it was a
little bit of a put-up job.
I thought it was really wonderful to be
invited as a conference speaker.
I thought I'd kind of arrived to come
to a big place and to be able
to speak for the Labor Day weekend.
But I'll never forget when I got there,
the director of the conference came to me,
and he said, we have two speakers for
the weekend.
I'll have Brother Bill speak tonight, and you
can speak tomorrow.
That night, I sat in that group, and
he put a mirror before us and began
to show the works of the flesh from
Galatians 5.
And it was as though God put a
mirror before me, and I saw myself as
I had never seen myself before.
It's hard to explain.
I was a good boy, clean, moral.
I'd never gotten into a lot of things.
I'd grown up in a good background.
Very careful.
Of course, I lied and would cheat and
steal and things like that.
But, I mean, they were all little things.
That night, for the first time in my
life, I saw what God saw of me.
And it was an awful picture.
It really was.
I remember sitting there thinking, and I've got
to get up and speak tomorrow.
Well, I went to the speaker.
I hadn't met him before.
I went up afterwards, and I thought two
speakers ought to buddy-buddy a little bit.
He looked at me, and he said, Did
God speak to you tonight?
And I said, Wait a minute.
To myself, I'm the other speaker.
He said, I don't think we should do
much talking now.
Let's just get alone and everybody be quiet
before God.
I got to my room that night, and
I cried out, Oh, God, why did you
bring me here, speaker at a business and
professional women's conference?
And I'm such a wretched, miserable mess.
I wrestled through the night.
I didn't sleep.
I went to the breakfast, and in the
morning I turned to the director, and I
said, You know, I didn't have a very
good night.
Maybe I ought to have Bill speak again.
He looked at me and said, That'll be
fine.
So then he loaded his second barrel and
shot again.
All I guess I'm trying to say to
you is, there comes an appointed hour in
our lives when we quit playing, and God
really breaks in and does something in our
life.
And that's what happened.
After all these years in a Christian home,
in church, going through a Christian college, suddenly
at a conference, God dealt with my life.
That next morning was worse than the night
before.
He handed out a sheet of paper and
had us write down all the things that
He was talking about.
And the Holy Spirit exposed my heart again.
I only tell you this because it's so
real, even though it's, what would it be,
forty-five years ago?
It's so real to my heart tonight.
You know when God really begins to deal
in your life.
Well, I wrestled all through the afternoon.
We were off, and I knew I had
to speak that night.
In the afternoon hours, I went through all
the messages.
I had a whole pile of things that
I could, you know, a reservoir that I
could share from.
But everything was empty.
Everything was dull.
And finally in my crying out, I remember
saying, Oh Lord, give me a fresh word.
And He reminded me of the 23rd Psalm,
that I could just start there and He
would begin to unfold it.
And I did that night.
Never forget, the Lord is my shepherd.
And I looked out over that group and
I said, I just will be honest with
you, beginning tonight, I'm not sure He's ever
been my shepherd before.
But I have come to some decision these
days I've been here.
I grew up in South Dakota and I
would take several hundred sheep up to the
pasture.
I was always driving them.
That's the way we did it in Dakota.
And I said, I discovered that in the
Bible lands, the shepherd went before and the
sheep followed him.
But I've had to be driven all the
way.
And I just want you folk to know
as I stand before you tonight, that for
the first time that I can ever really
be sure of, I can say, the Lord
is my shepherd.
He's not having to drive me.
I'm following Him.
I shall not want.
I've had a rather strange thing happen.
The day before we left to go to
this conference, I was living in a home
with some Christian friends.
They had one bathroom and it's difficult to
get in.
I usually had to get to the center
early.
Sometimes Bill would get in the bathroom and
shave before I did.
That particular morning I remember sitting out in
the hallway in front of the bathroom door
waiting to get in and I picked up
the Sears Roba catalog.
Just thumbing through pages, waiting for him to
come out.
And as I looked up, Bill came out
and he said, So, Vern, having your morning
devotions?
You don't know how true that was.
My heart was so sticky, it wanted everything
on every page.
I didn't plan to tell you all that.
You know what happened that night?
I just went on from phrase to phrase.
The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want.
Finally, the spirit of conviction was so heavy
on me.
I said, folk, I can't go on.
I need to get down at the altar.
I'd always had a haunting suspicion that one
day I'd be the first one at my
own altar call.
And I was.
I remember kneeling in an old rough auditorium
and I cried out, Oh God.
And I looked around and I believe everybody
in the audience was on their face, weeping.
