Christian Service

William (Bill) Prost

With the Right Motive

What I have before me this year is the theme of “Service for the Lord.” It is a very difficult subject to take up, even with the Lord's help. Once again we are going to try to cover a few things well, rather than make so many remarks that you go out saying, “I wonder what he really did say”? I am not really sure just how we are going to divide this up, but at least for this meeting I'd like to talk about something for the heart — the motive for service for the Lord.

Let's turn first of all to some verses in John 12:23: “And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honor. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

Now a verse in 2 Corinthians 5:14: “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that is one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”

When we read these verses in John 12, it really touches our hearts, because here the Lord Jesus was right on the brink of going to the cross. He was telling them that He was that corn (or kernel) of wheat which was going to die. The corn of wheat, as you all know, you have to plant. You never get that kernel of wheat, or whatever it might be, back again, do you? No, it has to die. It has to disintegrate in the soil in order that a plant may grow, but how much more you get from the plant than you originally planted!

The Lord Jesus here was the corn of wheat and He says, “I am going to have to die. I am going to have to give up everything in order to have you with me in glory.” It is at that point that these two little verses 25 and 26 are tucked in. I suggest to your heart and mine that we will never be able to serve the Lord properly unless these verses get hold of us.

I look around the room here and I know that most of you belong to Christ. I hope all, although I can't say that. I know that most of you do and it is to you that I address my remarks. We all want to do something for the Lord. We all want to serve Him if we are really saved. Our hearts go out to that One who loved us and died for us. But if you are anything like me, how many times you feel, “Oh, I just don't seem to be able to do anything for the Lord. I don't know what to do or where to go. Whenever I try anything I seem to bungle it. The Lord doesn't seem to open doors for me. I just wish I had the kind of energy, the kind of faith, the kind of wisdom that I see other people have who seem to go ahead without any problem, without any difficulty. They seem to know what the mind of the Lord is. They seem to go here and go there and the Lord seems to bless what they are doing, but I can't seem to do it.” I think we have all been there. I surely have.

I believe what we need is to get back to what we have here. When it comes to service for the Lord, or anything in your Christian pathway, (and if you don't get anything else out of this meeting, I want you to get this straight), it is not he or she who knows the most that walks the best before the Lord, nor even he or she that reads the most, but he who loves the most. Intelligence in divine things does not come through the intellect, it comes through the heart and conscience. I repeat, it is not he or she who knows the most or reads the most or understands the most that walks the best, it is he who loves the most. And you know, when it comes to loving the Lord, how do we love the Lord? Brother Harry Hayhoe, long since with the Lord, often used to remind us, “Never try to love the Lord any more than you do. Rather think about how much he loves you.”

There is only one motive for service to the Lord, and that is love to Christ. Now there is service that can be done outside of that, because sometimes we feel “I ought to be doing something for the Lord, other people are doing something,” and so I go and do something. And the Lord accepts that, even though sometimes we bungle and do something that is not the Lord's mind.

Sometimes, sad to say, we don't do anything and that is a real problem. We get so occupied with our own interests and ideas and getting ahead in this world that we say, “I don't have any time left for the Lord.” Other times we go ahead and do something because we feel we ought to. Well, I would rather see someone do something because he felt he ought to rather than do nothing at all. The Lord accepts the service that we give to Him because we feel we ought to, but isn't it better when that service springs from a heart of love because we are in communion with the Lord? You can do something for the Lord without being in communion with Him. It will not, perhaps, be done in the right way. It will not be done for the right reason. God may not be able to bless it in the same way, but nevertheless we can do something for the Lord without really being in communion, but you can't be in communion with the Lord without serving Him. I say that without reservation. You cannot be in communion with the Lord without serving Him.

I know I am saying a lot of things, perhaps, that might seem on the surface to be very simple, but I have found in my own soul that they have to get hold of me.

Here is another remark that I hope you will get hold of: It is not what you do that counts, but what you are! If what you are is right, what you do will never come short, but if what you are is wrong, what you do will not be right. When God calls us to service, He first of all brings before us the love of Christ. The Lord says, “I am giving up everything for you,” and then He says, “He that loveth his life shall lose it.” That does not refer primarily to our eternal salvation, although I believe it could include it — that is, someone who goes on and enjoys everything in this world and then forgets God will end up in a lost eternity if he never pays any attention to eternal matters. But this is primarily spoken here, I believe, to those who knew Him and He said, “If you love your life, you are going to lose it.” Why? Because if you spend all your time and energies for yourself, you are not going to have anything to show for it up there. It may all have to be burned up. But it says, “He that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal.” That doesn't mean that I hate myself or my life, or anything like that. It simply means that I have one thing before me that takes precedence over anything else — the Lord and how much He did for me, and what is due to Him.

We read that verse in 2 Corinthians, “The love of Christ constraineth us.” You will never do anything for the Lord properly, unless it is the love of Christ constraining you. Oh, you say, “I wish it would constrain me.” Let me use an illustration that is a bit simple, but it makes the point. It does not say “The Love of Christ (should) constrain us,” because that is not the way things work. When you love someone you don't say, “Well, I should love them more than I do.” That is not the way relationships work in this life, is it? No, it simply makes that statement, “The love of Christ constraineth us.”

Let me use the illustration of a magnet. If I had a horseshoe magnet here up on the podium, (I am no physics professor, but if I were and I stood up here with a magnet before a junior science class) what would I say? Would I say “Now this magnet should attract iron”? I wouldn't say that would I? I would say, “This magnet does attract iron,” but supposing there were a pile of nails down there beside you and I held this magnet up here and said, “Well this magnet attracts iron, but those nails don't seem to move. What's wrong?” You know what's wrong! They are too far from the magnet and any student of physics would tell you that the strength of a magnetic field varies as the square of the distance from the magnet. And so if the nails are one inch from the magnet, there is a certain drawing power, but if they are two inches from the magnet, there is only one quarter of it and if they are three inches, there is only one-ninth and so on and on it goes till by the time you got to the back of the room the magnetic field is so dissipated that for all practical purposes you say “Well, there is just not much pull left there.” That is the problem with me, and maybe with you. The magnet is fine, there is no problem with it, but we need to get closer to it. That is what I want to impress on you and me. When it comes to service for the Lord, we cannot simply look around and say, “Well, what needs to be done? Where is something to be done?”

We'll get to that, perhaps tomorrow or the next day, about intelligence and how to know what the Lord wants us to do, but today we want to talk about the motive. We will never serve properly till we are close enough to the Lord. When we get close to Him (I say it very humbly, because I don't pretend to live it out in my own life), we find it is not that difficult to know what He would have us to do, but if we are at a distance from the Source, we may find that the love of Christ doesn't seem to be constraining us. Has His love changed? Not a bit of it. But I am too far away. I have allowed things to come in. I have allowed things in my life that have put a wall between me and the Lord. Then I say I don't feel the love of Christ constraining me. I can never talk about serving the Lord without bringing my own state of soul into it. And if I have allowed something (I may not even know what it is), let me tell you that the Lord is willing to show me.

We will not turn to the scripture, but you will remember in the Old Testament there was a man named Gideon, and things were in a mess in Gideon's day. The Midianites were coming in and destroying their crops and poor Gideon was discouraged. There he was behind a winepress threshing some wheat, but inside that heart the Lord saw a desire to do something about it. When the angel came and spoke to Gideon, Gideon said, “The Lord has forsaken us. Where is the God that delivered us out of the land of Egypt?” “Where are all the mighty miracles that the Lord worked for us? The Lord has forsaken us.” Poor Gideon didn't understand. He was so blind that the angel had to tell him, “Gideon, I want you to go out there. There is an altar in your backyard to a false prophet (Baal) and a grove around it. I want you to go down and break down that altar, cut down the grove, rebuild the altar of the Lord and offer the second bullock for a sacrifice.” Poor Gideon had gotten so used to that altar in his backyard that he didn't even recognize it. How could the Lord bring blessing when they had an altar to a false god sitting right there?

Sometimes you and I get far away from the Lord (and I speak to my own heart). We get so under the influence of the world around us and even perhaps, shall I say, the influence of other worldly Christians, that we don't recognize how far we have gotten away from the Lord until we want to do something for the Lord and we find that there just doesn't seem to be any direction, any power. The Lord is saying, “I want you closer.”

So the thought I want to leave with you this morning is the thought that the great thing in service for the Lord is to be wholehearted because of love to Christ.

Let me tell you a story. You might say, “What does it mean to be wholehearted?” Years ago in England there was a young boy who perhaps was 10 or 12 years old, (I think his name was Tom). Tom was crippled. His father and mother had died and he was being looked after by an aunt who didn't care much for him. She didn't like Tom. He was a nuisance. He couldn't do anything for himself. He wasn't even well enough to get out of bed and go about so he couldn't work or go to school. She did not like having this boy around the house because she had to look after him. You might say, “How could anybody think that way?” Well, that was the case. As Tom lay there in his bed, he had a good friend whose name was Jack and Jack was one of these boys that we don't see much of today, but he was what we call a “street” boy. He had no father or mother either, and he just had to make his own way in the world by doing odd jobs here and there and sleeping wherever he could. There were a lot of boys in big cities living like that in those days. Incidentally, if you go to the third world, you still see them— children that have to make their own way in the world. We don't see it here in North America, even though some do it by choice. Perhaps there are more than some of us realize that are still doing that, because things are so rough at home that they would rather be out on the street than at home. At any rate, Jack had to go away somewhere to another city, and he was Tom's friend. He came to Tom and said “I'm leaving you, but I've got something that I have saved up for you.” Then he gave him a shilling. It isn't worth very much in today's terms, but a shilling was a lot of money in those days. So he said, “I want you to save this until you can buy something really good with it.” Tom's eyes lit up and he said, “Jack, what time is it?” Jack said, “Oh about 4:30 or so.” “Jack,” said Tom, “would you go and run down to that corner store a couple blocks away where they sell Bibles. I know they have Bibles for a shilling and I want you to buy me a Bible.” “A Bible!? You know I worked hard for this and I want you to buy something you really want.” “Listen” said Tom, “I don't want anything else. Buy me a Bible.” So Jack said, “All right, if that is what you really want.” So he went down and bought a Bible and Tom drank it in and came to know Christ as his Savior. Poor boy lying there, he wanted to know about the Savior, and he was saved. After a while Tom thought, “I want to do something for the One that loved me enough to die for me.” Well, his aunt used to allow him a certain amount of food every day, but she rationed it out. He didn't get as much as he wanted. He got one cup of milk a day and a certain amount of food. Tom had no money. What could he do? You would say it was hopeless. But Tom had a heart for Christ. So he finally said to his aunt, “How much does that milk cost?” So she told him three pence a day, or whatever it was. Tom said, “If I went without that milk, Aunt, would you let me have that three pence?” “I guess so, it doesn't make any difference to me if you want to go without your milk.” And with that three pence, Tom found someone to go to a store and bought him a pencil and paper, and with his own hand as he sat on that bed, he wrote verses from the Word of God.

