Bud Elford emphasizes the significance of solitude in a missionary's life, drawing from Isaiah 63:3 where Jesus speaks of treading the winepress alone. He explains that being alone is a time for personal growth, reliance on God, and preparation for spiritual battles, as exemplified by biblical figures like David and Joseph. Elford encourages listeners to develop a strong relationship with Jesus, ensuring that they are never truly alone, and to learn to stand firm in their faith even when isolated. He highlights the importance of understanding one's weaknesses and relying on God's strength to overcome challenges. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a deep commitment to God, enabling believers to face life's trials with confidence.

Thank you. The title of our message this morning is, The Missionary, When He's All Alone. And our text is Isaiah 63 and verse 3, where prophetically Jesus said these words, I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me. I trod them in my anger, trampled them in my wrath, their life's blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment. I have trodden the winepress alone. Shall we bow in prayer, please? Heavenly Father, as we read thy word, more than once we're made aware that at one time or other in the life of your servants you take them out by themselves, you get them alone, and out there all alone you let the enemy have his way, you let him use all his weapons and all his wiles, and you expect your children to stand. And today we stand behind a glorious line of overcomers, men who walked alone over serpents and scorpions and treading on lions and adders and tearing down strongholds and overcoming famine and elements and casting mountains into the sea and crossing rivers. Lord, what we need now in this hour is some of your principles to enable those who are listening who are beginning their journey to learn their lessons well so that at the end of this age we may not fail in what you have given us to do. And as I read thy word, it seems to me that even our great master Jesus had that one fear in him that the flesh would fail when he cried, and our word tells us that he was heard in that he feared. Lord, minister to the needs of our hearts today. Teach us these principles so that we might fulfill the desire of your spirit in this world in these end days. For Jesus' sake, amen. I'll turn to our lesson. I am reading this because I, one, want you to realize what a good reader they had when I went to school. And two, the truths that were hidden in the stories that taught kids how to read, there were principles involved. Once there was a horse and he had a friend who was a goose. One day the goose came to the horse and the horse looked at the goose and the goose looked at the horse and the goose began to speak to the horse. And this is what she said, I'm better than you are. I can walk on the ground like you, but I can fly in the air like a bird and I can also swim in the water like a fish. I'm as good as a horse, I'm as good as a bird, and I'm as good as a fish. And this is what the horse says to the goose. Yes, that is true. You can walk on the ground and you can fly in the air and you can swim in the water, but you cannot walk nearly as well as a horse and you cannot fly nearly as well as a bird and you cannot swim nearly as well as a fish. Now, I cannot fly in the air and I cannot swim in the water, but I can walk well on the ground. And I would rather do one thing well than be a goose in more ways than one. You're in Bible school here to learn to do one thing well. You're here to learn to do everything you do from now until the age of grace ends with Jesus beside you and your dependency upon him. You're here to learn how to walk, how to walk well upon the earth. I think there's something published about walking tall. I saw it someplace in my travels. I would like to write one about walking well. Be careful therefore how you walk. There is one thing I know about horses that they know how to walk. When I was younger and lived in northern Ontario, way back in those days that my daughter calls the dark ages, we used to do a lot of traveling on horseback. We went to church in the cutter and in the democrat in the summer. How many know what a democrat is? It's not a member of your government. There are some, surely you know what a democrat is, sure. It's a buggy that has seats in the front and seats in the back, double seated buggy. Well, that's how we went to church. We did a lot of our going on horseback. Back in those days when I was alone and didn't know the Lord, was young, still in public school, maybe eight or nine years old, I had at least two rides on a horse that taught me that horses knew how to walk. One was in the summer, the other was in the spring. One was all by myself down a dark road where I had to take a message for my father to a rancher up on the hill. I had to go there in the dark and come home in the dark. And as we came through a length of swamp, there were wolves howling. And I can remember how frightened I was and how alone I was. I had only one comfort and that was that horse. And that horse was snorting at every howl of the wolf, but his foot never missed. And he found the turnoff in the trail and took me home. The other time was riding in the spring when the floods were in and I had to ride on a little pony through an ice flood where blocks of ice were floating and the water was maybe a foot or two feet deep in places. My pony wasn't very big and I on her back was trying to get home. I was a little older. Sometimes both feet would be up on a cake of ice and she'd seem to be floating. But she proved to me that she had learned how to do one thing well and how to walk. So that when the test came and when she was called upon to do the extraordinary and somebody else was dependent upon her, her ability to walk held her in good stead. Now, the title of our lecture is this morning, A Missionary When He's All Alone. In John 8 and 29, Jesus says, My father has not left me alone because I always do that which is pleasing to him. If you learn to do that which is pleasing to God and to Jesus Christ, you will never walk alone. You will never be alone no matter how alone you are. There will always be the only one there that really matters. And when it comes right down to it, you will come to the place where you do not depend on other of the creatures. And I want to talk about that this morning. The normal way of life is to depend on our fellow man and our creature friend. God has to wean you from that till you only lean on him. Genesis 2.18 is the story of creation back in there. And it shows us that mankind is gregarious by creation. We love to be in a crowd. We love to be around people. And today, particularly when people are going further and further from God, they can't stand to be alone. They have to be where the action is at. And a lot of Christians are like that. They can't serve God in the quiet place. They have to be where big people are in, where good songs are sung, where the new things are always coming along. And really, they are living much like the world lives. