In this sermon, the speaker reflects on a challenging time in his life when he and his wife were left with only eight dollars for the whole month. Despite the difficulties, they were determined to continue their mission work. They sought guidance from God and studied the book of Joshua, finding inspiration in how God spoke to Joshua and encouraged him to be strong and courageous. The speaker emphasizes the importance of relying on God's direction and trusting in His provision.

I'm not saying necessarily it's permanent. Now, personally, I have to use personal illustrations, my commission was tremendous to get the Gospels of the Unsaved right from 1919 to 1965, I was on that. I haven't got it now. Bless them, I'm with them wholeheartedly. In fact, I'm trying to stir them up to have a little more Holy Spirit in it and get a little more union life into them. They'll listen to me, the old popper. But that's not my commission. My commission is this. So you can change your commission. I had a tremendous commission in only two or three years of commission in my college days, because we're mostly, I mentioned before, we're mostly worldly men, we've been up from the army. We're ex-army men, we aren't just young students. And the Gospels, they get saved, of course. They get saved, we have a little union. I won't go into details now, and God had to have me a death there. A death where I surrendered to get my degree, to get the mission field. There was a death to give up the degree, because in England you can't go back and raise your arm. If you give it up, your chances are gone. But there I went for this, and there I went for it, and that's when the Holy Spirit broke through. I gained the commission because we had this breakthrough which produced the Inter-Varsity Fellowship, which is now the Inter-Varsity Conference, which is spread around the world. So you see, that was only a year or two. But that got me those years. I had to do that. Until it had a certain death, and we haven't talked about it, but an intercession has a death in it, something, there's a suffering in it, out of that your death comes life, and you gain the intercession. So in that case it's just temporary one. So when I say major, I don't say it's necessary for life, that means something has grabbed you. Now don't make it up, don't make it up. If it hasn't come, drop it. The Spirit will give it when the right time comes. Maybe the right time hasn't come for you. So don't get back to works in that Satan self-effort stuff. But you can say, God, I've taken this up, I am a royal priest. You give me a privilege, I am what you say I am. I am on the Father level, and whatever terms you like to use, on the Ascended level. Ascended is authority, of course. You exercise authority from the throne, that's the king part of it. And I am that. You can say that, and say, therefore, Holy Spirit, here I am you, and I just go along with you, and meanwhile I just do what you show me to do. It's up to you to confirm it in some specialised way, which had to be moved, and you just know it. Or you may wake up to the fact you are, and didn't realise it. That something has been grabbing you a long time, and you didn't realise it. That is intercession. One or two of you have spoken to me, and said, oh, I didn't say it was intercession. It can start with one person. Several precious people thought it was intercession. Why, it's a husband. She has a husband and children. But don't ever think that's the end of it. Rhys Howard has a strong word there. This man has reached the world with his faith. In his early days he had a big, simple, mining family of brothers, and one brother backstabbed him. And one night, that's Herbert, I think it was, Rhys Howard gave a night of intercession to him, and the Lord said, I'll do this once for you, but never again. Your business isn't your brother. Your business is the family of the world. So don't you get praying anymore for your brothers. So he wasn't allowed to give his time, because he had a bigger brotherhood to go for. So any of you who start that way, it means Rhys Howard was one crazy, unemployed fellow, living like a tramp in a tin mill. Winning him, winning him. Even his mind wasn't winning him. That's his first intercession. So you may start like that, but don't think your intercession, it may start that way. Give yourself to it. Give yourself to it. That there's one person. But take it for granted, because that's only a preparatory one, for the larger group. Or it may be one inside. You can have minor intercessions inside a major. That's why we use the authority of faith. So that's what intercession is, and as a result you're giving yourself to it. Of course that centers in the faith. The faith that gains it. But with the faith there is your physical involvement. Intercession is a body thing. A body of self-repentance. And it includes whatever comes, the way of stresses and strains and outpoured activities. It is the intercession in action. In action. It's obvious in the mission field, but wherever it is in action. This may be the way you have to deport yourself in a difficult home. It may start that way. Suffer under oppositions. That's not the point. Accept the suffering. The suffering. All suffering. Now get this. No more suffering for you. That's part of this inclusive business. When you're learning the way up, you suffer without tribulation. You've been to the kingdom of God without tribulation. You suffer to get yourself settled as Christ in you. Like Paul said, suffer the loss of all things. Later on, that wasn't his suffering. He didn't need that one. But get that because people get mistaken there. Or if you've accepted the fact, even if you're not conscious of it. If you accept the fact, I am by God's grace in that intercession. I'm a royal priest. Take what happens to you for others. Take it. Don't take it for yourself. In some way it's for others. If it's physical or soulish or whatever, it's for others. Learn to live your life. You should begin to learn all your life for others. You may not immediately be able to determine how. So I don't think I'd say more on the suffering level, the death level. But there is. It's a principle. In some way it works on yourself. Somewhere there's a dying to self in this. I'm not talking about the unsaved self. I'm talking about the Christ self. It's Christ's self and the new self that dies again for the world. So there's a dying in the new self. There's a suffering and an indulgment and a persistence. With groanings and burns and so on involved. And this happens. So there'll be that. There'll be death somewhere. If you look back into