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God fulfills His role as a tender and loving Shepherd when we follow Him. There are conditions. A meeting is helpful to us if we have a willing, committed heart. We want the blessing, but we are not always willing to open our heart so that the Lord can do His work. Blessing comes through listening to the voice of the Shepherd and obeying it. The voice of the workers will bring blessing if we accept the Spirit of Christ. Special meetings and conventions are like a thorough checkup. Isaiah 40:11, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, etc.” I was with a shepherd and his sheep. He gathered them for a thorough checkup. When the sheep saw me, they began to come near me. I realized that in order for the sheep to come near the shepherd, I would have to stand behind the shepherd. In speaking to others, Christ has to be in the forefront, I must be in the background, then we can be of help to others.

There were some sheep that were very thin. I asked why. He said it was because they had wool around their eyes. It wasn’t a lack of food. There was food, but they could not see it. The sheep needs help. A young person saw the truth, but was not willing, so he asked God for help. With the help of God he could do it, and he became the overseer in South Africa.

Sometimes sheep have parasites, internal or external. The shepherd knows best. A parasite sucks out the life of another. Our human nature wants to grow and sucks out the spiritual life. The shepherd looking at the sheep knows the cause of its illness. He knows, I don’t. If the sheep has a deep wound, it needs to be cleaned out. Sometimes a wound will heal on the outside but not on the inside. It needs to be cut out deep, even if it hurts, because the important thing is good health.

Some sheep fled from the fold. Later they were found, but they didn’t look like the others. Their appearance was almost like wild sheep. Lost sheep don’t know where to go. They run from one side to the other without finding rest. They can’t find the same hole where they went out. It is easy to find a way out, the way in is not so easy to find, because it depends on God. One testimony was, “In the beginning I was afraid to start. Now I am afraid to stop.” Psalm 23, “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” Sometimes we don’t ‘pasture’ (feed) because of our busy, agitated life, and then we don’t benefit from the pasture. There is no rest without accepting the guidance of God.

I also saw the skins of dead sheep. I asked what had happened. The mothers didn’t have milk and the little ones died. For the children to have life the parents must have life also. We need to show love and gratitude to Christ for what we have. With our cup overflowing we can be a help to others. When I began in the work I felt that I was obligated to serve because that is what God asked me to do, but I soon realized that I could not help anyone without love.

Obeying the plan of God works, our way doesn’t work. Can anyone change the plan of God and come out winning? Salvation comes by hearing and following the voice of God.

* Stephen is from South Africa. He has been preaching in the Southern Brazil for 20 years.

II Corinthians 2:11 ….for we are not ignorant of his devices…….

“Doubt” is one of Satan’s devices. To sow unbelief is one of the best arms in his arsenal. Doubt the Word of God or the Bible is not for today, or the Scriptures don’t mean what they say.

Satan used such in the Garden of Eden. He got Eve to question what God had said. He injected the poison of doubt and disobedience in her heart. The ruin of the race began. The pall of sin and death fell upon this beautiful world. Its recovery must come through faith.

Satan tried the same tactics on Jesus, “If Thou be the Son of God….” Jesus, like David, had more than one stone in His bag. He did not have to remind the devil that the Father had just assured Him of His good pleasure: “This is My beloved Son…” Jesus used only the Scriptures to carry the Day.

“Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe that God exists and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” By seeking we’ll prove His promise, “ye shall find!”

Decisions for eternity are made here. Jesus said to a certain man, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible.” He replied, “Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief.” The God-given prescription for faithful sick souls is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” When we wholeheartedly believe, God is bound to act. He answers us, “Be it unto thee according to thy faith.”

The devil seeks to keep us back from venturing all on the unadulterated Word of God. John the Baptist’s last recorded words, “He that believeth in the Son has everlasting life: he that believeth not shall be damned.” How could one put it [more] plain[ly]? Faith is our only access to this Source of Life.

Therefore in order to receive “His Living Touch,” we must believe.

“Deception” is another one of Satan’s devices. He puts new names on ancient arts. He labels evil things with pleasant names. It’s an old trick. Youngsters try it on Halloween – change street signs, etc.

Druggists have practiced it for centuries, covering bitter pills with sugar coating. False religion is putting sheep’s clothing on ravenous wolves; whited sepulchers full of dead men’s bones; cleansing the outside of the cup and platter but full of uncleanness. It’s sweeping the wrong under the rug!

Bethsaida, a nice name – meaning “House of Mercy,” full of cripples and diseased. Lies and errors wrapped up in attractive parcels. Even Satan’s agents go under the “aliases” of apostles of Christ. Like the cigarette ads that fill every media of communication. They picture the athletic type, prospering businessmen, good society with sports car and the jet set, radiating health, and energy. They are photographed at vacation centers, beautiful beaches, picturesque pools, and paradisiacal places. They never show the victims of their drug: cancer hospitals, patients without voice-boxes, missing lungs, walking skeletons of misery and suffering.

Procrastination is Satan’s successful device too. He emphasizes “tomorrow.” “Go thy way for this time, when I have a more convenient season, I’ll call thee.” It never came! God says, “Today.” Satan says, “Tomorrow.” Tomorrow I’m going to decide. Tomorrow I’m going to pray, read my Bible, write that letter, and do that good deed. I’ll call “later!”

It’s already LATER than you think. The world’s worst gamblers trifle with the Mercy of God. Will His Spirit continue to strive? “Now” is the acceptable time. “Now” is the Day of Salvation. We seldom see the Tempter in his ugly form. He was the most subtle of any beast of the field. He was attractive. He came with God’s Word in his mouth, talking but not walking – he has no feet.

He used a trusted helpmeet to reach Adam, Eve. He tried to down Job with his wife. Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarah.

The rest is history that has plagued the world ever since. Jesus detected the devil’s cunningness in Peter’s tongue. He answered, “Get thee behind Me, Satan.”

Another clever device is to “sham defeat” to get us to let down our guard, to become careless. Look out! There’s no quarters nor discharge in this warfare.

When I first came to America someone pointed out a robin to me and I was disappointed to see it was very different from our English robin redbreast and the same with the American blackbird, but the sparrow was exactly the same. And when I was in Hong Kong, the sparrow was the same as those at home. This is like God’s children, the same in every country unlike some religious groups who have the same name in different places, but are quite different from place to place. We are glad for the same fellowship, the same spirit, and the same likeness amongst the sparrow and amongst God’s children wherever we may go.

A sparrow is a small bird, and no matter how much it may grow, it will never be anything but a small bird. God’s requirement for entering His family and Kingdom is that we become as little children. Only a child grows, and if we become like the little sparrow, then it would be nice if the biggest we ever get, would still be small.

Several months ago I was with some friends at a zoo. We went in one house where there were a lot of brightly colored birds; some very exotic and I noticed that everyone was taken up with these birds they had paid to come and look at, and they totally missed the little sparrows that were hopping around in and out of the bars of the cages unnoticed and unknown in their daily activities. Those fine feathered birds remind me of the idols and stars who live in the bright lights of the world where people pay to see them, or others, who at the peak of fame and fortune gather crowds and applause. Yet those same crowds never notice God’s little sparrows quietly going about their living, unnoticed and unknown. Jesus said, “Not one sparrow falls but My Father knows and not one is forgotten before God.” Yet the star who falls, the great who fall, how quickly their memory goes into oblivion, remembered only by a stone monument, or when one reads a book of memoirs, etc.

Wonderful to be able to lead a quiet life that the God of Heaven knows and sees and that is of such value to Him that He never forgets where His little sparrow is and who cares about all that happens. The cuckoo is mentioned in a list of birds that are an abomination to God, and surely heading the list would be the adversary of our soul, the devil. In England, the cuckoo flies around looking for a nest, another bird’s nest, and will when it finds one with eggs in it, push out an egg and lay its own there. When the young cuckoo hatches, it gradually pushes out the other little fledglings, and demands to be fed by the little foster mother. The cuckoo doesn’t make a nest or feed its young. How like the devil to go around looking for a heart in which to lay or implant some wrong thought, wrong desire, wrong spirit etc, which as it grows, demands to be fed by the owner and, if it is, it will gradually push out any other new life there. As a child, I often found a dead fledgling on the ground at the bottom of a tree, and knew there was a young cuckoo in the nest above. If we allow the devil to lay a grudge, for example, in our nest and it is fed, it will push out forgiveness, love and unity and these little evidences of new life will find themselves dead on the ground.

The cuckoo will always return to the same kind of bird’s nest for the rest of its life and if the devil knows he has been able to lay a young cuckoo in our nest once, he will come back and back and back again till the end of life. One might wonder how we can escape the cuckoo and its merciless ways and I am grateful for the answer we find in Psalm 84:3, “Yes the sparrow hath found an new house, even Thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God..” The only safe place where a sparrow can build her nest without fear of the cuckoo or the elements of danger, is the altar of God, where there is His presence, where there is sacrifice, service, incense (prayer) and worship and where the priest or servant of God has the care and the responsibility of all the concerns of the altar.

One would like to take warning from those verses in Luke 12:4-7 and not allow the devil to put anything into our nest or heart that would demand to be fed and push out and destroy any other new life there.

Perhaps it was early in the morning when two men stood side by side on a mountaintop, providing a view in the direction of the rising sun, of the verdant plains watered by the Jordan River. Eastward beyond the well watered plains of Moab endlessly stretched the forested hills that separated the Jordan valley from the Euphrates, the great river of the east, and the land of Shinar, from which both men had left on a journey directed by God not many years before. The view northward saw rugged mountains that stretched on until surmounted by the majestic snow covered peak of Mount Hermon. In the westward direction they could observe in a nearby peaceful valley their two camps, now stirring with the early morning activities. Beyond the valley toward the west were more hills, valleys and mountains, stretching beyond their view unto the Plain of Sharon, upon whose shores broke the waves of the immense Western Sea. To the south the fortress of the Jebusites built upon the slopes of Mount Moriah could be seen and beyond that lay the deadness of the Salt Sea, into which the waters of the Jordan River emptied and found their grave.

The two men were engaged in one of the most serious concerns that could be considered on earth — the maintenance of peace between brethren. Their combined flocks and herds were greater than the land wherein they were sojourning could support. The older of the two men had asked the younger to choose a direction to leave the place where they were, and he would go in the opposite direction, that the peace between themselves as brethren could be maintained.

The record reads “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere… Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other” (Gen 13:10-11). Both men returned to the now busy encampment and took steps to carry out their agreement: Lot to travel east toward the cities of the plain, and Abraham to travel west into the land of Canaan.

It is significant that Lot lifted up his own eyes, and chose what seemed best to him. It never occurred to him to ask the Lord for direction in making a choice that represented a new course for his life. The wisdom of God declares that it is not in man to direct his own steps (Jer 10:23). It also declares that there is a way that seems good to a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death (Prv 14:12). Lot’s choice seemed best to him at that time, and it was best for the short term. His flocks and herds prospered and grew, and daily he had cause to rejoice in the prosperity brought by his choosing. Unknown to him was the shortness of the time remaining before the judgment of the God of heaven would be visited upon the wicked cities of the plain of Jordan, and all that he had valued would be destroyed in that cataclysmic judgment. All that can be seen with the human eye was created to have an end.

As Abraham traveled west into Canaan, the Lord led him up to a high place. From the vantage point where Abraham was standing, God told him to lift up his eyes and look in all directions unto the distant horizons, and spoke to him the following words: “Lift up now your eyes from the place where you are, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever” (Gen 13:14-15). Looking up from the place where he was revealed to him all the possibilities for eternal gain, and that vision stood by him to the end of his journey through life.

The view that Abraham was given, to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west — all that he could see — would be his forever. Unlike choices made by human intellect, the choices made conforming to the will of God are eternal. However, there was one vital requirement: to make the promise become a reality, Abraham had to arise and walk through the length and breadth of the land of promise to make it his own (Gen 13:17). Walking on the land conveys ownership (Jos 1:3) (Jos 14:9). While there are no limits to the extent of the eternal inheritance that could belong to every child of God, the boundaries of the inheritance are defined by their willingness to take steps guided by the will of God.

