I'll try to speak it again at the
end of the meeting so that you'll go
away with it ringing in your heart.
I'd like to express my thanks as one
of the speakers and a guest here at
the conference for all the kindness that has
been shown.
I got used to it last year and
I enjoyed it and this year was a
replay.
Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive
the reward of the inheritance for ye serve
the Lord Christ.
Now some of you may feel that in
the last evenings you heard the great wind
and felt the earthquake.
So tonight is the time for the still
small voice.
In Christian life and service there are changing
moods.
There are times of ups and times of
downs.
You find it with the servants of the
Lord in the scriptures.
And some may be having their downs as
we all do at times.
And I just want to go over the
scriptures tonight to show that the constellations of
Christ are not too small for us.
For instance, do you ever have feelings of
defeat and failure?
I do.
How do I encourage myself in the Lord
at a time like that?
Well, the passage of scripture that Dr. Gooding
took up with considerable finesse, I felt.
And I'd like you to look at it
again.
Not that I can add anything to it.
It's just how the Lord has used it
in my heart.
2 Corinthians 2, verse 12.
Paul says, furthermore, when I came to Troas
to preach Christ's gospel and when a door
was opened unto me of the Lord, I
had no rest in my spirit, because I
found not Titus my brother.
But taking my leave of him, I went
from thence into Macedonia.
Now, thanks be unto God, I'm going to
use the revives which always lead us up
in triumph in Christ and make it manifest
through us the savor of knowledge in every
place.
I cannot tell you how many times the
Spirit of God has led me to this
passage of scripture.
He takes my mind to the maps at
the back of the Bible.
I see Troas there on the western shore
of the country of Turkey.
I see Paul there in what you might
call a successful mission.
God had opened a tremendous door for him
there.
They would call it a revival in modern
evangelical circles.
Everything was going wonderfully well, but he didn't
have rest in his spirit.
He was disturbed.
Why was he?
Because of what was happening down in Carthage.
What was happening down in Carthage, he longed
to hear from Titus.
And he couldn't stay there in Troas.
In spite of the fact that it was
a door opened to him in the Lord,
he just couldn't stay there.
And he took a ship and went across
the Aegean to Macedonia.
Dear friends, to anyone's mind that could spell
defeat.
To leave a fruitful sphere of service because
of a troubled assembly and because he was
longing to get news from Titus as to
what was happening down in Carthage, that could
spell defeat and failure.
But by a daring figure of speech, Paul
pictures the Lord Jesus marching across the Aegean
Sea from Troas to Macedonia, and he following
in Christ's train.
Isn't that wonderful?
And he had good reason for doing it,
too.
Often times what seems like failure and defeat
in Christian service can be transmuted into victory
by the Lord.
You think of Paul and his prison experiences.
What a tragedy that a man like that
would ever have to go to prison.
And yet out of those prison experiences came
those epistles.
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, 2 Timothy.
And it's a wonderful thing to read those
epistles because there isn't even a smell of
a prison about them.
You'd never know that, except for the occasional
mention.
And even then he never says a prisoner
of Rome, always Paul, a prisoner of Christ
Jesus.
He can dignify his imprisonment by associating it
with the risen, exalted Lord Jesus Christ.
I think that's wonderful.
That's been a help to me.
Much of what I'm going to say tonight
is autobiographical, how the Lord has spoken to
my heart in the changing moods of Christian
life and service.
And of course you only have to go
over to Paul's writing, Romans chapter 8.
If God be for us, who can be
against us?
You say, a lot of people can be
against us.
Yes, but you must apply the word successfully,
because it's certainly implied in the passage.
If God be for us, who can be
successfully against us?
And the answer is no one.
The waves may seem to be against us,
but the tide is sure to win.
Thank God for that.
Sometimes do the problems mount so high in
your life and service that you are driven
to weeping, or that you feel like weeping?
God has a solution to that problem, too.
Psalm 126, verse 6.
