Finding Your Place

Now, this evening, if you'll turn to Judges chapter 7, you'll have the portion of Scripture that's to be before us as we consider this important issue, finding your place. I know of no Scripture that's more appropriate than this and has more lessons to teach us regarding this theme. I'll read a considerable portion of this 7th chapter.

We'll indicate the verses that we omit. Then Jeroboam, who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him, rose up early and pitched beside the well of Herod, so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them by the hill Morah in the valley. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel haunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.

Now therefore go to proclaim in the ears of this people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand, and there remained ten thousand. The Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many.

Bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there. And it shall be that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee. And of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.

So he brought down the people unto the water. And the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself. Likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.

And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men. But all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink. And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand, and let all the other people go, every man unto his place.

So the people took Bittleswith in their hand and their trumpets, and he sent all the rest of Israel, every man, unto his tent, and retained those three hundred men. And the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley. And it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him, Arise, get thee down unto the host, for I have delivered it into thine hand.

But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Thorah thy servant down to the host, and thou shalt hear what they say, and afterward shall thine hand be strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went he down with Thorah his servant unto the outside of the armed men that were in the host. And the Midianites, and the Amalekites, and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude, and their camels were without number as the sand by the sea-side for multitude.

And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. For into his hand hath God delivered Midian and all the host.

And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise, for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian. And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers. And he said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise, and behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall ye do.

And when I blow the trumpet, I and all that are with me, and then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. So Gideon and the hundred men that were with him came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, and they had but newly set the watch, and they blew the trumpets, and broke the pitchers that were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets, and broke the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands, to blow withal.

And they cried, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And they stood, every man in his place, round about the camp, and all the host ran, and cried, and fled. And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the Lord set every man's sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host, and the host fled.

We'll stop our reading there, and ask the Lord to guide us in our thinking that the prophet that he has for us in this service will be made apparent. Now obviously this scripture deserves an evening spent in exposition and in application, but I am not proposing to do that. I am simply calling to your attention certain pertinent facts, and then applying them to you, as you are engaged in a tremendous task today.

You'll remember that Israel was in captivity. They had, or being besieged, they were under the control of the Midianites, and there were, this man Gideon, who by nature was an extremely timid fellow, was thrashing his grain in a pit. He'd found a wine pit somewhere, and he was supposed to give all the grain to the government, but being a sly fellow and anxious to feed his family, had taken to doing his thrashing in a hole in the ground so that the guards couldn't see the grain.

And so he was down there with a short stick flailing away, trying to get it, trying to protect himself, trying to preserve himself, and God found him and told him who he was. He didn't know that. And this is one of the principles.

You never know what you are until you find out God's purpose for your life. You may have been filling some empty place, and just engaged in more or less inconsequential activity, but God has a plan for your life. This is the point that I would have you see.

Gideon was quite amazed when God spoke to him and told him who he was, and gave him his name and identified him. Now, obviously, this quiet, cowardly chap that was pursuing his illegal way to get a little grain for his family wasn't the man of whom God spoke. But let's face it, neither were you the man or the woman that God has called you.

He's given you a new name. Your name was Jacob, but he's given you a new name, Israel, Prince with God. And this new name represents not what you've done for the Lord, but it represents what the Lord wants to do for you and wants to do through you.

And therefore, I'd have you understand that just as Gideon had no idea of the place that he was to fill in God's economy, you have no idea of the place that you are to fill until God has accomplished in you all that he wants to do. The next thing we find was that God was greatly concerned about his people. He was concerned about the fact that they had sinned and merited fully the captivity into which they'd come.

This was the judgment of God upon them. It wasn't that God was apologizing for what he had done to them. These people were invulnerable until their sin subjected them to the heel of the conqueror.

And so God wasn't, so to speak, apologizing for what he had done, but he was endeavoring to bring his people face to face with the provisions of his love and the purpose of his grace to make his name glorious in their midst again. He was jealous for his own glory. He was concerned about his interests in Israel.