God came in.
And that was the first time I began
to realize that in our obedience and honesty
before God, so often He's able to deal
with the hearts of others.
Because, I suppose, two or three hundred.
Can you imagine a proud young man going
to a business and professional women's meeting and
doing that?
I mean, getting down and saying, God, you
need to save me first.
That was my terminology.
You look at me strange.
Are you following me?
You couldn't because you've never been through anything
like that.
But it was an awful experience.
But I look back at that as a
crisis time.
It was a beginning point.
You see, the very first thing that took
place from that moment on, I came to
realize that God wanted me to be a
soul winner, evangelism, and the enlargement of that
to a missionary outreach.
The first phase, the first emphasis of my
life was an all out, buttoning everybody to
make sure they were winning souls.
And evangelism was very real.
How many of you believe that's alright?
I'm not tricking you.
Would you say that's alright?
There needs to be more of an overflow,
you see.
God began to develop.
Not only I was really sincere, but this
became the main thing to me for quite
a while.
If you're not winning souls, if your spirit
isn't fervent, if you're not zealous in witnessing,
if you're not living and finally it expanded,
if you're not reaching out to a whole
lost world, something's really wrong in your life.
And I look back at those days.
I just need to hasten through it and
say, I look back at those days.
They were wonderful days.
We were in Youth for Christ.
Lots of young people met the Lord.
There was a zeal.
There was a desire.
I often wonder, do you think you'll get
any Amway override for souls that you've won
who've touched souls?
Are you following?
Are you there?
Do you know what that is?
Do you know what...
Well, that's not the point, but it sure
would be wonderful.
And then I began to see something.
I came to realize that the reason a
lot of people didn't want Jesus because there
were too many Christians, too many folk whose
lives didn't match up.
You'd witness to them.
You'd try to express something.
They said, hmm, I don't want that.
Even here today, a lot of folk would
say, well, I sure love Jesus, but I
don't know about all these kids.
You run into it all the time.
And that led me to the next phase.
The next thing that began to be emphasized,
I began to say, well, Lord, evangelism, soul
winning, missionary world outreach, and God has a
wonderful way at this time.
But I began to realize that unless there
was some holiness of life, unless there was
some separation, those people who were more godly,
He couldn't use them.
So, about this time, the Holy Spirit began
to work and revival began to come.
I saw that if God could really empty,
then He could fill.
So the emphasis for a whole period of
time was one of a holiness of life,
emptying.
I sought holiness.
That may be meaningful to you.
There's a lot of different kinds of emphasis
in holiness, emptying, that you might be filled.
And I thank God for all that I
went through.
But it was about this time that I
came into some of the writings of Jesse
Penn Lewis and the cross and identification.
I don't know how meaningful that is to
you, but up to this time, everything had
been cleansing of the old life.
Now, for the first time, I saw that
the real problem was me.
It was I.
It was that I needed to be dealt
with.
And I went through a period there of
really crying out, Oh God, how faithful You
are to finally show me that the real
root of the problem is the tree that
needs to be dealt with.
Have you ever read any of Jesse Penn
Lewis and the work of the cross, the
identification message?
It's a very wonderful thing to me.
I left the work that we'd been on
the west coast in Youth for Christ and
came back into the area where my parents
had moved.
I remember saying goodbye.
It was a lovely center we had built.
I guess my heart was in it.
When I said goodbye, not knowing where I
was going, just heading back, I took a
long route from Salem down through San Diego
and then finally back to Missouri.
And one afternoon as I was on the
bus reading, I remember the book.
It was D.
L.
Moody's life story, Bush o' Glow.
And one little phrase came to my heart
as I was reading.
Where Moody had reached a crisis and he
said, he'd read where the world, it said,
the world has yet to see what God
can do through one life that is wholly
yielded to him.
Moody looked up and he said, God, I'd
like to be that individual.
The world has yet to see what God
can do through one life that's wholly yielded
to him.
It's a trailways bus.
We were out in the middle of Nevada
someplace.
I remember laying the book aside and I
knew that God filled me with his spirit.
How did you know?
Intuitionally, I guess.
I just sensed an anointing, something come upon
my life.
We got back to where I was going
to live with my parents.
Mother invited me to speak to the young
people's group at the little church where they
were attending.
To hasten the story, in the next months,
revival broke out.
Went from that Presbyterian church to the Methodist,
the Baptist churches all around.
Went on for over 30 weeks.
Church to church to church.
Now I hasten to tell you, I thought
it was my preaching until I discovered a
group of ladies had been praying for 21
years.
