For God has not given us the spirit
of fear, but of power, and of love,
nor of me, who hath saved us, and
called us to the holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given to us
in Christ Jesus before time began, but hath
now been revealed by the appearing of our
Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and
brought life and immortality to life through the
gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher,
an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
For this reason I also suffer these things.
Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that
he is able to keep what I have
committed to him until that day.
Hold fast the pattern of sound words which
you have heard from me, in faith and
love which are in Christ Jesus.
That good thing which was committed to you,
keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in
us.
Lest you know that all those in Asia
have turned away from me, among whom are
Phygellus and Hermogenes, the Lord grant mercy to
the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed
me, and was not ashamed of my chains.
But when he arrived in Rome, he sought
me out very diligently, and found me.
The Lord grant to him that he may
find mercy from the Lord in that day.
You know very well how many ways he
ministered to me at Ephesus."
2 Timothy is a manual for service of
the Lord in the last days, and that's
why it is spiked with urgent warning, and
with picado counsel, and yet with much human
warmth and affection for Timothy.
I think you know that in Paul's first
letters you have evil in incipient form, and
in the second epistle it is holy revelation.
In the one it's in seed, and in
the second it's in flower.
That's what you have here in second Timothy,
not in embryo, but now really developed.
This letter was written from prison, but wonderfully
enough there's no smell of a prison about
it.
But I think that's real triumph in Christ
that a man can do this.
It's written at the close of Paul's life,
but there's no moaning and groaning at the
bar that he put out to see.
Actually, what you find in this letter is
a burning desire in Paul's heart to pass
the plaguing force on to Timothy, and to
see the work continue.
Paul could adopt the words of legend.
He wrote from Bedford jail, this prison very
each to me has been, since I came
here, and so it also hanging be, without
it's been appeared.
This prison very each to me has been,
since I've been here, and so it also
hanging be, without it's been appeared.
I often think of that sometimes, the occurrence
of the Lord's eyes, violent death, and we
think of fear, and we think of bullets,
and we think of rocks, but if the
Lord Jesus appeared in that moment, a few
rocks wouldn't make any difference to a tripper,
and neither would fear, or anything else that
might be hurtful.
In this epistle, we see Paul as a
man of deep conviction.
He wasn't a man who could be put
it around.
He wasn't a man who was mealy-mouthed.
He was a man of deep conviction based
upon the word of God.
He never used weevil words.
He never spoke out of both corners of
his mouth at the same time.
He was outspoken, he was bold, and he
was to the point, and I want to
tell you, we need men like him today.
Not compromisers, not men-cheaters, or masters of
exegetical evasion.
Whatever else you want to say about Paul,
you can't say he was devious, or that
he engaged in double-crossing.
He was not like some of the gutless
wonders of this decade, the 20th century.
He was a no-nonsense creature, fool like
Martin Luther, whose conscience was captive to the
word of God.
That's what Luther said.
May God raise up many more like him.
Obviously, Paul was willing to confront when it
was necessary.
I'm always fascinated by the the way he
names names in the epistles.
Hmm?
Figellus, Hermodity, Alexander did me much evil, and
so forth.
He didn't hesitate to mention names when the
truth of God, and the work of God,
was at stake.
Sometimes he mentioned the names of those who
were heretics and apostates, other times he mentioned
the names of those who were loyal to
the Lord, and loyal to him.
Honest Piferous being an example of that.
He didn't always speak in softest whispers, or
in tenderest tones, as one of our hymns
tells the Lord to do.
I like the fact that he was a
man of deep conviction.
He could say with a sonnet, I believe,
therefore have I spoken.
Not, I speculate it, therefore have I spoken.
Or, I guess, therefore have I spoken.
He didn't speak from doubt or speculation, but
from a blood-earned conviction of the truth
of the word of God.
Unlike many modern theologians today, he didn't talk
about subjects like the likelihood of God, or
respect for Jesus, or current theological trends on
the continent.
He thundered out the great verities of God's
precious word, and yet at the same time
he was a man of extreme tenderness, especially
here in his dealing with Timothy.
Sometimes we think of Paul as being rather
austere and distant, but I certainly don't get
that when I read 2 Timothy.
He wasn't like some of the brothers of
a previous generation who felt especially called to
put down some of the younger brothers.