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians, when you do that, you're just carnal. You're living like the world lives. God has to train you so you can live alone. Now, our service often dictates that we live in solitude. It often dictates only for intervals, but you will find yourself alone. Longer or shorter periods, and it's never pleasant. You like to be with people. Scripture makes an extra point of showing the times when Christ was alone, how he enjoyed being alone. But in his temptation in Mark chapter 1, 12, and Luke 4, 1 to 2, he wasn't in a time of pleasantness. He was in a time of being tested all alone. Now, when you're alone, extra caution is needed. Extra control over your bodily appetites. An extra guard must be set because the wolves of the soul are around. Wolves always wait till one sheep is either sick or strayed or alone. My grandfather had sheep and used to be a sheep rancher. And we always had problems with wolves. And he always tried to keep the sheep together. And, excuse me, when one was alone, it was a target for the wolf. In the caribou herds to the north, the wolves come along and pick off the ones to the rear. They like to get you alone. And if you are not strong in the Lord and the power of his might, when you are alone is the time you're going to be severely attacked and tested. All right, point number one, right attitudes. You need, first of all, the right attitude in being alone. You, and I'll be concluding with this, learning now to prepare for that walk in which you will walk alone. Now, I don't know where you're going to serve. And most of this lecture was prepared for missionaries who would be serving in isolated stations in the north. There are certain things you need to know. You may be serving in an isolated station, some other place. And I hope some of you will be serving in isolated stations in the north. But the principles that I outlined to you are good, no matter if you're alone in the midst of a ghetto, in the midst of a large city, or whether you're alone in the midst of a multitude. You may only be in some northern Minnesota village. You may be where you're the only Christian. The thing is that when you're alone, you must understand that Jesus is with you if you've done your homework well. And I think this is the main point, that you must learn the presence of Jesus Christ. When you're here in school, you come here as a freshman and you may not have been a Christian very long. You may have come from a background of sin. You may have come from a backslidden background as a Christian. And you come here and the atmosphere is good. People are walking in the Spirit. God is with them. And there is a lot to be said about an atmosphere that is kept up by the saints. Now, that's great to learn things in. But subtly and unawares, you learn to depend on that attitude, atmosphere. You learn to depend on other people's spirituality. And you must do something about that. You must make sure while you're in that atmosphere, which is very conducive to learning the wonderful truths of God, that you make sure that as you learn those truths, they become yours. I stand alone. Have you ever really been alone? When it seemed that everything else was gone? We have a great place in the North for that. I can remember the days when our plane would fly us into the village, land us in some little lake, into a village where the people would look at you. You didn't know their language very well. There wasn't any communication either by telephone, radio or anything else. No highways. You had to wait till the next plane came in and you were alone. And the spirits on your shoulders whispered, now you're for it. Now you're in for it. Now you're in the spotlight. And it's true. It's at times like that when you need to say, yeah, I'm here physically alone. But, and you need to look around you. That's the time when you need to know that you're walking with God. When the plane disappears, when you're left alone to a responsibility, maybe that only you can carry the burden of. God has given ample illustration of this in the Bible. Remember David? David came to the army to take some food to his brothers and to see the battle. And when he got there, Goliath was marching up and down, cursing the armies of the living God. And David was moved to anger within himself at this uncircumcised Philistine who would defy the armies of the living God. And David there, although it ended up that it was he and Goliath alone. David hadn't stood in that position for the first time. He had stood alone many times out in the wilderness, out where he had the responsibility of the sheep. He had learned the lessons that God was with him. He did not go there alone. He went with God with him. And he ran with God and he fought with God. And when the great battles face you, the lessons that you learned in the other places stand beside you. When Samson was with the lion, the spirit of God had already begun to work in him. He couldn't even share with his parents that experience. He turned aside on the road. I don't know really what he was doing, except I know young men kind of like to do that. I've been traveling with my parents when I was younger and they would be walking on the gravel road and we did a lot of walking, particularly on Sundays. We didn't always take the horse. Sometimes we walked five miles to church. But while they were walking along the road, I would be walking in the bush looking for rabbits and birds' nests and trying out my slingshot that I'd hidden in my blue serge pants underneath my waistcoat. And I think Samson was doing something like that. And it was there that God brought his first test upon him with the lion. Now the first test that comes upon you when you leave here and it may come before you leave here, it may come on your third year or it may come when you're on a holiday home. But you're going to meet the lion and you're going to meet the Goliath. And you're going to meet him and he's out to get you. He's out to devour you. He's out to make an end of your Christian life. And I'll be talking about what kind of a lion he is. The next one that stood alone, and I only used three, was Shammah when he stood in the midst of the bean patch. And he stood there. You see, it wasn't that the bean patch was that important. It was the fact that he wasn't going to give up an inch to the enemy. And all this point here is to learn how to stand. If you're alone, well, stand. You don't have anything else to do. In most cases, you don't have to preach. Don't have to prepare a Sunday school lesson. All you got to do is hold