God was answering their prayer.
Anybody could have come in.
I was only one thing.
I was obedient.
Desperately obedient.
I remember standing in this little church.
We'd been there for about a week.
Speaking had never been any problem to me
from high school and college days on.
You could always fill the air with words.
But I'd made a promise to the Lord.
I said, Lord, I'm not going to share
unless you give me something.
Here was this church filled.
I don't know why so many folk were
coming, but it must have been a Sunday
night.
I stood up before the group that night
and I said, You know, it's strange.
I've been speaking now for six or seven
nights, but God hasn't given me any word
tonight, and I don't know what we're going
to do.
But unless He tells me or gives me
something to share, I don't plan to share.
So you pray that He'll either give me
something or give somebody else something.
I stood down front by the pulpit.
I guess God had been working in many
hearts.
As I saw a brother from this side
move way over to the other side of
the church to another brother over there, they
were getting some things right, and I saw
them weep and grip one another.
And that struck the whole church because they
knew they'd been at odds for years.
In the next two hours, I saw God
move in and revival.
It began to deal in hearts.
Folk came up and said, The best night
we've had is the night you didn't speak.
Well, I'm not being honest.
You see what I'm getting at?
We have such a peculiar...
I believe that God wants obedience, folk.
That's all I want, just obedience to the
Lord.
He was faithful.
Well, that went on the next week, and
the next week out in that little rural
community, and then we were invited to come
into the city to the bigger church, and
then it moved from church to church.
But I only tell you that because Aunt
Anne and six ladies had gathered for 21
or 23 years and been praying, and God
answered.
That was sort of a beginning.
From that moment on, we began to get
invitations to a lot of places, but it
was during this time that moving from this
emphasis, telling people that they needed to be
cleansed and filled with the Spirit, then God
brought the writings of Jesse Penn Lewis.
And I saw that the big problem in
the church in my own life here, I'd
been in Youth for Christ.
We did lots of activity, lots of young
people touched for the Lord.
But you'd never guess the fellow you're looking
at standing with a bow tie with lights
on it, and I could turn a little
battery and they would come on.
You'd never guess all the things I did
to win young people.
The end justified any means.
Then when God began to put a mirror
before me and say, they don't see anybody
but you, Vern.
They're just modeling.
You know what I mean?
It's amazing how we can draw people to
ourselves unwittingly.
And I'd been doing it.
And I began to cry out.
Then God made the cross very real to
my life.
All the energy, the work of the flesh,
all that I'd been doing.
Lord, it's for your glory, but I sure
enjoy the intention in the middle of it.
You see what I mean?
Have you ever really been to the cross?
Have you ever faced what we call the
message of identification that when Jesus died on
the cross, I died there with Him?
Nailed to the cross with Him?
Buried in the tomb with Him?
When we resurrect in newness of life, I
come up in Christ on resurrection ground, a
new man.
I didn't understand all that that meant, but
I knew one thing.
There was a proud young man that needed
to die.
Guess what I preached for the next five
years?
Folk, you've got to die.
It wasn't very clear in a lot of
it, but I saw the judicial and the
objective.
I saw all the aspects.
Then I met the president or the head
of Prairie Bible Institute, L.A. Maxwell, who
had written the book Born Crucified.
If you haven't read that book, you ought
to get it.
Is it just really?
And the young people that I got acquainted
with up there.
That was a whole phase in my life.
I thank God for it because while you
move to different aspects of sanctification, different aspects
of God purifying your life, the next thing
that became very real to me about this
time was what I found Mrs. Penn Lewis
writing about.
And the best word I can know is
to call it the vision of God's eternal
purpose in Christ.
It was a wonderful thing to suddenly discover
that while God wanted to redeem humanity, that
He had purposed something for His lovely Son
that was beyond just being saved.
For the first time, I would look at
people and say, what would God have done
if man hadn't fallen so He'd have somebody
to save?
Let me run that through again.
Salvation and redemption, however precious and wonderful, was
the overshadowing thing in my life.
But I'd look at people and say, wonder
what God would have done if man hadn't
sinned.
Nobody to save.
Are you there?
I suddenly began to see the whole of
the purpose that God had in Christ.
That which He'd begun with and that which
is going to work.
I didn't understand very much of it, but
I did know this, that being saved and
being holy wasn't the end.
That God had a purpose to work out
in and through His Son.
And those of us who were involved, I
didn't see the church.
I didn't know much about the church.
But I remember how wonderful it was to
get a hold of it.