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of concern on the part of the people regarding God's glory or their condition. They didn't seem to be greatly anxious about it, but they are robbing God of his praise. They were happy to have it so, or content at least.

I'm sure they resented the captivity, the bondage in which they were, but there was no great organization of opposition. They were letting things go on more or less as they were. But God was concerned about his people being all that he'd intended them to be.

And therefore I would have you understand now that the only thing that God can bless is that which is for his glory. He wasn't able to bless that which Gideon might have initiated for him. He could only bless that which he had started, which he had planned, that which was designed solely and only for his praise, for his honor, and for his glory.

If God was to use Gideon, then God was to put Gideon in the place that he wanted him and use him in the way that he wanted him. I am confident that if Gideon had called for a committee meeting and organized a group saying the committee for the doing something about Israel's sad plight, and it was a chairman and had gotten all the things that are usually associated with such committees, and then it had a little prayer of dedication saying, now Lord bless, that the Lord wouldn't have been the least interested in all of this. But there was something that Gideon was seeking, something that God was seeking through Gideon and for his people, Israel.

And consequently the Lord had great concern for his glory. Understand this. Remember this.

The only thing that God is interested in blessing is that which he initiates and that which is designed to be for his praise. Now you recall my referring, you saying some months ago, and perhaps several times, the Chinese brother that had toured many of the churches of his denomination returned to his own people on the mainland, and it was asked by them, what was the thing that impressed you most about American Christianity? And without hesitation he said, why, how much that the good American Christians can do without the blessing of God. It just amazed him.

Well, perhaps it is because they've initiated so much and they've had to use their own ingenuity and devices in order to achieve this measure of success. But here was a nation in captivity, a people that God had designed for his glory and praise, living in shameful dishonor of him, and God was concerned about it, concerned enough to take things in his own hand and find his own man. Then of course, as soon as it was known that Gideon was chosen of the Lord for this, there was a lot of opposition.

After all, who is this Gideon fellow? Who is he? What has he got? And so invariably this is the case. There was, the people were saying, well, if deliverance is going to come, it's going to come through our group and our way and through me and us. But God had chosen perhaps the least among the people in order that the glory could be his.

And therefore, when God begins to move, it behooves all those that are interested in having part with him to discern his moving, to recognize his moving, and to realize where he is going and how he is going. I believe for this reason we should have eyes wide open to all the events that are transpiring in our day. If 78 years ago, or 80 years ago actually now, 80 years ago, when a pastor left a church down the street a ways and came out with a little group of seven in an upstairs room, it would have been said that here was to be a movement that would indirectly revolutionize present 20th century Christianity.

Everyone would have laughed and mocked and scoffed and said it couldn't be so. But if you will trace all that's transpired from that occasion and that time, recognizing the direction in which it's gone, you will realize that whether you want to say it's all good, that isn't the question. We're not asking to put a value judgment on it now.

We're simply saying this, despise not the day of small beginnings. Despise not the little things. For if it's in God's way, in God's will, in God's principles, and for God's glory, it's amazing the life and the power that it has.

For instance, in England 250 years ago, if you'd have seen a man riding on horseback, reading a book as he rode along from village to village, and finding a little group of people that would gather with him at five in the morning or at eight at night to let him tell them some of the principles that God had shown him from his word, if you had seen him and said prophetically, here's the man whose ministry is going to save England, you'd have been laughed at in those early days, because he was nothing more than a disenfranchised Anglican preacher. But it was John Wesley, of whom Macaulay rightly said the institution of the class meeting through Wesley was instrumental in saving England from the abyss into which France fell. Despise not the day of God's small beginnings, when some principle, some truth that God wants brought back is discovered and is kept and treasured and protected and watered by prayer and devotion.

God is in it, as small as it may seem. And so we recognize that this is the case. Then the next thing that we want to see is this, that as soon as it was discerned and discovered that there was to be a deliverance rock for Israel under Gideon, then he was successful in getting over 30,000 people.