the ground. I'm standing here and I don't care if the land is worth anything or not. I'm standing here because he who sent me is the one I'm standing for. And I'm backing down because all heaven is with me. The countries that have been fought over and the fields and the mountains haven't been worth very much. When you think of some of those hills in North Korea that our young men died on, they weren't worth anything. Couldn't grow anything on them. They weren't any good for mining. They were just pieces of real estate and not even very good real estate. But the act, the business was whose did they belong to and who was backing down. And that's this issue when you have to learn to stand alone. Martin Luther had to learn it. When God by his spirit led him into that truth of justification by faith, he had to stand against all the great black cloaks of the church that he was had to do with. And he said, well, I can do no other. Here I stand. So help me, God. Hey, that's a great thing to say. You don't have to say much else than that. They got to remove you physically. And the Bible has a wonderful truth that says when you resist the devil, he will flee from you. Got to make sure to stand when you are alone. And you have learned your lessons and maybe you haven't learned your lessons. It's always a place to prove God. Elisha had to learn that when he came back all alone to the river. Oh, that was great. Crossing the river with Elijah. It's great when you got somebody who knows God and you're walking with him and then they hand the rope to you and say, here, you do it. That's when you have to prove God. And I don't know if you've ever done it, but you have to sometime or other say, where is the Lord God of whoever the one you've been with? Where's the one that was with them? And it is true that it takes a Christ experience like this to teach you that God is with you and beside you and say he's walking with you. And that's what Elisha had to prove. And not only that, it's a place where the weaknesses show up in the north. We have a number of white people come there to work in Hudson's Bay companies and mounted police schoolteachers. And some of those people come in and they're very fine people. But after a while, the the things, the inconsistencies and the sins and the weaknesses began to show up in their life because there's very little cloak for your sin in the north. Someone was talking to me about Churchill not very long ago. And they said, the reason I think we liked it so well was that there wasn't anything covered. People didn't live in a shell. They didn't live behind a mask. The ungodly were ungodly and the saints were saintly. And there was a great line of demarcation because it was uncovered. Now, out where there aren't many people and where you're alone, things are uncovered and weaknesses are uncovered. It's a good idea to get your weaknesses uncovered ahead of time so they don't show up in that moment when you need them. It's a it's a if you have a paralyzed arm and you're going out on a foray for God and you come to a river that needs to be leaped across and you have to take a pole and jump and you say, well, I didn't notice that I had a paralyzed arm. It's good to get that thing taken care of ahead of time. It's good to know what you can do. The Bible says that you should each man is given grace according to the faith that he has. You're not always going to be able to do everything everybody else did, but you're going to be able to do the things that God enables you to do. I was traveling one time through the woods with my father and some other men. And back in the days when we walked nearly every place we went and we came in the spring of the year and we came to a creek. It wasn't a very wide creek and all the boys got some one of the boys got a pole and they said, we'll leap this creek. And they put the pole in the middle and leaped across and threw the pole back and somebody else would leap across. My dad says, you think you can do it? Oh, yes, I can leap across. And I leaped and the pole stopped in the middle. And, uh, you know, the answer to that, I didn't know my weakness and there was a stream that I didn't get across without getting wet. I had it happen again, working when I was out hunting with the Chippewan Indians in Churchill, uh, and I had a goose on each shoulder and we came to a river and there were stepping stones. And, and Norman said to me, do you think you can make it across? And I said, sure I can. And I fell off the stone in mid stream. He said, you couldn't, eh? And I didn't. This, uh, this, uh, uh, thought within us that I can do it must be replaced with that. We can do it. It must be Jesus in me, not me alone. We must get to the place where we're dependent upon him for everything, particularly in the areas where you think you can do it alone. Oswald Chambers talks about being shipwrecked on the Holy spirit. That's a good island to stay on. When I was overseas, we were in battle one time and we were, uh, we were being attacked by tanks and we had what we call sticky grenades. They're about that big around and they had a handle on them and they were terribly sticky and that you could run up and stick them on the side of a tank. You could, I, I never did. And, uh, or you could, if they went over you and your slip trench, you could stick them on the bottom, hoping he didn't stop over your hole. And one fellow put back his sticky grenade and he was going to throw it and you could throw it maybe from here to the door. He was going out of his hole and he was going to throw it and it stuck on the back of his coat and he, and, uh, there he was. And they're very sticky. And we said, well, let's, let us hold it. See the handle had a little liver on it, which as long as it was held, it wasn't triggered. It wasn't armed and he was holding it. And that trigger was set for five seconds. He said, and we said, well, let's hold the handle while you get out of your coat. Oh, he says I can get out of my coat in five seconds. And he refused the outside help. And he jumped out of the slit trench and he let go of the handle and he didn't get out of his coat in five seconds. And he's not, didn't come back with us. The thought that I can do it has to be forever put down at the cross. Peter found that out that he couldn't. And John found his nakedness when he followed Christ to the cross. And there has to be that business taken out of the way forever that I can. And that's in a lot of Bible school students. I know it. I, it was in me when I was in Bible school and seminary. And, and I was one of those smart ones that, that crushed four years of Bible school into five just to show how brilliant I was. And God will show up your weaknesses. And it's a good idea to have your weaknesses shown up where you have somebody sympathetic around who can say, well, here, let me show you how to do