And I think from that time on, the
word purpose became my middle name.
The purpose.
The eternal purpose.
The purpose.
My mother would say to me, don't you
know anything but the purpose?
I'd say, mother, that's what's needed.
That's the missing note.
And I believe it was.
This will interest a lot of you.
In reading the Overcomer, any acquaintance with it?
That dates so far back.
Any with the old Overcomer that Mrs. Penn
Lewis put out?
Way, way back.
I remember reading in there in one of
the early editions.
She said in a very plaintive way that
two men who had been with her from
the beginning in the Overcomer message were leaving
and were going on their own.
And one of them was T.
Austin Sparks.
The other was, I forget his name.
And I remember, I was selling hundreds and
hundreds of books and magazines of Mrs. Penn
Lewis.
And I remember bowing and saying, oh God,
I don't know who this man Sparks is,
but he's sure missing your way.
It was a real, because that's all I
knew.
The Overcomer.
Can you imagine 20 years later when I
sat with him one day and I said,
long before I ever realized you'd be alive
or that I'd meet you, I really prayed
for you.
I remember the afternoon we sat there and
I explained to him.
I said, remember when Mrs. Penn Lewis wrote
in the Overcomer magazine just a couple paragraphs,
two men who had been identified with the
work.
You can just see him with his, yes
brother, I remember.
And then he told me, he said Mrs.
Penn Lewis wanted to keep the victorious, the
Overcomer message and interdenominational that moved around the
world among all groups.
And he said, I saw something of the
church, the vessel, the corporate expression and the
life flow that was going to come out
of the church.
He said, it was a very bitter thing
because, I'll give you his words, he said
Mrs. Penn Lewis felt that I would be
the one probably who would take over the
ministry.
He paid the price because he saw something
more.
The church as the vessel of expression of
the life of the Lord.
And we sat.
I remember weeping.
I said, oh, I'm so glad you're not
as bad as I thought you were.
After that, of course, I knew better.
Are you following?
After the Wabana days, he came to Indianapolis,
you know.
I think it was five years.
We'd spend a whole week in our home.
Mrs. Sparks and my wife would be out
in the kitchen just going like this.
He and I would have wonderful fellowship for
a couple hours.
We didn't have to talk all the time.
I remember him saying one day, I'm so
glad I'm getting acquainted with somebody who doesn't
have to talk.
Are you following what I'm getting at?
Well, maybe not.
Anyway, can you see now that what I'm
trying to say tonight is here is an
emphasis that the church needs.
You think it's possible for some poke to
get off here in an eddy and go
round and round as though that's the only
thing?
Or somebody over here to get in an
eddy?
I believe that there is a refreshing that
can come.
And I believe that in all of these
things, God keeps saying to me, here is
something that's needed in the stream, the body
of life, but it needs to have its
proper perspective.
Well, the next is touchy, but I'll go
into it anyway.
Having seen all of this, we'd started the
fellowships back in Missouri.
Our desire was a New Testament church, a
purity of church.
We started a boot camp, built 13 buildings,
training young people to come in.
See, about this time I got acquainted with
a missionary group.
I just named them.
It was called New Tribes.
They didn't believe that you needed to qualify
the flesh, that you could make rugged disciples,
you could bring people through quickly to the
work of the cross in their life and
thrust them out to the field.
And I worked with this group teaching at
their boot camp for quite some time.
Never ceased to thank God for the vision
of a lost world.
It keeps growing in my heart all the
time.
I think you'll sense that before we get
through this weekend.
It was at the close of the war.
MacArthur had brought Japan to surrender and he
asked for, what was it, 10,000 missionaries
to come to Japan?
And I responded.
I was with the group.
Responded to go to Japan.
Had a military permit, visa, bags all packed.
Said goodbye to the folk in Missouri.
I was on the West Coast in ministry
and meetings and was hit head on in
an automobile accident.
But for the grace of God, would have
died.
Young man was drinking, had stolen a car,
was making a getaway.
We lost control of the car.
We came over a big viaduct.
Hit my car head on.
I had a brother traveling with me.
Two missionaries.
There we were in four lanes of traffic.
The car caught fire almost immediately.
Thankfully, there were people stopping.
They couldn't get by.
They got the fire out and lifted.
It was his car that caught.
Lifted the car away.
All of us were unconscious in that car.
About a week later in the hospital, I
remember gaining consciousness.
Found out that one of the missionaries in
the outside seat who had been in the
Korean revival, her life had been such a
tremendous blessing to my heart.