Stan

I would not want to impress you with my words. I would like to say something that would be a help to you. What would be more helpful than the words Jesus spoke in His parables?

We read about ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-12. This is a story of Jesus the bridegroom. All ten virgins were bidden to the wedding — all had the same invitation. All meant to go to the wedding feast. All waited for the appearing of the bridegroom. Five were prepared for a long wait. Sometimes in waiting we can become tired and careless. None know when Christ will return — we need to be ready for a long wait.

I believe all of the virgins had names. I have enjoyed thinking about what the names may have been. First the names of the wise virgins:

1. Perhaps the oldest of the wise was called “Godly Fear.” This is the beginning. The bible tells us that Godly Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

2. The second may have been called “Willingness.” If we fear God it will lead to willingness.

3. Perhaps the third was “Wholeheartedness”. Godly fear and willingness makes us wholehearted. We cannot afford to be lukewarm.

4. The fourth may be “Love”. Godly fear, willingness and wholeheartedness grow into perfect love.

5. I like to think the fifth is “Holiness”. Holiness is a gift from God. Holiness makes us what we could not otherwise be.

The five foolish may have been traits, tendencies and weaknesses that we need to be careful about — traits such as:

1. “Short Sightedness” keeps us from preparing for an eternal future. We can be too taken up with the present — the earthly and the fleshly desires.

2. “Shallowness” could have been the second name. It is easy to live on the surface — to be surface feeders. To be too concerned about our natural needs of drink, food, livelihood, and family. We may fail to think of or care for others. We can be concerned about our bodies, but ignore the needs of our soul.

3. “Laziness” can keep us from doing profitable things. God’s people need to be industrious. We need to dig a well of salvation. We need to build an altar, and then offer our life on it. We need to climb a mountain, so we can be taught as His disciples were. We need to be industrious in reading, praying, listening, testifying and being in meeting. Disciples cannot be lazy.

4. “Carelessness” is failure to think through our responsibilities — not being prepared for a long, long service. Failure to count the true cost. Failure to do as in Acts 1:14, “…continued with one accord in prayer and supplication.”

5. “Tardiness” is putting off till tomorrow what we should do today. This is the last we read about these five virgins. When they returned the door was closed — locked — forever too late.

We need to fight these tendencies, weaknesses, and traits. We need to seek after the good qualities possessed by the five wise virgins. II Peter 1: 5-8, “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our lord Jesus Christ.” Verses 10-11, “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ.”

This is what we have been encouraging each other to do today. We did receive help today.

Did you see your brother lagging‘

Neath a load so great in size?

And his feet began to falter

Did you pray or criticize?

Then another love came tempting

To companionship unwise

And he yielded just a little

Did you pray or criticize?

You remembered not his labours

Self denial, sacrifice

But could only see the failures

Did you pray or criticize?

And the hurt of stones a’flinging

Savoured by some little lies

Bowed him lower and still lower

Did you pray or criticize?

Then, at last, he fell before it

Lost sight of the thing most prized.

Oh, my brother, was it lacking

Failed to pray but criticized?

I remember I am human

And my boat may yet capsize

Oh, I hope that if I am sinking

Some will pray …. not criticize.

Matthew 13:13, “Another parable spake He unto them, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.’” In this verse, it speaks about the good spirit being like leaven. The spirit is like leaven, whether good or bad. Jesus spoke about the good spirit which a woman took and hid it in three measures of meal.

I would like to share with you a little line of thought that has been a help to me and which has enabled me to enjoy life more. In Leviticus 2:11, it speaks about leaven, and the good spirit was never to be sacrificed for any reason. This is a rule of thumb and true always. What the Lord was saying was this matter of the spirit should never be sacrificed. As workers, we sometimes sacrifice the spirit for efficiency. If everything runs smoothly, it doesn’t matter about the spirit, like at preparations. Never sacrifice the spirit for efficiency. The more efficient things are, the easier it is on the spirit. If things are handy, it is easier on the spirit. If you have a thought for the spirit, make it as handy as you can but never that efficiency comes first. Sometimes in gospel meetings, we like people to sit up in front, but we must not sacrifice the right spirit in order to have this accomplished.

The spirit helps a person to have an outlook in life that makes life a lot better. Sometimes duty might seem more important than the spirit. We have a duty to perform and we go and do it but not with a good spirit. We feel “someone has to do it.” It would be far better to withdraw and not to do it and retain the spirit. A person can have the Spirit of God no matter what and that is a wonderful thing.

The Lord has planned the ups and downs of life. Wonderful if life can find us .. no matter what comes or goes .. having the right spirit. Then God asked Jesus to be the Saviour of the world, He never asked Him to sacrifice the right spirit in order for others to be saved. His body was broken and bruised and bleeding; His life was snuffed out and His soul was made an offering for sin, but on the cross Jesus could say, “Into Thy hand I commend My Spirit.” Think of the great sacrifice Jesus made that mankind could be saved. One thing that God didn’t ask was that He would lose the spirit.

This matter of having the right spirit is something we should be very conscious is a reality in our lives. Sometimes Jesus had a troubled spirit, but He never let His troubled spirit go bad. The first thing that happens when fruit is bruised is that it goes bad. If bruised, humanly one would feel it had a right to go bad. The miracle of Jesus was that though bruised, He did not go bad and this gives us a wonderful hope. He was troubled in spirit. In fact, in one of the gospels it says, “He was angry.” You can be angry and sin not. It would be difficult for some parents to do what they have to do if they didn’t get angry. Being angry and losing the spirit are two different things. When angry and sinning not, one can do the things you could not otherwise do. If this is true, then afterwards there is no need of apology. You never need to regret what happened.

The devil knows when a person is troubled or angry that it is a very easy thing for them in their rightness to lose the spirit. Whenever that experience comes, we should be as careful as we ever are. The devil knows if he can bruise a person it is very easy to move in and cause them to go bad. When righteously angry and worked up about something that needs to be done, the devil knows this is his chance. The person is so intent on what needs to be done, he is so incensed about it that the devil moves in and can give him a wrong spirit in it.

This matter of the spirit is not an easy thing. The Lord is very interested that this right spirit might be enjoyed by His people because the spirit they have is their hope of Heaven. It is the spirit that goes back to God. One would wonder if, when the spirit goes back to God, maybe God doesn’t ask if the spirit came from a male or female body on the earth. Maybe the Lord doesn’t ask, “Were you a worker or a saint?” These kinds of things hardly matter, do they? It is the ultimate end of the thing that is most important and the great thing is the kind of spirit that returns to God. It matters little what has formed it or where it abode on the earth. Every person is different but one thing we know, if we feel our need of God and humble ourselves before the Lord, the experiences in life will enrich our spirit.

Mostly every experience that has any meaning to it as far as our spirit is concerned, is regarding our relationship with people. The thing that puts something within us and develops the marks of Jesus is always concerning our giving and taking, our relationship with people. Of course a person may discount that as an unimportant part of life when it is not so good. Jesus said it is the love that is between you that really is the spirit. It is not so much doing nice things for people that is your spirit but that which dwells within. The love that binds God’s people together isn’t so much the nice things they do for each other, but the spirit within us that is in harmony with others. We could find a lot of reasons for doing things differently but if the ultimate end leaves us with a spirit like Jesus, it doesn’t matter what the reasons are.

A farmer had cows and the law said he could not add any water to the milk, so what did he do? He put the water in the bucket first, and then added the milk to the water. As far as he was concerned he had not transgressed the law. It wasn’t the letter .. that was right or wrong, but the ultimate outcome. There is no literal situation in which the law of love is a “No.” For example .. this apple is kind of wormy .. the tree wasn’t too good. The apple is justified for being a bad apple because the tree is bad. We don’t judge on that basis. Sometimes a person would feel justified because of the conditions that led up to that .. they might be justified in a lot of things but never justified in not having a spirit like the spirit of Jesus.

Happiness in life is really based on how our spirit is. It is a wonderful thing that no matter what happens, God has provided power and blessing that can keep our spirits right no matter what. There are no loopholes in the law of love and sometimes we look for them. The farmer found a loop-hole in the law, but there is not one loophole a person can find in the law of love toward our fellowman, that can justify us in the sight of God. The Lord has us over a barrel. We need to bow to the fact that unless I obey the law of love, I am wrong.

To abandon oneself to the truth of that gives one a sense of liberty and tranquility, no matter what we are passing through. Sometimes when a person is right, they know the struggle of what it means to have a right spirit. This is what is going to determine heaven or hell. This very subject is maybe the ultimate of our life. How could something in that category come easy or be automatic, or happen out of the blue? When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, a young brother said, “The flesh of Jesus was crying for a different situation, but the spirit of Jesus was asking for a different will.” That struggle of the spirit to be willing for what God was asking of Him cost Him a battle that caused Him to sweat like great drops of blood. There is no wonder when tests face a person that it is the same kind of battle for us, and it is only in that that we understand what Jesus faced in all His rightness. Jesus was right and so unjustly treated. The disciples were sleeping when Jesus was battling. Think of the spirit that could have filled Jesus when He had taken His three good buddies, that understood the best, and were His closest friends, spiritually, into the garden. Jesus asked them to tarry and He battles and prays that His spirit might be right, and comes back and finds them sleeping. He might not have said anything, but in His heart there might have arisen a spirit that would have put them down in His own estimation. There was a lot to test the spirit of Jesus.

I appreciate the fact that when He had to drive those moneychangers, and those who bought and sold doves out of the temple, maybe He was protecting his spirit .. doing no more than was necessary. When He spoke to his good friend, Peter, the one that slept later in the garden, “Get thee behind Me, Satan.” All condemned in that statement, but maybe Jesus was protecting the spirit. When something is behind you, you don’t see it.

The devil capitalizes on others’ mistakes to make us feel badly toward people. We should condemn what is wrong. David said, “I hate every false way.” But he didn’t hate all who were in it. When we do what is wrong, wonderful when people hate that, but we must be careful we have the right spirit toward the person. Even a judge condemning a prisoner to death .. it is a very serious and difficult experience for everyone involved to order an execution. But there is no reason for the judge who condemns the prisoner to have a wrong spirit. Can he not do his duty as a judge and yet have a right spirit toward the prisoner? He doesn’t have to have a hard and nasty spirit. He doesn’t feel that because this man is so wrong he has to have a hard spirit toward him.

There is no situation in which the Lord will demand of us to sacrifice our spirit. When that is so, there is a great peace that dwells in the heart and fills the soul when the spirit is right. I appreciate in the book of Jude the story about Michael, the archangel contending with the devil. There was quite a confrontation between the chief angel and devil concerning the body of Moses. It was a subject very near and dear to the heart of God. It seems like the angel in all his rightness felt things were getting on pretty shaky ground and so it says, the angel durst not bring against the devil a railing accusation but said, “The Lord rebuke thee.” The angel withdrew from the situation. Doesn’t that give us a feeling that now the angel felt if he would keep contending with the devil, I am pretty soon going to bring a railing accusation against him and the angel’s spirit would get wrong toward the devil. It wasn’t that the devil was put down, but the important thing was that the angel kept the right spirit.

We need to protect the spirit at any cost. Far better to be accused of being a shirker in one sense, than to be accused of not having the right spirit in what we are doing. The angel just withdrew, but he withdrew with a good spirit. He didn’t withdraw in failure. Lots of people withdraw in failure. “I am just going to stay away, I hate him.” There is no loop-hole in the law of love. Sometimes it is best to withdraw from a situation, but in withdrawing, a person has to withdraw with a good spirit toward them. To protect the spirit is saying, I am going to protect my future relationship. It is a matter of that something within a person retaining the right spirit to everyone on earth. Jesus spoke about loving your enemies. I don’t know whether you have any enemies, but you have people that disagree with you, and upset you at times, and to just class them as an enemy sounds pretty severe, but then I wonder if when these difficulties arise, differences of opinion, if there isn’t found a little bit of enmity. It is at those times where love is necessary if you are in the right to have a kind feeling toward them – so this matter of loving one’s enemies always comes into the picture when there is a confrontation of a little point where there is the chance of loving your enemies. It doesn’t mean you agree with them, but you have a spirit toward them that is like the spirit of Jesus.