Obviously the argument was the more the better, and that if he could get a big enough company of people with swords, they really didn't have them because they'd all been confiscated by the captors, but they could somehow muster enough weapons and clubs and forks and spears and swords, get enough people that are angry enough and deliverance is sure to come by sheer weight of numbers. Well, 30,000 were far too many. God just couldn't use this many, because if deliverance had come from them, they would have said, see what our hands have wrought, see what we've achieved, see what we've accomplished.

And this wasn't in God's purpose. We see the same thing transpiring in the life of the Lord. Our Lord came and there was a world that he wanted to win.

And yet we find that as he preached, he preached to the multitudes, he ministered to the multitudes, he healed the sick innumerable and far more than are listed because it says that he healed all the sick in many of the areas. And yet out of all of those to whom he preached and all that he healed, there were only about 500 that really believed on him. My own personal conviction, you may not share this, is that the only people to whom he revealed himself after his resurrection were those that had believed on him from the heart before his crucifixion.

This would mean that in three years' ministry, our Lord had succeeded in influencing for himself, in seeing faith brought into their hearts toward him, just a few more than 500. Of this number there were 70 that had gone on some official representation for him, 120 that were gathered at one time we know, before Pentecost, and probably that number was there the entire time, maybe even augmented by others coming in. Then we realize that there were 12 that had served as disciples, one of these being the one who betrayed him.

So numerically, our Lord's ministry was not extensive. But think for just a moment. What would have happened if, for instance, in John 6, this great crowd of people there at Capernaum that had eaten the bread, that had testified that he was the Messiah, that were sought to take him by force and make him a king? What would have happened to the whole cause of Christ if our Lord had been content to take them and to build upon them? They had given certain evidence.

They decided that he was the Messiah. They would follow him. What if the next day, when they came questioning, he had sort of just eased his way around the problem and hadn't faced the issue squarely? What if he just thought that it was proper here at this point to be diplomatic? Instead of doing as he did, facing them with the eternal truth that the Father had given him to preach? Which message was that unless they would eat his flesh and drink his blood, they had no life in him? This message cut right across the grain of their inclination, and it says, and they followed him no more.

His disciples followed no more with him, leaving just the little company with which he'd come into the area. And apparently they were in a mind to leave, for they were the least encouraged by this. And our Lord turned to them and said, Are you also going to go away? What was his principle? It's the same principle that we find here with Gideon.

God could only use those who were absolutely abandoned to him, utterly committed to him, could do no other. And so he had to give the message that the Father presented to him. He said, I do not speak of myself, I speak as I receive commandment of the Father.

And so it was with Gideon. He said, If you're afraid, go home. And you remember the twenty thousand and more went home.

They were afraid. They weren't enthusiastic. And so he saw them go.

There might have been faint hearts that said, This will get us no place. Then he turned and said to the others, the Lord speaking to Gideon, There are far too many here. You have them pass through the water.

And he didn't tell them in advance what it would have been, but he just waited for them to express their true inclination and heart. And so here's a group of people so eager, so determined, so anxious, that they will not even take time to stoop down and drink the water, but they just lap it as they go, running the while, not losing momentum or speed, because they're on their way as they've been commanded to do. And this company now that have met the test is the group that the Lord has prepared to use.

So we find that this is ever to be the principle. It wasn't that Gideon wanted only three hundred. It was that God wanted all who were prepared to serve him on his terms.

And this, we must understand, is one of the utterly unchangeable principles of God's word in God's work. And I will carry you back again to the movement of Wesley, because I believe that it's imperative for us to understand it at this point. He maintained that no one could count it a right to go into one of the classes.

No one had a right to go. It was a privilege, and a privilege that was withdrawn when it was seen that it was being neglected or abused. And thus, when the leader was chosen, it wasn't by a democratic vote of the group saying, we want so-and-so to lead us.

This wasn't the procedure. Nor did the group compose itself saying, I want to be in this group. I like these people.

Nor did they feel they had a right. They had at last come to recognize that there was a point and a place for them to be taught and to be told, and that they were prepared to follow and to learn discipline. This was what the Lord had said.