No pillow like this.
No sedative like this.
Psalm 126, verses 5 and 6.
They that sow in tears shall reap in
joy.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious
seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing
his sheaves with him.
The Jewish people had come back from captivity,
back in the land.
At least some of them were.
Some of Judah were back in the land.
But they hadn't been able to plant any
crops.
What were they going to do for a
food supply?
They had to wait a year to get
a crop.
But they had brought some grain back with
them.
And here's a Jewish farmer, and he has
a stack of grain there, and he has
to make a decision.
Shall we eat it now, enjoy it to
the full, or shall we live sacrificially now
and sow the rest?
In hopes of a bountiful harvest.
And so he goes forth, and the grain
is in the apron in front of him,
and he dips his hand in it, and
he sows the seed broadcast over the land,
and the tears are dripping down into the
seed in his apron.
Why?
He's thinking of his wife and children back
home.
Living frugally, living sparingly, in hopes of an
abundant harvest in days to come.
And the word of God says, They that
sow in tears shall reap in joy.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious
seeds, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing
his seeds with him.
I want to tell you there are a
lot of tears shed in Christian service, but
they're precious to God.
May he count them in his bottle.
And more to be feared than tears are
dry eyes in the service of the Lord.
Somebody said, Lord, deliver us from the curse
of a dry-eyed Christianity.
How we can be dry-eyed?
We think of the sufferings of Christ for
us.
We think of a dying world.
We think of men and women going down
to an eternal hell.
We say, am I a man or a
stone?
It causes you to wonder.
Do you sometimes feel rejected by those to
whom you go with the gospel?
Oftentimes we do.
It hurts to be rejected, doesn't it?
It hurts not to be received.
A verse that's been helpful to me in
that connection is Matthew 10 and verse 40.
He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he
that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
What it says to me is, don't feel
rejected.
They're not rejecting you.
They're rejecting the Lord Jesus.
That's it.
You're there as his representative.
And what a dignity that is.
What a dignity that is, and what a
privilege to be treated that way.
Didn't he tell us that we would be
treated that way, too?
The disciple is not above his master, and
we cannot expect better treatment than he received
when he was down here.
Some years ago, a young man was packing
up and leaving France to come back to
the States, and he met Fr.
Tallio Duclos.
Tallio Duclos said to him, What's the matter?
He said, I'm going home.
He said, Why are you going home?
He said, A sore nose.
He said, What do you mean a sore
nose?
He said, So many doors slammed in my
face.
But I'd have liked to have given him
Matthew 10 and 40.
Don't worry, dear friend.
They weren't slamming it in your face.
They were slamming it in Jesus' face.
But just think of what it meant for
you to be there in the stead of
the Lord Jesus, enduring that for him, but
also seeking to make him known to others.
Do you sometimes think the boat is going
to sink?
Well, I think we all go through that
at times when the waves are high and
the sea is boisterous, it seems that the
boat is about to go under.
Mark chapter 4, verses 35 to 41.
The same day when the even was come,
he saith unto them, Let us pass over
unto the other side.
And when they had sent away the multitude,
they took him, even as he was, in
the boat, and there were also with him
other little boats.
And there arose a great storm of winds,
and the waves beat into the ship, or
the boat, insomuch that it was now full.
And he was in the hinder part of
the boat, asleep on a pillow.
And they awake him and say unto him,
Master, carest thou not that we perish?
And he arose and rebuked the wind, and
said unto the sea, Be still.
And the wind ceased.
And there was a great pause.
And he said unto them, Why are ye
so fearful?
How is it that ye have no faith?
And they feared exceedingly, and said one to
another, What manner of man is this, that
even the wind and the sea obey him?
I remember years ago, being at the Sea
of Galilee, we were going to go out
in a boat on the sea.
And right at the very last minute, the
trip was canceled.
We said, What's the matter?