The Bible tells us that God’s people are like little lambs and you know of course a lamb has lots of enemies, but if you are a lamb, you will not be an enemy to anybody. You may not be in agreement, but you will not have the spirit of an enemy toward anyone. You might wonder why a lamb is so happy. Maybe that is the reason, not because they are always so safe, but a lamb in its heart doesn’t have enmity but love. That is the secret of life. I appreciate the fact that the archangel when contending with the devil withdrew and kept the right spirit. That time when Jesus met a man filled with devils, and Jesus dealt with the devils .. they came out of him. These devils spoke to Jesus and asked that He would let them go into the swine. There was something about the wonderful spirit Jesus had. He could have ridden rough-shod over the devil. Jesus gave them leave to go into the swine. I like to think His spirit in that is a wonderful example. He operated and worked from a spirit that gives us the picture of the spirit of love, and of course, that is the thing that will be most important when we are united by the love of God. Have you ever wondered what the wedding garment was? When the King came in, the only thing wrong was that one man did not have on the wedding garment. He just didn’t have the love in his heart. This is the only thing that God is going to judge. It is the only thing that is important. The devil is very tricky, he would like everything else to be known .. doing nice things for people, etc .. but the Lord knows a hard spirit.

This matter of having a right spirit doesn’t come easy but yet you can have it and it can be genuine. A person should deal gently with the sinner because when a person is wrong, they have a defense and our spirit could be very un-Christlike. Jesus was so definitely against what was wrong. A person can stand against what is wrong, tooth and nail, but it is wonderful [if] in standing against wrong it doesn’t affect our spirit. Jesus knew what was in Judas’s heart. Sometimes we know what is in people’s hearts and they don’t know that we know. Jesus said to Judas, “Friend, why comest thou?” I appreciated the thought that Jesus didn’t have to generate that within Him .. that is the secret of a right spirit. We don’t always do what is right but there are times in life given to a person concerning whether the right spirit is in them. Jesus had a thrill in His heart when He knew His love for Judas was genuine.

The first words Jesus uttered from the cross were, “Father, forgive them.” That spirit in Jesus would have given Him the assurance that God was His Father. “If you love your enemies, you will be the children of your Father in Heaven.” When Jesus needed it most, to have the assurance that God was His Father, it just kind of came out spontaneously in the expression that registered the fact that His spirit was right. You cannot generate the right spirit. All you can do in your terrible battle to have it, is just to ask God .. will you give it to me? Am I willing to pay the price to get it? You can blaspheme against God, and against Jesus, but if you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, you have had it. It was like Jesus was putting the emphasis on the importance of our respect and reverence for the Spirit above all else. The Spirit wasn’t greater than Jesus or God, but it was as if He was telling us, now this matter of the Spirit is something that is very sacred to God. May God help us to enjoy the possibility that no matter what comes or goes, God has made it possible, whether right or wrong, that the genuine spirit of Christ is possible. I would like the Lord to give me the grace to bow to this fact more fully.

I have been thinking of three precious things: Gold, Diamonds, and Pearls. Gold is found only in the heart because it is a treasure that is made only in the heart and can’t be found anywhere else. If the gold isn’t in our heart, then we don’t have it. This gold is formed and increases when we make choices that are favorable to the will of God. When choices are made in the favor of God’s will, we will have treasure in the heart. There is a connection between chance and choice. “Time and chance happeneth to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11. Every man has time and chance, but it is not time and chance that produce gold. They bring us to the place of choice. Time and chance will bring us to the grave. People who aren’t taken by chance are eventually taken by time. No one has ever won the battle against time. Don’t fight old age. But God has planned that time and chance would bring us to the place of choice. If time and chance aren’t followed by a godly choice, then time and chance will take us to a lost eternity. Gold is often associated with the fiery trial. No one ever made a choice that is favorable to the will of God without realizing that this is a fire that burns deeply. Gold never has to be polished or shined, but it does need to be separated. The fiery trials provide the means whereby the gold is cleansed — through the avenue of separation. Sometimes we question ourselves as to whether or not we have any of this gold. It is good to remember that the amount of gold that we have is according to the number of choices we have made in the favor of God. If we neglect to choose wisely, we not only miss the chance of having gold in our hearts, but we pave the way to a wasted life and eventually to a lost eternity. Diamonds are produced by pressure instead of fire. Pressure comes when we stand true to God. The diamond is hard and unyielding, but it is beautiful. If the part of us that faces the world and opposition is loyal, then we will have a diamond in our face. “I have set my face like a flint,” Isaiah 50:7. There must be gold in the heart before there can be a diamond in the face. Standing for Truth at the cost of our own personal humiliation and loss produces a diamond. When they looked at Stephen, it says that they “saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.” Acts 6:15. When they looked on Stephen’s face it reminded them of heaven – brilliance of Jesus Himself-because of Stephen’s loyalty. Loyalty only exists when adverse circumstances are present. Without those circumstances, the question of loyalty doesn’t even appear. You can’t be loyal to your friends till they fail, to your nation till it loses a battle, to your companions till they make a mistake. David’s first response when he heard about the death of Saul and Jonathan was that he didn’t want the enemy to know — a loyal heart. Loyalty only exists in the face of adversity. When Stephen faced adverse circumstances, he was willing to be true. His first inclination would have been to run away. But they would have caught him and stoned him anyway. Then they could have said that they ‘took’ his life, but Stephen didn’t run so he ‘gave’ his life. Jesus knew that he had power to come down from the cross, but God planned that He would hang on the cross so that no one would be able to say that they ‘took’ His life. Jesus ‘gave’ His life. I saw a monument in a certain town to those who ‘gave their lives for their country.’ But very few people give their life for their country; it is ‘taken’ from them. They fight tooth and nail to keep it, but go down in failure and the enemy ‘takes’ their life. So few ‘give’ their lives. What is ‘taken’ from us is DEFEAT, but what we ‘give’ up for Jesus’ sake is VICTORY. The light of the diamond flashes forth when pressure is on. A leader has nothing to offer his followers unless his cause is greater to him than his followers. We have a cause that is greater than ourselves and greater than others. We have something to be loyal to that is worthwhile. People only see the diamond as the person is loyal and gives himself when there is opportunity to do differently. Gold is found in the heart; diamonds are found in the face; pearls are found in the joints. “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love,” Ephesians 4:16. This body is strengthened and grows, not by what every ‘member’ supplies, but by what every joint supplies. A joint is where two members come together. Grit in a joint is NOT a pearl, but it makes it possible to make a pearl. A ‘pearl’ is formed when both grit and grace are present. We can’t possess a pearl if there isn’t grit in the joint. We often pray for the grit to be removed when we should pray instead for grace. The human cries out for the grit to be removed, but we should remember that it is the makings of a pearl. Sometimes life finds us with the grit that cannot be removed. It is sad when we then go through life only feeling a painful joint and never experiencing that grit being turned into a pearl. The grace of God doesn’t change our lot in life, but it changes the grit into a pearl of great price. The grace of God only comes forth and is present when adversity is present. If there isn’t a pearl uniting us (just an agreement or common likeness) then one could say that we are together just because there is no grit. Everyone wants grace, but no one likes grit — and no one likes the place where grace is found — the place of humility. “God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble,” 1 Peter 5:5. In humility, much can be born that would be otherwise impossible. We should be careful that we are never the source of the grit. “It must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!” Matthew 18:7. We don’t want to question the how, when, where and what of grit, BUT remember that our source of help is through God’s grace. The ‘pearl of great price’ is not so much a picture of salvation itself, but of the work of God that gives assurance of salvation. It is wonderful to be able to look back on some choices that showed something in our hearts that caused us to make them in the favor of God’s will – not time and chance. And it is wonderful to be conscious of something burning within us that calls for loyalty in the face of adversity. And there is something that gives us a thankful feeling when God gives grace in difficult experiences. These experiences will make us rich toward God and then we will be a blessing in the Kingdom and a joy to God.

David’s enemy pursued him unmercifully. But Saul had an enemy, too, and his fatal mistake was that the enemy convinced him there were new rules in this warfare. Like the enemy says to us, “You are really a hypocrite, so you might as well quit.” That leaves us with no good alternative: 1) quit or 2) continue being a hypocrite. David understood that this is faith’s fight. We are well able to do anything with the help and direction of God.

Goliath made a promise, “If you win, we will surrender and be your servants.” The enemy is a liar. We can obey the options he gives, but the outcome will NEVER be what he says.

I Samuel 19:18, David fled from the enemy and went to the servant of God and told him all that the enemy had done to him and said to him. It is all right and safe to talk to the servants or saved people. Saul even apologized to David, but it never put David off his guard. The enemy can look so soft and so changed, but we can never believe the enemy.

David fled into the hold instead of believing the enemy. All the ugly things the enemy did to David never brought out wrong in David. We could say, “Oh yes, I let my temper go because I was in a crisis.” Being stressed out never gives us license to lash out or hurt or be angry with another. God allows a crisis so we can see our problem and work on it with the help of God. A pure heart will react like Christ in any crisis.

When the Ark of the Lord (Presence of God) was taken, David made tremendous effort until he had it safely back. We can have many things but without the Presence of God, it means nothing. The Presence of God makes up for the lack of many things. Any decision is easy when the Presence of God is near.

David sinned but he was quick to repent. The devil would tell us, “There is forgiveness without repentance OR time will take care of sin.” NOTHING takes care of unrepented sin. We don’t need to make a public announcement about our sin but we MUST repent before God as David did, “Before Thee and Thee only have I sinned.”

Most of David’s mistakes were made when he was older. As a young person, he behaved himself wisely and more wisely and in all his choices he inquired of the Lord and obeyed, but when he was older he took things into his own hands and made some mistakes that brought severe consequences. The Lord even told him that He had given him everything and if only he had asked that HE would also have given him such and such. Oh, to ask God for all our needs because He is able to do everything.

My thoughts have been in 1 Corinthians 12:18-20, “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it has pleased Him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body.” Verses 24-27, “For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” For me, this is a very special occasion to be back in Houston. It was here, back in 1951 that I first made my choice to start walking with God. So today is a memorial of sorts; a memorial of Heaven’s influence, of Heaven’s touch upon a responsive life. Always remember that God has first chosen us. These members of our body don’t choose the place they are set in. That is God’s design in His household. We are just part of this body because of His influence and His love. Verse 18, “As it hath pleased him.” There have been times when we haven’t been satisfied. Some have attended these meetings from the time they were babies, but that alone hasn’t brought peace. Other members have influenced our generation and each as a member has an influence on others in the body of Christ.

Ephesians 4:4-6, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” There are seven ones mentioned here yet not all accept this as we do, but we believe it. God has tempered the body together that there is no schism. Men and women have tried to unite themselves, and it works to a certain degree, but it never changes the heart. This tempering process is when the Lord separates us from our own environment first. Copper, gold, and silver must always be separated; that which is earthly must be separated. When the Lord called Abraham and Sara out, He separated them from an environment and an influence that was idolatrous. We’re living in a society that is just as idolatrous. God’s truth is eternal, and it’s demonstrated by the life of Jesus and what is spoken by Him. It cannot be changed, because it’s eternal.

Isaiah 51:1, “Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.” That is speaking about our father Abraham. His name and nature was changed. Abram meant “lofty father;” Sarai meant “contentious.” What a couple! Look at what was accomplished in their lives, think of their respect, their response to the touch of the Lord. Genesis 12:1, “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, ‘Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee.’” The Lord made their choices; they were His workmanship. The tendency of this flesh is to glory in the flesh, but we are here because of what Jesus has accomplished in us. His work is continuing on. For many metals, the tempering process is not a pleasant experience. We can get discouraged, but discouragement hinders the tempering process. When the Lord spoke to Abraham, he built an altar; it was like a memorial. (Genesis 12:8) A memorial is something that’s very personal; it has an influence on our conduct and our choices in life.