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them, discipling them, disciplining them, to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And if there is any lost note and lost factor in twentieth-century Christianity, it is the factor of discipline. It is the factor of submission to the word and to the truth and to the power to the Holy Spirit.

Will you say, well, what about to the church? Yes, even there, there's a relationship that has to be understood. Obviously, this is only, again, a matter that is deserved. No one has any right to control another.

I have found, for instance, in my own experience, a glad acquiescence to the counsel of certain ones whom I've come to know and to love and to respect. For instance, I have found it no difficulty whatever to go to, out of my way, as I have in the past at my own expense sometimes, several hundreds of miles, in order to have an hour or an hour and a half with Dr. R. R. Brown of Omaha. He has no authority over me.

He has no control over me whatever. But I have recognized God's dealing with him, the wisdom that he's acquired, the anointing of the Lord upon him, and so at my own expense would fly out of the way and completely change an itinerary in order that I could go to him and submit myself, in the sense of a younger to the elder, saying, would you teach me and instruct me and help me and pray for me? Now this, I believe, is something that he wouldn't demand, for if he did it would be denied. But it's something that everyone that loves the Lord Jesus recognizes.

There is a fellowship in the body of Christ, based not upon an authority that is intrinsic in the man, but intrinsic in the relationship to the Lord and to the Spirit of God. And I believe that it is imperative for us to understand there is an element. Now were he or anyone else ever to counsel contrary to the Word of God, instantly, immediately, and always, God's Word takes precedence over any other teaching, instruction, or advice.

There is one infallible rule, and I shall never forget the words of John of Roysbrook in the 13th century, who wisely spoke to one of the young men who said he'd had a vision of Jesus and had heard him speak. And the dear godly elderly John said, if Christ came and appeared to me in this room and Moses and Elijah didn't come to stand one on the right hand and one on the left, I would not believe a word that he said. In other words, anything that came, I had to agree with the law and the prophets, for God does not contradict himself.

He's given it here, an infallible rule of faith and life, and all that he says and gives and brings will conform to it. But I do believe that it was necessary, if God was to accomplish his ministry, for him to rec- for the people to recognize that when he dismissed 9,700 and said, now you're finished, you go back, that they had no alternative but to go back and leave the whole matter in the hands of God and in the hands of Gideon, for it had come to the place now where they had to do this. This, there was no alternative, and the people recognized it as well.

And then of course, God's way is not man's way, as we've seen the while. Here was something ridiculous. To take bread, of course, this would stave off their hunger and their weight and keep them from being restless, and that they'd be prepared to be alert to their task and responsibility.

Then he said, take a lamp, and in the lamp, in the large clay container, have your lamp burning. So you can see them with the clay pot and in which is the lamp, the lamp which would have been, so we are told, associated with a far larger company of soldiers. But here's the large clay pot shielding the lighted lamp.

So what then was- the procedure seemed ridiculous to the natural mind. Now someone might argue, as I have read, that what actually he did was to have 300 men with lamps, and lamps were only associated with companies, and so the Midianites looking up said, oh, there are 300 full companies here, perhaps so. But even there, if that were the case, it still is evident to us that God had gone before this little company of timid men that had nothing but lamps and bread.

God had come to do something, and his power was to be manifest. All the people could do would be to stand in their place, stand and continue to stand, do the thing that God had entrusted them to do, and allow the Lord to work. Had they moved out of their place, had they taken swords which they didn't even carry with them, according to the text, they could have completely changed the outcome.

But they were prepared to allow the Lord to work in his own way. Now the application becomes clear, I am sure, to you. We are living in the age called the Church Age, the Church Period.

I gave you some months ago now the statement from G. Campbell Morgan from his excellent volume on the Book of Acts, his exposition on the Book of Acts, in which he said, it is to be understood that Pentecost was not to be viewed as a day but as a dawn. Do you understand? Pentecost was not to be viewed as a day but as merely a dawn. This is the day of Pentecost, that was the dawn of Pentecost.