every intercession, you find there's death. That's not your affair. He operates that on you, and then life comes out from you. So intercession consists in commissions which come via the Spirit into you. And they're a driver of the Spirit. You just are in it. You can't help it. It's the next thing. The next thing grabs you when it grabs you. And it may be a temporary thing. It may be a wider thing. Or it may be a wider thing and then temporary things within the wider thing. But it is a sense of, you're for that. It's different from just a temporary relationship something. It's the driver. I have a baptism to be baptised with. How am I stated to be accomplished? That's what Jesus has to say. The gaining of the intercession is the faith level. Maybe it's in the intercession, or maybe outside, outside specific intercession, we begin to operate faith on a specialised level. We're talking about, in a sense, apostles and specialists. You see, there's that difficult difference between the apostle and the church. The apostle, you see, all people walk by faith. Now, an apostle utilises faith in a specious manner the way God comes through in the intercession. He knows how to utilise faith. That's different. He isn't just walking by faith. We all walk by faith. He's come to a new concept. I learnt that through his house. How to utilise faith. That's something by which God says, I put faith into a situation and I'm going to do something by your faith. By your faith. By your faith it is. That certainly, but not only, belongs into the intercession, in a way. The intercession is gained by the faith in it. That's the main point. This is going to happen. The thing you're going is going to happen. That's the faith. You know, you will know a good deal here about it. But, I'll just outline that again. The authority of faith. It's the discovery, of course, that God speaks his creating, or reproducing word, by you as a son. And you act as God operating on the son level. Which is what Jesus did. As the word, Jesus was God's first word. Of let there be the Son, as it were, as to eternity, and the Son was there. Then the Son as a co-person with the Father, then himself is the word that speaks the word. That's what we are. And that's why we always say that the first illustration of operating faith is the creation. Let there be, let there be. And that's where we get it. But this is where you get the, I think many of you understand, but I have to get into it. A new concept of, the concept of your attitude to life in general. See, the concept of attitude to life in general, that Jesus had, the word had, why let there be light? In other words, he saw the Father purpose light. He saw back to the Father, as it were, and said, what the Father purpose is, is light. What the Father purpose is, is animals, or this or that. When he saw what the Father purpose is, I'm now saying it's so. Let there be. That's the perfection of prayer. Now, see, it isn't our usual, that's why this changes things. All these things I say, you move the normal to the special. In the normal, prayer is, you've got things you bring to God, and hope God does something about it. In the special, God brings things to you, and says, you get about it. See, in the old way, you bring something to God, and ask God to get about it. Please God, there's this, please God, just get about it. This way, if God put it onto your face, you get about it. Because you act as me, and your faith is that faith which brings that to the being. So, it is a relearning of faith. You often get experiments at the beginning. I had one or two experiments in the early days, before I took on, in law books, in our mission. I didn't come to unlearning, you practice, you practice a bit, and knock around a bit, till the time comes when you really know how to do it. The really knowing how to do it, that when it's settled in you, it's done, and no question, you cannot say it doesn't happen. You can't say it. Because it's whole being, it's God's done that thing and that's settled it. Because your word is, God's done it. Your mission is saying, God's done it. You have the prerogative as a son to say, that's what God's done. Not God will do, God's done it, God's done it. But that's a faith which perhaps has to be learned and practiced. And sometimes we have slips, because we don't quite get that thing doesn't happen. And we say, it didn't happen, but of course, there never was faith. Because it always happens when it doesn't happen. It still happens. It's faith. You find out somewhere. So, I think we understand it, but again, you have to realize, just as the intercession principle, I suppose is rare in companies of believers, certainly operating faith is rare on this level. Because it changes your whole concept around. And that's why it's based on the young man level. If the young man level got it, it's not you but he. Now you begin to see things as he sees them, not as you see them, like some of you are saying it now. That's different. So not seeing things as you see them, but as he sees them. And of course, there comes in that other area which we talked about before, others have, which is so awfully potent, that God means the evil as well as the good. You move in there, everything is he, and you operate, everything has to mean evil as well as good. And that, of course, meets a great opposition. How could God mean evil? Most of us here know the kind of scriptures we use, scriptures full of it. But like Joseph said, you made it for evil, God made it for good. And after Pentecost, it says, you through determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, by which he stands to be crucified, God determined the counsel to be crucified. Putting the onus of the evil thing apparently on God. As an interpreter, you have to have some explanation or you'll get in trouble. How could you say God meant that? That death, that accident, that horror, how could you say that? So you need to have some explanation beyond just saying it, if you're to be an interpreter. The interpretation I understand, of course, is that what God does mean is freedom, he can't touch freedom. He himself had to face the alternative, he could have been, he wasn't. Therefore you cannot be a person without the alternative. Now, this human family, in order to become perfectly as expressions of God, had to face the alternative and went the wrong way. Therefore God meant us to be free and have these consequences. In other words, God doesn't mean he did that. He meant your freedom and you did that and that's the consequence. But because he's God who made you do it, he's going to have redemption purposes