it right. I remember when Christian and Pilgrim were walking in Pilgrim by an extra effort of faith did outdo his friend. I've forgotten what, forgotten which one he was walking with. And then it said, then did Christian vein gloriously smile. And it wasn't long before he had fallen flat on his face and his friend came along and helped them up. It's good to do your falling here. It's a good place to have things corrected and looked after so that when you're out there, when the lion is roaring at you or the Goliath or the river is facing you, that you've known your weaknesses have been exposed and they have been healed by the grace of God. I have leaped cricks since that. I have walked across stone since that. I have said, I can do all things through Jesus Christ to strengthen with me. And that after you've been humiliated in your weakness, you'll have to turn around and do the same thing again in his strength. Moses had to learn that. See, when he was alone at the burning bush, his sins and his weaknesses and tendencies were all exposed. The rod of his own abilities happened to have some of the serpent in it yet. And he fled from it when it was exposed to him. And that's what will be your reaction. When God shows you your weaknesses in the very area, you thought you were strong. That rod was probably the one he killed the Egyptian with back in Egypt. And the hand that he would hold up over that hill over the people when their battle was against the Malachite, that hand had the taint of sin when it was put next to his heart, which still needed to be cleansed. And that was exposed to him before he reached the place where he had to stand against Pharaoh. And God has a place to expose that which is weak in you, that which is fleshly in you, a place to prove God and expose weakness. It's also a place to prove the word of God. I found out a very significant thing on my second mission station, particularly when we were there all alone, no other Christians. In Churchill, we had Christian fellowship, although I learned a lot of lessons there by traveling up the coast. But when we went to Brochet in northern Manitoba, a village where there were no Christians at all, my wife, sometimes the only white woman, I learned one thing that was had a very unsettling effect upon me and that most of the doctrines and the truths that I had learned in Bible school didn't belong to me at all. I had a head knowledge of them. I could quote the scriptures to prove this and that, but I had never proven them. They were like Saul's armor. And out there in the bush all by myself, night after night, month after month, I learned to prove all those great doctrines of the church. It just seemed that one after another, I had to prove why one was why I even worshiped on Sunday. I didn't even know why. I just believed that somebody had told me and you have to make these doctrines yours and doctrines and truths that you learn here. You might have them in your notebook and you may be able to quote scriptures and references regarding them, but they don't belong to you until you've proven them and used them in some place. Then they're yours. Prove the word of God, your doctrines will all be tested. You know, I'm talking about something which is an eternal principle with God. God makes something. He does some work in it and then he submits it to the test. He made Adam and Eve. He formed them out of the dust of the earth. He set them in a garden and then he tested them. And during the time of test, you cannot expect any help from any source whatsoever. That's what a test is all about. And when you're, it's not like the school system we have now in Canada. My daughter was telling me about an exam she wrote and she said, if you can't understand the question and you don't really know what they're talking about, you go ask the teacher and he'll explain it to you. I said, what kind of a test is that? Well, she said, they wouldn't want you to go through it and not know what the answer is. Well, I said, that's not really a test, is it? And that isn't the way God tests. God tests you and he tests you something like he did Gideon. He met Gideon. He touched Gideon. And then he gave Gideon an assignment that he had to carry out all alone. Go and tear down your father's idol. There wasn't any angel present. There wasn't any divine light. There wasn't any help. It was just the task. That's the test. When Adam and Eve were faced by the serpent, there was no God walking nearby. He had withdrawn for the test. When Jesus was in the wilderness alone, the angels didn't come and minister to him till after the test. He was there alone. That's what the test is all about. And that's the kind of test God will give you when even a way down after the millennium, after Jesus with his saints has restored the earth to beauty and to glory and to peace. We read that God releases the devil to test it. Doesn't say to test it, but that's what he does. He tests the kingdom of Jesus Christ once again. And you will be tested. Mark it down. My test is coming. If you're following God at all, of course, you can always revert. You can always be like Ephraim carrying bows and armed, turned back in the day of battle. Or you can be like Joseph. Let me read you about Joseph in some someplace. Psalm 105. Listen about Joseph. When Israel were few in number, when they were a little of count in their own eyes, and when there were sojourners in the land, they were wandering from nation to nation, from kingdom to kingdom, from one people to another. Ain't that a great description of a missionary? A little account, sojourning, few in number, wandering from nation to nation. That's the mysterious people that I was talking about on Wednesday night. They're still around. God still has them. His heavenly Israel. He allowed no one to oppress them. He rebuked kings in their account saying, touch not mine anointed ones. Do my prophets no harm. When he summoned the famine on the land, the famine didn't come because of any other thing that God designed it. He broke every staff of bread and he sent a man ahead of them. A man that he had, he had, he had trained in the field. He had revealed himself through two dreams. He had allowed him to suffer persecution. And it says he sent a man ahead, Joseph. Remember the message the other night where it said Jesus sent out the 70 to every village that he intended to come. He always sends somebody ahead to sit in the prison and to go to an Egypt. And Joseph was sold as a slave. And it seems God isn't always gentle on the people that he sends ahead. His feet were hurt by fetters. He lets them go through excruciating pain and difficult situations. And there he was alone. His neck was put in a collar of iron. That's not very comfortable until he had, it came to pass the word until it came to pass. That is the word of the Lord, which tested him. And they're