Then he folded the pieces of paper shut and wrote on the outside “To the passer by, please read.” Then he threw them out the window. It was a busy street down below in London, England (nowadays we would say that would be littering the streets), but people did pick them up and read them. They opened them up and wondered “What is this? A verse from the Word of God! a gospel verse! — and people got saved. One time a wealthy man, who was a Christian, came along, picked up those verses, read one, and thought, “Where did this come from?” He looked on the sidewalk and saw more. Then he looked up and figured something had to come from that window. He then inquired and found out who Tom was and what he was doing, and that he was doing without the only milk he had. He said, “Tom this is terrible. Why don't you come with me. I have a nice home. I'll give you all the pencil and paper you want and make it easy for you to do this. I'll give you your milk and good food to eat plus envelopes so you can mail these out to people.” Tom thought about it for a while. “Well sir, I really appreciate that, but you know if I did that I might get too comfortable. I might like that too much. Sir if you don't mind, I think I'd just rather stay here. I'm not going to last very long (because he wasn't just crippled, he wasn't very well either).” Well the man saw to it that Tom was well supplied with food and pencil and paper and gave him opportunities, but Tom wouldn't leave that little room where he was because he wanted to do something for the Lord. Well, I say to my own heart and yours, that was wholeheartedness.

Another story comes to mind. This time from a more mature man, Hudson Taylor in China. Hudson Taylor was in China and he gave up a lot to go there, and so did his beloved wife, Maria. They had a number of children born to them in China. I can't remember just how many children they had, perhaps 7. Four of them went to be with the Lord in China when they were quite young. I think the eldest daughter was only 8 years old when the Lord took her, and then several others followed. And at the age of perhaps 35, he stood by the bedside of his beloved wife, who at that time was only 33. He was a medical doctor. She didn't realize how sick she was, but he knew and he sat down beside her and said, “Do you realize that the Lord is going to take you home?” He could hardly say those words. And his wife said, “Oh do you think so?” He said, “Yes dear.” And shortly after that she was taken home to be with the Lord, leaving him alone in China with three small children, I believe. And his first act when his wife had gone home — what do you think he did? I think if it had been I, I would have packed it up and gone back to England or somewhere and said, “I just can't handle this.” But he knelt down beside his wife's bedside, thanked the Lord for providing her, thanked the Lord for the happy years they had together and rededicated his life to the Lord afresh to serve Him in China with the body of his wife laying there on the bed beside him. I say to you and to me, that was wholeheartedness.

Well, I don't pretend to have that. I don't pretend to know what it is like to go through that, although I tell you, in the absence of my wife, that I did stand by her bedside about 11 years ago and stared in the face of that same thing when I thought the Lord was going to take her home. So I know a little bit about how Hudson Taylor felt, but I don't know if I would have reacted that way.

We will not say too much more. Our time is up. The great thing in service is to be wholehearted. But again I want to emphasize, how do I get it. You say, I want that for myself. I'd like to feel like that. I'd like to have wholeheartedness. There is one way to get it and that is to go back to the cross.

I hope the brother who made these remarks to me yesterday won't mind if I repeat what he told me. He said that when he was first saved he was really on fire for the Lord, and an older brother who is still among us, gave him some wise counsel. He said, “You are really on fire for the Lord right now, but there may come a time when you don't feel that way. When that happens go back and read Matthew 27.” I agree with that advice. Read Matthew 27 or Luke 22, or Mark 14 and 15, or John 19. Read those verses the account of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. That is what we need. And above all, if there is something, and rest assured the Lord will show you what it is, that has come between you and the Lord so you don't feel that warmth and love toward Him, kneel down and first of all ask Him to show you what it is and then ask Him for the grace to remove it, because that is the secret of all service to Him.

God-Given Tools

Yesterday we talked a little about wholeheartedness in service and the motive for service. Today I would like to speak a little about what God has given us for service and how we are to use it.

First of all I would like to read one verse in Mark 13:34: “For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house and gave authority to his servants and to every man his work and commanded the porter to watch.”

Now, John 15:5: “I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without Me ye can do nothing.”

Before we get into the scriptures I had before me, I just want to make a comment on these two verses. First the Word of God tells us very clearly that God gave to every man his work. That word “man” is a general term which includes the sisters as well. We sometimes get to thinking that the Lord has not given us anything to do. We look at others who are being used of the Lord, others who possibly have more ability and more gift than we do, sometimes more devotedness, and the devil will say to you, “You are nothing — you don't amount to anything — you can't do anything — don't worry about that sort of thing.” No, the Lord said these words Himself, that the Son of Man is as a man who left his house (that's his house down here), went away to a far country, gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work. So there is something for each one of us to do, and no one can do it as well as we can.

God has given you a work to do. You say “ME?. Yes, you! And no one in this world can do that work as well as you can do it. If you don't do it, God may pick up somebody else and get them to do it, but he or she won't do it as well as you could.

Then this other verse in John 15 says, “Without Me you ye can do nothing.” That goes back to what we had before us yesterday. I can remember reading a passage in some of our written ministry which really struck me. It said, “Men of God, who go forth to serve our Lord Jesus Christ, go forth from a place of strength where they have learned their own nothingness.” To me those two scriptures are a beautiful balance because on the one hand there is the problem of the Devil discouraging you or me and saying “You can't do anything for the Lord, you just don't have it... others may, but you don't.” That is thoroughly wrong. On the other side there is the tendency to get lifted up in pride and think the Lord is using us in some way and we have to be reminded that without Him we can do nothing.

I can remember our dear brother Eric Smith whom some of you may have met. He is still alive, although he doesn't get around very much. I remember his telling us that in those early days in the country of Bolivia in South America, he had a consuming desire to preach the gospel to those Inca Indians. The Lord really has blessed his labors there because there are upwards of 70 or 80 assemblies now in that country, as I understand it. But in those early days things were not going very well and at one point in his life he told me he got discouraged about it. He sat there in his little hut (and that's what he called it, perhaps it was a notch or two above that) and got before the Lord about it. It almost seemed that the Lord was saying to him, “Eric, whose work is this?” And he bowed his head and said, “Well, it is Thine, Lord Jesus.” “And whose power is it to carry it out?” “Well, it is Thine, Lord Jesus.” “And whose glory is it?” “It is Thine, Lord Jesus.” He said from that point on the work seemed to start to go ahead. Why? Because he realized that he in himself was nothing. The Lord had to be everything. If you and I try to make anything of ourselves, the Lord cannot use us in service in the way that he should be able to. He must have all the glory. And that is why you often see seemingly insignificant things that the Lord is using for His honor and glory.

I can remember a story of a well-known preacher who preached the gospel. This is quite a few years ago now. It was in a big hall and there was a large crowd. After the meeting a well-dressed man came up to the preacher, obviously well educated and with a good position in this world. He shook hands with the preacher and said, “Sir I want you to know that tonight I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour.” The preacher glowed all over, as any one of us would, and he said, “Tell me, what was it in particular that I said tonight that the Lord used to bring you to Christ?” Well, I don't know if anyone here has had the experience, but the man looked at the preacher and said, “Sir, no offense to your good preaching, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't anything you said at all. When I was on my way into this room, I was a little bit late, and as I was coming up the steps there was a woman in front of me, an older woman, and on the way up she happened to miss a step and stumbled and fell down. Her purse dropped and things spilled out of it, so I helped her up and helped her collect her belongings and put them back in her bag again. As she was getting up and rearranging herself, she looked up at me and said, 'I thank you, Sir. I thank you! And does you know my blessed Jesus'?” She was an uneducated woman, and didn't know very much, but she knew the Savior. He said, “That's what the Lord used to bring me to Christ.” Well, the Lord got the glory out of that. That poor woman probably never knew that her remark brought a soul to Christ and it doesn't detract at all from the value of a good gospel meeting. The point is, God uses those who are willing to be used by Him and forget about themselves.

Now I want to read two passages in the Word of God today and they are a little bit lengthy. I can't cut them short, so let's turn to Matthew 25:14. Perhaps this is well known to many of you. It is the parable of the talents: “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, “Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

Then he which had received the one talent came and said, “Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou has that is thine.”

His lord answered and said unto him, “Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Now before we comment on this, please turn over to Luke 19, because it is rather to contrast the two accounts that we want this morning. Here we have a very similar account, but notice the difference. Luke 19:11. Here we have the parable of the pounds. “And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, “Lord thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto them, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”

Again I am going to make just a few comments on these passages, because it is better to get a few things stamped on our hearts and consciences, than to try and get too many at one time.

