In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of fulfilling the word of God and helping others see their true identity in Christ. They mention that everyone has a role to play in the commission of spreading the gospel, even if they are not officially attached to a church. The speaker shares personal experiences of sacrifice and the challenges they faced in their own mission work. They also discuss the faith and trust required to continue fulfilling their calling, even in the face of doubts and distractions.

But you are tested, you are tested. You know, it's who wholly follows, God knows, God knows. He knew Caleb, wholly follows. I've got a few Caleb, I've got that mountain for you. God watches the whole heart, doesn't He? Psalm is the whole heart. Whole heart is you really mean it. You really mean it. And God will of course settle you in your really meaning. Well I was caught at that time. The mission to which I was going, the stud mission, there was only half a dozen missions in those days. Stud, in the heart of Africa, always just built huts and lived there. And his wife was at home, and daughters, that's the daughter I was seeking to steal, was at home there. And that's all there was practically. So it was like a family mission. Now at the very time that my fiancée broke me off, I had a great student friend, who's still a student friend, but I knew he liked her pretty well. Well we have a kind of honourable way in England. We don't just hook another girl if she belongs to somebody else. So he got his father to go to Pauline's mother and say, Would it be alright now Norma's engagement is broken, if my son continues a friendship with Pauline, which he couldn't say no, because the engagement was broken. So I had to watch my son, my friend, courting my ex-fiancée, like the end of the mission where I was going. I had to watch, I should live in the hut next door to those of two men, only about five people in the whole place, in the middle of Africa, little pub. Now this is how God gets you, you know. I had a precious uncle who loved Jesus, a great evangelist, much as he was an Australian, he was a more gentle type, he didn't quite like the soldiering of Stud too much. And so I think he wanted to get me out of it. I was staying with him and I was badly hurt. He said, Oh Norman, I have an influence in a committee, a small mission in India. I know they'd work up having you there. Why don't you drop this, going to that Congo and go to India. A big pull, I could escape the business. I couldn't, not because of the girl, because I'd lost a girl, because God said you go to Congo. He placed you to the bottom. He said you go. Well I said, I don't know, girl or no girl, he did say go, so I must go and suffer I suppose. Now what happened is, that's how you got the girl back, what tricks God plays. Because they thought I'd leave. They thought, oh he won't stand this, he'll go to another mission. Well if I didn't leave, my brother-in-law was out with Stud, Alfred Buxton, just come up further, saw this, because he knew me and so on, he went to Pauline and said, Pauline, I know you love that man, don't be silly girl, go back to him. So I say I was proposed to next time, instead of being proposed. So we got together, I didn't take very long to decide I'd go back. It didn't take me more than ten minutes or so. But the point was this, only afterwards did I get out of her. In the confessions, sometimes you get, and the confession was, you know why I turned you down, don't you? He said, I said to myself, when you came back and said you love Jesus so much, you were questioning whether he loved me too much. I said, if I marry that man, I won't be even number two in his life. God will be number one, God will be number two, I'll be number three. I'll be number three in no man's life, get out. But she said, I'll have to come back, she lived all her life number three, so I'll have number three to her. We had sixty years of it, she's in glory now. But you see, you get tested out. What I'm pointing out, unknown to me, God did know the genuineness of my heart, didn't mean to follow Jesus. He'll keep you if you do, don't be afraid of him, he'll keep you. If you mean it to her heart, your purpose in her heart, he'll get you, and he'll mold you alright. And so he molds you and puts it all together. And then he puts you through these detachments. So of course that puts a detachment in our very marriage, and a general detachment in life. So I'm saying, God, don't try and work it out. If you say, well I know I'm in the middle one, well maybe that's all you ought to have at the moment. Maybe you ought to be just occupied with praising God, you are not you, but you've got marvellous love as somebody who's praying. Maybe that's all you've had just now. Just don't take more than the speed it goes. Because if you see that this is a preparation for the Christ in you, the outpoured Christ, and so you as he will be the outpoured person, that's the higher one. And you die as I as may live. If you can see that, you can sort of glimpse it. And you say, well that's what I really... Don't say I ought to be, say I am if I'm taken into consciousness. Because every redeemed person is that, if they know it. Because they're all, every redeemed person is a total Christ expressing by himself. He's only totally the part you're conscious of. Because it has to operate with your level of faith as you move on. You see what I mean? But I am saying therefore, don't say, oh now somehow I must sacrifice. Don't say that. Keep everything you can till you can't get rid of it. Be as selfish as you can. Don't try and give anything, then God will make you. Then what you give will be what he makes you. Much better. So cut off all your giving, give to nobody anymore. Until he makes you. Then you'll be in trouble. So I recommend the trouble. You see, because it's in himself, isn't it? It's in himself. That's why I believe in churches. Right as a young man I saw the reality of precious George