all alone. The only Christian, the only believer in all of Egypt sitting down in a, in a Egyptian dungeon with a collar around his neck and with fetters on him. He stood the test. I like that scripture that it tells of Joseph. It said, it said he was viciously shot at by the archers, but his bow remained steady. He stood. He didn't do any preaching. He didn't do much in those long years. He just stood. He was being tested. And in the time of testing, you're not going to have to do much. Just stay there. When our regiment moved from the beachhead up to take over from the Scottish Highlanders, I was on the four party. I was one of those sent on ahead. They sent one member ahead for each company so that when your company moved in, in the middle of the night, you could go out on the road and you could guide them to the slit trenches that we were taking over. We traded at night so that the enemy wouldn't see the troop movement. And, uh, when I went on alone, I was tested. I can remember getting out of the Jeep and there was all kinds of noises in the air and bullets going off and dust. And, and I didn't know what was going on. I found a slit trench and I dove into it and I was lying there with my helmet pulled down over my head. And I saw a great big pair of boots over my head. And a big, tall Scottish Sergeant said to me, what are you doing in there, Sonny? And I said, well, there's bombs falling all around. Oh, he said, they're all ours. And, you know, at that moment I didn't have any discernment. I didn't know the noise, whether it belonged to the enemy or belonged to us. And some of you are sitting here today and you don't know the difference between the voice of God and the voice of the enemy. And I had to sort it out. And it wasn't a matter of a week or so that I would be sitting with my mess tin on my hand on the wheel of a jeep and, and you could even an enemy shell, you could say, oh, that'll land over there. The discernment came. But you have to discern. And our shells going head overhead at a whispering sound and they both exploded. But the enemy shells coming had a whistling sound, a disturbing sound. And you're going to have to learn the voice of those that are on your side, the voice of the angels, the voice of the Son of God, the Holy Spirit that is within you. You're going to have to learn that he who is with you and you might find yourself on your face in some slit trench and maybe some dear Saint of God is going to come along and say, hey, they're all ours. A place to do normal things. The enemy loves to get you abnormal. When we were first learning how to live alone, we had to learn how to sleep. You have to do learn to do all your normal activities of life in the name of Jesus. I had to eat in Jesus name. When I first went to action in Europe for a whole month, I could hardly eat. I had a great big football of fear in my stomach and I could hardly eat. It was just there. And that didn't go out of there, go away from me for a long time. Then when I went as a missionary and I found the forces of darkness all around me, I had the same thing. I said, hey, I know what that is. That's fear. And as I had to learn to eat over there in France, we had to learn to eat in the north. We had to say we're sitting down here in Jesus name. And we left our Bible open on the table at verses of scripture like Colossians 2, 15 and said, look, we're going to eat. You powers of darkness come in, you read that. And we had to learn to get very practical in those days. And being alone is starting to realize that God is practical. Some of you, you got him in a corner of your life. He doesn't exist in a lot of the other areas. When he is with you in every area of your life, when you eat and when you sleep, when you make love wherever you are, when he's with you, then you are not afraid when you're all alone. I came to a time when my wife would have to pray for me to go to sleep and I'd have to pray for her to go to sleep. But we did learn to go to sleep when we had disturbing dreams. And then we had learned to tell the devil to keep out of our subconscious mind. They had no business in it. And you can learn that too. You can learn to go to sleep and you can learn to get out from under his condemning hand and his voice when you're there all alone, a place where you can learn to do things. And I think the most glorious revelation of all is that you can do it with him. You can, I can do all things. That's different than saying I can do all things. I can do all things with Christ. It's Jesus and me. That's a great song. I used to sing it a lot. Now it's just Jesus and me. For today and tomorrow. Now it's a place to challenge the enemy. Our business is not a business of holding the fort. Our business is a business of going out. That verse of scripture that says I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it doesn't mean that the saints are standing in there protecting themselves against the gates of hell. It's the saints marching out and the walls are up against us and they can't hold out. We are, we're an attacking force and we're there to challenge. You can't make the mistake of going into some area where Satan has ruled for hundreds of years and saying, well, here, come to Jesus Christ. You're attacking his territory and you better have your armor on and you might as well challenge him. When I was challenged by the ruling spirit of this village, I was able to say to him, Jesus Christ sent me and I'm not going to go till he takes me out because I found that with Jesus Christ are the issues of death. He needed to be challenged. How Jesus challenged the enemy on every level when he was all alone and it's a good place to settle the issue of death. Look at straight in the face. I had to say to the devil, okay, I might die, but I'm willing to die here and not to run. I think Shamgar and David and Samson faced death and it's a good thing to face the angel of death and look right in his eyes and say, you can't touch me until my time comes and then I'll go willingly. It's good that you got to face the reality of dying. I can remember coming home off many trips, flying along with somebody flying the airplane and you didn't know what the weather was like and always the whisper in your ear, you're not going to make it home this time. Well, that's all right. I said, if I don't make it home, I'll make it home, but I'm not going to die when you tell me to die. You need to face that issue of death and maybe you won't face it here, but you'll face it someday all alone. Now, it's a pace to watch your affections. Inordinate affections are always a little bit in the camp of the enemy. Excesses that I spoke about last night, but an inordinate affection. Now, this is how it works out. On one of our mission stations, we had a single lady and we have some wonderful single ladies who really can do battle. I tell