These two parables overlap. There are some things that are said in one that are said in the other, and I believe both of them bring before us the character of what God is doing with you and me in service while the Lord Jesus Christ is absent. In both cases He has gone away, in both cases He is going to return, in both cases He gives something to His servants in order that they might use it while He is away. The difference is this: in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, it is the sovereignty of God in doing what He wishes with His own. In Luke 19 it is man's responsibility in using what God has given him. I hope that is clear. Matthew 25, the parable of the talents is God's sovereignty in doing what He wishes with that which is His own. In Luke 19 it is your responsibility and mine as to what we do with what God has given us.

In the parable of the talents, everybody did not get the same. One got five, one got two and one got only one. God doesn't have to give every one of us the same thing. I don't want to be misunderstood. God has no favorites in His family. God loves and blesses all His children equally. Never entertain the thought that the Lord loves another Christian more than he loves you. Some of us may not enjoy that love as much as another Christian — that's another thing, but God's love is equal to all His children. When it comes to God using His own in service for Him He does not give everyone the same gift. I don't suppose there is anyone here who would try to say “I have the kind of gift the Apostle Paul had,” because God chose him and the other twelve to be apostles and you and I aren't apostles in that sense. We can't be — God hasn't chosen us for that. God may have given someone the gift of being a teacher, but He may not have given that to you and to me. God may give someone the gift of an outstanding evangelist but He may not have given you and me that gift. So God is pleased to give different talents to different ones and the whole point is, when it came time to reckon with the servants the reward was not according to how much they had, but what they did with what they were given. The man that had five talents, gained another five. The man that had two though, didn't gain five, he gained two. If we could use a little simple math, the first one doubled what he was given. So did the second one and the reward was the same. “Well done thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” The highest reward in glory will be to enter into the joy of that blessed One.

Do you get tired down here sometimes in serving the Lord? I hope I don't get tired of His work, but I trust that I do get tired in His work. When we get up there, the rest is really not from the troubles and difficulties of the way down here, although that is true, but it is primarily the rest from working for the Lord down here, and there is not much time left. That is the time to rest — up there, not down here. This is not the place to rest. I don't mean that we don't get an opportunity like this to come apart from the world and rest a while. But this is the time to work. Never forget that. Don't look for an easy pathway down here if you want to serve the Lord. The man that had five talents didn't get another five talents by sitting and relaxing all the time. He had to be in communion with the Lord, but he had to work. He maybe had to put up with hardships, he maybe had to put up with persecution, he maybe had some rough times — it probably wasn't easy. And any of you that want to get anywhere in the things of the Lord and serve the Lord are going to find that it is not an easy pathway, but it is a happy one.

So the point I want to make is, the reward was the same. You and I have just as much potential to get a reward as the Apostle Paul did, or J. N. Darby, or Hudson Taylor, or any others — people who have been outstanding in their time for the Lord. I say again, the Apostle Paul had no more potential to get a greater reward than you will get simply because of the outstanding gifts God gave them, because God does not reward according to gift. He rewards you for doing what He has given you to do according to the ability that He gives you to do it.

Has God put you in a place where nobody else notices? That's good, perhaps, because there is not the same tendency to get proud about it.

Then we come to the parable of the pounds. There you notice the difference. There everybody got the same. Ten servants, ten pounds — each one got a pound. Ten in Scripture brings before us man's responsibility and when it comes to your responsibility and mine, we are all on the same level. When it comes to God's giving a gift, God may give more to one than to another and if God has a great work for you to do, He will give you what is needed to do it. The Apostle Paul could not have done what he did without the kind of gift that God gave him to do it. So God gives according to what you need. But when it comes to responsibility, we are looked upon as being all on the same level. They all got one pound and then it was a question, “What did they do with it?” One man took it and got ten times as much as what he had before. He had one pound to start and ended up with ten. Another had one and ended up with five, and the reward was not the same, was it? Why? Because there was more diligence, more faithfulness, more devotedness to Christ, I believe, in the life of the one who had ten pounds at the end than the one who had five. So when it came to reward there, the reward was commensurate with the faithfulness. To the one who had ten pounds, the Lord said, “Be thou over ten cities.” To the one who had five, he said, “Be thou over five cities.”

What does that mean, you say? God never gives us rewards as the motive for service. The only motive for service, as we had yesterday, is love for Christ. God gives us rewards as an encouragement. Just imagine if the Lord gives you and me the ability to serve him and then says, “I'm going to reward you at the end of the pathway for doing what I have given you all the ways and means of doing!” Isn't that blessed! We recognize that it all comes from Him and then He is going to reward us. So, when the Lord receives His kingdom, as we read in Luke 19, He is going to give you and me positions in that kingdom. It says, “Unto angels has He not put in subjection the world to come,” (which is the millennial age), He has put it in subjection to Christ who is going to use you and me. That is why the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, “Know ye not that ye shall judge angels?” You and I may shrink from that today, but it is going to be a wonderful thing in the coming day when God is going to manifest everything and He is going to reward faithfulness.

Are you misunderstood down here in trying to live for the Lord? Never mind, the Lord is going to see to it that it all comes out in that day. Are you trying to do something for the Lord and you get nothing but kicks and knocks for it? Never mind, the Lord will straighten it all out in that day. Are you finding that you are in the backside and nobody pays any attention to what you are doing? Nobody notices, and maybe you perhaps feel that nobody cares. Never mind, the Lord is noticing. He will manifest it in that day. We don't look for that as a motive for service because rewards are not the reason that we serve the Lord, but won't it be a wonderful thing in that day for the Lord to say, “You did something for Me down there. Nobody else noticed. You worked hard when you didn't get much praise down on the earth for it, but now I will give you authority, perhaps over ten cities.” Well, we sing that hymn together, “It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus. Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of His dear face all sorrow will erase”... isn't that blessed!

Those are the thoughts that I want to leave with you. Read these two passages again for yourself. Remember, the one is what God gives, and God is pleased to do what He will. I've heard Christians complain because they didn't get more. They say, “If I only had this or that or the other thing.” Many years ago an old brother who is now with the Lord, tended to be pretty blunt (which wasn't all bad), but one time a sister said to him something like this: “Oh, don't I wish I had a lot of money. What a lot of good I would do with it.” I guess he pulled her up pretty short. He said, “Sister, no you wouldn't, or the Lord would give it to you.”

The point is, never get upset with what the Lord has given you. He knows what we are capable of using. Has He given you a lot of money? Use it for Him. Has He not given you much money? Alright, use that for Him. Use what you have. Maybe He will give you more. The people that end up as treasurers of companies, don't start off there. They have to learn how to manage money before they get to that place, and God doesn't always put us in the limelight right away. Moses had to spend 40 years in the backside of the desert before he could lead the children of Israel.

I want to make a comment about the man who had one talent, then one pound. This makes me feel very sad, because here was the man who had one talent, and what did he do with it? It says he went and hid it in the earth. The man who had one pound didn't quite do that. He wrapped it up in a napkin and put it away somewhere. I don't want to press the point, but I suggest this application to you. In one sense, every individual born into this world has a talent, although primarily I believe what is referred to is what the Lord gives to His own. But I believe, in one sense, what we have in Matthew 25 brings in unbelievers as well, and there may be some unbelievers sitting in this room today. Why are you here on this earth? Do you know why? Why did God put you here? One woman who was a nurse, with whom I used to work at the hospital said, “We are not here for a long time, but just to have a good time.” That was her philosophy of life. No. The reason you are here is found in Revelation and I would like to read the scripture. Revelation 4:11: “Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

Whether you are saved or not saved, you are included in this verse. In fact, everything has been created for God's pleasure, whether it is the nice flowers, or whether it is the animals, the fish in the sea, the beautiful mountains, God enjoys it all. We were commenting on a piece of poetry that some of you may recognize from Gray's elegy in a country churchyard, “Full many a flower born to blush unseen and waste its fragrance on the desert air.” An old brother used to say, “Good poetry, but not true.” Every beautiful flower the Lord created for His pleasure. Even if you and I never see it, He enjoys it. He looks down on you and me, and we are created for His pleasure. Is there someone here that is not saved that is hiding his or her talent in the earth? That means the horizon of your thoughts is nothing more than this world. Instead of using what you have for God's pleasure, you are using it for your own pleasure.

You notice the end of that passage. It is very very solemn. What do we read in Matthew 25:30, “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” What an awful thought, that someone in this room may be headed for that. I say again, you have been put here with something to use for the Lord, but it starts with owning yourself as a sinner before God and accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and His precious blood to wash away your sins.

But in Luke 19, I suggest to you that the thought is a little different. I suggest to you that the emphasis is primarily on a believer. I wonder if there are believers here who are hiding their pound in a napkin. We live in the most favored lands in this world, but I often think it is more difficult to live for the Lord in a place where there is prosperity, than in persecution.

Within the last year or two, a worldly man who didn't understand the ways of God said to one of the Christians (he was visiting in China and they still undergo even at this point in time, a lot of persecution for the name of Christ), “If God really loves the Christians in China so much, why does He allow them to go on year after year with so much persecution?” The man from China gave him an answer that I think was priceless. He said, “You tell me this. If God really loves the Christians in North America, why does He allow them to go on year after year ruined by materialism?” There wasn't any answer to that one. The fires of persecution are better for us than the relaxation of prosperity, but just as God gives us strength to stand for Him against persecution, He will give you and me the strength to use our pound for Him and not to hide it in a napkin.