When Leek Samuel went to a conference in
England years ago, there was an older brother
who went up to him and said, young
man, which would you rather, look like a
bigger fool than you are, or be a
bigger fool than you look?
And Leek Samuel said, well, here's where a
little humility comes in.
He said to himself, and he says, I'd
rather look like a bigger fool than I
am.
And the younger brother laid his hands on
his shoulders and said, my dear chap, it's
quite impossible.
And so, so Leek thought, what's the whole
thing?
I had answered it the other way.
And the reply was insane.
My dear chap, it's quite impossible.
Well, Paul wasn't like that.
He was tender in his dealing with Timothy.
He begins his epistle, Paul an apostle of
Jesus Christ.
That's interesting, an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Why did he mention that?
Because really, in this epistle anyway, his apostleship
wasn't being questioned as it was initially.
Timothy had no doubt about Paul's divine call.
Why was Paul saying this?
Was this just a prideful assertion?
No, I think that when Paul said this,
Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ, he said
it with a sense of holy awe.
He never got over the wonder of his
calling, especially commissioned by the Lord of Might
and Glory to go forth with a message
of redeeming grace.
Underneath whom the less than the least of
all things is its grace given, that I
might preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches
of Christ, and make all men see what
is the fellowship of the mystery, Paul never
got over the fact that he, an arch
-persecutor of the church, would receive the divine
cap on his shoulder, and be sent forth
as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I hope we all share that tonight.
What is more wonderful than to be in
the service of the Lord Jesus Christ?
That's living, and we should have that sense
of holy awe and deep amazement when we
think that he would ever leave us with
the message.
If you go to some commentary, they might
even suggest that Paul was the first pastor,
uh, the first prelate of the church in
Ephesus.
This is quite common, and I want to
just think with you about that for a
little while tonight.
Maybe I'll just take the text and depart
from it, but I hope to come back
again.
It's interesting how many in the clerical system
can read a verse like that and bring
the clerical system into it, but there's nothing
of officialism here at all.
But, because of centuries of tradition revolving around
the clerical system, it's hard to believe that
the idea of one man officiating in a
church doing most, if not all, of the
preaching is not the New Testament practice.
Yet, the whole idea of dividing an equal
brotherhood into clergy and laity is totally foreign
to the New Testament.
There's no biblical warrant, for instance, for our
believers to speak of my pastor or for
any minister to speak of my congregation.
You just don't find language like that in
the scriptures.
Nowhere in the New Testament is there any
mention of such a thing as a one
-man minister.
In Philippians chapter 1, you have the composition
of a New Testament church where Paul writes
to the saints with their bishops.
Paul was courteous.
As a prelate, as a clergyman in the
church in Philippi, he would have had the
grace to mention him.
And some men, some writers who themselves were
clergymen, have had the grace to admit that.
Let me read you from Albert Barnes, Barnes's
commentary, and here he's commenting on 1 Timothy
chapter 3.
He said, There's no allusion to anyone who
was to be superior to the bishops and
deacons.
As the apostle Paul was expressly giving instructions
in regard to the...
If he supposed...
Was he to have nothing to do in
transmitting the office to others?
Were there no peculiar qualifications required in such
an order of men which it would be
proper to mention?
Would it not be respectful at least in
Paul to have made some allusion to such
an office if Timothy himself held it?
Of course, the answer is yes.
Paul, being a gentleman, would have mentioned it,
but he didn't.
He said to the saints with the bishops
and deacons.
I think you see Paul's role as an
apostle of Jesus Christ in Ephesians chapter 4,
where he says that the gifts were given
for the purpose of the saints unto the
work of the ministry, unto the edifying of
the body of Christ.
Paul was an itinerant, evangelist, assembly planter.
The longest he ever stayed in one place
was two years in Ephesians.
He stayed a total of three years throughout
his ministry.
At one time, the longest he ever stayed
was two years.
Paul was a goer, not a stayer.
Paul was not a resident pastor abroad.
He went, preached the gospel, saw the old
sages, taught them the word of God, saw
them engaged in the work of the ministry,
and then he moved on.
His purpose was to see them matured as
servants of the Lord, and as soon as
they were able to carry on by themselves,
he moved on.
He considered himself extendable.
It seems to me that's the pattern you
find in the New Testament scriptures.
People say, well, Timothy and Titus, they were
resident pastors.
No, they weren't.
Timothy and Titus were itinerant troubleshooters working with
the Apostle Paul in his ministry.