you, Deborah would be glad to have them in her army. The ones that put the flight, the powers of darkness. We had a single lady and she's way up there in that James Bay country and she was all alone and she had a friend who was teaching school and the friend went out and she had a dog that she was very fond of. And when you're all alone, you're going to attach affection to anything. And she had unknowingly to her attacks, too much affection to the dog. And it became inordinate. Well, in fact, over there one time and her friend had a dog, too, and she put her arms around the dog and gave him a kiss. And our pilot said, Whoa, what a waste of affection. And it was it was wrong, inordinate. But here are these single girls all there. They needed they need something to hang on to. And so we said, Hey, you better not show too much affection to those dogs, not particularly here when you're on alone. And when she was all alone, the dog wandered off one day and she found him dead. And two weeks later, coming home from visiting, she was a nurse coming home from visiting. She was the only Christian in that whole coast. And they all worship spirits. She came in the house and she smelt the dog in his corner that night as she was lying in bed, she felt him crawl up on her bed in his usual spot. But it was a manifestation of an inordinate affection. And I was in correspondence with her and told her what to do about it. And she took care of that and renounced it and confessed an inordinate affection. Of course, she was free. And she then she moved down to help the Indian Church at James Bay. And she said, Wouldn't you believe it? Somebody offered me a dog. And there's always this temptation, you know, animals. I don't know. I haven't seen any pets around Bethany. There's nothing wrong with pets. They're kind of nice to have along. But listen, they're the first thing that when the powers of darkness come assailing you, that give way. We've had missionaries who had budgies and dogs. And boy, when when things got hot, boy, I tell you, they are really, you're really in the soup with pets around. I'll tell you how it works. When we were in action in Europe, we had a we picked up a little stray dogs. We called them Blackie, black and white. He was a friendliest little fellow. And he used to ride on top of our Bren gun carrier and eat our scraps. And we had lots of fun with them. Then one time we were under attack. And suddenly under attack. And we were in holes and little Blackie waving his tail and wandering all around on top of the hills. And we told him to get down. He wouldn't get down. And pretty soon, wham, wham, wham. The enemy knew our position. We were given away by a pet. And Bodner, who was our friendly butcher, he just pulled out his Luger Powell. And I said, that's Blackie. Yeah, he said, that's Blackie. And he's just given our position away. And we have to have that attitude towards these things that touch the human affections. Don't forget that we're not in a normal situation. We're standing there on the behalf of heaven in an enemy territory. And you can never forget that you're in this warfare and in this battle. Whether you see it or not, it's in the invisible realm. But there you are. And you have to watch these these inordinate affections, pets and peoples and too much of affection on children, letting the decisions be made because of them. We tell our candidates never leave a mission field because of a child or because of a pet or things like that. Leave it for when Jesus tells you to leave and only then. It's a place where you're going to doubt the work of God in your heart. Unless it's been strong. The enemy will whisper in your ear. You're not really a Christian, are you? He'll say, hey, you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't have come. Why are you here? You see, nobody likes you. You're not getting any place. The work isn't being accomplished when the pressure is on. The attitude you need in this section under right attitudes is that maybe there's nothing being accomplished, but I'm Jesus sent me here. And when he's finished with this, something will be accomplished. What he has in mind. But you will be tested on the basis of whether you have rightly divine God's will. Well, that happened to us in many occasions, and we make this habit of always making sure that we know that Jesus has sent us. Take the time that is needed to know his sure will. And then you can always tell the enemy, listen, be quiet. Jesus sent me. And we were sent to brochet. We asked the mission to give us an extra year. And we prayed about it for a year because we knew we were the first ones to go in there. And we knew they were pagan worshipers. And we were able to sit there. And the enemy did come to us and say, why are you here? And we said, we're here because Jesus sent us. OK, point two, and there's not many points today. There when you're under attack, there's pressure when you're having an exam and you are on the spot. Some of you are shy and retiring. You don't like to be on the spot. You're going to be put on the spot. The place maybe where it might be the test for you or you have to bring a report in a meeting like this. And you've never done it before that God's going to test whether you can rely on him or you're going to say, well, I'm weak and I can't do it. And he's saying, well, listen, like he said to Jeremiah, don't say I'm young and don't who made man's tongue. And you need to get up there and say, my tongue is the same shape as anybody else's tongue. And as long as I'm willing, God can use it. And and you need to say that. You're going to be on the spot and the pressure is going to come. Now, when you're out alone, sometimes after you've done all the praying and all the resisting, you don't have to go on forever in that vein. There's a time to stop and do something. James Fraser from the Burma said, sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is go out and chop wood. And he's right. The devil, sometimes if he finds that you're going to pray and you're going to read, he's going to tell you, you've got to go have a day of prayer and then you've got to have another day of prayer. Keith Bailey told us when the powers of darkness are working up here in northern Minnesota in this Indian Bible school at Cass Lake, he said, every time we'd start classes in those days, somebody would have a manifestation and we'd have to go to prayer. After a while, I began to realize we weren't getting anything done. And the devil was using up all our time in prayers, just taking in a merry circle. So we just stopped and said, we're not going to let him ruin our schedule every day. So they went about the school and had a cleansing ceremony over every room and every closet. And then they went to classes. And when somebody had a spell with a spirit, one of the Indian, they'd send them off someplace