I talk to young people, people my own age, and older people — I talk to them sometimes about a lot of things — about their work, and careers, and how they are enjoying things, how perhaps they are building a home, saving money for this, the nice vacation they had, and all the things we naturally enjoy doing. I sometimes talk to young people and I think, my, what privileges you have compared to what some of us had, to be able to travel around here and there and to go to general meetings, what privileges we have to enjoy one another's company, what opportunities we have to get good jobs and get ahead in this world. We have to ask ourselves, What is the bottom line? What is it going to look like when we come to stand before the master and he says, “What did you do with what I gave you?” Because whether I had a good job and made $100,000 a year, isn't going to matter at the judgment seat of Christ. Whether I had a nice home isn't going to matter at the judgment seat of Christ. Whether I traveled a lot and saw a lot of this world isn't going to matter at the judgment seat of Christ. Whether I did a lot of things to please myself, isn't going to matter, but what is going to matter is “What did you do with what I gave you?”

I don't want to be someone with one talent that hid it in a napkin and the Lord has to say “Sorry, Bill.” I don't think there is going to be anyone in heaven that doesn't get some reward, and that's a real comfort. There is no such thing as a real believer that doesn't get some reward. But isn't it going to be a sad thing if you and I have to stand before the Lord in a coming day and say, “Oh, I wasted my time.” I think I have wasted a lot of time in my life. I look back on it. I don't know if there are others here my age who would say the same, but I would give a lot to sit where you sit today and have the last 20 or 25 years over again. I guess we all feel that way. But you are in your prime. I don't know how long we are going to stay here. You have the potential with the Lord's help to live for Him.

One more point — Why was it that the servants did not use the one talent or the one pound? What was the problem? They had wrong thoughts of God. The one who had the one talent and the one who had the one pound said almost exactly the same thing. They said, “We know that you are an austere man” (someone that is hard and unyielding). They said He asked for something when He didn't give it. The Lord never does that. He never asks us to serve Him without first giving us all the supplies.

Someone yesterday needed to go to Shingletown to pick up some supplies. Wally was there with his wallet open and said, “How much do you need? Do you need $50 — well here's $100, just so you have enough.” Why? Because he didn't want them to run short. That is what the Lord does. If He gives us something to do, He doesn't say, “Well you go and use your own money and when you come back I'll make it up to you.” Oh, no. The Lord gives us everything. But the reason they didn't do anything with what they had is that they had wrong thoughts of God. They didn't understand the love of God. The unbeliever doesn't come to Christ because he doesn't understand His heart of love, but it is striking to me that the same thing can happen to a believer. You and I can get so far from the Lord that we look upon the Lord as an austere man, reaping where He has not sowed and gathering where He has not strawed. So we say, “I'm afraid. I can't do anything.” You say, “I would never talk like that.” I've talked to people, dear Christians, whom I knew to be real believers who have talked like that and I have known a lot more who have admitted privately that they thought like that only they wouldn't say so. They were upset. They didn't think the Lord was fair (if I might use that expression). Where do we get that idea? It is because we are at a distance. We are too far away from the magnet. We need to get back, as we had yesterday and enjoy His love for us. Are you lost and don't know Christ as Savior? Read Matthew 27 and John 19, Luke 22 and see how much He loves you. Are you afraid to serve the Lord? Are you hiding your talent in the earth and your pound in a napkin? You need to get back to the Lord and realize that even if He has only given you one pound or talent, you can have just as great a reward as the one who got five or two talents, because God will not reward according to what you don't have, but according to what He has given you.

May God stir up each one of our hearts — to recognize what He has given us. Have I got five talents? Have I got two talents or one talent? Whatever it is, recognize it and ask the Lord what He would have you to do. We will get into that more tomorrow, but also do not have wrong thoughts of God. Do not bury your talent in the earth, but say as the Apostle Paul said on the road to Damascus, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

The Leading of the Lord

We talked a little on Monday about the motive for service and yesterday about what the Lord has give us to serve Him; that is, the various gifts in the Word of God spoken of as talents and pounds in those two parables. Today I would like to talk about that age-old subject “How do I know what the Lord wants me to do?”

We read that verse yesterday in Mark 13 where it tells us clearly that when the Lord went away He gave to every man his work. We mentioned that there was something for each one of us to do. But how do we know what the Lord would have us to do?

Let us read two or three scriptures together. Romans 12:1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Now turn to Acts 9:6. The Apostle Paul at this point in his history is still Saul of Tarsus as he was on his way to Damascus. “And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, What wilt thou have me to do?”

Psalm 25:14: “The secret of the LORD is with them that fear Him.”

One more passage in Psalm 32:8-9: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.”

We often have that question raised — How do I know what the Lord would have me to do? I have had many people come to me (young people and some not so young) and say “Oh, if I only knew what the Lord wanted me to do! How do you find out the mind of the Lord?” Of course it is not only in connection with service for the Lord, but it spreads out into every aspect of our Christian pathway. “How do I know? I wish there were some simple way that I could find out what the Lord would have me to do.”

It is a very sad thing to see Christians who go on day after day, week after week, sometimes month after month and year after year and never seem to find out what the Lord wants them to do. They flounder around — they go here and there and try this and that. Whether it is a matter of what job the Lord would have them get into, whether they should go to college or not, whom they should marry, where they should live, what they should do for the Lord — they never seem to have any settled peace about it. I have spoken to people like that and some have said, “Well I guess I just don't understand — I don't know.” I talked to a sister, probably about a year ago, who was having some real trials and difficulties and she was older (much older than I, probably old enough to be my mother). I said to her, “Have you asked the Lord about it? Have you asked Him why He has allowed all this and what the solution is?” “Oh yes,” she said, “I've tried, but He just doesn't answer me.” Have you ever felt like that?

The thing I want to say at the outset is, it doesn't have to be that way. God does not intend it that way, because here in Romans 12, where we read, you will notice that it says at the end of verse 1, “which is your 'reasonable' service,” but perhaps a more accurate rendering of that word is “intelligent.” Christian service is not unintelligent. It is not a matter of saying, “I want to do something for the Lord — I see this or that opportunity — it doesn't matter which I choose.” No, it is an intelligent service. We can have a sense in our souls that the Lord has given us something and we can realize that it is something that He has laid on our hearts to do.

I want to make one more comment here, and I don't want this to be misunderstood. Someone has said, and I believe it is very correct, that, “it is not the need that calls us to service, but rather the mind of God,” and that is true. There are needs everywhere and you and I as individuals can't fill every need we see. If we take up every need that crosses our path, we will end up becoming frustrated because we can't fill them all. I can still remember being in an assembly, perhaps last year some time, and I wanted to have a chat with a brother who was working hard. I arranged to have lunch with him and we talked about that phrase that “the mere presence of a need does not constitute a call.” I agreed wholeheartedly with him that that phrase needed balancing. He said, “You know, Bill, I'm not sure that we need to have that pressed upon us so much today as the fact that we perhaps need (to use a colloquialism) a kick in the pants to get going in the first place!” He said, “All too often we say 'Well, a need does not constitute a call, and so I don't do anything'.” A need may not constitute a call, but a need constitutes an exercise—it should exercise me. I can well remember reading a story of a man who was exercised about going to China and another man who had it on his heart to go to China also, got down on his knees and said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” The Lord said clearly to him, “I don't want you to go to China, but you have lots of money... reach into your pocket and support that man who is going out there.” So he went to him the next day and said, “Brother, I've been reading in the book of the Acts, which said 'Lord what wilt thou have me to do', and I think I have the answer.” Then he gave him a check for what in those days was an extremely large amount of money, probably represented in today's terms as a year's wages. He gave it to him to go.

That is what we should have. The need doesn't constitute a call, but it does constitute an exercise, and that brings me to the first part of this verse in Rom. 12, which I think should be impressed upon our souls, and it goes back to what we had on Monday, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.” Sometimes we hear Christians talk about wanting to get closer to the Lord, wanting to do something for the Lord, and I have been guilty of the same thing myself — of wanting to do it so that I could have a smooth pathway — so I won't have the ups and downs and the unsettled state before the Lord — so that my life will go along nicely — so that I will have joy and happiness in my soul. All that isn't wrong. If I follow the Lord, I will get that, most definitely, but could I suggest to your heart and mine that there is a higher motive than that and that is that I do it not for what I will get out of it, but for His sake. It is a much higher motive to do it for His sake and so that is why it says here, “By the mercies of God.”

The apostle has been bringing before them in the first 8 chapters of Romans all of those blessings that are ours through the finished work of Christ, crowning with that wonderful 8th chapter. Then chapters 9, 10 and 11 are kind of in brackets, because that takes up the question of where Israel is at this present time. If you read the book of Romans, don't skip chapters 9, 10 and 11, but read right from the end of the 8th chapter sometime, to the beginning of the 12th, because this chapter refers back to the end of the 8th chapter. So you read the end of the 8th chapter and it brings before us those verses that were already before us. Verse 38, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — “I beseech you therefore brethren” — that's the way to read it.

So that is the first motive, as we had before us on Monday, and we are going to have to come back to that. But to go back to what I mentioned a moment ago, how do we know what the Lord would have us to do? Is there some magical formula that some people seem to have and some don't, that some seem, without too much trouble, to be able to know what the Lord wants and others just have to flounder, because they can't find it out? No, I say again, in case I didn't make it clear once before, that God blesses each one of His children equally. There are no favorites in the family of God. Nobody has any more ability to draw closer to the Lord and to know His mind than any other Christian. But again I say, if there is one thing you get out of this meeting and you don't hear anything else, remember this, you can't talk about knowing the Lord's mind, whether for serving Him or for any other area of your life, without bringing in the question of your state of soul. You and I would like to have something easy. We would like to be able to plug into something and say, “Here is the problem, Lord, give me an answer.” But the Lord will not do that, because He loves you and me too much.