Some seek to base the idea of clergymen
on the role of bishops in 1 Timothy
3 and Titus 1, but it should be
noticed that, of course, as you know, the
bishops are always spoken of in the plural.
To build an assembly around one man is
totally foreign to the spirit of the scriptures.
Unto him shall the gathering of the people
be.
Where two or three are gathered together in
my name, there am I in the midst.
To me, that's one of the precious truths
of the New Testament church.
Christ is the gathering center, not a man.
And where you have a group of believers
who deem that truth, and who meet to
Christ as their center, you have a stability
and a spirituality that is difficult to find
anywhere else.
Now, I'd like to call some men to
the witness stand tonight who will confirm what
we've been saying.
I'm not going to call J.
N.
Darby.
Rest in peace, dear brother Darby.
I'm not going to call William Kelly.
I'll just let him sit and hear his
teachings be confirmed.
I'm not going to call Macintosh or any
of this.
I'm going to call some clergymen to the
witness stand tonight.
Some men who themselves held the office of
a one-man ministry.
And you'll be interested to hear what they've
said.
Let's begin with Alexander McLaren, who himself was
no mean preacher of the word of God.
He says, I cannot but believe that the
present practice of confining the public teaching of
the church to an official class has done
harm.
Why should one man be forever speaking, and
hundreds of people who are able to keep
sitting dumb to listen, or pretend to listen
to him?
He says, I hate forcible revolution, and do
not believe that any institutions, either political or
ecclesiastical, which need violence to sweep them away,
are ready to be removed.
But I believe that if the level of
spiritual life were raised among us, new forms
would naturally be evolved in which the great
spirit of Christianity is founded.
Namely, I will pour out my spirit on
all flesh, and on my servants, and on
my handmaidens, I will pour out in those
days of my spirit a dayful process.
Now, maybe you're not so familiar with Alexander
McLaren, but I could also mention J.I.
Packer, whose books are widely read today.
This is what he says, "...By sphericalism I
mean that combination of conspiracy and tyranny in
which the minister claims, and the congregation agrees,
that all spiritual ministry is his responsibility and
not theirs.
A notion that is both disreputable in principle,
and spirit-quenching in practice."
J.I. Packer.
You're still not convinced?
This is John Scott.
Please take this in.
In his book, God's New Society, John R
.W. Scott asks, What model of the church,
then, should we keep in our minds?
The traditional model is that of the pyramid,
with the pastor perched precariously on the pinnacle
like a little pope in his own church.
Do you like alliteration, good fellow?
Perched, pastor perched precariously on the pinnacle like
a little pope in his own church, while
the laity are arrayed below him in staring
ranks of inferiority.
It's a totally unbiblical image, because the New
Testament envisages not a single pastor with a
docile flock, but both a plural oversight and
an every-member ministry.
Donald Gray Barnhouse.
Many of you, I'm sure, have heard him,
and many of you have read his book,
and his message is still on the radio.
Former pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
He said, By the close of the first
century, there was a party within the church
organization which had gained a victory over the
laity by exalting itself to a place of
dominance, even though Peter had warned against it.
As seen in the letter to the church
at Ephesus, in the second chapter of the
book of Revelation, there was in the first
century a party called the Nicolaitans, who, as
their name in Greek indicates, had gained supremacy
over the laity.
There it is stated that God Almighty hates
the work of those who advocate and enforce
rules over others, within the body of Christ.
Natan Ford, in his book called The Christian
Persuader, says this, Our whole vocabulary of church
activity will change if we really begin to
take seriously the New Testament pattern.
As Richard Halverson has said, When we ask,
How many ministers has your church?
The traditional answer is one, two, five, depending
on how much of a paid staff you
have.
The true answer is two hundred or two
thousand, depending on how large the membership is.
Every believer is a minister.
A church which bottlenecks its outreach by depending
on its specialists, its pastors or evangelists, to
do it witness is living in violation of
both the intention of its heads and the
consistent pattern of the early Christians.
East Stanley Jones, Methodist clergyman and missionary in
India, he was outspoken along the same lines.
He says, The church at Antioch was founded
by laymen, carried on by laymen, and spread
through that ancient world by laymen.
That's important for the reconstruction of the church
today.
The next great spiritual awakening is going to
come through the laity.
Hitherto, the center of gravity has been on
the minister.