Lot, on the other hand, was a weak brother, but he was still a brother. It was his choice that he set his tent toward Sodom. We can always fill our weaknesses and our lacks; Lot’s choice was to go to Sodom. Sometimes we’re a bit headstrong and we get ourselves into hot water. That was the cause of strife that came between Lot’s herdsmen and Abraham’s herdsmen. (Genesis 13) The Lord has tempered the body so there isn’t any schism. Abraham and Sara became separated by the Lord; an eternal work was beginning in their lives. They were members in particular; they were not an ordinary run of humanity. Genesis 13:8, “And Abram said unto Lot, ‘Let there be no strife, I pray thee between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we be brethren.’” He would fight for a brother but he’d never fight with his brother. He told him to choose first. Lot was immature in his thinking, but he was still a brother. He chose the well-watered plains of Jordan. Pretty soon, we see Lot down in Sodom and God wasn’t in that choice. After he and Abram separated, God spoke. Lot saw only one direction but Abraham saw the whole picture. The Lord not only wants to show us possibilities but the steps to be taken. That is all part of the tempering process. Proverbs 3:6 says, “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” We know the Lord has never misdirected one person’s life.

In Genesis 14, Lot was taken captive. Abraham could have said, “It serves him right.” How do you feel when you see a fallen brother? Verse 14, “And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.” Galatians 6:1, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” The shepherd will always look for His sheep until he finds them. God has invested so much in us to be salvaged and have a life with a future.

The tempering process begins in the home life. Genesis 18:19, “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of Him.” Parents will command their children by their own lives. Child raising must begin at home. I received God’s love in my home, and children that respect their parents in their growing up years, learn to respect the God of heaven in their parents’ attitude toward the meetings and toward God’s servants, etc. I have always been grateful for my parents that loved the truth and the ministry.

Joseph underwent a tempering process. At age 17, he was taken by his brothers and stripped and placed in a pit without water, and his brothers sat down to eat. How would you feel in that situation? You could be bitter in spirit. But the Lord allowed that experience to temper young Joseph’s life. He was sold as a slave and then carried down into Egypt, where he was bought by a man he respected. Joseph helped God to make that situation possible before it got undesirable. He was next put into the dungeon, and that environment was a safer atmosphere than the environment in that home.

Will we allow ourselves to become discouraged? Joseph was a victim, but that was part of the tempering process. He was in Egypt for 17 years, alone without any fellowship except for God’s. When he was brought before Pharaoh he said, “Interpretations belong to God.” (Genesis 40:8) A famine was coming and some preparations had to be made. Is there such a man in whom there is the spirit of God? Joseph was that life that filled the gap. He was chosen; it was Heaven’s design. Pharaoh gave him a wife and they had two sons together. Manasseh meant “God has made me forget all the toil in my father’s house.” Sometimes things are so wounding that God gives us a little Manasseh. Ephraim meant “God has made me fruitful in the land of my bondage.” We might think at times that we’d be more useful over there, but no, we are just as useful here; we are just as useful as we want to be.

Jesus faced many similar experiences during His short stay on earth, and His life radiated the truth of God. We’re here today because of the life of Jesus. There comes the day of judgment, and judgment doesn’t mean condemnation. The brothers of Joseph faced judgment; Joseph could have blamed them, but he didn’t. Genesis 45:5, “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.” How is that possible? It’s only by the grace of God, it’s part of the tempering process; it will unite us, not only on earth but in heaven. We thank God for what we share of this same provision.

Good afternoon. How are you today? I’m doing pretty good. Thank you so much for your wonderful letter, your testimonies, and the “map” where conventions are held J. It was wonderful to hear from you again! 🙂 I will share my testimony in this letter.

First, I’ll tell you how my day goes from start to finish. It’s the same everyday! I get out of bed at 4:30 a.m. every morning. (It’s the quietest time of the day!) I pray, meditate, have a study, and sing a hymn or two. I then go to breakfast at 6, come back, and write a letter. If I have time, I’ll sing hymns, before I go to work, at 7:50. I return from work at 11 AM and go eat lunch at 11:10. Afterwards, I read a study, pray, and then write a letter. If I have time, I’ll sing some hymns, before I go back to work at 1 PM. I’m finished with work at 3pm. I’ll take my shower, then come back to my cell. I’ll do laundry (every other day) and sing hymns until 3:50 or so. Supper (tea for you, J) is at 4:10 PM. Afterwards, I’ll read my study, pray, and then we have standing count at 5pm. Mail is brought around afterwards. After I’m done reading my mail, I write letters, sometimes I’ll also look at my pictures of friends and family or any other things that fill my time. I get a magazine that has pictures from the Country that I like looking at, J. Sometimes I just like to just sit here and think! I try to go to bed about 8:30 PM (It’s later if I get a visit at night. Visits are over at 9PM ­ it takes me about an hour to wind down. 🙂 ) I have my last study and prayer of the day before bed. So there you have it! 🙂

I’m allowed 4 visits a week. The Sisters usually come Tuesday afternoon from 1-4 PM. Bruce, Geralyn, Ryan, and Holly Baseman usually come Monday evening from 6:30 – ­ 9PM. Geralyn tries to come Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, too, and if my Mom is here, she’ll stay for 3-4 visit periods in a row like ­Monday afternoon, evening, and Tuesday afternoon.

Now for my testimony. I’ll first begin to tell you that my parents Jerry and Jane Anderson, Sisters Dawn and Amy and Brother ??, are my adoptive family. I was adopted after I was in prison. Although the legality of my adoption is not yet complete, we are hoping for it to be soon! I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the law or a piece of paper doesn’t tell me who my family is, but my heart! I grew up with my Bro and Sisters B?? was 4 years ahead of me in school. Dawn and I were in the same class and graduated together in 95, and Amy was 2 years behind me. So I’ve known them all my life! My Mom has loved me ever since I was about 3 years old because of all the abuse that she was hearing(?). I’m sure you’ll understand that I do not share my childhood. It’s too much pain and sorrow and I do not wish to recollect it! Even though I can’t forget my first 19 years, I wish I could! I do thank God for those years, because it has brought me to where I am today and maybe I can help someone who has gone through the same or similar experiences!

I committed my Crime and was arrested August 1st, 1996. I was suicidal all my teenage years and I wanted to die that day. I couldn’t kill myself, because I felt, I KNEW, I’d go to hell! So, I tried to get law enforcement officers to kill me, thinking I’d have a chance of going to Heaven, maybe “squeak through!” I was convicted of 2 counts of attempted Homicide, Armed Robbery, 2 Counts of reckless endangerment and fleeing an officer, in April of 1997. No one was hurt. I was sentenced to 86 years, with 2 years running concurrent (so really 88 yrs) on June 16th 1997. I was sent to prison on the 23rd.

Now, I need to back up. After my arrest, and after 3 days in Solitary Confinement, I threw up my hands and cried out to God, “If You’re really there, PLEASE help me turn my life around. I cannot continue to live like this!!!” He heard my prayer! I often think of Psalms 40:1-3. Dawn wrote me a letter in October, 2 months after my arrest. She told me in her letter, “The Cory Stewart who did that crime, is not the Cory Stewart that I know.” To this day, I do not know what she sees in me, that no one else has seen! NO ONE would’ve said that! People of my town and surrounding towns weren’t surprised that I did what I did! My only conclusion is Dawn was looking beyond my flesh and seeing and loving my soul! That was the first time in my life I ever felt loved! Just from those few simple words! I cried and cried and cried!!!

So, Dawn and I continued to correspond. She came to visit me for the first time in November 97 and again, 2 weeks later in December. My Mom first came, July of 98. She would read my letters that I was writing to Dawn. When Dawn left and moved to Carolina, I began to correspond with my Mom. Anyways, she would see things in my letter that showed her there was something “there.” (I had begun to read the Bible in the County Jail).

At Convention in September, she asked Gwen (??) if she and Anita Byles would come visit me. December of 1998, I had my first visit with Gwen J. (Anita wasn’t able to get on my list for a few more weeks.) When I sat across from both of them, I could feel the love they had for God, His people, way, the work, and for lost souls radiate from them!!! I’ve looked for that kind of love all my life, but in all the wrong places! I wanted that, I NEEDED what they had!! 3 months later I professed, March of 1999. 🙂

I have continued to grow and mature spiritually ever since. God has begun a beautiful work in my life and I want to keep soft and submitted into His loving hands, so that He can finish what He has begun! I love God, His way, and His people SO much! It is a beautiful family and a beautiful way of life. I will do whatever I need to keep it and to obtain the Eternal promises God has made, for those who endure until the end!! I guess I can share the rest of it with you, seeing most everybody already knows.

God spoke to me about the Harvest Field, August of 99, and asked me to give my life to helping save souls. I know virtually nothing about the work, but I could not say, “NO” to God, after all He’s done for me! So I vowed my life to the work! The next 2 years I asked God about 6 different times if He really wanted me for the work. After all, I was in prison with an 86 year sentence! Each time I was reassured with a, “Yes!”

In June of 2001, I made my offer known to Charles Thain and George Peterson, the Wisconsin Overseer and Oklahoma Overseer (I was in Oklahoma at that time.) Yes, I have 86 years, but really, I only have ONE day! This life is just ONE day at a time. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet been made. The things that are impossible with Man, are not impossible with God! Peter was delivered from prison twice! God is a Miracle worker and miracles still happen today!

I Thessalonians 5:24, “Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.” When God makes promises, they are forever! God does NOT fall short of His promises! So, I’m living one day at a time, loving the place God has given me here in prison, being the little light and example I CAN be! There are redeemable Souls in here too! God’s timing is perfect and when it’s time, I’ll get out of prison.

Did I tell you in my last letter that my good friend and old cellmate, Ron Cherek (?) professed, recently?! 🙂 🙂 I was soooooo happy to read about it in his letter!! I knew he would make it!! Well, Thanksgiving Day is November 27th for us in the United States. 🙂 It’s my favorite Holiday. I love all the good food especially, Pumpkin Pie! (Here Cory has drawn a smiley face with its tongue hanging out!)

Monday evening Bruce, Geralyn, Ryan, and Holly Baseman came to visit. 🙂 I love being with them! Tuesday afternoon Margaret Skillbred (?), and Cheryl Lilley came to visit, J. We had a wonderful visit and study in Isaiah 10 and 11! Thursday afternoon, Geralyn B surprised me. 🙂 I really appreciate her changing around her schedule to come visit me!

I read Revelations 22 after lunch. I don’t understand a lot of this book but every time I read it, the more beautiful the picture of Heaven I get! People are afraid to read this book because of the plagues, etc., but God’s people don’t have to fear those plagues, or Hell, because we are focused on and living for the promises of an Eternal life! That brings peace and Happiness to our hearts! We will not face a wrathful God but a gentle and merciful God!

We read, “Behold, I come quickly.” At best, our lives will continue for 100 years. At its worst, it could end today! We have been forewarned and given the opportunity to be prepared. It’s ONE day at a time. We want to be ready TODAY! If tomorrow comes, we can count it a blessing. It’ll be one more day, we can become more Christ-like, lay up more treasure in Heaven, and be a light and example to this perishing world, in hopes to win at least one more soul to Christ! All for Now.

I hope this finds you well, encouraged in the Lord and always Smiling! 🙂 Take care. Please tell Dalton “HELLO” for me. 🙂 You 3 are in my daily prayers.

With love in Christ,

Cory

I would like to tell you some of my own experiences, before going into the Lord’s work, when I was caring for and working with sheep in the high and rugged part of New Zealand.

Since my early childhood, I cared for sheep. The lessons I learned are very much like the lessons God teaches His sheep. The Lord speaks of His people, in Jeremiah 13:20, as a Beautiful Flock. Often God referred to His ‘chosen’ as sheep. This is how they appear to Him, a beautiful flock. We can count ourselves a privileged people if we are one of His sheep. We have the right Shepherd caring for our soul. He would like us to be worthy to be called a beautiful flock.

The Lord is particular about His name, and anxious that His name will be upheld and the standard of righteousness maintained. The man I worked for was very particular about his name, because he sent his sheep to many parts of the country. He wanted the standard upheld and maintained. He was very interested in seeing the lambs come up to his standard. The Lord wants the standard upheld in His flock, too. David, in speaking of the Lord as his shepherd, in Psalm 23:3, said, “He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.” We can be sure that the paths the Lord may lead us in are for His own Names’ sake. God would like us to maintain this standard. A good shepherd is anxious to see the lambs come up to the standard.