That is why I read that verse in Psalm 25 — “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,” then in Psalm 32, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye.” That means simply this, that it is in communion with the Lord that I learn His mind, and if I come to the Lord and want to know His mind and I am not living close to the Lord, I may find that it is just not forthcoming that quickly. Have you ever had that experience? I know I have. I've gone to the Lord and said, “Lord, what shall I do?”, and I seem to be hitting a wall. Does it happen just to young people? No, it happens to older people too.

I can remember well hearing the story of brother J.B. Dunlop, who is long since with the Lord, how at the end of a day he knelt down to pray. He was trying to lay some things before the Lord, and couldn't seem to get anywhere in prayer. (Clayton was saying last night how it is simple to talk to the Lord as a dear friend, but you can't talk to a dear friend if you have done something to offend him during the day and you haven't made it right. You have to fix that up first). He couldn't seem to have any power in prayer so he said, “Lord, what is it?”, and the Lord showed him something he had done earlier in the day. It hadn't been anything too much, really, maybe an angry word, or a wrong thought that he hadn't judged. I confess to you that the Lord had to show me that more than once — that I had allowed wrong thoughts in my mind, allowed things to turn over in my mind, evil thoughts that had no business being there. I can't stop them from coming, but I can stop them from circulating around, and I had to judge them and confess them as sin, as Dan was bringing before us. Then communion is restored and I can ask the Lord for his mind.

I say again, if you don't get anything else out of this meeting, I want you to get that straight. If you can't find out the mind of the Lord, don't just give up and say “Oh, it's no use. The Lord doesn't show His mind to some people and I guess I’m one of them.” I've heard people talk like that — real Christians, but it's not true! So what the Lord wants is to draw you and me closer to Himself. He loves us too much to show us His mind and to let us go on away from Him. We can't serve Him effectively unless we are close to Him.

That brings me to another point I want to make and that is this, that we sometimes get a little puffed up with the importance of our own service and say “I've got to go here, or I've got to go there or have to do this or that.” The Lord (I say it reverently) doesn't need anybody to do service for Him. The Lord can reveal Himself to lost sinners without you and me. The Lord can bring the gospel to the heathen without you and me. The Lord can reveal the truth to souls without you and me and He does that but He is pleased to use us. I say again, in one sense He does need us because we are the light of the world now that He is gone, but in another sense He doesn't need us. The Lord is more concerned about having you close to Him than about your serving Him. We need to remember that.

Sometimes we get to thinking it is important that I do something for the Lord but again it goes back to what we said on Monday — it is not what you do that counts, but what you are. If what you are is right, what you do will always follow. The one who is truly in communion with the Lord cannot neglect the service the Lord has given him to do, but I can serve Him without being in communion. The Lord wants to draw us closer to Himself. All too often today we see perhaps our souls at a distance from the Lord (I speak to my own heart). So what do we do? Well we think we have to do something, so instead of seeking the Lord's mind, we build a human structure by which we serve the Lord. Does the Lord withhold a blessing because of that? No. The Lord may bless that, but I say again the mere fact of the Lord's blessing does not mean that the service is necessarily according to His mind. He wants us close to Himself.

What does it mean here in Romans 1:12? “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your intelligent (or reasonable) service.” That means first of all the Lord wants holiness in our lives. We have to get rid of that which is not according to His mind and we won't dwell on that except to emphasize it. But then it says in verse 2, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” I emphasize this verse because I feel it is our biggest problem today. If we are conformed to the world, we can't prove what is the perfect will of God. That is our problem in North America. The world has gotten in amongst us, me included. It says in I John, “Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world,” because “if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” If you want to serve the Lord, it is going to cost you something. You are going to have to give up the world.

I've told this story before, but I'll repeat it, about two sisters (sisters in the flesh, but also in Christ). One was going on for the Lord and one wasn't. The one who was going on for the Lord had a settled peace in her heart about what the Lord would have her do, and she was comfortable in the service the Lord had committed to her. The other one was floundering, couldn't seem to make any headway, did this and that, and wasn't happy anywhere. Finally she said to her sister, “I would give the world to have the peace in my heart that you have,” and she didn't mean the peace of knowing her sins forgiven, she meant the peace of knowing she was walking with the Lord and that she was in the pathway of His choosing. Her sister answered her in a very short sentence. She said, “That's exactly what it is going to cost you.” Do you get the point? “I would give the world to have the peace you have.” Alright, that's what it is going to cost you. That other sister wanted to have the world and have Christ, and no one is more unhappy in this world than a Christian who is trying to enjoy both worlds. If you are trying to enjoy this world and trying to enjoy Christ, it won't work. So “conformed” means to come together with the world, “transformed” is a change — it means that I recognize that I belong to heaven. Then I can prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

I want to make one more comment here. That leads on to our next subject. I can't always expect, even if I really am walking with the Lord, that I'm going to get the answer just “like that.” I'll get the answer when I need it. I am thinking of taking a trip, but I still don't have any settled peace about whether I should go or when. But it does not upset me that I can't get down on my knees today and find that the Lord gives me an immediate answer. Basically the Lord may say “Just wait. The time will come, and when you need to make the move it will be abundantly clear to you,” and it will if you are really asking the Lord.

We don't always find the mind of the Lord easy to determine. Turn over to Acts 16. This incident in the life of the Apostle Paul has impressed me (Paul and Silas, of course, together). Notice what happens in Acts 16:6.

“Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they were come to Mysia, they assayed (or tried) to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us.”

What is the point of all this? The point is that even Paul and Silas, those great servants of the Lord, didn't immediately have a sense of where the Lord would have them go. It says here they were forbidden of the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. Galatia is in Asia and Phrygia, but then it seems the Spirit of God says, “No, Paul and Silas, don't preach the word here.” But they didn't immediately get the direction to go there. What did they do? It says they went down to Mysia. The point of this is that sometimes when the Lord doesn't immediately reveal His mind, it may not always be an indication that we are away from Him. It may be an indication that He wants us to sit still for a minute. Someone has said very aptly, that we are to do everything for the Lord's sake, and that sometimes includes doing nothing for His sake.

Now, I don't mean doing nothing in the sense that my mind is a blank, or that I don't use the time to enjoy the Lord, or perhaps to do some reading that I need to get caught up on, or perhaps simply to sit quietly and let the Lord speak to me and enjoy Him. We need that. But, sometimes the Lord puts a roadblock in our way that doesn't immediately show us which other road to take. That didn't discourage Paul and Silas. They go down to Mysia, and then they tried to make another move. They assayed (or tried) to go into Bithynia, but once again the Spirit suffered them not. But what happened? It says, “And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas.” There the Lord gives them a decided vision, a decided sense of what He wanted them to do.

The point I want to make is this, and it goes back to what we had before us in our first meeting: Even if you are whole-hearted, if your heart is really for Christ, you are going to encounter Mysia now and then in your pathway. Well, you by-pass it and then the Lord gives you light as to where you should go. But if you are not whole-hearted... I've seen people who have found Mysia everywhere. Everywhere they went the Spirit seemed to have put a block in their way until finally they threw up their hands and said, “It's no use.” But what was the difficulty? If I may speak very kindly, they didn't get close to the Lord and say like Saul, “What wilt Thou have me to do?” All too often our own ideas get into things, but I say again, if I am whole-hearted I will pass by Mysia and the Lord will show me what He will have me do.

Now I don't mean you will get a vision like Paul. I don't mean that necessarily you will see something in the night that will tell you which way to go, although that can happen, even in this day and age, but the Lord will give you very definite direction about what He would have you do and where He would have you go.

Does the Lord guide us by circumstances? Sometimes He does, but it is not His preferred way. I can remember a young man back home who prayed something like this, (and it kind of brought a smile to some of us, but he was very serious), “Lord, I want to do this, but I don't know whether it is Thy mind. Lord, if it is not Thy mind, stop me somehow.” I was glad to hear him pray like that, because I appreciated the fact that he really wanted to know the Lord's mind and I am thankful for that. I would rather hear someone pray like that than barge ahead saying, “I'm going to do that anyway.” Sometimes that happens, but you know it is not God's preferred way. I shouldn't have to say, “Well, I'm going down that road till I hit a roadblock and then I'll know it is the wrong road.”

I have tried to give people directions sometimes around our area. Most of the time they take the directions because they think I know my way around there, but a couple of times people haven't taken my directions and have gone down the wrong road. They ended up getting lost or ended up in a totally different area. They found out they were wrong, and it cost them something... they had to retrace their steps. It would have been smarter to listen more carefully to someone who knew his way around our town.

The Lord doesn't want us to keep hitting roadblocks and saying, 'Whoops, I'm on the wrong way road this time — I had better try another way,” and make moves “hit-and-miss.” No, He wants to guide us with His eye as He says in Psalm 32.

Beloved young people, it is possible, utterly possible in this day and age, to get down on your knees before the Lord with His Word spread out before you and say, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Saul prayed that prayer and he got the answer! “Go into the city, Paul, and it will be told you what you must do.” Now, you can do that too, but you have to be willing to listen to what the Lord has to say to you. You have to be whole-hearted. I have to be willing for the Lord to lay His hand on my shoulder and say, “Bill, there are a few things we have to talk about first. There are a few things we have to straighten out first. You are not ready to do that for Me yet. I want you to serve Me, but you are not ready yet. You need a little preparation. I want to draw you a little closer to Me first.” Now, am I ready to do that, to listen, or am I so bent on service that I am just going to do something anyway?

Notice what it says back in Rom. 12, just for a moment. It speaks about “being transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Why does it say, “your mind?” In Colossians 4, it says, “Set your affections on things above,” but really the word there is not “affections,” but “mind.” “Set your mind on things above.” We are never told to set our heart on things above. You don't set your heart on something, although we do use that expression, like “He had his heart set on that.” I don't have to set my heart on loving my wife, do I? No, that just flows out naturally. I don't have to set my heart on it; if I do, something is wrong, but I am told in the Word of God to set my mind.”