And he said, Great wind coming down from
the north in the gorge of the Jordan,
and the most hardened seamen there in Tiberias
wouldn't go out of the Sea of Galilee.
Because when that wind comes down through the
caverns of the Jordan and hits the Sea
of Galilee, it whips it up into tremendous
white foam.
Not the place to be.
I want to tell you something.
Greater storms could rise in the human heart
than on the Sea of Galilee.
And I don't doubt that even in a
gathering like this, there are tremendous storms going
on.
We wear nice clothing outwardly, and nobody knows
the heartache, the sorrow, the tension that's going
on inside.
But praise God, we know someone who can
stand up and say, Peace be still.
My experience in life is that nobody can
speak words of comfort to me like the
Lord Jesus Christ.
A wonderful thing when he comes in and
speaks peace to my troubled heart.
I love those lines of Amy Carmichael.
Thou art the Lord who slept upon the
pillow.
Thou art the Lord who soothed the furious
sea.
What matter beating wind and tossing billow if
only we are in the boat with thee?
Keep us in quiet through the age-long
minute while thou art silent and the wind
is shrill.
Can the boat sink when thou, dear Lord,
art in it?
Can the heart faint at latest?
I want to tell you this comfort in
that.
Can the boat sink when the Lord is
in it?
Dear friends, he is in the boat with
us.
In spite of all the storms that may
come upon us, we are safe and secure
in him.
Do you sometimes feel like giving up the
medicine for you?
In 1 Corinthians 15.58. Therefore, my beloved
brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in
the work of the Lord, for as much
as ye know that your labor is not
in vain in the Lord.
Hold on to that tonight.
Your labor is not in vain in the
Lord.
I cannot document this story.
I heard it.
I knew the man personally.
When I was a little boy, there was
a man that used to come to our
house.
His name was B.C. Greenman.
I can very vividly remember him giving me
a testament and extracting a promise that I
would read it every day.
A promise I promptly broke.
I heard that one time B.C. Greenman
was working in an obscure, out-of-the
-way place, and he got discouraged.
One night after a midweek meeting, he decided
to give up and go home.
There was a long walk from where he
was to the railroad station.
As he walked along, he passed a country
farmhouse.
It was late at night, but there was
a lean-to outside the house.
As he passed by, he could see that
the housewife was out there late at night
doing the family washing and singing.
Lamb of God, our souls adore thee while
upon thy face we gaze.
There the Father's love and glory shine in
all their brightest rays.
And he said, B.C. Greenman, you're a
coward.
He turned around and went back to the
work of God and never looked back.
In eternity, that dear woman will find out
that her singing that night saved a man
for the work of the Lord.
And a good man, too.
That's going to be thrilling at the judgment
seat of Christ, isn't it?
Deeds of merit as we thought them, he
will show us were but sins.
Little things we had forgotten, he will show
us were for him.
When I get tempted to discouragement, I think
of something that Dwight L.
Moody said.
Not part of the inspired word, but it's
good.
He said, I've never known God to use
a discouraged man.
That brings me up short.
I do want the Lord to use me,
and it helps snap me out of my
discouragement.
Remember it, dear friend.
If you're prone to discouragement, I've never known
God to use a discouraged man.
That would mean woman as well.
Do you sometimes feel that your work has
been fruitless?
I wouldn't be surprised if most of us
have had that experience.
You know, we do have crises, experiences in
life, don't we?
We do.
And the devil knows when to come in.
I create these thoughts in our minds.
I can remember going through a very rough
patch in life many years ago.
I was at my wit's end, I confess
it.
And I got a letter from a sister
who could not possibly have known what I
was going through.
There was no way she could know what
I was going through.
And she wrote this letter.
At the bottom she wrote, Isaiah 49.4.
Isaiah 49.4. Never heard of it.
So I turned in my Bible to Isaiah
49.4, and I read these words.
It said, I have labored in vain.
I have spent my strength for naught, and
in vain.
Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord,
and my work, or my recompense.