and keep on with their lectures. And Satan, he said, Satan gave up on that tactic after a while. And you need to remember to do don't let Satan rule your rule, your daily schedule, be in charge. And by the way, remember that you're physical. In fact, the Bible says not that which is spiritual, but that which is physical is first and then that which is spiritual. You are a physical being and you have you live in a physical body. You are a spirit and ruling with the soul. And it's also a place to sing. Now, last night I talked about singing when there's nothing else you can pray and sing when you're being tested. That's one thing you can do. And on many, many occasions when I couldn't do anything else, I could sing. When I was, when Wayne Bourne, who's here upset his airplane one day, I'm not, he's a good, really a good pilot, you know, but he upset his airplane one day and we were going down to get it. And on one of those trips, we had a tent way down in the bush. And he had gone off with one of the Indian boys and we're looking for a trail and we hadn't found the airplane yet. And I was out hunting and I had two dogs and they had the other three. And I was driving down this river all by myself. All of a sudden, it felt like I was being looked at from every side by eyes. And it was an unaccountable fear. My hair stood up an end and I got cold goose pimples under my parka. And, and I just said, look, Satan, this country doesn't belong to you. God made it. And it belongs to him. And I belong to him too. And I said, just leave me alone. And I started to sing the barren wastes are fruitful land, the desert blooms with roses and he, the glory of all lands, his wondrous face discloses. And listen, you can have a wonderful hallelujah rejoicing service all there by yourself. And, and, and the eyes behind the tree slunk away. Amen. You're maybe not going to have it like that, but you're going to have a place where you need to sing. You need to let them know that these children of God are walking around the country and it belongs to him. And the Northland hasn't fallen yet, but there's people walking around to let the enemy know that the trumpets are being blown and pretty soon the walls are going to come down. All right. In this work, you need to value your work and value play. Then another thing you need to do is keep up your, uh, this is that was bearing up under pressure. Number three, keeping up physical appearances. I mean by that, your personal grooming and habits. We've gone into some missionaries and found they were sloppy. Uh, their clothes weren't clean. They weren't fresh. You know, we can learn a lot from the old Britishers in Africa. Always stopped for tea in the middle of the African jungle and dressed. We made a habit when we were in isolation, all alone that Sunday we dressed up. My wife put on her high heels and one of the Indians said to me one day, he says, I always know your wife's where she's been because he said, because I see her sharp toe or sharp shoe marks. That's what they called her, her high heeled shoes. But she did it because we were keeping up an appearance for our own sake, a psychological thing for our kids sake. And we had a government official come in from Winnipeg on a Sunday and he was having coffee with us and he says, of all the years I've ever been in the North, I never seen anybody dress up for Sunday. And we said, we dress up because you'd like to. And it's a good habit. And to keep up good eating habits. Some of the old, uh, uh, Hudson Bay managers that sometimes eat out of a can for a month, they said, uh, too lazy. But I thank God for my wife up there and we'd have candlelight suppers and we'd have nice meals. And, and what's wrong with that? There's nothing extra spiritual about eating out of a can. And, uh, you keep up good, good eating habits and you know what you're doing? You're keeping normal. If you, if you let down on your physical grooming, if you let it down on your eating habits, the enemy saying, Hey, you're in an abnormal situation and it's your business to make it normal. And we decided before God that our house was going to be normal. And our kids grew up in a normal atmosphere with the presence of Jesus might only been within the walls of our house, but that belonged to God. At least there was one spot belonged to him and that was a bridgehead. And then keep up some good social habits. We played games, didn't let the devil tell us that was unspiritual to play a game of, of, uh, uh, of scrabble or ping pong. And, uh, and you know, that was a wonderful way to get to know the people and keep a cheerful home and keep busy. Then, uh, number four, fitting in with the community around you. There's going to be aspects of the community life. If you go to a tribe or to a village that is decidedly of the devil, that's decidedly wrong, decidedly evil, decidedly immoral, but there are aspects of it that you can fit in with and fit in with it. They'll, they'll see that you're not a stranger to the human life. After all, you're a normal person fit in as far as possible. I'll tell you what happened in one village. We went to Fort McPherson and when we got there, the first winter we were there, we were invited to some of the parties, the white people had, and we would always go to the parties. We'd stay a little while and we'd have a bottle of Coke and keep it in the bottle, let them know it was Coke. And because maybe some of the Indian people were there, but, uh, we kept going. And I remember one party, I heard the mounted policemen say on our way out now they're gone. We can really start, but you know, Hey, that's wonderful. I said, they know that there's something different. And we were pricking their conscience. And then the next year they invited us to their party and said, Hey, bring your guitar. We'll do some singing. I said, I don't know what they're going to sing. So we said, okay, the Lord gave us peace to go. And they said, uh, let's sing something down by the old mill stream. We sung some of those old songs. And then one school teacher said, uh, do you know gone, gone, gone, gone? Yes, my sins are gone. I said, Hey, we knew that. And we sung some choruses and we mixed it all up. And then they asked me to pray. And you know, by the end of the second winter, the parties in that village didn't have any drinking at them. And by the middle of that winter, we started a Bible study among these white people. There wasn't a single Christian there. They came and they drank their coffee and they did their netting and they smoked and they opened the Bible. We sung hymns nine o'clock Sunday night till midnight, just because we were willing to share in a community life. And I, and I, we did some curling and I fitted into the curling program and I became president of the curling society. That doesn't mean that I can go to Switzerland as a curler, but, uh, curling