My heart is the spontaneous outflow of my affections. Setting my mind on something is an act of my will. I say to your heart and mine that one of the greatest hindrances to being in the current of the Lord's thoughts is my own will getting in the way. Instead of setting my mind and having my mind transformed, which is an act of my will, submitting my will to the Lord, submitting the thought of my mind to Him, instead of that, I want my own way, I want to do my own thing (to use that expression), I've got my ideas about how things ought to be done or what I should do for the Lord, and the Lord says, “No, no. No you don't.” It doesn't mean He will never bless anything I do, but I won't have a sense in my soul that I am doing what the Lord wants me to do.

“Transformed by the renewing of your mind.” “Set your mind on things above.” It is an act of your will.

Well, our time is nearly gone, but I want to make two more brief comments. Someone asked me this question yesterday, and I am going to repeat it to you (I don't think she will mind). She said, “How can you know when you have done everything the Lord wants you to do?” The answer I gave to her was, “You can never have that sense in your soul.” Turn to John 17:4 for a little verse.

“I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”

That always chokes me up a bit when I read that verse, because there was only One in this world's history that could say those words. Only One, Who at the end of His pathway could kneel down and pray with complete confidence and say, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.” None of you, nor myself, will ever be able to say that. We will never finish the work. We can have a sense that we are doing what the Lord gave us to do, but we will always have a sense in our souls that we have not carried it out as we should, and that's right.

Turn over now to 2 Timothy 4:7. Here is what I hope you will be able to say at the end of your pathway. “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

I suggest to you and to me that this is the most that any Christian will ever be able to say, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course,” not, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.” No, but I have finished my course. That may be a long course or a short one. John the Baptist was martyred when he was barely thirty years of age, and yet his work was done. Many servants of the Lord have been called home when they were relatively young. Francis Ridley Havergal, whose book I have recommended to you, was taken home at the age of only 42; her work was finished!

How long is your course? I don't know. It may not last this week out nor may mine. But will we be able to say, “I have kept the faith?” Why did Paul say that? Because it wasn't so much a question of what he had done, but that he had done what the Lord wanted him to do, and that he had been faithful in what the Lord had committed to him. It is not how much you do that counts, but it is the fact that you are doing what the Lord would have you to do. Don't be upset if you are only a small cog in the machinery. Don't be upset if you are not in the “limelight.” Don't be upset if you find what the Lord gives you to do doesn't put you in the public eye.

I was chatting some years ago with our late brother Armistead Barry, whom some of you may remember, and he was talking about being at the deathbed of brother Walter Potter, who was a well-known servant of the Lord among brethren gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. What he related to me really touched my heart. He said, “I went to visit brother Potter on his deathbed. He had had a stroke and was paralyzed partially, but his mind was perfectly clear. I can still remember his last words. With tears running down his face, he said, 'Armistead, remember this: keep humble and be content to be nothing'.” Content to be nothing?? Yes, content to be nothing, because then the Lord will get all the glory. Is He putting you somewhere where you say, “I don't seem to be doing much that is important.” That is not what counts. It is being where the Lord wants you.

One more verse: Isaiah 26:3: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.”

This reminds me of a poem I once read. It impressed me enough that I memorized it. It went like this:

“As ever on through life we find,

To trust, Oh Lord, is best.

Who serve Thee with a quiet mind,

Find in that service, rest.

His outward troubles may not cease,

But this his rest will be.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,

Whose mind is stayed on Thee.”

You are not going to find it easy to do something for the Lord; the devil is going to attack you. We have had that before us this week, and in one way that is an encouragement because it is always the present work of God in the Spirit that the devil attacks the most. If I don't find any opposition in my service for the Lord, I get a little worried, because if the devil leaves me alone, maybe it is because I am not doing what the Lord wants me to do. So, if everything goes smoothly, it perhaps is (though not always) that I am not in the current of the Lord's thoughts, although the Lord can make my way smooth. But if there is opposition, on the one hand I should be exercised by it (and I don't mean opposition from my brethren). If my brethren in Christ don't approve of what I am doing for the Lord, I should take that to the Lord. They may be wrong or they may be right, but I can never be so sure that I have the mind of the Lord that I can't listen to my brethren — I believe that is thoroughly wrong. But on the other hand, wherever the opposition comes from, we need to get before the Lord about it. It doesn't say, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace who does his own thing!” No! But, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.”

So I want to leave that with you. The Lord can give you a sense in your soul of what He wants you to do. He can give you perfect peace in the midst of the most untold troubles! I know some of you have terrible problems. Some of them have nothing to do with your own making — you have been a victim of circumstances that you may have had nothing to do with. Never mind. The Apostle Paul told slaves who had to do everything at the will of a master and who couldn't have any will of their own, that they could serve the Lord Christ in everything they did.

Understanding the Times

We have talked during the past three days on the motive for service, on the ways and means God gives us to serve Him, and how to know the mind of the Lord about what we should do for Him.

Today I would like to speak concerning “Understanding the Times,” or having intelligence as to the days in which we are living and what we can look for as results in our service for the Lord.

First of all, I would like to read a verse in 2 Timothy 2:5: “And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully.”

We are going to spend most of our time today in 2 Timothy. What I want to do, with the Lord's help, is to bring before us some warnings we get and also a great deal of encouragement. The thing I want to impress upon us, first of all, is that you and I are not living in “apostolic times.” We are not living in the days of the early church when everything was fresh and new, when Peter could go out and preach and 3,000 people were saved in one day, when there was power to deal with problems, when there was a love and a unity displayed, not only to other Christians, but also to the whole world. We are not living in those days.

Every dispensation (which means every period of time in which that God has dealt with man in a certain way), God has given man a responsibility and man has always failed in it. When God put Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, they failed. When God put Noah on the earth after the flood, he failed. When God gave the children of Israel the land of Canaan, gave them the law and everything that they possibly could need, to live for and serve Him, they failed. The church has not been any different. The church has failed! It is one of the principles in the ways of God that when man fails in what God has committed to him, God never restores things to their original state. God never puts us right back where we were at the beginning. Not that the principles change, but God always restores things (if we may use the expression) in a “remnant character,” that is, He restores things in a “limited” way. So you see at the end of Israel's history (refer to the book of Nehemiah) He raised up people like Ezra and Nehemiah to come back to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple and the wall, but He never brought back the days of glory such as Joshua had when he conquered the land of Canaan, or when David and Solomon sat on the throne. No, those days were gone. It would have been unintelligent and wrong for Nehemiah to have attempted to restore that kind of a thing, because they had to recognize that failure had come in and that they were under the judgment of God.

I say that, because very often, many dear Christians are upset when they do not see things happening that they see in the Word of God during Pentecostal times. We need intelligence in the things of God. We are right at the end of the dispensation of grace. Man has ruined it completely. But what has happened? I believe in wondrous grace, God in these last days has restored truth to you and to me. I say this because most of you here are gathered to the Lord's name; you have been brought up in what I can honestly feel is “the truth of God.” God has restored it to us; not that there weren't always individuals that have enjoyed it down through the ages, but as far as a “public testimony” was concerned, God raised up those in the last century who restored something of what there was at the beginning, but in a small way. That is why it says in the address to Philadelphia in Revelation 3, “Thou hast a little strength.” It does not mean that they were small and weak and others were strong, it means (if I may say it reverently) that Philadelphia was “a chip off the old block!” A chip off the old block——-it was part of the REAL THING! There is no strength mentioned in connection with the others at all. What I want to impress upon us is that we need intelligence as to the day in which we are living, we need intelligence when we want to serve the Lord, we need to realize the character of the days in which we live, and what we can expect.

Here we read this verse in 2 Timothy 2, “A man is not crowned unless he strive lawfully” — you don't find a verse quite the same as this applied to the early days of the church. You do find brought before us in 1 Corinthians 3:12 about how God can reward that which is done for Him “gold silver and precious stones” — but He is going to have to burn up the things that were done for self — “wood, hay and stubble” — just things that are no good at all. They will burn up. We do find that — but we don't find the warnings that we get in 2 Timothy. Why are they necessary? Because ruin has come into the church.

Well, what do we do about that? How do we handle that? There is a tendency on the one hand to give up and say, “Well what's the use? There is no point in trying to carry on any longer.” On the other hand, there is a tendency among some to say “We have to get back and get things the way they were in the beginning!” I don't want to be critical, but there is a hymn sometimes that is sung (I haven't heard it sung around here), “Send the power, the Pentecostal power.” Would to God that that would happen, but it is not intelligent to sing like that. I'm not critical of those that do, perhaps many sing it with a true heart, but it doesn't display intelligence in the things of God. The thing we need to impress upon ourselves is this, that God, when we are found in a situation such as we are in today, has given us light in His Word as to what we should do.

Some people say, “You just have to do the best you can, you can't apply things the way that they were at the beginning” — but God's principles don't change. However, we can't expect to see the kind of public testimony and blessing that there was in the days of the early church. I want to talk a little about a few verses in 2 Timothy here, and then go on to some real encouragement.

First of all, this verse brings out the importance of striving lawfully. I guess most of you heard about a young man in Canada at the last Olympics, who ran the 100 meter dash in record time. But then he was completely disqualified and his gold medal taken away from him. Why? Because it was determined that he had in his system some kind of drug (we won't bother going into it) which was totally against the rules. It made headlines! Everybody knew who he was! Ben Johnson, — everybody felt sorry for him, but other people said, “If you don't clamp down on this sort of thing it is going to be rampant.” A lot of people thought, “He got caught, but others were doing it too.” Perhaps so. The point was, he was totally disqualified because he broke the rules. God has certain guidelines in His Word and God does not always withhold the blessing because we don't adhere to the guidelines, but nevertheless, isn't it a good thing to do things according to God's Word?