Muller. Who was the first father of the faith of our generation. He's among the orphanages in Bristol. Hudson Taylor learned faith through George Muller. He taught up the whole faith mission of the world. George was a German, you know, came over and built those orphanages by faith. His marvellous books on the walk by faith. But he had a, I remember this, I saw it distinctly as a young man then. He had a fellowship, a church. And they never had made an offering. They just had two boxes at the end. One box for the world, the work. And one box for the pastor. And no one ever knew what he got. Whether he got tuppence, as we'd say, or five thousand dollars, no one knew. But you see, in other words, there was no you ought to give. People gave because they were ready to give or didn't give. They were like, Bill has a bridge, we have it here. Give or don't. That's right, isn't it? It would be lovely if a church could come back to that. Because you've got to have a pastor who trusts God more than his stated salary. That's the problem, isn't it? So you see, there's this discipleship stage. I say that carefully because it's something God does in his own ways when he's got that pure heart in you. A pure heart is an unmixed heart. It's always had one purpose. A pure thing is unmixed, isn't it? We always had pure hearts. You had a pure heart for the devil, quite good for him. Now you always have a pure heart, but that's where the purity goes. Your purity is unmixed now if you're by Jesus, that's all. And so in his own way he sorts things out. And then makes this effect. And so you get this balance in which you have your attachment and you know what God's told you. I've been like our Lydda, who's our president of our board. She'd love to be around us like Laurie is, but she has young children. She knows she can't be. You know your place. You fit into your place. You do things as God calls you to do. Whether it's family things or others. It all fits as it works. So there's an attachment, but basically there's a detachment. The phrase I've always used there, which I picked up. I get lots of good things from people who aren't professed to be Christian. I can't miss one of the great mystics. Oh, he never was professed to be a Christian mystic. Oh, that was several hundred years ago. And here he had the phrase, I picked it up, the flight of the alone to the alone. At bottom we're alone. We're alone at the bottom. We're just ourselves. He's the one. We're the one. There is a sense of flight of the alone. This is the union. You and he only. You and he only. In him you find everybody, but you've got to drop the other boys and find him. And then you get him back. It's that way around. So back when you get him, you get the whole lot. But even that's secondary. It remains forever, this. And even to me, I mean, we've had precious 60 years together. Oh, you have precious friends up there. I can't see heaven with pleasure. I'm going to rush off to see my dear ones. It's the he, it's everything. I live for him down here. I live to be totally in faith, whatever that means. With this one. With the whole. And the whole to me, that's heaven to me. Any time we find some precious things. Millions of precious things. Fellow citizens of the saints. But you move on. That's a precious fusion of three things. You fellow citizens of the saints in operation of some kind. Or the household of God. Or in the home. You can go to the refrigerator. You're in the whole family. You have family privileges. And then built upon the apostle's promise, his own temple. A dwelling place. So you move from the citizenship and its activities to the family activities. To the lone activities. When he is your former, what he is, his dwelling place. And so there is a sense in which this comes out that way. The subject remains in the flight of the alone to the lone. And in it, in fact, you can't embrace the whole article. I suggest that the faith affects the faith. Substantial product of this faith. That's somewhat on the negative side of it. The detachment. The positive side is that somehow I can take it. When I was just, I had an artesian well pouring up in me. It's now streamed out of me. Now that takes some faith. Perhaps that's where the faith lies. When you got saved, you had to turn away your faith from your consciousness of your sins. You had to attach yourself to your saviour. And the other sins disappeared. You couldn't get the self-business right until you transferred your attention to yourself, to himself. And then the thing will come right. So you never get your faith right when it remains on the negative, do you? It has to move from negative to positive. Now the negative is that any of us say, that's why we use that promise. John 7, 38, 39, the promise. He is believing that something out of his inmost part shall flow rivers of living water. That's a strong thing to believe, isn't it? As you say, out of you, and then as you know, or don't know. Many of you do know, because we use that scripture a great deal. The point, the statement that John adds to that. It's our third faith statement. Our first faith statement, of course, is John 3, 16, Salvation. Our second faith statement for replacement, unification, is usually Galatians 2, 20. And our third faith statement for the third level, the father level, the higher, the royal priest level, the intercessor level, is John 37, 38. Really 38. Where he stood and cried it, that it was a great burn in his heart among the people in the temple there. He stood and cried it. He said, he that believeth on me, as the scripture said, it's a Galatian scripture, the scripture never actually said those words. The way the scripture can be interpreted in terms that are applicable at the moment, the nearest you get is Ezekiel. It never actually makes the statement. He that believeth on me, as the scripture says, out of his belly, inmost part, shall flow rivers of living water. Rivers of living water. And then John added this to put the time factor in