The Lord’s care and interest in His flock begins with the lambs. The thing of greatest importance when a lamb is born is to see that it gets a supply of milk. That first drink of milk enables it to stand against some of the cold blasts that come. Milk is the substance of life; it needs milk so it can grow. I have seen one little lamb in the midst of 40 or 50 sheep, so surrounded by them, it couldn’t find its mother. A shepherd often has to separate the sheep so that a lamb can be with its mother and get the needed milk. It needs to know where that milk comes from. God’s lambs, too, need to know where the sincere milk of the word comes from. We can do much for them, but it is all-important that they get in touch with Christ and the sincere milk of His word.

When the sheep are resting, you will notice them chewing the cud. This marks the sheep as a clean animal. If the sheep do not do this, it means they are sick sheep. Chewing our cud will keep us healthy. We need to have the right meditations in our heart to keep healthy in the things of God.

One great thing, in that country, was the shepherd’s care for his sheep. No matter how healthy the sheep, they needed the care of the shepherd. . . . .and God’s people have the same need. A person can easily tell if a shepherd cares for his sheep. Real shepherds go through many hardships in order to help their sheep. Their lives are lived for their flocks. There was one shepherd I didn’t think so much of as a man, but one thing I must say, he had a shepherd’s heart. He went up in my estimation when I saw him walk twenty miles, climbing 8,000 feet, to rescue some sheep. He had a shepherd’s heart. In another instance, a sheep rolled down a steep cliff and into a dangerous place. One man said, “Leave it; no one will ever know it is there.” But another man and I could not do that, we had to go after him. When we got to where he was, and got all the snow off of him, we packed him back up the mountain to safety. Often the shepherd would endanger his life to rescue a sheep. The shepherd’s care and interest in the souls of others will tell and make manifest their genuine love. The heart interest we have, even in little things, will tell.

Sometimes we would find sheep that were down and not able to get up. All they needed was help to get back on their feet. The Lord’s sheep may be healthy, and still get down, but if one with a shepherd’s heart will give them a little help, it will put them on their feet again. If left, they will die.

Often, sea gulls were waiting for sheep to get down, and then would come and peck their eyes out. Satan, our enemy, likes to catch us when we are down. If he can blot out our vision of the Lord, or mar our vision of days ahead, he has gained his objective.

The sheep sometimes feed among briars which get tangled up in their fleece, and, before they know it, are all tangled up. They have to be freed or they will die. It is easy for the Lord’s people to get so entangled that it would mean destruction. They need the shepherd to free them from that which is holding them captive.

Sometimes sheep would get on ledges of rock, dangerous places, and the shepherd would have to let himself down over hundreds of feet to rescue them. Sometimes we would have to let them down further to safety, instead of bringing them up. Sometimes when we would get near a lamb, it would give a jump and go on to its death. Sometimes, too, when we draw near to help the people of the world, they put themselves into a place where it is impossible to help them.

Another thing we had to watch out for was that the sheep did not get wool-blind. The wool would grow over their eyes so that they couldn’t see where they were going. The tendency of sheep is to follow the leader. On one occasion, a sheep was wool-blind and slipped on a rock and went over, and seven or eight followed him to his destruction before we could get there. When some of God’s people lose their vision of the pathway, they say, “I can do things and go places that seem right to me.” What a terrible influence this has on others. Others will follow us and we need to watch our walk, and keep a clear vision of the right way. If I take myself to a lost eternity, others will likely follow.

Perhaps I will mention just a little about the feeding of sheep. The things the sheep feed on are so very important. Some things are dangerous for them to eat. When I cared for sheep, in New Zealand, there was on dangerous plant called “Tute” and it meant quick death. Another plant called “St. John’s Wort” worked in a slow way, but it also meant sure death. I have thought many times of God’s sheep and how abundant their pasture and feed is. The lot of every child of God is to be “abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy House.” There is that something within the human breast, though, to want to feed on other things that could mean sure death. If God’s children would only remember to feed on the things of God, things that will preserve their testimony, Satan then cannot have any power over them. Feeding on the things of this world means slowly losing our lives.

I remember one experience when we were bringing the sheep down from the high country. Some were sick because of the winter experience and had to lie down, so we held back the leader until the sick one had a rest and could go on. I have seen many sheep reach the end of the journey only because we stopped the leader a while and let them rest. Sometimes, a lamb could not go on and had to be carried. When a sheep would be lying there, the shepherd would encourage it to go on. This would cause it to realize it still was one of the flock and had not been left alone. I realize the great help God’s people can be one to another. We can be of help to the weak. Even though some are weak, they are still part of the flock and are not to be left alone or forgotten.

The sheep were both ear marked and branded in order for their master to claim them. Each year when the sheep were brought in for shearing, we used to go to other flocks and get our sheep back that had strayed. One time, I claimed a sheep with no earmarks. Its ears were gone but there was our own brand on that sheep and I could claim it. If only God’s people would remember the necessity of having the right marks….of preserving their testimony! They would be able to show who they were and whom they served. Satan then would have no claim on them. “God’s people are to be known in the streets” among the multitudes of men. There should be sufficient evidence about us, about our attire, about our spirit, about our walk to show that we are the Lord’s, that we are known of Him and chosen of Him.

Through experiences, some sheep have come in from the field with little or no fleece. They had become entangled with briars, etc. They were noticed among the others. Maybe, some of us are like that at times. We feel we have such a little testimony. At the annual shearing time, the sheep with little or no fleece came in with the others. They were counted in. Then a clear brand was put on them and they went out into the following year with as good an opportunity as the others of growing fleece. We may not have had as clear a testimony as others but the Lord still wants to put His mark on us and claim us among his people, and He gives us the chance of going into the new year to put on new fleece. Sometimes, sheep come in with two or three years of fleece on them and they are so heavily burdened down they can hardly walk. After this fleece is taken off, they can hardly keep their balance because the burden taken off was so great. We, too, can feel like that. Sometimes, the cares of life have us so burdened down that we can hardly get around but when the burden is relieved by the Lord, there is a great difference. We can be like the man who was found leaping and praising God.

We read of the shepherd’s care in Psalm 23. I have been asked if the Good Shepherd had any dogs. Well, if He had, I would like the chance of naming them. Their names would be “Goodness” and “Mercy.” David said, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” The Lord found us through His goodness and mercy. We can truly say that the Lord has had goodness and mercy in His dealings with us all along the way. If one of God’s sheep needed to be hunted up, He would send “Goodness” after it. If any got out of touch or out of reach, He would send “Mercy” after it. It would be like the “leading” dog to draw them unto Himself. May we be those that the Lord can cherish and count in as one of His beautiful flock.

FOLLOWING ARE OTHER INTERESTING EXPERIENCES COLIN SHARED WITH US:

Sometimes, sheep would get snowed in up in the high ranges for weeks at a time before the shepherd could find them. If there was no feed, a sheep would then find a burr in the fleece of another sheep and pick it out. In doing so, it would get a taste of the wool and would proceed to eat a big patch of wool off the other sheep. It was hard on that other sheep because it would feel the cold more, but it was actually harder on the sheep that did the eating as it could not properly digest the wool and it would take longer to get well than the other sheep. Sometimes, we would like to pick at something wrong in someone else’s testimony but we would only harm ourselves rather than helping them.

When there was no feed at a time like that, the wool would stop growing. Then when the sheep would again get to pasture, it would start growing again, but there would be a “break” in the fleece, a weakness that would cause the fleece to peel off. This would indicate that the sheep had some hard experiences. However, after the shearing, the sheep would go out growing new wool and would again appear like all the rest. Ticks are no problem if the sheep are healthy, but if for any reason the sheep got sick, the ticks seem to take over. Sometimes we came upon a sheep that looked more dead than alive and, after we picked it up, we found it covered with ticks. When it was impossible to save the sheep’s life, we cut its throat and hardly any blood would come out. The ticks had it all. This warns us of the danger of allowing wrong things to remain in our lives. No matter how small they are……they can easily multiply and rob us of our very source of life.

Because of the presence of ticks, there is a law in New Zealand that all sheep are dipped in sheep-dip once a year. This is done after the shearing. You could see a noticeable gain in the strength of the sheep each day after the ticks were removed. The dipping killed all the ticks, but the eggs still remained. These hatched out in a couple weeks. However, the dip was such that, when it rained and the sheep got wet again, the dip was reactivated and this killed those new ticks. This is like when we leave convention or other similar meetings. Sometimes things appear that were not evident before, but we can recall the things that we have heard and it helps us to deal with those fresh problems. It is something that is brought into effect again with each fresh “watering.”

One time when they were shearing, it was nearing supper time and the shepherds found it increasingly difficult to get the sheep into the shearing shed. They finally had to carry them in one by one. After they had stopped for supper, and had gone back out, it was dark, so one of them took a lantern along and hung it in the shed. The next thing they all knew, all the sheep were in and around him. They realized the reason the sheep did not want to come in before was that it was darker inside than outside. You could carry a sheep back into the darkest corner but as soon as it was set down, it would hurry back to where the light was. Sheep always prefer light. The contrast between the sheep nature and the goat nature is that the goats, if subjected to a similar experience, would want to be back in the dark corner. They prefer the dark. The Lord’s sheep are attracted to His fold because of the light it offers and are content to dwell there.

Some mornings, you could look out and see goats coming down from the mountains, leaping and bleating, and we knew that it meant a storm was coming. The sheep would be going higher and higher into the mountains and would be snowed in, if the shepherds did not get them down in time. This helps us to understand Luke 16:8, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of Light.” This is one of the reasons why sheep need a shepherd and the goats do not.

If you want two goats to graze, without wandering off too far, all you need to do is tie them to [either end of] a short length of rope. They will pull in opposite directions and consequently stay in the near vicinity. This would never work with sheep because one would follow the other and would wander over hill and dale together. In this lies an interesting thought……Two servants of God going together as a living witness that God is working in their lives. If they did not have the right nature, they would not work together and go forth as Jesus sent the twelve and the seventy.

We often hear people mention the “black sheep.” There is one thing that makes all sheep alike……when they are sacrificed. When the skin is removed, there is no difference between the black sheep and the white sheep. It costs one just as much as the other. It is only when the Lord’s people are placed upon the altar of service that we all become alike. May we always be willing to yield our bodies as a living sacrifice as Paul mentioned in Romans 12:1.

We read in John 1:40 that one of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon and saith unto him, “We have found the Messiah,” which being interpreted is the Christ and brought him to Jesus. Then in verse 45, Philip findeth Nathaniel and saith unto him, “We have found Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote. Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph.”

I was very encouraged by these verses and the thought of those first men who found Jesus and I loved the expression that they said, “We have found the Messiah, the One that Moses spoke about in the law and in the prophets. We have found Him.” One brother found Him and he told his brother about Him and it says that he took him to Jesus. He knew that this is the One that can help my brother so he brought him to Jesus. We are glad for the privilege that we would ever have of telling someone about the One we found but the best we could ever do for anyone is to bring them to Jesus, not that we can help but to bring them to Jesus because He is the one that can help. I was thinking about Jesus always having been as we read about Him being from before the foundation of the world. God had a plan through Jesus but it was a matter of people finding Him. It wasn’t that He wasn’t already there but people had to find Him.

A few years ago, it was my privilege to go to the eastern part of my country, the farthest east in our country, in North America and that place is called Newfoundland. If you say it slowly, it is new found land. Well there on that coast, there was a statue of one of the first explorers that came to our continent and I had great admiration for him. When I stood there and looked at him and thought of a day that he and others left a land and a country that they were familiar with and ventured across the Atlantic ocean because they believed that there was something more. They would hardly know what they were going to find but they believed that there was something more. They jeopardised their lives in crossing that ocean but they believed there was more. It just made me think about those of our ancestors who believed that there was something more than what they had and they set out to find it. It cost them a lot but they felt there was more so they left behind the things they were comfortable with and the traditions that they were raised with and they left that behind because they felt that there was something more and they found the Truth as it is in Jesus. I had a great thankfulness for those first ones, also.