if you put face to it. Now if you take this and you put face to it, he'll turn that nasty thing into a glorious thing. So your answer to people who say how can God be and say it says God says that he created evil and so on. Why? Because evil is self-misusing itself. It's free self. Evil is only a form of free self. There's a mysterious thing flowing up here. The right form of free self is God who is self-loving love. The wrong form of free self is Satan who is self-loving love who is a created person and could have been God himself but he never went that way. See what I mean? Evil is just self in which you know where it's going. If it's the right way we call that the good. God is self-giving love. Therefore the other is evil. That's all. Therefore evil is involved in persons. So if God makes persons evil is a potential. There's evil. And God must have it otherwise you can't be free. And he evidently foresaw and we did for our own basic good education we all went this wrong way. Now in that wrong way come all the evils and sufferings. Therefore it comes it doesn't come directly it comes indirectly through my free self. But it's I'm part of God's free self I'm one of God's selves God says yes that's so and mean it to be but this is where you can learn about my redemptive power. Thus I turn the Calvary into resurrection. That's the supreme moment of course. Jesus said God as God gives the cup my father has given me is Satan's cup. You probably use it but the best illustration you can use on where power really is and that evil power is only God using a person's long use of freedom for his purposes was in the twentieth chapter of John the nineteenth chapter when Jesus was finally confronted on the final issue with Pilate. Pilate was greatly concerned because Pilate wasn't deliberately he wasn't a Judas he was just a weak man who wasn't certain of himself and his wife had warned him through a dream don't you touch that righteous man it disturbs him and so he called Jesus back to the judgment seat in by that time in his torn up condition crown of thorns and beaten and bloody figures he must have been and in the twentieth chapter in that list he made this royal statement we make royal statements isn't there the nineteenth isn't it the nineteenth yes Pilate says in the twentieth verse he had he called Jesus back on the judgment platform then says Pilate to him speakest thou not unto me knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee and have power to release thee Jesus said thou couldst have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above beneath Satan got his power on him where is the power to to condemn Christ to Calvary Satan got it he says from above not from beneath so beneath power comes from above God means beneath power to operate freely so he then God means beneath power to operate freely so he then he didn't do it it came from Satan but he meant the power God means beneath power to operate freely so he then he didn't do it it came from Satan but he meant the power and Satan to misuse power to get Jesus crucified because out of crucifixion he was going to come after all the vast family of God the poor Satan the one who was saved Satan got crucified crucified of course you were saying yes there Satan got crucified there so you see that's a very good illustration power power doesn't have got power you've got no power well you might have power from the devil no if the devil apparently gives you power it's God's power there's only one power that's hope you see therefore you see God did it Satan's free and Pilate was free and they freely made this satanic decision but because God must have freedom but because we're God's person through the negative freedom and misuse yet if you have faith that's the caravan gets heavenly faith if you have faith our turn that believe it believe it it's going to be I say it's going to be I'm going to believe my conscience as resurrection believe it that's the thing so I'm saying that as you know but I'm saying to help other people you can't you can't have this shall I call it specialised form really normal form it should be for the church when you see whole of life is God's operation not we in operation getting God to do something but God's operation but he operates through his son so he has to get his son to the condition which through their faith channel he can produce his good so it's reverse and part of that has to be therefore God made that tough spot through the freedom of man and to challenge you with it confront you challenge you with it without that tough spot as you have your word and action and faith will come in as well so that becomes part of the basis of this new prayer the other part I remind you again is such an ease that you almost haven't got to pray which is rather awkward and that's in Mark when he says there's something greater than prayer Mark you know why do you say where's that it's in Mark Mark where is it ten isn't it ah my memory's gone eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven Mark eleven is the great great operating page chapter here's Jesus mentioned now straight through that eleven you start back in verse thirteen they're passing by they're hungry and Jesus says it's just the next thing it's a now life now life now life just the next thing and they were hungry and he passed a fig tree which apparently he thought had figs on it hadn't and somehow it occurred to him he loved fig trees he said let that tree wither he thought once let it wither and the interesting thing was they forgot all about that they went on to Jerusalem and then they went to Jerusalem verse thirteen fifteen forgot all about this business and went on with their operation and they through the day slept somewhere that night so when they came back to the fig tree a whole twenty-four hours after this happened so once you know it wasn't Jesus touched the tree or something he was there a power comes to place which of course we know is the Holy Spirit operating through the sun the Spirit in the sun comes out in operation and the Spirit did then Peter says in verse they come back verse twenty look Jesus they saw the tree dried up and Peter said Master the pole of the fig tree was so close that it went away pretty obviously Jesus had this point in view now the point is all he said was you do the same he didn't say pray you do the same he says you have faith in God next verse that's all or if one can't say have faith in God other words believe that God believes himself that what he does that he does that way around if you like but he says you have it that's authority that's the law of priesthood you have it