for any of you that don't know, it's not curling your hair. It's, uh, uh, pushing rocks down the ice and away. I was able to get some rules made in the curling society that said, when you're curling on Sunday, you have to have two offers hours off at 11 o'clock and two hours off at seven o'clock for church services. And we'd have people flying in from Alaska and flying in from a new week for curling bond spills. And I'd come in at that time and I said, okay, curling ring closed down for church. And we're meeting right over here in the, in the school. And it became a wonderful avenue for preaching the gospel. And God can open these up and you can be very practical. One time we were invited to a party at Hudson Bay company in brochet and the drinks were all out there in the table. And somebody said, let's sing some Christmas carols. Okay, get the guitar. The whole harp was never very far away. And, uh, we started singing and we sang all night and I got to explain the Christmas story. And at 12 o'clock, the Hudson Bay manager who was an alcoholic said, this is the best Christmas I've ever had. Well, because he knew what he was doing for once. But you see, Bible says you're, you are the salt of the earth. Now I think some of you think you're going to be salt. Oh no, no matter how good you are, how bad you are, the salt of the earth. I can remember Stewart Briscoe down in Pennsylvania two years ago and saying, I've never heard anybody give an invitation saying who would like to be salt. No, he said, he'll come forward and you are the salt of the earth. You're all that God has got to go into those situations and be the conviction of heaven in those situations. You are the salt of the earth and be it. Don't be so holier than thou that you can't go into a place where people may be drinking. I don't mean to go in where it's going to be a temptation to you, but go in, be salt in there. And that whole structure of that one village was changed and nobody gets saved in that Bible stud meeting. But we've gotten letters afterwards from people who said, Hey, we're Christians. Two of them were teaching up at Eskimo point and another was down in Ottawa and they were Roman Catholics and they were unbelievers just because we were willing to fit into the community. All right, keep away from things like being tied into jobs though in the community. Welfare jobs and politics and things like that. You may have to interpret for a politician, but don't get involved with size. All right. In my, in, uh, Psalms 110 and verse seven, but it has to be in the Moffat's translation. And not too bad. Psalm 110 and verse seven in the Moffat's translation. It says this, it says he drinks from any river he has to cross and he charges on triumphantly. Now a river can do one or two things for you. It can either drown you or it can give you sustenance to go on. And the only difference between drowning and drinking is whose boss. Isn't that right? If you're drowning the river's boss, and if you're drinking, you're the boss. And it says of Jesus Christ prophetically in this Psalm 110 verse seven, that he drinks from any river he has to cross and he surges on triumphantly. He takes that trying experience and he gained strength from it to go on. And David gained strength from his battle with Goliath and so did Samson. And we've gained strength from our experiences. And that experience that was intended to kill you can be your strength. And you can get strength from it to go on. And God wants to do what he has related in Psalm 114. When Israel went forth from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of a strange language, Judah became a sanctuary and Israel is dominion. And in that perfect kingdom relationship with the throne and the dominion, it says the sea looked and fled. Now, when God gets that relationship perfected in you with him on the throne of your Jerusalem and your members in subjection to him, ruling them with a rod of iron, then the seas are going to flee. It says the Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like lambs. And it says, what ails you all see? Why did you flee Jordan? Why did you turn back mountains? Why did you skip and listen at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob? Where was the presence? It was in Judah and it was in Israel. And when your God's dominion is fulfilled in you, in your Jerusalem, in your dominion, the Indian is going to say, well, hey, how come that went? It was because God was there. God in me. And it's got to be that. And you have to come to it that it's not somebody else. It's you. And you got to come to the place where you say ahead of time, Lord, search me and try me and find out my weaknesses and expose them. Are you afraid of that light? That's the light you are to dwell in someday and come to that light. It will expose your weaknesses. And then you can say, there it is, Lord, like the dear old Indian lady in Island Lake, Manitoba, who had sat through a week of evangelistic services. And in the morning when it was 40 below zero and the plane was warming up on the edge of the lake, she came stumbling on her snowshoes across the lake. And Tommy Francis said to Stan Colley, maybe we better wait. She came over and she got down on the knees. And Tommy said, is there something wrong? She said, there's something wrong in here. I've known it all week. The light had exposed it. And there in the snow with the propeller turning around at 40 below zero, she had come to the light and she got it taken care of. You'll never be able to stand alone until you get your weaknesses taken care of. Isn't he wonderful? He wants to make his kingdom flourish in you, and he wants to turn back rivers and tear down mountains and destroy prisons with you, not somebody else. And a wife has to learn it and a husband has to learn it. Particularly sons and daughters of missionaries need to learn it alone. Lord, where is the Lord God of my father or my mother? You can work in me. Here's my tongue. Here's my kingdom. Here's my throne. Here's my dominion. Let's turn back some rivers and drink from that troublesome experience. Drink deeply, grab your treasures from the darkness and surge on in Jesus name. Lord God almighty, you are so wonderful. You have tested us and tried us and we found that you were standing there in the shadows. And we found that what you did with Daniel and Joseph and David and Moses and Elijah and Jeremiah and Gideon and all the rest you're doing today. Lord, there are kids here that don't know your voice. There are kids here who got weaknesses that come from the way they used to live. Expose them by thy light while they're here in this commodious atmosphere so that when they're standing in Indonesia or Northern Canada or Brazil or downtown Minneapolis, that they're going to say, Jesus is standing with me. Turn back old river. God be praised. Amen.