The same thing happened here, those first workers that came here. When we were in school, we learned and were told about the Cape of Good Hope. I never thought it would be my experience to come here to Capetown. We had just heard about it and learned about it but there was a day that those first workers came here also. They left behind what was comfortable to them and they came to this place. We have heard South African friends mention those early workers that came and we are glad for the South African friends that we have in our country and their appreciation for those first workers that came here and brought the Truth of the Gospel as it is in Christ Jesus and opened up this country also. It wasn’t that the Truth wasn’t always alive but it had to be found. I just loved thinking of those that found it as it was simply, in Jesus.

It reminds me of the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 11 when they were to go into the Promised Land. In verse 24, it says that every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. That land was there but it needed to be possessed. It was there but it had to be walked on and stepped on and possessed and isn’t that like the Truth and our finding it? It was there and it always has been there but we have to find it and possess it and make it our own. When I stood on the shores of Newfoundland, the thought came to me that those explorers that first came here, came to a rugged land, a rugged shoreline. It wasn’t a sandy beach but it was a rugged shoreline but further inland was a land that was fertile, waiting to be found, waiting to be cleared, and waiting to be plowed so that there could be fruit, that there could be a harvest. One feels that the Truth is very much like that, when we first find it, we’re glad that we found it. Possibly it is like finding that new land, like finding a rock but we have no idea what is further along, what is further inland. As we journey in, we have no idea what is going to be ours. Maybe it is like the line of that hymn that we have just sung, about this fellowship that is growing deeper and stronger. It is not changed by time or space. We would have to say the same that this fellowship is growing deeper and stronger as we journey inland, so to speak, and possess more of it, it is becoming more precious to us.

I liked what Paul wrote to the Ephesians in chapter 3 and verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, length, depth, and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. That ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Isn’t that just what it is? That Christ could dwell in our hearts by love and that we could get to prove what is the length of this thing. The breadth of it, the height of it and the depth of it. It is only as Christ is dwelling in us that we can prove that. We have heard about just being onlookers but it is when we actually have Christ dwelling in us. Having found Him and Him dwelling in us and only then we prove the length, height, breadth, and depth of this and that we get to know the love of God, how much it really is, and how deep it is. It says that you could be filled with the fullness of God. Jesus was the fullness of God and we have tasted it in a measure.

I love thinking about people in the Bible that really knew about feeling God’s love in their life and the man that comes to my mind is Joseph in the Old Testament. It seems to me that there was a deep love in his heart that was much greater than any human love. He had brothers that sold him, deserted him, and hated him and when the opportunity came for Joseph to meet up with them again, there was a deep love in his heart for his brothers. It was much greater than any human love would ever be. It was God’s love that was in Joseph’s heart. He proved the fullness and the depth of the love that was only from God. We read in Genesis about him and he said, “Fear ye not, I will nourish you and your little ones,” and he comforted them and spake kindly to them. That is not human to do that, that is God’s love within a heart and he proved a depth to it that was very deep. He wanted to return kindness for the evil that they had done. He wanted to speak comfortingly and kindly to them. His spirit was one of love and that was God’s love, He proved it in a deep, deep way. I just felt so glad for the thought of what God has given us through Jesus. Having found Him, having met with Him, we experience a depth that we would otherwise never know. I would like to keep proving the depth of God’s love with me and that in some small measure, I could show that to others.

You say, “It’s impossible.” God says: “All things are possible.” (Luke 18:27)

You say, “I’m too tired.” God says: “I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28-20)

You say, “Nobody really loves me.” God says: “I love you”. (John 3:16 – John 13:34)

You say, “I can’t go on.” God says: “My grace is sufficient.” (II Corinthians 12:9, Psalms 91:15)

You say, “I can’t figure things out.” God says: “I will direct your steps.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

You say, “I can’t do it.” God says: “You can do all things.” (Philemon 4:13)

You say, “It’s not worth it.” God says: “It will be worth it.” (Romans 8:28)

You say, “I can’t forgive myself.” God says: “I forgive you.” (I John 1:9, Romans 8:1)

You say, “I can’t manage.” God says: “I will supply all your needs.” (Philemon 4:19)

You say, “I’m afraid.” God says: “I have not given you a spirit of fear.” (II Timonthy 1:7)

You say, “I’m always worried and frustrated.” God says: “Cast all your cares on ME.” (I Peter 5:7)

You say, “I don’t have enough faith.” God says: “I’ve given everyone a measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3)

You say, “I’m not smart enough.” God says: “I give you wisdom.” (I Corinthians 1:30)

You say, “I feel all alone.” God says: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

Matthew 13:23, “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” You heard that verse last Wednesday evening and probably many times before that. What caused me to go back to that verse was that everywhere I have gone this week, amongst those who were in the meeting last Wednesday night, we have ended up talking about this again. That happens sometimes, but not often enough. The thought that brought it to my mind was this: you know, if the only time that we ever thought about these things was in the meeting when we hear about them, we probably wouldn’t get much done about it, would we? So, I was really thankful that these very same things that we had talked about in the meeting were a topic of conversation in all of the homes that we were in afterwards. I am assuming that it was that way in the homes that we were not in.

What I really appreciate is that, when we speak on things in the Gospel meetings that actually touch something deeper in a person that makes them want to know the reality of it. I thought about how to apply the word of God in such a way that it actually does something in our life. I know that if the only time that I think about it is while I am here and meeting, it is not going to change my life much. But if after I leave the meeting and begin to think about it, and it keeps coming back to my mind, then I would think about what it is that I need to do to make this a reality. That is where the word of God begins to make a change in a person’s life. That, of course, is what the Gospel meeting is all about – to come to meeting and listen to the Gospel, and we appreciate very much everyone that comes, but if that were viewed as that is my service to God, and that is all God got out of the week of your life and my life, He wouldn’t have received very much, would He? One hour out of a week. Maybe you went to one other meeting besides that.

The thing about Jesus and His parables about seed, I haven’t really counted up the times that He used seed in a parable but three times in this one chapter and there were others besides. So, quite often His parables that were depicting the kingdom of God were about, we would say, agriculture today. I got to thinking about it – and I speak about the parable of the sower and the seed just about everywhere I go – and I think every worker does. I look out at this crowd here and I don’t believe that there is one person who is involved in agriculture, may be in some remote way. I don’t think that there are any farmers here. So I wondered what kind of parables Jesus would use today. What would Jesus use for a parable if He were here today?

One thought that came to me is a little illustration of the very same parable – I could get the lessons from this parable if I were to get up here and talk about an IRA or a 401K, but 100 years from now no one would understand anything about it. There would be something different. An IRA, as I understand it, is an individual retirement account. I don’t have one so I don’t know any more about it than that. I know that a lot of you people do have them and 401Ks, because we hear you talk about them. The thing that I know about them, one little piece of information that I have is that you get out of them what you put into them. I remember a man who was very upset one time because he was about to retire and he went in to check on his retirement account. I’m not sure what type it was. He wanted to find out how much he was going to get per month or per year, and it wasn’t near what he thought it was. He was really upset because for some reason he had been listening to someone else who was getting a lot; their retirement was going to pay off pretty big. They were talking about how much a month they were going to have to retire on. He had a 401k and they had a 401k and he thought that all 401ks were the same, so he thought that he would get the same amount. He found out that he wasn’t going to get near the same. He had to hear those words, you get out of it what you have put into it. He didn’t realize that he had not been putting much into it. Well, yes, he had gotten it started but he hadn’t been very diligent about what he put into it and he didn’t realize that when he went to take out of it, all that was there was what he had put into it as well as the interest and what it had earned of itself.

That is the parable of the sower and the seed. You get out of it what you put into it. II Corinthians 9:6, “But this I say, ‘He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.’” In this instance, the apostle Paul was writing these words, and he was just using an old saying. They were gathering for a collection for the Saints in Jerusalem that were having a famine; it wasn’t for Paul and it wasn’t for the ministry at all, it was for people that were having hardship. Paul just reminded them that what you put into something is what you get out of it. He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly. It applies to so many things but it most certainly applies in a big way to this matter of spiritual life and the things that we have spiritually. We get out of them what we put into them. That is going to be true for every single one of us.

Most of us have some thoughts towards eternity. For some, it seems further away than for others. We talk about eternity being a wonderful place of rest and of peace and of joy and those kinds of things, and that is what it is intended to be, but how much of it that there is there for us is going to be very determined on how much we have put into it. In respect to this, one of the questions that we talked about in the different places was what this 30, 60, and 100 fold is. I’m glad that got people’s attention, and it needs to, because maybe we are counting on 100 fold and maybe the account is more like 30. Maybe we just woke up to the fact that I have been just going along at average doing what I could do and now later in life, say that you are in your fifties, that is getting pretty old, and you begin to think about that retirement a lot more. You know, when I was in my twenties, serving God was a very necessary thing but I never looked at it in the light of eternity very much. I felt that it was the right thing to do but there was so much to live in life that getting to Sunday morning meeting and Wednesday night Bible study, and if there was a gospel meeting around and maybe a few other things that were spiritually recognized, I thought I was doing pretty good.

When I begin to think of it now and in the reality that pretty soon I am going to be working from the other end of this thing, it won’t be that long. Well, I kind of want a big other end and I think everyone else does too. Had we been thinking in those terms in the beginning of it and as we go along, so I find myself thinking, “I want to get as much as I can out of this.” Well, I don’t feel like I have put as much into it as I could have in the past. So, really I have no right to think that I can expect to get an awful lot out of it, can I? So here I am now kind of in the middle of it, like maybe some of you are in your IRAs or 401ks, and I think maybe I should be putting more into it. How am I going to do that? This is a spiritual thing; you can’t come to more meetings because we are not going to have any more gospel meetings than the two a week; besides, just going to meetings isn’t what it is all about.

I started asking myself, “What I can find in the Scriptures that might bear out how I can put more into this?” because I am really convinced that that is the only way that I am going to get more out of it. I found a verse, kind of an obscure verse, although I knew it was there. I have looked at it quite a few times throughout the years. It is back in the Old Testament in the book of Haggai, a little short book of only two chapters. Chapter 2:19, “Is the seed yet in the barn? Yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you.” Is the seed yet in the barn? The Lord’s people had gone through some pretty rough times up to this and He had sent His prophet by the name of Haggai to talk to them and to tell His people that He wanted to give them better things than this. He actually prophesied to them that there would be rain, even the natural blessings that were promised to Israel, which are not promised to us today. He said, “God has spoken good things toward you,” and then at the end of it he said, “Is the seed still in the barn?” OK, if God has said that He will prosper the land, how come you haven’t planted the seed? It doesn’t matter how much rain falls on the ground if no one puts a seed in it, there is not going to be an increase. There won’t even be 30 fold.

What God wanted the prophet to tell His people was, “Yes, it has been a bad time but you brought that on yourself and I am telling you that it doesn’t have to stay that way. I will bless this land but you have to put the seed in the ground. You’ve got it in the barn, where is it? Is it still in the barn?” Jesus, in the parable of the sower and the seed, made it very plain that the word of God is the seed. That is the seed right there. You and I, we all have the seed. It is recorded right here in the Bible, and we have it in our memory, we have it committed to our minds. Is that the only place that it is? Is it still in the barn? If we want a better crop, we are going to have to plant more seed. He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; that is exactly what it says. It also says that he that sows bountifully shall reap bountifully. That is as simple as it gets. It has been that way for thousands of years and it is going to stay that way. That natural parable is going to keep its meaning for ever and ever.

So, I know this: if I want a larger crop, then I am going to have to sow more seed. That is the only way to get a better crop. Now how am I going to sow more seed? The seed is the word of God. One little illustration appeals to me very much. Jesus taught, when He was asked by the Pharisees, “What is the greatest commandment of all time? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and all thy mind and strength.” OK, there it is, the first and greatest commandment: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. I think all of us believe that and probably all of us would say we are doing that and that we want that and that we are trying to do that, doing it with all that is in our power. Well, maybe that will get us 30 fold. But, I want more than that, so what am I going to do next?