Now, the center of gravity has to be
shifted to the laity.
We ministers, missionaries and evangelists are never going
to win the world.
We're too few to do it, and if
we could do it, it wouldn't be good,
for it would take away from the laity
that spiritual growth and development which comes through
sharing one's faith.
But, we will never get the laity to
take the responsibility for the Christian movement and
its spread by saying, come on and help
the pastor.
Their inner response and sometimes outer response is,
why should we?
That's his job, we pay him for that.
But, that's true.
That is actually true.
He says, The very setup of the church
tends to produce the anonymous.
The congregation is supposed to be silent and
receptive, and the pastor is supposed to be
outgoing and aggressive.
That produces by its very makeup the spectator
and the participant.
By its very makeup, it produces the recessive,
the ingrown, the non-contributive, and the parasite.
Men and women who, during the week, are
molders of opinions, directors of large concurrents, directors
of destinies, are expected to be petty on
Sundays, and are supposed to love it.
They have little responsibility, hence make little response
except perhaps, I enjoyed your sermon.
They have little to do, hence they do
little.
He goes on to say, The laity and
the whole have been in the stands as
spectators, and the clergymen have been on the
field playing the game.
If the clergymen kick the goal or make
the touchdown, he's applauded.
Good pastor, hope he will stay.
That setup must be changed.
The laity must come out of the stands
as spectators and take the field as players,
and the clergymen must come out of the
field as players and take the sidelines as
coaches of the team.
The clergymen must be the guides, simulators, and
spiritualizers of an essentially lay movement.
Downgrading them?
No, upgrading them, for it's better to be
a coach than to be a player.
It's better to get ten people to work
than to do ten men's work.
You'll notice that many of these men keep
talking about clergy and laity and other unscriptural
firms, but at least give them credit for
seeing beyond the facade of it all and
getting down to brass tacks, the weakness of
the clerical system.
A man named Brian Green said, The future
of Christianity and evangelization of the world rests
in the hands of ordinary men and women,
and not primarily in those of professional Christian
ministers.
Harnack claimed that when the church won its
greatest victories in the early days of the
Roman Empire, it did so not by preachers,
or teachers, or apostles, but by informal missionaries.
And, looking back to the Apostolic Age, Benning
J.
H.
Stewart reminds us that each member of the
local assembly went out to win souls for
Christ by personal contact, and then brought these
newborn babes back into these local churches where
they were indoctrinated and strengthened in the faith
of the Redeemer.
They, in turn, went out to do likewise.
And, in another place, Stewart says boldly that
the world will never be evangelized in the
way God intended, as long as there's a
clerical system.
Now, some of you are thinking, why is
MacDonald taking all that time to labor the
point?
The reason is this, that at a time
when many evangelical Christians seem to be moving
away from the clerical system, we find many
today in assemblies which have only bishops and
deacons moving toward clarity, hiring men to be
their full-time preachers, and to perform their
religious function for them.
And, I would suggest to you tonight, these
people are buying high and selling low, which
isn't a very good practice.
Buying high and selling low.
Their cry is, give us a minister like
the other churches.
They're like people in the social sciences who
adopt popular trends of thought at the time
when secular professionals are beginning to subject those
trends to serious criticism.
What I'm saying is that a lot of
people we know are hurrying to get on
the bandwagon at a time when perhaps the
bandwagon is slowing down.
I think it's something for us to think
about.
Now, I said something a minute ago, hiring
one man to perform their religious functions for
them, and that brings me to another subject
that I'd like to just mention, too, in
this regard, because the two often go together.
I might phrase the question this way.
If not a salaried ministry, what then?
Because they seem to go together very much
the one-man ministry and a salaried ministry.
I would just say this.
While a salary generally is a very suitable
method of payment in most professions, it has
very serious dangers connected with it, in connection
with men who are handling the word of
God.
I was thinking when Brother Gooding was speaking
this afternoon about Judas.
That terrible defection took place in connection with
a man who was handling the money.
Sometimes I wish the dollar could be removed
from all Christian work.
I do, really.
If that could happen, what would still go
on tomorrow would be of God.
So, the idea of a salaried ministry is
completely foreign to the New Testament.
I know the Lord thought definitely that the
labor is worthy of his hire, and Paul
confirmed that great truth.
He said that those who preach the gospel
should live off the gospel.