I could go on for an hour about
Daisy.
How God had used her in the field
in Korea and then at home.
Now she was with the Lord.
My scalp was laid back.
My arm broken.
They took part of my kneecap out.
My back was broken.
I tuned in on the radio.
We'd been in ministry there quite a little
in the Yakima Valley.
Overheard one of the station men saying, the
prayer vigil for Frankie and the party is
going on 24 hours.
It had spread up and down the coast.
Conditions and I remember the details.
I wasn't expected to live.
Quite a thing to tune in and listen
to.
But God.
My eyes were bandaged.
They said I, probably this eye would sympathize
with it.
I would be blind.
But God.
About a week later, I heard a voice
over me.
A man came in.
He said he'd hitchhiked from Portland all the
way to Yakima, 150 miles.
Had flat tires and had to leave his
car only to get to the door and
have my mother stand there and say nobody
gets in.
The doctors had said no company.
He said God sent me.
Pushed her aside.
That's all I remember him saying.
And he said God has given me a
gift of healing and I've come to pray
for you.
Well, I was sort of, you know, in
and out of a stupor.
Didn't mean much.
He prayed and then he vanished.
Don't know who it is.
Never saw him again.
But I have to tell you that God
from that moment on began to, a recovering
work.
They were going to put a plate in
this arm because it was so badly fractured.
They had already taken part of my kneecap
out.
They were getting ready for, I won't go
into the details.
God touched my body and brought me back.
What's more wonderful, it was about this time
a lady slipped in who said she'd come
from Seattle.
A friend of hers had been listening on
the radio.
I guess had heard us when we were
ministering and then heard about the accident.
And she said my friend has composed a
song that's been a blessing to many people.
Here's an autographed copy.
She sent me over to sing it for
you.
She heard that your eyesight was in question.
Never forget, as the lady said, you may
not have heard of Helen Lemel, but she
wrote, Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face and the
things of earth will grow strangely dim in
the light of His glory and grace.
I'd heard the song because I had sung
it on occasion.
Now I had an autographed copy.
And then she told me as she stood
there, she said, you know, Helen Lemel has
been blind all through these years from the
time she was five or six.
She's been blind.
And in the midst of it, Helen has
prayed for one thing all the time.
Oh God, if I don't have physical eyes,
let me have spiritual eyes.
And I'll never forget when I heard her
singing, my heart looked up.
I said, oh God, if I'm going to
be blind, if I'm not going to be
able to see, I thank you for sending
this sister to remind me that spiritual eyes
are more important.
I claim spiritual eyes and eye salve.
That's very real to me.
But God, I believe, touched and healed.
And I'll explain it.
This is an interesting note.
It would be about 15 years later, I
was in Switzerland one day with Brother Sparks.
And you'd have to be with the group
there to know that everybody was in order
just like you're sitting here.
And the pianist was sitting at the piano
waiting for the chimes to go off at
the church at one o'clock for the
one o'clock meeting.
And then it would start.
We waited every day for that little episode.
And that day, the other secretary stood up
and said, Brother Sparks has asked me to
sing for you his favorite song today.
And she started to sing, Turn Your Eyes
Upon Jesus.
I got up to speak a moment later
and I said, oh Brother Sparks, that's interesting.
I never met Helen Lemel, but I have
an autographed copy.
I thought I was on the end, you
know.
Until he got up and he said, Brother,
I knew her.
Not only did I know her, he said,
one time when I was visiting later in
California, I got a phone call and she
said, Brother Sparks, I need for you to
come over and help me.
When he got there, he said, she was
told by the doctors that it's very possible
that with the new kind of eye surgery,
they could bring her eyesight back.
With his quivering voice, he said, she wanted
me to tell her what to do.
And we prayed together, fellowship together.
Then he said, her choice was this.
She said, maybe if I had physical eyesight,
I'd lose my spiritual eyesight.
And she opted against it.
And his concluding words were, there's something better
than healing.
Did you hear that?
I love to tell charismatics out all over
the country.
I'm not being catty now.
Did you hear that?
There is something better than healing.
What is it?
Well, the healer himself.
I'm way off my story.
Anyway, this will go on for hours.
I came at this time to realize that
the purpose of God in Christ would be
realized as lives were dedicated, as they were
holy unto the Lord.
But did you ever look out in situations
and feel totally helpless?
You see the problem?
Well, you can get into churches and you
see such desperate needs.
I mean desperate needs and say, oh God,
oh God, what's needed is for You to
expose and uncover.
And I came out of this accident with
all of the questions.