This is the day of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost working through the Church, that was the dawn of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost working through the Church. And it's not to be viewed as an event that was conclusive with the closing down of the canopy of heaven at night, but it is to be viewed as the beginning of a day that will continue until night comes when no man can work. And this is the day of the Church, the day of the Holy Spirit, this is the day of his work.

Now we understand that throughout all of the centuries Satan's hatred has been against the, first it was against the woman, Israel as a nation, that brought forth the babe, and then it was against the Lamb's wife, the bride, as we've seen it there in our study last year in these Sunday nights, all through the centuries, ceaseless, relentless attack upon the Church. Now I do not wish to prognosticate, ours is not a family of prophets, but I would like to suggest this, that I reaffirm something that I have been saying night after night during this series, and that is that I believe that spiritual dynamic is going to be released in the twentieth century, not through the organized Church, even in the sense of this in its final function, or the denominations in their larger scope, but that the release of the Spirit of God to display the resurrection glory of Christ is going to come, as we see it already beginning to come, through groups of believers that are meeting on times other than Sunday morning. Now don't for a moment think that I'm saying that we shouldn't meet on Sunday morning and continue to meet.

This isn't the implication that I wish drawn at all. I firmly believe that what we did here this morning and will each succeeding morning, as long as the Lord carries and spares us and holds us together here, is of him that he wants the proclamation of his word. He wants it, he's honored it, he's blessed it.

Through it most of us have come to know and love him and have been established in the faith. But there are a hundred and sixty-eight hours in the week, and you can diligently attend everything that's proclaimed over this desk, and there isn't sufficient time given in the proclamation or sufficient that's necessary for assimilation, for you to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ to the level of maturity where you will be able to serve the Lord in the battle that we are engaged in. I believe it's going to require far more time.

For instance, as I've said before and repeat, for it's a tool, an idea is a tool to be used wherever the task confronts it. If the Communists were to secure your help tonight in the pledge of your allegiance to their goal of the triumph of international communism, they would not allow you to decide when you attended a cell meeting. You would have to be willing, if you were to have any part with them, to submit yourself to their discipline and submit your time to their use, and it would require far more than you have.

It would mean, therefore, that you'd have to recognize that this was of paramount importance, your sharing with them in this world goal of the triumph of international conspiracy of communism, and they would demand your time and would secure it or would exclude you from any participation. This is a biblical principle seen here in the Old Testament, seen on the part of the Lord Jesus, seen on the part of the Apostolic Church. Now I believe, dear heart, that it is God's will and intention for you to take seriously your part with him in the twentieth century.

This certainly includes attending to the proclamation of the Word on the Lord's Day. This certainly includes gathering with those who gather to hear the statement of truth, even as you've come tonight and are in this service. But I would not for a moment want you to think that you are going to have all that you need just by this.

There has to be a time that you will schedule in which you are prepared to give far more attention to your own spiritual nurture and development than the services Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday can afford. Now, there are 168 hours in the week. I realize that everyone to whom I'm speaking has a schedule that's far too much.

But I also recognize that schedules are frequently revised. The Lord does this. You have felt him doing this.

As I look at you, I see many of you that have carried responsibilities in the past in respect to the Lord's work that you're not carrying at present. There is constantly going on revision. Now, I believe that we are going to have to be prepared to submit our schedules to the Lord in such a way that he is going to draw out by his own guidance that time when we will be free, along with others of similar inclination and dedication, to give ourselves to the word and to the sharing of the word and the preparation of our hearts for all that the Lord has called us to.

In other words, I believe that of paramount importance, taking priority over all but these few things that I've mentioned, is the reestablish of something which will be comparable to the class meeting. So finding your place is going to mean finding your place in two respects. First, finding your place in time.

There has to be some discipline here. There has to be some inventory here, some re-evaluation. You must be prepared to bring your present schedule, not under my control, but under the control of the Holy Ghost.