I know that's true, but I don't see
anything in the New Testament that suggests that
any Christian worker should receive that stipulated amount
every month.
One of the great problems, I'm going to
list several of the great problems connected, one
of the great problems is that those who
control the salary might try to control the
ministry, too.
When we were in Oak Park years ago,
a man, a minister of the Baptist Church,
he said to us, he said, I could
preach the gospel the way you brothers do,
but my people wouldn't have it.
He said, I could preach the gospel the
way you brothers do, but my people wouldn't
have it.
Now, I know it does not always happen
that those who pay the piper want to
call the tune.
I know that's true, but it has happened,
it is happening, and it can happen.
Now, that's a sad thing, because those who
hold the purse string might be as carnal
as the ghost, and yet they can try
to suppress any preaching that does not suit
them.
It's also true that those who pay the
salary can require some very artificial and unspiritual
measures of achievement.
For instance, they can say that they want
so many people to be added to the
church role every year, either by professions of
faith or by transfers of church, and this
puts the poor man under tremendous pressure, and
under that pressure it's very easy for him
to soften the message, and to encourage well,
he wouldn't say professions, but easy professions anyway,
that would look good in an annual report,
and also go very light on discipline.
Don't you think that that's why there's very
little discipline in evangelical churches today?
Because there's such a tremendous emphasis on numbers,
where the success of a church is measured
by numbers.
I was interested to read of a speech
that Charles Poulson gave at the National Association
of Evangelicals recently, their annual convention, and he
spoke about this, about church growth, with the
emphasis on measuring success by numbers, and the
word he used to describe it was abomination.
He said it's an abomination.
God does not measure success by numbers, but
by faithfulness, and he urged those men to
go out and be faithful to the word
of God, and to preach the word of
God without compromise, and without watering it down.
It's not in the preacher's power to produce
true conversions, is it?
God gives the increase, and what a cruel
thing to put a man under that subtle
sort of pressure, and then of course there's
a terrible temptation for a man in that
position to soft-peddle the message that might
not go over well with his particular parishioners.
And he says, if he has a wealthy
congregation, it might be very hard for him
to get up and preach on Matthew 6
.19, "...lay not up for yourselves treasures on
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and
where thieves break through and steal."
Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
Be hard for him to get up and
preach on 1 Timothy 6.17, "...command them
that are rich in this present age not
to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain
riches, but in the living God, who gives
richly all things for joy."
What am I saying?
I'm saying the preacher must be the Lord's
free man, free to declare all the counsels
of God, free to be the motif of
God, free to speak of the oracles of
God.
Anything that hinders this is a great tragedy
in the work of the Lord.
And thus, in times of declensions and apostasy,
there's a tendency for people in this kind
of a setup to take sides with wherever
the money is.
There's a very well-known denomination today that
is being riddled with some modernism, I would
say with apostasy, and there's a joke that
goes around at every annual convention that they
have.
They call it a perennial joke, which pastors
tell at each annual meeting, and they say
that if the convention splits, I'm going with
the annuity board.
They know which side their bread is buttered
on financially, and they want that annuity for
security in their old age.
Financial considerations have a very terrible way of
taking precedence over loyalty to the word of
God, and of course a fixed salary could
often, and I'm afraid does, weaken the light
of faith.
The servant of the Lord should be an
example to others of one who walks by
faith and not by sight, whose life is
a perpetual crisis of dependence upon the living
God, that's what we're supposed to be.
It's supposed to be men and women whose
lives are perpetual crises of dependence upon the
living God.
G.
H.
Lange says, I have lived and worked in
happy fellowship with workers in the gospel in
many lands through 50 years, and am satisfied
that a guaranteed or regular income, because it
dispenses with direct and constant faith in God
as to temporal supply, is certainly a spiritual
loss, not by any means a gain.
And then it's also possible in the ecclesiastical
world, and not uncommon for men to shop
around for bigger salaries, and it's very hard,
well I would say very easy to confuse
the guidance of God with a better salary,
isn't it?
Very easy to confuse those two, and to
conclude that the offering of attractive salary is
an indication of God's call.
I'm often reminded that in Old Testament economy,
a bond servant was worth twice a hired
servant.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Deuteronomy 15 verse 18.
In other words, one who served because he
belonged to his master, and loved his master,
was far more productive and valuable than one
who worked for what he got out of
it.
I wonder if this has a message for
us today.