So we find in 2 Timothy the emphasis is on FAITHFULNESS. The emphasis and the warnings are on faithfulness because so many devious teachings and practices have entered into the church of God.

Let's go down a little bit in the chapter, but I want to make one point here first. 2 Timothy 1 gives us the setting — the ruin of the church. 2 Timothy 2 gives us the individual's pathway when everything is in ruins. 2 Timothy 3 gives me my attitude as an individual toward the professing church at large. So 2 Timothy 2 is more what I need to do for myself as an individual. 2 Timothy 3 is more my attitude toward those who take the name of Christ at large. What do we find in 2 Timothy 2:15-21?

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (or perhaps “cutting in a straight line” is more accurate) the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his, And, Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.”

Here we find (I suggest to you without making a lot of comments on these scriptures), one of the important principles of service in these last days. Do you want to be fit for the Master's use? Do you want to be prepared for every good work as it says here? We talked a little about separating from the world yesterday, but this is even more difficult. You are going to have to separate yourself from that which is not according to the mind of God, even among those who profess to be Christians. Some may be real, some may not be real, nevertheless you will have to separate from that. This is one of the biggest “hang-ups” among Christians today. So many do not see the truth of this — to separate from another Christian. I can remember when a brother said to me, “You mean to tell me that I have to separate from another Christian?!” I said, “Well, what does it say here, 'purge himself from these' — what are these'?” Vessels to dishonor. A believer can be a vessel to dishonor. Suppose another believer is going on in a very careless way in his life and engaged in wickedness that is not in keeping with the testimony of a Christian. I have to separate from him. Supposing that another believer holds very bad doctrine concerning the Person or the work of Christ. I may have to separate from him. People say, “How can you do that? How can you show love if you do that?” Well, here is an important point — all too often we tend to think of the love and the care that is due to others, without first thinking of what is due to the Lord! Which of those two should get the highest priority? The Lord should be considered first, shouldn't He?

That is where it all starts. If I look at someone else my heart goes out to him, but I cannot sometimes show the love that I would like to a fellow Christian who is deliberately walking carelessly. He should know the love is there — he should know that it hurts not to be able to walk with him. I had some correspondence a while ago with a dear brother in Christ who is connected with a system which is not according to the Word of God and oh, it hurt! It brought tears to my eyes sometimes to write back and forth because my heart went out to him so much. I had to tell him, “Brother, I can't go along with those things you are trying to say!” It was difficult and he knew that I felt it. I hope every Christian would know that because it is an important principle. If you want to be fit for the Masters' use you have to be ready to separate from that which is not according to the word of God.

Why does it say, “If a man (or a woman) therefore purge himself from these?” It has to be individual. I have to get to the point where I say that if every other Christian in this world is not willing to please the Lord, that is no reason for me to go along with it. That is no reason, because the Lord can give me the strength to walk alone! Brother Rick was just proposing something that I think was a terrific idea because it is not easy to walk alone. And do you know what? — we are never going to be asked to walk alone! The Lord may bring you to the point where you say, “Well, by the grace of God I will walk alone with the Lord if that is what it comes to.” But then what do you read in verse 22? “Flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, and peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”

There is always going to be a “with them” until the Lord comes; you will never be asked to walk alone. There may not be very many. You may find (I am going to say this very carefully and very kindly) that there are other Christians, other young people, other people my age, gathered to the Lord's name, but you don't seem to be able to have much fellowship with them; and, I'll say this too, because it is true, you may find that there are other Christians with whom perhaps you could not break bread, but with whom you can have more fellowship in the things of Christ because practically they are living more up to the light that they have although positionally they are connected with that which is not according to the Word of God. Others positionally may be where the Lord is in the midst and yet practically are not walking in the good of what they know.

Well, what do I have to do? I have to stand fast for what the Lord has told me, and it may mean walking a narrow pathway, but my heart ought to be broad enough that it takes in every member of the body of Christ. I can be narrow-minded and walk a narrow path in the flesh. I can be broad and include every other Christian in the flesh, but I can't walk a narrow path and have my heart go out to every believer unless I am in communion with the Lord. That is why there are so many difficulties with these scriptures. Sometimes young people ask me, “Why is it that I have to ask to remember the Lord, why isn't it that I just go to the meeting room and sit down and the brethren pass me the loaf and the cup. Why is it that I have to first express my desire and sometimes the brethren have a visit with me — why do we do that?” That scripture may be quoted in 1 Corinthians 11:28: “Let a man examine himself and so let him eat.”

The reason for such care is in 2 Timothy 2. I don't think you had to ask in the days of the Apostle Paul. I don't think that if there were a Christian in the city of Corinth that wanted to remember the Lord, he had to ask. (I don't mean that children who had grown up might not have expressed their desire, that's different). But I don't believe that if someone got saved at a gospel meeting the week before and the next week he was baptized and wanted to remember the Lord, that he had to ask and have the brethren visit him and talk about it and all the rest of it. Why? Because there was only ONE place where Christians met in Corinth — ONE place. If there was a Christian in Corinth, all the other Christians knew who he was because there was no other place to go except a heathen temple or maybe a Jewish synagogue. There was only one place.

But it is not like that now. Christendom is like a “great house” as we have it here in 2 Timothy 2:20. Things have become divided and bad doctrine has come in as in Hymenaeus and Philetus. They brought in bad teaching and Paul said, “Their word is going to eat like a gangrene.” Do you know what gangrene is? It is dead tissue. I don't know whether you have seen it or not, but it isn't very nice to see. When someone's foot has gone gangrenous, it is awful, and it spreads. Paul says that is what happens with bad teaching. Do you know what has to be done with someone's foot that has gone gangrenous? You have to amputate it!

I have talked with people and had to tell them, “You have a gangrenous toe!”

“Do you have to amputate it?”

“Yes!”

“Where?”

“Above the ankle.”

“Above the ankle!!? Why?”

“Because if you don't do that you are going to lose your life. That gangrene is going to spread!”

“But I can't give up my foot. I don't want to lose my foot.”

“Well, but if you don't lose that foot your whole body is going to suffer.”

That is the point here. Bad teaching has to be dealt with even if it means saying to another Christian, “I'm sorry, but that is not according to the mind of God.” But I should do it with tears in my eyes. Sometimes we get the attitude of “good riddance to bad rubbish.” Oh no! If we do it in that way we are totally wrong.

But nevertheless, what is due to the Lord? Remember it will spread like gangrene — that is the reason. Don't be too upset if when you or others ask for your place at the Lord's table it takes a little while; it shouldn't take a long time. I say very firmly, that if brethren know you and know you to be a Christian who is walking in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, it should not take, as one brother said this morning, ten weeks to remember the Lord. Nevertheless, if your brethren are careful, don't be too upset. Sometimes brethren get to doing things in a bit of a protocol and I don't believe that is according to the mind of God, because we don't have protocols in the New Testament, but if your brethren are careful, there is a basis for it, a reason for it.

When someone comes to the assembly whom we don't know, they can't just simply sit down and break bread, because we would be wrong simply to receive them on their own testimony. You didn't have to do that in the early days because everybody knew who they were, and what they were doing. If a man was living a sinful life, every other Christian knew it. But now I don't know. I don't know where a person comes from, what he is connected with, what kind of a life he lives, so we are responsible on the ground of 2 Timothy 2.

We don't have any more time to spend on that, but if any of you are unclear yet and want to talk about it, we would be glad to sit down and chat, some of us, because it is important to know why we do things; it isn't just something that has been dreamed up.

Well, let's go on now to 2 Timothy 3. Here we have more the “collective” aspect, and once again, we get warning in the first part of the chapter. Look at that list in the first three verses: Verse 2: “Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,” and on and on the list goes. I just say to you that this is not a description of the world, although it is true of the world. This is a description of those that profess to be Christians. Pretty sad, isn't it, and yet it is true.

In the “great house” there is a mixture of believers and unbelievers, and sometimes you can't tell the difference. That's why it says, “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” This is a description of the world, yes, it's true, but more particularly a description of the professing “house of Christendom.” That's what we are faced with. What do we do? Notice verse 10: “But thou hast wholly known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions.”

Paul says, “You've known my doctrine, manner of life and purpose.” Which are you going to follow? Are you going to go back to the Word of God and say, “By God's grace I'll walk according to what God's Word says?” Or am I going to be caught up in what we read in these first three verses?

It's not going to be easy. Notice verse 12: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus (may suffer persecution? No!) SHALL suffer persecution.”

If you try to live for the Lord, you are going to have a rough time. It may not take the form, as some of our brethren have experienced (and perhaps still are in some countries in the world), where they lose their jobs, lose their homes, are persecuted every step of the way for Christ. It may not take the form as in China where Christians are imprisoned for the name of Christ, but you will certainly suffer persecution and you will have to be prepared for it. It doesn't say just persecution from the world; you may have to take it from other Christians who say, “Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are walking that way? Who do you think you are taking “holier than thou” ground and separating yourself from other true believers?” If I don't have the Lord before me I won't be able to carry on.

So much for the warnings. 2 Timothy gives us warnings, and if we don't pay attention to them I say very plainly to each of you dear young people and to my own soul, our testimony will be ruined. It pains me many times to see dear young people whose testimony has been ruined by not paying attention to what we have here.

But then the 4th chapter is encouragement. What does it say?: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”

Oh, I love that! There is a warning, but “preach the word, be instant in season, out of season.” Why does he say that? Because in these last days it is not going to be easy. You and I like nice, neat opportunities to be opened up to us. I was talking to some last night who would have liked (as I often would have liked) for the Lord to have opened up a real vision as He did to the Apostle Paul, and say, “Paul, I want you to go over into Macedonia.” A man saying to them, “Come over into Macedonia and help us,” and then we would say, “I know what I have to do now.” But things don't always work that way in these end times. I don't mean that the Lord won't give us a definite sense in our souls of what He wants us to do, but it will be “in season, out of season.”