How am I going to plant more seed, plant more of the love of God? It is one thing to love God, but then Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. Oh, that is a little tougher, especially depending upon your neighbors. So maybe I want 60 fold so I will plant a little more seed and so now I will be loving my neighbor as myself. I would like to think sometimes that I don’t love myself but that isn’t true. So, if I am willing to plant that love of God with my neighbor also, maybe that will make 60 fold out of it for me. Well if I can get 60 fold, I might as well have 100 fold. Why not? It is available. If I am going to have a bigger crop then I am going to have to plant more seed. I don’t know if I can get more neighbors or not and I only have one God, so where am I going to plant more seed? I don’t want any seed left in the barn when my life is over. I want to make sure that I have planted every single bit of it because that is the only thing that is going to do me any good.

Jesus also said, “Love your enemies and do good to them that despitefully use you.” Now wait a minute…… yes that is what He said; He taught that. That is seed; it is the word of God. It is seed for sowing, not for laying up in the barn. Any seed left in the barn is not going to make any crop. It is only seed that has been planted that makes any crop. So, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; that is the word of God. Love your neighbor as yourself; that is more of the word of God. Love your enemies; that is more of the word of God. I am pretty sure that if I can accomplish that then I will make 100 fold. That just means to me that I have a lot of places to be planting seed. It is one thing to take the seed out of the barn, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and another thing to take the seed of loving your neighbor out of the barn, but then look at this package of seed that says, “Love your enemies.” Am I going to plant that package too?

There are a lot of packages of seed – I call them packages, teachings of Jesus, specific teachings for human beings. They are all seed, they are specific and they are all going to produce something. You know, if all I want to eat is carrots because they grow easy, or radishes, then that is all that I plant. If I really want a crop then I plant every seed that I have. You know, we have a lot of seed. Is it in the barn or is it in the ground? It is one thing to have it in our mind and it’s another thing to have it in our heart. Jesus made it clear, in the parable of the sower and the seed, that the heart is the soil. Now I am saying this – the brain is the barn. You can store all kinds of stuff in the brain but it isn’t going to do any good up there.

I remember the very first Gospel Mission that I willingly sat under, under my own accord; I was 19 years old. There is not much that I really remember said from those meetings, but one thing that I do remember rather vividly to this day was that some people will miss a saved eternity by a mere 18 inches. I thought, “How in the world is that?” Then he said, “The distance between the brain and the heart.” I don’t know if that is the same in everybody; everyone doesn’t have the same size neck, but that is approximate. It isn’t very far, is it? It can be very hard to get it from the mind to the heart. It is the same as getting it from the barn to the field. I don’t think that there is anyone in this room that is lacking in the word of God, in knowing what the word of God is. I am sure that there are plenty of things in the word of God that you and I are unaware of, but there is so much more that we are aware of that we haven’t done anything with yet. So, there is one way that I know that I can increase this retirement account that I have.

Then I was thinking, “Is there any other way?” There are probably many others that I don’t know about. Hosea 10:12, “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.” I am not even very familiar with what all was going on in Hosea’s day, what the Lord was sending him to tell His people about. But one of the things that He was telling these people was about good times ahead. He was saying if you want good times ahead, sow to yourselves in righteousness and reap in mercy and break up your fallow ground.

I have gotten in on some of that naturally, breaking up fallow ground. It is ground that has never been planted; in fact, it has never been plowed. I remember when I was working for my uncles in the wheat farming part of Montana. One of my cousins was taking over his dad’s farm and I spent quite a bit of time with him. Things were going pretty good in those days and I asked him about this piece of land that was across the highway. I said, “You guys used to run horses over there,” and he said, “Yes, but there isn’t anything being done with it now.” I asked, “Why that isn’t plowed up? Why don’t you rent that to me and I’ll farm it?” Oh no, he wouldn’t do that. They had not plowed that piece of ground forever; it was inconvenient; it was clear across the highway and it wasn’t that big of a piece and it had a lot of rocks in it. But so did the rest of their ground. He had all of these excuses for why he hadn’t planted that ground. Well, why don’t you rent it to me and I’ll break it up? Oh no, and after harvest was over I left and it was two or three years before I got back.

It was after I was in the work that I got back, and it was all plowed up and planted. I thought to myself, “I probably couldn’t have gotten it done anyway and I didn’t have the wherewithal, but that is what provoked him to realize what he was missing out on.” He had lots of farm ground and it was already broken up. His dad had broken it up years and years before and he was content to just sow away and reap on the ground that was already broken up. He had a lot of unbroken ground but it was too small or it was inconvenient or he didn’t think it was good enough land. But you know, when he began to make some profit on his place and someone else began to look at what it could be, he realized, “I am missing out,” then he jumped in and got busy and he plowed it up and made something out of it. That is fallow ground, and that is one way that we can increase our harvest in a big way.

How much fallow ground is there in our lives, ground that we have never allowed the seed to be planted on? We have looked at that piece of ground in the past maybe and said, “Oh, it would be pretty hard to get that ready to plant.” There are a lot of obstacles there. Places in our heart that we just really haven’t allowed God to go. Maybe we don’t even want to go there very much ourselves. A little analogy that I was thinking of about our service to God that might fit into this was, “I don’t think that most of you folks are that way but we could fall into the trap of thinking that our service to God is what we are doing here right now.” We have come to this meeting and we are listening to the word of God, so that is giving some time to God. In a sense that really isn’t true; that is asking God to give us some of His time, is what it is. We are just learning here what we can do something with later. We could look at it like that is my service to God. I read my Bible every morning for a little while or in the evening, whatever. I pray in the mornings and evenings and that is my service to God. Well, if that is the way that we think, that is the way that our life is geared that that is our service to God, now I have to get up and go to work and that isn’t my service to God.

I have actually heard some men say, “Business is business, it is a hard old world out there and you have to do what it takes to get along or to get by.” Kind of what they were saying is you cannot take godliness into the workplace, no one is going to respect it, it isn’t going to work and you are not going to be very successful. I have seen people do that. Yes, they were content to be as godly as they could be when they were around the friends and those that were godly but when they would get into the workplace, well they just met the world with the world because they thought that that was the only thing that was going to work. That was all fallow ground. If they didn’t take the seed into the workplace then that was fallow ground, ground that had never been broken up and worked.

The same with you kids at school – if serving God is just when you are at home, well, how much ground is getting left out? You spend several hours a day at school or several hours a day at work. If you are not planting seed there, there is no better place to plant the seed of loving your neighbor or even to plant the seed of loving your enemy; that may be where they are at, too. Fallow ground, places where we just feel that we don’t dare plant the seed there, I don’t want to make any waves here, I know good and well if I start to break up this ground that there is going to be some rocks come up, there’s going to be some things that are unexpected. Well, probably so, but until you do, it is wasted ground. If you want a bigger harvest, you plant more seed and when you run out of place to plant more seed, break up more ground. I am certain of this: every one of us has a lot more ground to break up than we think and a lot more seed in the barn than we think.

Proverbs 24:30-34, “I went by the field of the slothful, and by the Vineyard of the man void of understanding: and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and a stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and consider it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.”

This slothful farmer lived within Solomon’s realm and his under-productive acres were an eyesore because his estate was unkempt and he projected an image and testimony that diminished the king’s name. We are transplanted individuals living within the periphery of the kingdom and our neighbors know us by the way we govern our lives. When we cultivate the spirit and character of our Lord, we are reflecting the husbandry of our King and our lives are contributing to the profit and testimony of the Gospel story.

This aloof farmer had both a field and a vineyard which he neglected and it was overgrown with thorns and nettles. The stone wall was broken down giving every weed seed an opportunity to express their wild natures. His attitude enabled the old nature and the old growth to deepen their ownership which shortchanged the king of a harvest. Opportunity was knocking on his door, but his ambition was asleep and his diminutive vision kept him in self-imposed poverty.

A slothful person could be a man or woman, boy or girl, farmer or business person, friend or neighbor. He had all of his assets available: the land, the oxen and plow, seed and he had plenty of time on his hands. He needed to put work clothes on his desires and put his hand to the plow and plow under his excuses. The plow turns over soil and the knives break up the clods and exposes the soil to light, warmth and moisture making it receptive to receiving the seed. When the Gospel took root in our lives, the Spirit quickened the seed and a selective fruit was born in our lives that had potential of eternal life.

Neglect is a slow creeping sin that infiltrates our faith and weakens our purpose and motivation. Neglect teams up with procrastination like a pair of thieves. These thieves prey on lives where fences are broken down and carelessness is the proprietor. They sow their seeds and over time victims are brought to poverty. Crop failure becomes a danger when we lose fellowship with our King and we are satisfied with the status quo. This attitude and attrition mean a loss of profit and inheritance.

Solomon wrote about three perpetrators: a little sleep, a little slumber and a little folding of the hands. He used the adjective “little” implying that the losing proposition of thorns and nettles perpetuates poverty and loss a little at a time. His desire and ambition were asleep and when he awoke, he had no friends, no song, no harvest, and no profit. The little things in life that irritate and take issue with our ambition limits our progress. Possibilities for change won’t improve until we pray and turn to God for clarity and resolution.

Jesus was the sower of divine seed and He didn’t go out into the world to save humanity acre by acre, but heart by heart. The world is a wilderness of broken walls and unbroken wills. Darkness like a pall has settled over humanity and Satan is taking advantage of this time period by working around the clock impoverishing the harvest of needy souls. We reap what we sow and it is imperative to redeem the time by sowing to the Spirit and responding to the care and compassion of the husbandry of our King.

This is the moment in life that we want to stop and consider and receive instructions. We observe our own lives and we understand there is much work to be done. We don’t want to be overwhelmed by our own lack and we don’t want to compare our lives with fields that are flourishing with fruit. Sometimes, the knives of the plow cut deep in order to remove neglect, hardness, and unwillingness. It is better to feel the pain of change now and rebuild our fences and sow the seed of the life and spirit of Christ and bring forth fruit bearing the image and testimony of our Saviour and King.

“Your way is so different;

Your way is so strange.”

How often I want to tell them,

“Jesus was the same.”

An outcast in His own land,

A foreigner among the throng,

Only God had the strength

To keep Him so strong.

Alone in the world,

One thought never left His mind,

“It is for the people of this world

I must live and die.”

The day arose,

the hour was near,

Twice the cock crew,

Thrice Peter’s denial appeared

With disciples unfaithful.

With governments untrue,

He wore the crown of thorns

For me and for you,

Now together in sweet fellowship.

We ask forgiveness for all we do,

Bowing our heads praying

For ourselves, each other,

And all of you.

There’s no big, fancy churches,

No tithing plate of gold;

Just our black leather Bibles

And Hymns of New and Old.

Raising our voice in chorus,

We sing all as one,

Waiting, watching, praying,

For that final day to come.

For our workers, we are blessed

As in the harvest field they go,

Sharing the gospel story

For all willing to know.

Asking so little, giving so much,

It shows us the Spirit of Jesus.

It teaches us to love:

To love what is different,

To love what is strange,

To love to be like Jesus –

One in the same.

The attached Hymn was written by an overseer, Lyle Schoeber. (in Minn.) It is sung by Murray Lewis, the nephew of William Lewis (who was an overseer here years ago).

[Link to audio file missing]

The words are as follows:

————————————————————

TAKE ME AND MAKE ME

1.

We are thankful, Lord for Thy creation
For all things we see with human eye;
For the beauty of the distant mountains;
For rivers, the meadows and sky; 
For birds that sing so sweetly in the treetops;
For flowers and deer that run so free
Thy handiwork we want to see completed;
So take me and make me like Thee.

2.

We are thankful, Lord, for Jesus coming
To this world to perfect every man;
For the words of truth and life He brought us;
For living so we understand;
For yielding to Thy will within the garden;
For letting His blood so freely flow;
Thy purpose Lord in us we want accomplished;
So take me and make me bend low.

3.

We are thankful, Lord, for godly parents
And their love for things that are divine;
For their care and kindness in correction;
For keeping our future in mind;
For helping us to choose when we were troubled;
For trying to keep us undefiled;
We learned a father’s hand is what we’re needing;
So take me and make me Thy child.

4.

We are thankful, Lord, for all our brethren;
For the faith and courage that they share;
For their words of comfort in our sorrow;
For lifting the burden we bear;
For standing firm and steadfast in the battle;
For knowing our lack yet not condemn;
A brother true I want to be to others; So take me and make me help them.