I tell you, that was the voice of
God speaking to me that day.
I thought I had labored in vain.
I had spent my strength for naught.
And God, days before that, said to this
woman, write Isaiah 49 at the bottom of
that letter.
Isn't that a wonderful experience to think of
our sovereign God and the way he can
direct people to get just the right word
to you at the right time.
I've had that experience several times in life.
I can remember a time when I was
nervously exhausted and I had a heavy schedule.
It was a Saturday afternoon and I was
in my office and I was absolutely desperate.
Desperate.
I was practically beside myself.
And a man called from one of the
assemblies, a man whose roots were deep in
God.
He didn't know what was happening in that
office.
He said, I just called to tell you
that God has laid a burden on my
heart to pray for you.
And when I hung up the phone, I
bawled myself clear.
Literally, bawled myself clear.
Think of a God who cared enough for
nobody to lay it upon somebody's heart to
do that.
So have you had that experience?
It's wonderful, I'm sure.
I remember when my mother died.
This is getting a little off the subject.
My mother died and we were inconsolable in
many ways.
Because you know when your mother dies, that's
the crashing of the castles in your life
in a way.
And friends crowd around and they really seek
to be kind.
And they say what they think to be
nice things, but oftentimes they don't say a
thing.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't do any good.
And then we got a letter from dear
old H.A.I. And he quoted Psalm
30, verse 5.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy...
Now that snapped our grief.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy
cometh in the morning.
I'll tell you, it's worth having sorrows.
It's worth having trials.
It's worth having crises in life.
Have the Lord draw near and speak to
you like that.
And I'm sure we could have a testimony
time here tonight, and many of you could
give illustrations of that very thing.
So when you feel that your work has
been fruitless, that you've toiled in vain, remember
Isaiah 49, verse 4.
Then I said I've labored in vain, I
have spent my strength for none.
And in vain.
Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord.
I'm going to get justice from the Lord,
and my recompense with my God.
And in that connection I also get a
great deal of encouragement out of Isaiah 55,
verses 10 and 11.
If I'm tempted to feel that my labors
are fruitless.
Psalm 55, verses 10 and 11.
For as the rain cometh down and the
snow from heaven, as the rain cometh down
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not
thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it
bring forth in buds, that it may give
seed to the sower and bread to the
eater, so shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but
it shall accomplish that which I please, and
it shall prosper in the thing whereto I
send it.
Let me tell you what that says to
me.
When the rain starts coming down and the
snow from heaven, it's irresistible.
All the armies of the world can't stop
it.
That's the way the word of God is.
Dear friends, in disseminating the word of God,
in disseminating the scriptures, we're engaged in a
ministry that can't fail.
It may seem to be that way, but
it won't fail.
All the armies of the world can't stop
God's word from going forth.
And there's something else in this passage.
It says to me that the word of
God is never ministered in the power of
the Holy Spirit without producing results in hearts
and lives, though you might not see it.
That's something to cling to.
There's a twofold consolation in that verse.
First of all, the word of God is
irresistible.
It's going to accomplish that which he sent
it forth to do.
It's never ministered in the power of the
Holy Spirit of God without accomplishing great things
for him.
But you might say, that's just the trouble.
I don't see much in the way of
immediate results.
Well, frankly, neither do I, if it's any
comfort to you.
I look back over my Christian life, and
I think that a lot of people say,
well, everything must be a mountaintop experience for
him.
Everything must be gloria in excelsis.
Everything must be cloud number nine.
That isn't the way I have found it.
Most of my life has been a daily
routine.
Steady, hard work day by day.
And you go along like that for quite
a long while, and you say, I wonder
if anything is being accomplished.
And just then the Lord has a way
of dropping a little handful of purpose.
And you think, well, I think I'll go
along a little longer.
That's the way it has been with me.
And of course, Ecclesiastes 11 and 1 is
a helpful verse to me in that connection.
Ecclesiastes 11 and verse 1 says, Cast thy
bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find
it after many days.