With the brother that I was with at
that time, we began to say, God, we've
had some revival, but things are fading.
What's next?
And I remember him whispering to me one
day and saying, what you really need is
more of the Holy Spirit.
More than I thought when I had him,
I had him.
He said, no, there's a difference between the
indwelling spirit and the outpoured spirit.
A difference between the fullness of the indwelling
spirit and the outpoured spirit.
Now this is delicate, stay with me.
I'm not radical, I'm just a little different.
And I began to cry out, oh God,
what do you mean?
What do you mean?
And for the first time in his own
way, we began to move in among folk
that were emphasizing power for service.
Back in those days, there was a real
break from the Pentecostal movement.
It was called the Latter Rain.
Now that's too old for most of you,
but they were an unusual group.
And the thing that was so different about
them was they emphasized proper church order.
All the things...
You see, in the meantime in here, I
had moved in among the Plymouth Brethren.
Revival here.
And we began to see the Brethren and
the structure of the church.
It was very wonderful.
Except that you can have all the order
without any life or enablement.
You can know all about the gifts, but
not have them operating.
And so, little by little, I found myself
reaching out and saying, oh God, if there
is an anointing, if there is the outpoured
Spirit, if there is more gifting that You
can work out in my life, I'm available.
Now remember, it had been through revival.
God had been dealing.
We'd come to some of these areas.
There's something about man that's always saying there
must be more.
Anybody ever said that beside me?
God, I've had the latest experience and after
a while there must be...
Now that's alright, because all the rest of
your life you'll be discovering that.
Even after you get my latest experience I'm
going to talk about.
I'm kidding you now.
Are you following?
What is the more that we really want?
It's just Himself.
You see?
And I'm not belittling, but I'm just simply
saying that there came a time when I
began to cry out, oh God, oh God,
I thank You for what I've seen of
the cross.
Thank You for the working of death.
These things I never forget.
But Lord, maybe there is something more.
And my heart was really open.
But I lived near Springfield, Missouri and that's
the world headquarters of the most radical people.
And I didn't want anything to do with
all that emotion because I'm generally speaking a
cautious, quiet German.
You don't believe that, but that's true.
Very cautious, very conservative.
But very recklessly, I began to say, oh
God, I'd be willing to become a Pentecostal
even though I know they're wrong.
They don't know the cross.
They don't know this and this.
They don't know the eternal purpose.
Are you following?
There comes times in your desperation.
People who lay hands on me, they say,
just like a stone, you can't help a
fundamentalist.
But one day in the woods when I
was all alone, one day all alone, the
dam sort of opened and God gave me
a prayer language that I wasn't particularly seeking,
just wanting to worship Him.
Now I lost a lot of you, but
that's alright.
It was really something.
Never told anybody for two or three years.
But there would be times when the overflow
and the desire to just worship and minister
to the Lord and there was an enablement.
But I never told, never told.
I don't think anybody knew about it.
One day we heard of a great conclave
up in Battleford, North Carolina.
Six of us drove up 3,000 miles
to this place and never forget it.
In the background, there had always been openness
and yet some hidden reservations.
I knew too much of the cross, too
much of the eternal purpose to give room.
And it was in the midst of a
great big auditorium, 2,500 people.
Very conservative group.
The song leader was leading and stopped after
a song or two and he said, I
feel led to give a message.
And he spoke forth very fluently in what
I felt was Ukrainian or Yugoslavian or it
was a language in lower Europe.
I nudged the pastor next to me and
I said, that's someplace in, it's a guttural
language.
He no more was through and about two
or three minutes later, we heard a weeping
in the back of the audience to shorten
the story.
Somebody there after the war had come from
the Ukraine area and that day, his name,
his history, his background, everything about him was
exposed and he was told by the message
in his language to repent.
There he was, falling on his face before
the Lord.
I saw that and heard it.
A lot of my prejudice.
You don't know how much prejudice I'd had.
How much fear, you know what I mean?
Well, that whole group of people just moved
into a time of worship and praise.
Very interesting.
And for the first time in my life,
I had a language and I knew it
was a Chinese dialect.
Say what you want to.
The brother next to me nudged me.
Godly brother.
We'd been together.
He said, hmm, Chinese.
Going to China someday?
I remember him saying that.
Never done it before.
Never done it since.
God has wonderful ways of breaking prejudice.
That afternoon service closed.
I'd been sitting toward the front.
A little lady came to me and said,
there's a sister back here who wants to
see you.
I walked back.
Wheelchair.