I am submitting to you the proposition, not tonight only, but something that we've been presenting week after week, month after month. It is now brought to this point of focus. It's imperative that you arrange your schedule under the guidance of the Holy Ghost to have time when, at leisure with others, you can think about the things of Christ, discuss the things of Christ, share in the things of Christ in prayer, in order that you can be nurtured and developed and matured to the place of standing in the place in battle that he's intended for you to have.

Now, this is of primary importance. Next Lord's Day, I shall present to you, whether in the morning or evening, I've not yet seen clear to state, but I shall present to you the folder that has been carried by many of you, this outline of 14 points, and with it there will be some seven or eight questions and a place on the back for you to make additional comment. But I believe that the natural outgrowth of what I am giving tonight is that next Lord's Day you should take the, and many of you have it now in complete form, this outline that has shown something of the perspective of the Christian life.

I would like to have those of you that are in possession of this to use it carefully this week in this regard, just as you should take inventory of your time and ask the Lord to guide you as to the time of the week when you could best share with others in such a class as we've been presenting, then I believe you should do something else. You ought to take this frame of reference and apply it to your own heart and find out where you are in regard to it. Now, there may be questions.

It's arbitrary. I do not ask you to wholeheartedly accept all the terms we've used. The terms are relative, representing states or areas of development.

Please let us not become in this regard lint pickers, dealing with terminology and with syllables. Let's deal with the phases of development that are represented here and relate to it so that in this that is a common scale that we're using, you can say of a truth as best you understand where you are in relation to this matter of spiritual development. You know you've been awakened.

All right, that's not the place to stop. You've been brought to conviction. You've been brought to repentance, to faith, to justification, to regeneration.

But perhaps you do not have the witness of the Spirit. Then in all honesty and candor, you ought to say this is the place that I feel my spiritual development has reached. This is the level to which I've come, and I believe that this is the point where I should begin.

I'd like to deal here. And then by so doing, you put yourself in the way of being with others that will have similar desire and thought. And as these are presented to me and the elders with myself can prayerfully consider them and work together, I believe that out of this can grow classes that shall be profitable, spiritually profitable.

So there will come then to you next Lord's Day this form that we will use that will be just merely for convenience in which you can relate yourself to a phase of development, a level of development, if you please. And then you can add to it other questions in the back you can use for further explaining of the interests of your heart, and also you can indicate the time that you feel would be most satisfactory for you for such a fellowship. So therefore I'm asking you to recognize that there's nothing mandatory about this.

Everyone will have the privilege of participating. Should it be that subsequently you discover there are groups that are there and you've not indicated desire or participated, do not feel that groups have been formed that have excluded you. This won't be the case, though obviously there has to be the right of development of the group, and this is retained.

But understand that it is now a question as to how you are prepared to stand. Are you prepared to take time? Are you prepared to face your own heart development? Are you prepared to come honest with yourself? This is where I feel I am and this is the point where I feel maturation is stopped. I must go on from here.

I believe that if we can do this, then we can begin to see among us some of similar hearts, similar inclination and burden and concern going on together, guided by the Spirit of God, until we can have developed among us those that have been equipped of the Lord. This is what he's given for pastors and evangelists and teachers, the perfecting of the Saints into the work of the ministry. But the teaching, the preaching over the desk, as valuable as it is, is not adequate for what is required of us in days such as these, that so desperately try our souls and test our faith.

And therefore, I'm asking you to make this week a week of spiritual inventory, of spiritual heart-searching, of spiritual preparation, in order that you can find. Would you have been among the number that, I fear, went back the first twenty thousand? This is the largest company of the Church. Afraid of what the Lord will do, afraid of what it will cost, afraid of what it will name? Or would you be among the number that are unprepared to give up your own time, your own interests, your own concerns, and are determined that you're going to pursue the path that you've set for yourself? Or are you going to be among that number that are prepared to say, I'll stand in the gap and fill up the hedge, I mean business about this thing, I'm going to go on, I'm going to go on, I want to be everything the Lord Jesus would have me be? In a sense, just as in Gideon's case, you choose.

No one chose, no one said, you go home, you're afraid. No one said, you go home, you didn't, you have to drink this way so you can go home. It was a personal choice.