I have found it so.
Isn't that wonderful?
I don't even know what the first part
of that verse means.
Cast your bread upon the water.
I've heard all kinds of explanations that it
means sowing seed in marshy grounds or something
like that.
Certainly you don't cast wonder bread upon the
water, do you, in that sense?
It's wonderful to me that I don't even
know what the first part of the verse
means, and yet the whole part of the
verse makes sense to me.
And you prove it in the experiences of
your life.
Cast your bread upon the water.
You'll find it after many days.
It's really kind of nice, too.
I believe there are Christians who see a
lot of immediate results.
There are.
Thank God for them.
There are people who are reapers.
Thank God for them.
That just hasn't been given to me.
But it's nice to go to a meeting
sometime and a lady comes up to you
and says, Do you remember twenty years ago
when we met in that ramshackle little building
downtown?
And you came one night and you preached
on assurance of salvation.
That was the night I got assurance of
salvation.
Twenty years later.
But the wonderful thing is that the Lord
sustained me during those twenty years without seeing
a lot of immediate results.
Just being willing to go on and know
that his word is producing results in hearts
alike.
Whether I see it.
Somebody said heaven will be the best place
to see the rewards of our service.
The Lord loves us too much to let
us see very much of it down here.
Have you suffered betrayal?
Hatred?
Disappointment?
The loss of a ministry?
Persecution?
Or loneliness?
Just a little list of some of the
things that come into our life.
Have you suffered any of those things?
Yes, I have.
How do you cope with it?
A verse in Colossians has been a tremendous
help to me.
Colossians chapter 1 verse 24.
I think it's just the Lord that ministers
this to you, because ordinarily reading that verse
I wouldn't see that in it.
Colossians chapter 1 verse 24.
Paul is speaking there and he says, Who
now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and
fill up that which is behind of the
afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his
body's sake, which is the church.
Paul says it's given to us to share
the sufferings of Christ down here.
Not his atoning suffering.
We can never share in them.
He suffered, bled, and died alone.
But there are a lot of sufferings left
behind that we can share.
That has been a blessing to me to
think in some of the changing moods of
life that I'm privileged to share the afflictions.
Let me give you an example.
Loneliness.
Do you ever get lonely?
I think of Mark chapter 10 verse 32.
Mark chapter 10 verse 32.
A verse that's really been a thrill to
me.
I never read it without getting a thrill
out of it.
Verse 32 of Mark chapter 10.
It says, And they were in the way
going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went before
them, and they were amazed.
And as they followed, they were afraid.
Let me tell you what the verse says
to me and how it's a comfort to
me.
They're going up to Jerusalem.
For what?
To his death.
Who's out in front?
Jesus is out in front.
Why did the disciples marvel?
They marveled that his feet weren't leaden like
theirs were.
What is the significance of it?
The significance of it was that there was
a loneliness connected with that.
What was the loneliness?
He outstripped his disciples in zeal for God.
And I cannot read that verse without marveling
myself at the blessed Lord Jesus, hasting on
to Jerusalem, going faster than the disciples for
the joy that was set before him.
I'd hate to think what my legs would
have been like.
But there was a loneliness connected with that.
I've never known that.
Lonely.
That particular loneliness.
I've known loneliness.
But what it strikes me, praise God, Jesus
was lonely.
And it's given to me to share in
a very small measure the loneliness that he
suffered when he was here on earth.
Some years ago, I went through a very
severe trial.
In connection with the discipling of another person.
It was a very, very bitter experience that
I wouldn't care to share with anyone.
I got a letter from a brother in
Motherwell, Scotland.
Once again, how would he ever know what
I was going through?
Motherwell, Scotland.
And he's writing along, first of all, about
some tapes by A.W. Tozer that he
wanted.
But then he got in a little meditation
and he said, And remember, brother, there's no
discipleship without pain.
That was wonderful.
That's just what I needed.