Very godly, queenly lady.
White hair.
Looked at me and she said, I don't
know who you are, but you remember when
everybody was worshiping and praising the Lord and
there were many different languages?
I said, yes.
She said, I saw you in a Chinese
garb preaching to Chinese.
200 feet away, I had been speaking in
a Chinese.
Are you following?
That was the way God melted my prejudice.
So, I spent some time here in a
whirlpool.
Emphasizing, let's be honest with you, what you
all need is more gifts and more power.
Remember those days, Llewellyn?
Frank?
Yeah, we all do.
And I have to say to you honestly,
I'm not disappointed that I went through it,
but I'm glad I've gone through it.
Because it's not the thing.
Now, remember we were talking about the main
thing is to keep the what?
The main thing, the...
And I hope you get the main thing
before it's all over with.
What is the main thing?
Well, I need to hasten on.
There could be an hour on each of
these.
It was about this time I
began to realize...
I know Richard Foster puts it this way.
He calls the next emphasis...
You see, the church world today is pretty
largely divided into main emphases.
How many of you know there's a whole
evangelical world?
How many of you know there's a whole
holiness world?
How many of you know there's a whole
charismatic Pentecostal world?
How many of you know there's another world
that we call social justice out here?
What do you mean by social justice?
Well, you can put its emphasis in different
ways, but it actually amounts to how much
of the kingdom can we experience right now?
How much kingdom and authority and power can
you have now?
There are those who say, wait till Jesus
comes.
He alone can establish the kingdom and set
it all up.
And that's comfortable, because all you have to
do is wait.
Except that every now and then, every now
and then, God does break into this human
scene and authority, and there's a little more
kingdom and authority exercise than how much.
I'm going to ask you the question, how
much kingdom and authority can we exercise now?
There's some people who say, it isn't even
necessary for Jesus to come back.
We just set up the kingdom and take
over and invite Him back.
There's lots of the extremes.
And I'm not in either extreme, but I
have to say to you tonight, I believe,
and I think I could find enough of
Watchman Nee's writings to back up what I'm
saying, which would make it right.
How much kingdom and authority do you want
now?
Well, God in His wisdom, and I know
the Lord Jesus is going to come back,
and when He comes back, He's going to
be a remnant of people prepared.
I believe all of that.
But I believe in our homes and in
our communities and our areas around.
Maybe there's a lot more spiritual authority that
could be exercised than we'd like to, than
we do.
I really believe that, folk.
And you can go to lots of different
extremes in this.
We have in our fellowships back in central
Indiana, we have some people that are born
with this.
They're the ones every time the abortionists, they're
out on the streets.
Are you following what I'm trying to say?
How many of you know what social...
That is, God, can't you move into this
present scene and upset a little bit of
it and let us be felt as Christians?
Or are we just passively waiting for Jesus
to come?
I just have to say this tonight.
I am convinced that there's more of authority
that can be manifest.
I'd like to give you some illustrations, but
that'd be the distraction of the night.
Anyway, I need to move on.
Finally, we come to what Foster calls the
contemplationists.
Contemplation.
I would like to call this union life.
How many of you believe that you can
experience a life union with the Lord Jesus?
And in fellowship, and in relationship with Him,
a life union, God can give you understanding,
He can release truth.
How many believe that most of us need
a real, more of a life union?
Is that meaningful to you?
It ought to be because I know where
you are.
I really believe.
This is a tremendous aspect.
The difficulty that I find with it is
while I'm spending my time abiding in the
Lord and contemplating, pretty soon you can almost
enjoy the contemplation and the abiding and become
passive.
You know the two extremes here, the pietists
and the quietists.
Now, we're neither of those.
We're in the middle, aren't we?
What is the middle?
Going to get into that.
You follow what I'm trying to say tonight?
My struggle, Mac, my struggle all through the
years has been, oh God, I want reality.
I don't care what the cost is.
I don't care how lonely it gets.
And it's gotten lonely at times when I've
really been extreme.
I don't care how lonely it gets, but
I want to press on to a fullness
of reality.
And I think I might be looking at
some people tonight whom God has wrought that
same sort of pressing on to the fullness.
Amen?
Well, I could stop here and say if
you just know the abiding life, that's all
that really matters.
Because, folk, if some difficult days come, if
some real difficult days come, it isn't how
much of the church we know.
It isn't how much we know.
It's how much we can draw from the
life of the Lord Jesus.
I remember when Brother Kong came back from
China after his visit.
Met the folk there after what, 28 years
he'd been away?