focus. He said, this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because the Jesus was not yet glorified, crucified, glorified. So he says, Jesus had to say, shall flow, don't you say that. Don't you say, are flowing. Now that takes some saying. It may have taken some saying if you were to say, you're not Jehovah Christ in your form. I hope it did take some saying, they caught you or something. It takes some saying. How can you say out of your, don't you look at your funny self. Your bulldog self. Or bullfrog self I should say. So hear faith again you see. And so all it says, is the same word that you use for salvation. He that believeth, he that believeth, he that believeth. He that believeth on me. And I always make my own little instance in there, because that's exactly how it got me, but I did it. That was an important point. It was the same time, just about the same time it happened, I told you about our remade engagements and so on. That some preacher among our students had a strong word on this and I saw it. My heart was there. But I said to myself, if I believe on him, out of me shall flow. I was just a young ex-student. Out of me shall flow rivers? But the point is, the point is on the rivers or the believing. It's the believing that matters to you, or you call it your faith. You call it your faith. Not the size of the rivers, that's his affair. Which is, looking at the size of the rivers I hadn't got much faith. But I could say I had faith as if he said, alright Lord, you said if I believe you'd do it. Alright, I believe it. I'll create like this, at least a trickle of muddy water, let's tackle that one. But I did, I believed that something would happen. If he allows a trickle, that's his affair, not mine. So you see, but it is a big thing. To say, this is me, this is true of me. That's rather, I think the third time I repeat it. The most recent thing I saw was this little Chinese lady up in Indiana. Without her knowing it, the rivers are flowing through her hair dressing and stuff. Almost spontaneously, after a severe battle. She's a keen miner, she went through a whole year where she was discarding God almost. So she went through a battle, that's what I mean. But rivers just flow, she laughs and we laugh, they just flow. So you don't make a river, but you do, if I may say, make a believing. You may say, you do the believing. As I say, it took me five hours to believe Glade 220. It may take a little time to believe this one. So again I say, these things are insofar as the spirit touches you on them. Because the spirit taught you to get saved. The spirit touched us to get the Christ adjustment in this life. If the spirit touches you, and you say, well this is what it is. And life is that I become an outflow in your stream. And so other lives become what I am by the grace of God. This is what he says. And therefore, against all appearances, I may be a housewife or may have a business or something. That's not the point. Or I may be this or that, that's not the point. The point is your faith. If you're really deep down in it, it may take a struggle. It may take a time. As I say, the greatest book I know on intercessory faith is the Lewis Howells book, which I think has gone out there. But I was able to persuade his chief co-worker, a woman of near my age, who started up a school for children 30-40 years ago. And the great rapport with him, that was a faith. He had a sense that this little woman, Doris Rusko, understood with him. So it was a great understanding. And I felt she could do it. I said, I meet so many requests in America for a little more understanding of what intercession really means. Because people have got the idea that it just means intercessory prayer or something like that. And it is a little bit in the book. So I said, Doris, I think you could write a new adequate explanation using illustrations from Reese Howells and she had a lot of material and so on, the scriptures included, to show what this operation of intercession is. And so she's done it. And it's going into print now. It won't be out for about three months maybe. You can watch her point. It'll be, Reese Howells explains intercession. We use those Reese Howells because many of those already in the book would like to know a little more. We think it'll have a wide, we'll again advertise in some of these magazines, like Moody's and so on, so you may know about it. Because, you see, you learn there, sometimes these exchanges, they do take travels. They take time to get settled into a thing. Because we're not talking about a thing you can pray today and forget about somewhat tomorrow. We're talking about something that's bitten into you. And I'm saying this, it was bitten into you to get saved, didn't you? It's bitten into you that Christ has replaced Satan in your home. Now this has to bite into you. So you never lose this act. Because, you see, it affects you because you're so human. Back you come, what about my body, what about my health, what about my family? And you find things that turn your attention away from this one thing I do. But of course, if it's basic in you, you come back, no, no, how does it fit here? My one thing is, in what sense am I part of the way by which Christ has formed other people's lives? In what sense is this being fulfilled by me? And you come back to that because it's eaten into you. So I'm not suggesting that you very lightly move into the third one and say, that's me. But you can, from the beginning, repeat it until it does bite you, if you like. And that's the faith thing. Because the faith comes back, the faith is that somehow he settles the attachment, you just find yourself detached. You just find yourself detached. And he settles in the attachment, well, this is what it is. But technically that's apostleship. And that's the royal priest. The father. I think as I've always said, you've begun to understand, you enter into a new cooperating level with God. You act as God. You don't depend on God. You are