There's no discipleship without pain.
What a comfort it is to know that.
That when you're pouring out your very best
for the Lord Jesus, and the difficulties and
the trials and the perplexities come, and you're
suffering pain, you're hurt, you can't sleep in
your bed at night.
There's no discipleship without pain.
He knew it.
The Lord Jesus knew it, didn't he?
He knew the pain of working with those
men.
Of seeing one of them betray him.
And one of them deny him with oaths
and curses.
And all of them forsaking him and fleeing.
Do you feel that your servant has become
jaded?
That you feel faded?
That you're in a rut?
That you've lost the original thrill and enthusiasm
of the ministry?
It's easy.
The years have a way of doing it
for you.
And we fall into the illusion of the
routine.
And the work can somehow, sometimes, become a
great thing for us.
To recapture the glory of the ministry.
Isn't it?
That's what we need, I think, constantly.
To recapture the glory of the ministry.
Some years ago, Calvin Coolidge called on missionary
John Mott to be an ambassador of the
United States to one of the countries in
the Orient.
And John Mott said to him, Mr. Coolidge,
years ago, God called me to be his
ambassador.
And I have been deaf to any other
call ever since.
He had never lost the glory of the
ministry.
One of my favorite writers, we were talking
about Christian writing today in the workshop.
One of my favorite writers happens to be
J.
H.
Jowett.
I love the way he can use human
vocabulary to describe the glory of the ministry
of the Lord Jesus.
And I took a quote from him that
I'd like to share with you.
It's rather long, but it's really worth it.
He says, A man who enters through the
door of divine vocation into the ministry will
surely apprehend the wonderful
riches of Christ.
Doesn't that make you proud to be a
missionary?
You cannot get away from that wonder in
the life of the Apostle Paul.
Next to the infinite love of his Savior
and the amazing glory of his own salvation,
his wonder is a refreshing glory.
His calling is never lost in the medley
of professions.
The light of privilege is always shining on
the way of duty.
His work never loses its halo.
And his road never becomes entirely commonplace and
gray.
He seems to catch his breath every time
he thinks of Gilmore, who
am less than the least of all saints.
Is this grace given that I should preach
among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ?
For this cause I, Paul, do
you not feel arrested
upon him the ordination of the pierced hand?
That abiding wonder was part of his apostolic
equipment and his sense of the glory of
his calling.
We shall become like traders in a common
market babbling about common wares.
That's good.
Let me say that sentence again.
If we lose the sense of the glory
of his calling, we shall become like common
traders in a common market babbling about common
wares.
This sense of great person...
I like this.
It will save us from becoming minor officials
in transient enterprises.
Wow.
It will make us truly big and will
therefore save us from spending our days in
trifling.
Emerson has somewhere said that men whose duties
are done beneath lofty and stately domes have
a statelyness of demeanor.
Men whose duties bring them under great domes
cannot breathe.
And when he quotes this verse, I shall
run.
Maybe the Lord would have some of us
take a vocation here at this conference of
this.
And we may go away with that dignity
of demeanor, the dignity of stripes, a holy
vocation.
Go on.
There's all eternity to rest in, and far
too few are on the active list.
No service for the Lord is risky to
invest in, and nothing will make up should
his well done be missed.
Let us pray.
And after we pray, we'll sing our little
chorus through once again.
O Father, we thank you tonight that it
is true the consolations of Christ are not
too small for us.
We thank you that you never allow the
trials, the difficulties, the discouragements to come into
life without giving abounding grace.
We pray for any here tonight who may
be going through some of these changing moods
that we have spoken of when we do
such.
Turn the words that have been spoken as
only you can do to meet the need
of individual hearts here tonight.
Now the God of peace who brought again
from the dead the Lord Jesus, that great
shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of
the everlasting covenant, makes you perfect in every
good work to do his will, working in
you that which is well pleasing in his
sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory
forever and ever.
Amen.
Thank you, Jesus.