Well, somebody might say, well if not a
fixed salary, what is the way?
How is the servant of the Lord to
be supported?
I would suggest just a few things.
First of all, and I think this is
tremendously important, the servant of the Lord must
have absolute confidence that God has called him
into the work.
There must be not a shadow of doubt
in his mind that this is the case.
The call must be so clear that to
refuse would be positive disobedience, and he must
not only be sure himself, but he must
have the confidence of his elders in an
attitude.
In other words, he should be able to
go to the elders and present his call
in such a way to them that there's
not a shadow of doubt in their minds
either that the Spirit of God is trusting
this person for it, because no man is
a judge of his own gift, and it's
good to have the counsel and confirmation of
the elders in him.
That's basic.
In the life of faith, you must be
sure that God is calling.
Secondly, he must have this confidence that, as
Hudson Taylor has said, the Lord pays for
what he orders, and if God calls me
to full-time service for him, I can
be absolutely assured that God is going to
pay for it, and I can step forth
without any visible means of support.
Just knowing that God is going to be
with me, I must have unwavering trust that
he will provide for my needs according to
his riches in glory by Christ Jesus, and
that should be enough.
According to his riches in glory by Christ
Jesus.
How will God do this?
Well, of course, he'll do it through his
people, won't he?
He'll do it through his people.
Edith Shaffer was writing about the work at
LaBrie Fellowship, and it was a work of
faith, and she wrote this.
She said, God can place an idea in
a person's mind.
He can cause someone to feel a strong
urge or conviction to do something.
So, when we pray for a certain amount
of money, God can cause one person to
reach for his checkbook and send that amount,
or he can cause a dozen people to
send odd fractions of that amount, causing the
total to be exact.
And you know that's true.
You've had that happen.
Let me read that again.
So, when we pray for a certain amount
of money, God can cause one person to
reach for his checkbook and send that amount,
or he can cause a dozen persons to
send odd fractions of that amount, causing the
total to be exact.
You may not believe that he does this,
but I'm simply saying that when I talk
about praying for money, this is what I
mean.
And to me, this is the thrilling part
of the life of faith, to see income
increase as needs decrease, and see income decrease
when the needs aren't there.
Marvelous, really.
What could be more wonderful than that?
And besides, it's a marvelous system of checks
and balances.
It keeps me from doing work for God
that might not be the will of God.
I think it's very, very important.
If I'm serving according to my own wisdom,
I can't expect him to provide for it.
Ray Williams wrote in Echoes Magazine, I believe
this is the way.
If not, how could we rely on his
guidance?
If I say to myself, I want to
do this, and say to my friends, can
you provide the money to help me to
do this job?
I might want to do it, and my
friends might want to help me, but I
would not know if it was the Lord's
will.
If I only tell the Lord that I
want to do this thing, and the finance
to do it appears without anyone but the
Lord knowing about it, then I know it's
the Lord's will for me.
Now, don't go down and try to explain
this life of faith to your banker tomorrow.
He'll call the psychiatric clinic, but it works.
That's the wonderful part about it.
Listen to the testimony of Silas Fox.
He said in 1926, feeling that it would
be better for me to look directly to
the Lord for support, and be more free
to take the calls that would come in
for special meetings, I launched out with a
wife and five children, and to the glory
of God, after a quarter of a century,
can give testimony that without a mission to
support me, without a deputation secretary to make
known our needs at home, and without appeals
on my part taking up collections, without having
my name on any list, yet the Lord
has graciously, wonderfully, faithfully met all the needs
for these twenty-five years, and we praise
him, and in this give testimony in this
way.
And then I like what Dan Crawford, the
spiritual insight that he added.
He says, A society missionary friend expostulated with
me as a married man not claiming a
fixed salary.
Something sure was his idea, sure is underlined.
It was then that God spoke to me
out of his word.
What settled the matter as to faith being
the only definite thing was the following truth
of God.
The promise was by faith that it might
be what?
Sure.
The promise was by faith.
It goes on to say that it might
be sure to all the seeds, but never
mind.
Dan Crawford just cut it off there.
The promise was by faith that it might
be sure the only sure thing is faith.
That's true.
What a wonderful thing to be engaged in
the service of the Lord, working according to
divine principles, and seeing the geared mesh, seeing
the needs met in just the right amount
at just the right time, and knowing that
God is working