Let me give you a very practical point. I don't know whether it is the same way around here. I would imagine it is the same as it is in Canada, but we have a gospel meeting in our hall every Lord's Day and it is not easy to get people to come in. It has to be a personal invitation before somebody will come. We can't just put the time of the gospel upon the wall of the meeting and open up the doors and expect people to pour in. It used to be that way, but is isn't any more. People need a personal invitation, and need someone to get to know them, to talk to them, and it is harder to get them in than it ever was before. We have to reach out to them. What are we doing in our everyday lives?

You know the Lord had to bring it home to me. You have seen ads in magazines sometimes about various charge cards — the one that comes to mind is American Express, and the phrase is, “Don't leave home without it!” “You know it should be that way,” the Lord said to me, “with your gospel tracts. Don't leave home without them!” That took some doing! But finally I can honestly say to you, I got to the point where I don't leave home without them now, because I never know when I am going to need them. The Lord will bring you an opportunity “out of season.” You smile at someone and say hello to them. Then they say, “Boy, you seem happy this morning!”

I might answer, “Well, I am happy, you know.”

“How can you be happy with the way things are in this world?” “out of season” — but get your “sword” out and use it! Then you can reach into your pocket or purse and say, “I'd like to give you a good gospel tract; it has made me so happy that I would like others to have the same happiness.” And you can say quite honestly, “This isn't promoting any particular denomination. This is just the simple way of salvation.” The Lord can use that. More people have been saved that way than we realize.

One time a man was standing in front of a large group of Christians (I believe it was several thousand), and he said, “I want a show of hands. How many were saved at big gospel crusades, the type that Billy Graham might hold?” A few held up their hands. Then he said, “How many were saved by listening to radio preachers or watching a program on television where the Word of God was preached?” A few more put up their hands. “Now,” he said, “How many were saved by a personal contact with another Christian who took a special interest in you and brought Christ before you?” I forget the exact percentage, but it was something like 70 to 80%!! That's where it is at in these last days, and God can use you and me in those circumstances, if we are whole hearted. If we are whole hearted the Lord will make the opportunity. You say, “I can't do much for the Lord!” “Be instant in season, out of season.”

Notice verse 5: “Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist.”

Why does it say that? Oh, in the days of the early church you didn't have to tell somebody to do the work of an evangelist because there was a good evangelist there. If I were around someone like Tim Cedarland all the time, somebody wouldn't have to come to me and say, “Bill, do the work of an evangelist,” because there would be someone right there that had that gift. But when I am by myself, I need that exhortation because there isn't always an evangelist right there handy to do that. Many of the gifts are being used in a wrong way — connected with bad doctrine, bad teaching, — very sad! What do we do? You may have to “pinch hit” for something you aren't really trained to do!

A few years ago in our home, my wife was very ill and had to be in the hospital for some time. My two children were quite young and I had to “pinch hit” as a cook. You can imagine they noticed the difference and they remarked on it too! Why did I do it? Because I wanted to take over? Oh no!, not at all! — but because my children were hungry, and I wanted to see them fed. Things improved as time went on, so they told me. Things were better at the end of one or two weeks than they were at the beginning! Why? Because practice made things come a little more easily. It didn't make me anywhere near what my wife is and I was more than happy to hand things back when she was well enough to take over again. This is what we have to do today. Sometimes you have to “pinch hit.” God will give us the grace.

“Do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” What about results? Oh you say, “Wouldn't it be nice if I could just see somebody saved through my efforts? Wouldn't it be nice to know if I had been a blessing to someone.” I would love it if someone would come into our assembly and get saved at a gospel meeting — it can happen. Let me say this about results in these last days — there are two things we need to remember. We often hear it brought before us, “We are not responsible for results” and that is true. We don't have time to turn to the scriptures. They are in 1 Corinthians 3 “Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God giveth the increase.” That is blessedly true! We are not responsible for results. If we are in the place where the Lord wants us, doing what He wants us to do, we can leave the results to Him.

A brother who is now with the Lord, used to say, “Don't count your converts before the glory; you won't count enough.” It is true. Much of what the Lord has used us in blessing for down here probably won't appear till the judgment seat of Christ. Why? Because we would get too puffed up. We would get thinking of ourselves as being somebody. So, somebody may have been blessed by something you have said or done, but you don't find out because you need to be (and I need to be) kept humble and just go on quietly for Him.

The other side is this. I believe we can expect the Lord from time to time to give us encouragement by showing us fruit for our work. If I never, month after month, year after year, see any fruit for what I am doing for the Lord, I believe it should cause me to get before Him and say, “Lord, am I in the right place? Am I doing it in the right way? Is there something connected with my service that is hindering the blessing?” I believe that there should be and we can expect encouragement from time to time.

I can remember when I was in England some years ago and I preached the gospel there, an older sister came up to me and told me how much she had enjoyed it. She said in her own quiet way, “A little praise to lift you up, but not enough to puff you up.” That was good! That is what God does for us. He gives us a little praise from time to time to lift us up but he doesn't let us see enough to puff us up. If God doesn't show us very many results, sometimes it is just so He might keep us humble in order that we might serve Him better. So don't be discouraged if you don't see a lot of results, but on the other hand I believe we can expect encouragement from time to time as if the Lord is saying to us, “I'm with you; you are doing what I want you to do and here is just a little indication of it!”

Well, our time is just about gone and I want to read one last verse. It is the last verse of 2 Timothy 4 and I want to leave this thought with you on this last meeting. Verse 22: “The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen”

Why does He say that? It's an unusual expression, “The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit: — that's not the Spirit of God. That is your spirit, my spirit, because every man and woman is a tripartite being; body, soul and spirit. We know what a body is. That is the casket in which the real you and me is kept. The soul is the seat of the appetites and the desires, but the spirit is the God-conscious part of our being. And he says, “the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit.” He has given us warnings about how to do things, what to look out for, how we have to separate from evil, how we have to be careful, and so on. He has given us encouragement and the final essence is “the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit.” You know, Timothy was in danger of doing one of two things, I believe. He was in danger of giving up on the one hand and becoming discouraged with what he saw, and there is a real danger of that today, but the Lord encourages us because He is the same.

There was another danger in Timothy's day and that was a danger of getting upset and angry at the situation in the church and perhaps, shall we say it, using the whip to try and straighten things out. Sometimes we do that and that is usually the fault of those of us who are a little older than you young people. You don't act so much like that, but we do. Sometimes we see things that aren't right in the assembly or in our brethren and we think, “If I just get the whip out that will straighten things out; if I just come down hard on them for it, that will straighten everything out.” Well, I don't mean that we don't need to be faithful. We need to be faithful. There are times in the assembly when discipline has to be carried out, sad to say, but it should always be done in love. The individual that has to be dealt with should know that it pains us beyond measure to have to deal in that way, although we have to be faithful, and there is a danger of that attitude overtaking us when there is a lot of failure. What is the antidote to both of those attitudes? “The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit.” If Christ is always before me, you know it is not so much what I do often that is wrong, but the spirit in which I do it.

I have a real problem in the way I say things to people sometimes. It may come through in the wrong way. I may say the right thing, but it comes through in a wrong way — a harsh way. What do I need? “The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit.” We can do the right thing but in the wrong way.

One final comment. You will never be able to walk rightly before the Lord, or to serve Him, unless you are in direct contact with Him. Some of us are very concerned about you (as we are about ourselves), because Lassen Pines is not the real world. This isn't the world you and I have to live in every day. There is a danger of getting so happy here that we come down to the earth with an awful thump when we go back to the reality of life at school, life in the assembly, and we say, “Boy, I just can't wait to get to the conference, or I can't wait to get to Barakel or whatever it might be, where I can get charged up again. It is sad if we just bounce from one peak to another. What we need is to be directly in contact with the Lord himself.

You will never walk properly as long as you lean on somebody else. Sometimes you and I may need to. There have been times in my life when I needed the sympathy and love of others, but if my life is nothing but asking for sympathy and saying “Help me, I'm hurting,” then I should be before the Lord. Christianity is characterized by giving, not by asking. We all need at times, and God has given us, one another for that; but I say what God really wants you to do is to be so enjoying the love of Christ that not only can you overcome your own problems and difficulties with His help, but you can be a help to others. Nothing enables you to forget your own problems so easily as to have the Lord use you to help somebody else. “He that watereth shall be watered also himself.” If I am always thinking about myself, that is not the spirit of Christ. The spirit of Christ is, What can I do first of all for the Lord, and secondly, what can I do for others. You will be amazed that if you forget about yourself and put the Lord first and others next, how you will find that for some strange reason you are very happy, although you haven't been bothering to think about your own happiness. You have been thinking about what the Lord would have you do, you have been thinking about helping someone else out, and strangely enough in the middle of all of that you will be very happy.

If you want an example of that, look at our blessed Saviour. The Lord Jesus Christ never had one thought for Himself — always for the glory of God, His Father first and for the blessing of others, and He was the happiest man that ever went through this world.

I know our time is gone, but can we just sing one verse of that hymn I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.

You know the story behind this hymn is very touching because an Indian prince wrote it who lost everything for Christ. He had to make a choice. His father said to him, “Son if you are going to follow Christ, I am going to have to disown you. I'm going to have to disinherit you. You are going to have to go it alone. You go up to your room and think it over and then come back with your answer.” So he went up, and when he came down some hours later his father said to him, “Son, what will it be?” His answer was to hand his father the words of this hymn. He gave up everything in this world for Christ. Was it worth it? Indeed it was! May you and I be willing to give up things in this world in order to serve our blessed Saviour better.

Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: [email protected].

Christian Service