all the time, of course, but that's hidden background. You act as God now. That's why we use the word as he is. You have the faith he has. And do the things which are his doings. And die the dimes he died. You're co-God, you're co-savior. Those are different terms we use. The priesthood is the intercession. The intercession is a compulsion. Intercession is specific in particular. It isn't a word that's great to use. It picks up very strongly. The most used statement is the 59 Hazar one we use. It is equal also. Oh dear, I can't see very well, is it? It's 16. He saw there was no man there. He wondered there was no man there. He wondered there was no intercessor. That was the days there were a few. Of course, there had been Moses and so on. And that's when he was speaking later on, he'd suddenly come to see the intercessor. But nowadays, of course, there are many times. Many repetitions of Christ. So he wondered there were no intercessor. In other words, an intercessor is a specific person. He has a specific purpose. I think you get that, don't you? Is it the 22nd of Ezekiel? Yes. He says the same thing in the 22nd of Ezekiel and the 30th verse. I sought for a man. So there's a sense in which God's looking for special people. That's why I had to make a differentiation between the whole church of Corinth and the apostles. Priest Howells would say, he knew, he'd forgotten more than I ever knew, that he would say very few become really intercessors. I don't like that too well. Because I'd like to hope more of us are. In other words, it's a particularised, specialised fact. And he's here, he sought for a man who'd fill up a gap. Make up the hedge, stand in the gap before the land for me. So you see, intercession is a peculiar quality of God's seeking out. The seeking out means you can't help it. Don't you try law now. Intercession is a distinct commission which you accept. But don't you try and get it. It'll get you. If it's not you get it, it'll get you. You may be prepared. You may say, well Lord, I mean this, and as far as my poor little self is concerned, I do mean it, I'm your person, and to be your intercessor, and your priest, and all the rest of it. I choose that. You can do that, of course, and you can move him by faith, and that's what he's actually fulfilling in you, that faith of John 7 and so on. But you don't find the drive. He finds it. In other words, something gets you, which is the immediate purpose, and you've got to fulfil it. I think that we may say that major intercessions are minor. Perhaps the greatest is the major, and inside the major is the minor. I mean, in the course of my calling, I did get a major intercession. I've been involved in getting the gospel to people who have never heard. Worldwide evangelization crusade. That was a major intercession for about 40 years. Now it came out in the form of, I was to be the one to replace Studd, who had laid the foundation in Africa, but he hadn't been worldwide, and develop it to the worldwide level. That's why I had to learn the practice of faith. I haven't spoken of it yet. It will be solved. And give our lives to this. In these places, we had to find out what the places were, then we had the faith that would be entered, and put up maps by faith that would be entered, then the Lord sent the right people, then the people go out there, and then battles, and weaknesses, and failures, and problems, and mission fields, until they become established, and then the church of Christ begins to arise, and so on. I mean by that, for 35 years I lived that. When I took that up, when Studd died, the Holy Spirit said, Your business is to see it. Every other evangelized area I've been to is occupied. And as I found in West Africa, and Latin America, and India, and Indonesia, and so on, those areas became my responsibility. To take, of course, my own sense of lightshare, to have the faith, and the cooperation, which meant that our precious crusaders, some of them lived, and many of them died, and gave their lives, and now the church of Christ, there are thousands of them there. See what I mean? So there's a general commission. Now I mean, my general commission now is this. I've got to do it. I don't find much sacrifice. I find too much fun, but there's supposed to be sacrifices. I suppose there's sacrifice. I have to keep going round, and boring you. You have to have the sacrifice. I have to go on doing it. I'm not a speaker. Dan's a speaker. I'm a muddler. I'm a stammerer. But I have the scriptures, so stammering lips, and tongues, things happen, so that's help for me. So I have to go on doing it. And the Lord ropes in my precious sister Sandy to drive me round. She's run away without seeing us, I suppose, has she? Or is she later than late? They've gone, I think. Too shy to come and be shouted at, I suppose. But see what I mean? Now I know that. I've got to do that. And others, you see. Bill and Anne in their way, Laurie in her way, Dan and others of you. Not necessarily those who wander round. Linda and the Louisville Centre, and so on, and so on. Now that's the sense, and maybe, and surely there'll be more of us. Because it's going to be an army. It's going to be an army. And the interpreters will be part of it. But you sense, well, this is it for me. Praise God for those who are getting precious souls saved, and I'm for that too. But I have, from God, I have an understanding in which I can give this fullness, the full fullness of the word of God to the people of Christ. I can help them to see who they marvellously are. With the shock of finding Christ in their form and so on. I must do it. So maybe out of gain of this, some of you may not be attached in the official sense like we are, but to you this is part of the commission. And you just find somewhere you're fitted in to make your contribution, your share, and we'll show what share it is, to get it to the whole world, and church in the world, don't we? That's part of being commissioned. Please proceed to the next tape.