And so it becomes to you the same. But I believe that as you pray and wait and seek the mind of the Spirit, that you will find your own heart relating yourself to this chart of development, if you please. And you will find yourself being inclined toward a given time and be prepared to make adjustments to secure it so that you can have the occasion, the freedom, the liberty and schedule to have with others this time of sharing, of praying, of spiritual nurturing and development.

And so I press this upon you tonight. I like to leave with you, and they stood every man in his place around about the camp. Oh, that that can come again.

That that can come again. God's arm isn't shortened. God's ear isn't heavy.

We see him blessing as magnificently as he is among so many of the other groups to which we referred. And oh, how our hearts rejoice that these have had some blessing from the Lord. It behooves us, therefore, with such a heritage of faith and testimony as is ours, to use all that we have and all that we can garner and glean from any place it may come.

We might be equipped to serve the Lord, to stand every one of us in his place around about the camp. This is no hour, this is no day, this is no time for spectator Christianity. I believe that such that are content to go on will find that even that privilege will be soon denied.

And so I entreat you and beg you and implore you to see him as head over all things to the Church and head over you as a member of his body and that you come to the living head the Lord Jesus and say, Lord, I want you to show me where I am and where I'm to be. Help me to find my place, adjust my schedule, adjust my time. And by this means I do believe the Spirit of God will find us at least in measure a people prepared for all that he's called us to do.

And so to that end let's dedicate ourselves. But tonight should I be speaking to someone that's come in perchance that's never known the Lord? Oh how he stands with outstretched arms inviting you to come with all your need. All you have to do is bring your unworthiness, bring your need, bring your sin, bring your heartache and your despair.

He's provided everything else. You just come with need and he's made full provision for it. And so in behalf of the Lord Jesus I invite every hungry, weary, burdened heart to come to him.

Don't go. Remain where you are. We'll come to you and speak with you and talk with you.

Or you make your way and indicate your need and desire. We'll talk and pray together. This is the night the Lord is here to bless.

Now shall we unite our hearts in prayer? Do you have particular need other than what's been presented? Do you have find any response in your heart tonight? Yes I do want to be among that number that the Lord has called and used. Or are you acquiescing saying well it's all very well and good for him but as far as I'm concerned I'm not going to get excited. Things have gone on they'll go on.

Well bless your heart with no conflict but let let's be have it understood that the Lord is a task for the hour and a people for the task and we entreat you to be among them. Are you not willing to look into his face and say here am I Lord, here am I. Send me, use me, make my life count for eternity. I don't want to be throughout eternity to have lived in this generation and have lived carelessly and lightly and indifferently.

It's a dead generation of tests that determines whether that which we love and cherish can endure. May God move upon your heart tonight to say I'm going to be to the Lord Jesus the channel through which he can pour his life and power. Our Heavenly Father we're gathered before thee now a company of men and women living in the world's largest neediest mission field and this week we're going to be working each in our place each in our task.

Father we long that our lives should be lived for the glory and honor and praise of thy son and everyone that goes to the task understands how greatly they need the fullness of Christ's power and the guidance of his spirit and so we ask father that tonight there might come to us a deep longing to be all the Lord Jesus died that we might be to enter into the full inheritance that's ours. Teach us that this is the new testament the will that he's made for his people sealed with his blood with his poured out life that grant that our hearts may hunger and yearn after all that he's intended to be ours and so Lord as we've projected this for the next Lord's day and then treated and exhorted this people to measure themselves by a standard give wisdom give heavenly light and as they examine their schedules and all the many responsibilities and details help them Lord to clear the time best for them and thee when they can take ours if need be in fellowship with others in the things of Christ sharing together speaking together praying together father bring this to not for our sake but that thou mayest have a means whereby our growth may be more rapid in our maturity reach more quickly that the Lord Jesus may get more glory from our lives so to that end seal this service for Jesus sake amen let us stand for the benediction now may the love of God the father the communion and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be in abide with each of us now and until we meet again amen