He came into our area and one thing
stuck.
And he said, folk, I'll put it in
my own words, I saw in a whole
new way that the people who stand in
the midst of communist takeover and crisis, it's
those who know the abiding union, the life
of the Lord.
John 15.
Never forget it.
There's difficult days ahead.
Now, let's take a little vote tonight.
Which of these six would you like to
vote as the main thing?
Are you there?
Do I have anybody who would say, Brother
Vern, I opt for this one.
Another says, I opt for this and this
and this and this and this.
What's the main thing?
I said I'd close at nine and I
will.
Come back tomorrow.
How many of you think you know what
the main thing is?
The main thing is to keep the main
thing the main thing.
Now, everybody says, I know what the main
thing is.
And some are very extreme.
Do you believe that if our life is
centered and occupied with the Lord Himself, He
can move in and bring evangelism and world
vision in?
He can make all that He is Himself
and the holiness of life?
How many believe that He who desires to
enable and gift you will give every gift,
everything that's needed if you what?
Occupy it.
Are you there?
How many believe that even though you hear
all the calls, you aren't out marching, you
are not doing this, God just may slip
in and say, you don't need all those
luxurious things that you have.
I just believe that there is a lot
more in this social justice area.
When I heard Mother Teresa being interviewed, you
know I had prejudices, not knowing her background
and so forth.
But when this Christian reporter, I didn't know
him, but I knew of him, turned to
her and said, Mother Teresa, do you have
any goals or ambitions in life?
She put her head down.
She didn't want to put the poor fellow
down.
But she whispered and she said, oh yes,
I have a goal.
It's Him.
I thought, that's a Catholic speaking.
And that's too short an answer.
He said, well Mother Teresa, what is love?
Surely you've spent some time.
What is love?
She said, oh yes, love is giving until
it hurts, and then you keep on giving,
no matter how much it hurts.
He asked her one more question.
And you could sense all the way through,
she was saying one thing, you know what
it was?
I don't want to talk about me.
That's not important.
Let's talk about...
And what I thought would be a 15
minute interview was about three minutes long.
The poor fellow was really frustrated.
But here's an individual who was really sacrificed.
Do you know who I'm speaking of?
How many of you think that when it
comes to social justice, if we were to
write a key word here, we could say
that it would be sacrifice?
Sell all that you have and give to
the poor.
Not just out of principle, but if we're
really sensitive to the Lord.
I'll close.
I was going to write down the key
word of each of those, but you can
do that in your own time.
What are you trying to say tonight?
Well, there's been a history and a struggle
all through these years.
If I've learned any one thing is that
the thing I thought was main turned out
not to be the main thing.
Because God has a way of bringing us
back.
And I'm not totally sure, though I'm pretty
much convinced I know the main thing.
And we'll get to it.
How many of you have been in a
little whirlpool?
Spent some time going round and round?
This is wonderful folk.
We're really going someplace.
And here's the stream.
I don't want to be misunderstood.
Not one of these things would I put
down tonight.
Not doing that.
I'm just trying to say that however good
things may seem to be, God's doing a
lot bigger thing than we realize.
And the whole Christian world is divided into
camps, exposing one another.
And I've been so guilty.
Emphasizing.
And I appreciate your open hearts because I
think you've sensed that in the midst of
my own longings there's always this cry, Oh
God, I don't want to finish the race
and discover I put the emphasis on the
wrong thing.
I really miss it.
Father, tonight I want to thank You for
the privilege of trying to share a history
and a background, all the various things that
have been an emphasis at times.
I have to honestly say Lord, I thank
You for allowing me to taste these various
areas, the reality.
I thank You tonight.
And I look out over a group that
are gathered and I believe we can say
with one voice, Oh Lord, Oh Lord, don't
let us settle down.
Don't let us be complacent.
Don't let us assume if we are.
But give us the larger sense of what
it means to be in flow and in
life with You.
Hear the cry of all our hearts tonight,
Lord.
Thank You for giving discernment to distinguish the
things that really differ.
Things that seem so much alike, yet they
really are not.
Oh, I thank You, Lord.
And I just pray that in the midst
of tomorrow night and Sunday, You can do
something in a new way to grip us.
We want to be an enlarged people.
I want to be.
A people, Lord, with a larger vision of
what You're wanting to do and how You're
doing in this closing hour.
We thank You for this.
So Lord, we just leave this word with
You now and pray that You'll encourage hearts.
We ask this in Jesus' name, with thanksgiving.
And everybody said, Amen.