5.

We are thankful, Lord for Thy dear servants,
For the sacrifice they freely give;
For their heart’s desire for their brethren;
For dying to help others live;
For leaving all to go and be a stranger;
For telling Thy message faithfully;
Their love to do Thy will is so inspiring;
So take me and make me serve Thee.

Well, basically speaking, a lot of times people don’t understand what the history of Christianity is and it leaves a gap and a mystery and all, but the Lord doesn’t intend for us to suffer along with this gap. But a lot of people have and they walk by faith and that’s wonderful. But basically, if we go back to Christianity and its beginning; you know, and I know, what Jesus gave the world and that’s the MINISTRY.

Now the ministry is the foundation of Christianity. Paul said, “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ.” And what Jesus Christ was, was the pattern minister and pattern preacher and He gave the New Testament ministry to us. And He outlined that very clearly.

Now then, the next thing of real importance, you might say, two things on which the Truth of God rests: Jesus gave us the ministry and a way of fellowship. These two things and these things are very, very important to us.

Now, a person might wonder, how did these things get changed in the world so that there are so many other religions and so many ways of worship in the world? Well, a person can find the foundation for how some of this came about in the Bible. Let me say this first, that by the year 300 there were 90 different denominations in world. 90 different denominations. That’s a lot of denominations!

All right! Let’s back up and see how those Christian, so to speak, denominational, nominal Christians got started. Now these all had to come out of the TRUTH or break off from the TRUTH. Now there’s two ways that this got started. It got started by there being those preachers that were false preachers; that departed from the true ministry and started preaching their own way and doing just what they wanted to do. Now we have examples and patterns for this. You take in II Corinthians 11:13 and 14, it tells us, “such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ and no wonder, no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light,” So that there were those that got started in the days of the New Testament. It didn’t have to be very long after Christ that there were those that departed from the ministry of Christ to preach it their own way.

Well, there is another way that false religions got started and that’s by false elders. Now in the III John 9, it tells us about a false elder. “I wrote unto the church but Diotrophes who loveth to have the preeminence receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come I will remember his deeds which he doeth prating against us with malicious words and not content therewith neither doth he himself receive the brethren and he forbiddeth them that would and he casteth them out of the church.”

Now, here’s a man. It’s evident that he must be an elder and has meeting in his home and he will not receive one of the apostles. How did he word it? He loves to have the preeminence among them and he says that he receiveth us not. Now this is John the Apostle writing and he does not receive us, he won’t accept us.

So that a person can get the picture now, that there were those that broke off and wanted to get a hold of the authority of this thing and run this thing that weren’t preachers at all. They were just those that were elders. And it could be in an area where the apostles did not get around too often and so they got the upper hand. They got the authority and took it away from the apostles.

Sometimes it could be because Pharisaism crept inside and they were competitive in their ways and instead of them being willing to submit to the advice and council and the simplicity on the matter and the humility and the Way of Christ, they wanted to make it a fancier way, you might say, and make it more pleasing to the flesh. They didn’t like the apostles telling them how to do things. They wanted to do it their own way. So, they just wouldn’t receive the apostles into their homes and any person that did receive them, they cast him out of the church. They wouldn’t have them in their fellowship anymore. There is another way it got started.

Now then, before a person goes too far, it is good to know a little bit about what the Bible says about changing things and altering things. In the last chapter of Revelation it says, “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. If any man shall take away words from this prophecy God shall take away his part from the Book of Life and from the Holy City and from the things that are written in this book.” Now he is saying if anybody adds to or takes from, we are not supposed to add to or take from the truth of God. The Truth of God is supposed to remain the same right down through the ages, it is supposed to be that same way.

Now there is no doubt in my mind that the Truth, so to speak, in God’s Way has always gone in cycles. In the Old Testament it did. Now one of the nicest books to read in the Old Testament to get this point clear is the book of Judges. The chapter to read in Judges is the second chapter. It gives you the way the cycle works. Now for instance, it tells you about God’s people and then about them going after strange gods and God selling them to the heathen, so to speak. It mentions Him selling them to the heathen and then worshiping the strange gods and then they were in bondage to the heathen and deeper and deeper in bondage until finally they cried out in their need and God raised up a deliverer.

And that’s the way the cycle went. Then that deliverer would deliver them from the heathen and they would have maybe 10, 20 years, sometimes 80 years of good going and then again they would go after the heathen gods and go into a period of darkness and they would be in bondage and slavery and then in their bondage and slavery after a time, after years they would raise a cry to the Lord and He would raise up a deliverer to deliver them. And that’s the way it worked in the Old Testament days. And I am convinced that this is the way that it has worked down through the ages.

Now in the Old Testament days, the difference was this: God was delivering them as a nation and making it possible for them to come back a natural nation in the world as long as they would keep His law and do what was right. In a natural way, the legal part of it. The reason God wanted the law kept, the legal side of it, was because the gospel preached by the prophets could prosper in that framework, you might say, where the law was kept in a legal way. Whereas in a heathen country under heathen laws and the corruption of heathenism, it was very hard for the prophets to work, for things to go as they should.

And salvation has always been preached by the prophets, that is in the Old Testament. In the New Testament Jesus gave us, you might say, the same form of ministry as the prophets of the Old Testament, but it’s more perfect, more right. In the New Testament it was given by revelation to them and it was given by the Son of God in the New Testament. That’s the difference!

Alright, now let’s come up to the New Testament. Coming up to the New Testament, we see how it was that people did depart from the New Testament way of doing things. And even John speaks of them in one place in I John 2:19. He says this, “They went out from us because they were not of us.” It does not mean that those people went out and had nothing to do with anything religiously speaking. They went out to do it their own way and God wasn’t in it at all.

Now then, some of the best history is preserved in the Vatican. And there have been certain writers that have published some of those stories that have come out of the Vatican. The Vatican doesn’t like or allow anything that comes out of there to be pub­lished if they can stop it. They have retained the history of the world in the Vatican, but they don’t allow anyone to read it except Catholic priests. And sometimes Catholic priests who have access to it have begun to realize what the Catholic church did and how they were born you might say and they saw the corruption and rottenness of it so they decided to publish it. And in publishing it, generally speaking, they have been excommunicated and ostracized and they lost their place in the Catholic church as priests and even as members of the church. Well, some of these writers have given a clear record of how the Catholic church got started.

Now the Catholic Church actually didn’t get started until along around the second century. And in the year 189, there was a man rose up. It says the little churches met in the homes of the poorer people in the foreign section of town. But in the year 189 there was a man rose up by the name of Victor. And it’s evident that he must have been an elder in one of the little churches. And it’s evident, also, that the churches of Rome must have been spiritually sick and they were willing to follow the elder rather than to follow the apostles, and so it tells us that he raised himself up and declared himself as the Bishop of the Bishops of Rome and it’s evident that others followed. And he kept his place and ruled over the church in the city of Rome. Now there’s only one thing that this man did in taking over the authority. He threw the ministry out. He threw the authority of the apostles out and in throwing the authority of the apostles out, he threw the foundation out. The very foundation.

This is the foundation of Christianity. So in one sense of the word, he still had the name of Christianity still with him, but. the real foundation of Christianity he threw out. He didn’t have it anymore. Then he died in the year 198. And in the year 198 a man by the name of Zacharimius took over. And he ruled over the church until the year 217, and he didn’t change anything in the church, He simply followed in the steps of Victor, And they did not have the ministry. The meetings were still in the home and it was still a matter of people testifying one by one still in the same order. But you can imagine without the guidance of the apostles, it would have become a kind of complaining, murmuring fellowship where they were glorying in the fact that they didn’t have to follow the apostles anymore and they could do what they wanted, and the way that they wanted.

Well, this man died in the year 217, and then there came a man into authority whose name was Calistas. This man was determined that he was going to make some changes. He made the statement: What the church needed was a beautification project. He said it had to beautified in order to be more attractive to the heathen. Otherwise it would never grow.

One of the things that he did was take to himself the title Pope which means “father” in the Latin. Then he bought a little tavern and he turned this into a basilica which is just a little church where all the people would sit facing him. And then he gave them a ceremony. Then he made a change that altered the thing, inasmuch as he threw out now the matter of them all giving their testimonies.

I should interject here just what our little testimonies amount to. It’s sharing just a little bit of the bread of life that God has given to us. Now you may just have a few crumbs to share but that’s the bread of life. And we’re sharing the very bread of life one with another and this has life giving power. Now there’s another part of the meeting that is very, very important and that is the breaking the bread and the partaking of the cup. We must remember the breaking of the bread and the partaking of the cup is ceremony. There are two ceremonies in the New Testament. One is baptism and another is the breaking of bread. We are to examine ourselves and remember the Lord and what He did for us; his death on Calvary’s cross all of this that He gave Himself for us. This is the breaking of bread, the communion. The other is the sharing of the bread of life. Now I hope we can understand the difference.

Now we are supposed to break bread and each time we do it we are to remember the Lord’s death until He comes again. Now that’s important! But when we’re sharing the bread, it is the bread of life, we are feeding on the living Bread. Now what Calistas did was throw out the sharing of the living Bread, that’s the ceremony of giving testimonies. And he took this ceremony and he enlarged it, magnified it and made it fill the whole service and he called it the “mesaph,” which is what is known as the MASS today. And this really consists of taking of the bread and the wine and it’s made a beautiful, elaborate ceremony in the Catholic church. And if you go to the Catholic church today whether it be to a marriage or a funeral or a regular mass on Sunday morning or Saturday morning. They do have both Saturday or Sunday morning Mass today. They have made it so that they are competing with both the Catholic and Protestant churches in whatever day you want to worship that is perfectly alright with them. They’ll give it to you whatever day you want.

I remember a woman that came one time to our gospel meetings in the Philippine Islands. She made the remark one time about the Catholic service. “Oh!” she said, “It’s just so beautiful, its so beautiful it makes me feel like I’m in the presence of God.” Well, it’s just ceremony. That’s all it is, and it’s empty ceremony because God isn’t there! They don’t have anything else to go with it. If they don’t have the ministry and they don’t have the testimonies then it’s just an empty ceremony. There’s no life or power or inspiration in it because it’s just all false. Well, this is what Calistas did.

Another thing that Calistas did is he bought a piece of acreage on the Appian Way. The Appian Way was a road that went through Italy. He turned this acreage into a cemetery. Now I don’t know if you noticed in the National Geographic Magazine lately. I was reading an article in a recent issue just this summer. What Calistas did was set something in motion. When he died, in order for the church to use this property, they had to incorporate. They were a property owning corporation now. This church would never have become important or mighty except for it’s location in the capital city. There were other denominations that were bigger and far wider spread and the amount of money they took in was far greater.

Now in the year 300, the Catholic church made a few more additions. They added the liberty to pray for the dead and they gave them the sign of the cross. You will oft times see a Catholic person make the sign of the cross if they get a fright or a scare or even when they start to go down a flight of stairs.

In the Philippines we lived across the street from a house of prostitution and we saw those women make the sign of the cross whenever they left the house and when they went up the stairs and down the stairs. They were faithful in going to Mass every Sunday.

By the year 300 there were 90 different denominations in the world. Man-made organizations. In the year 306 Constantius, the father of Constantine, died. Constantius was the emperor of the Roman Empire and at this time the Romans ruled over the British Isles, all western Europe and everything surrounding the Mediterranean Ocean. They were the rulers of the western world.

It took Constantine about six years to figure out what to do. He wanted to be sole ruler. His mother was a Catholic, his father had been pagan. He had noticed something. He had noticed that Christianity has started out unpopular and unknown but now it was way up here and popular. He could see that heathenism was going down and denominational Christianity was going up. He claimed that he had seen a banner in the sky and on the banner was a cross with the words “hoc signo vinci” which means “by this sign you will conquer.” So he took this to the people as a sign that they were to conquer the whole nation for Christianity. So he made a decree that all denominations were to merge with the Catholics and there would be just one church and with one church they were going to stamp out everything that was pagan.

Well, when you try to conquer with swords you will have bloodshed, of course. And you will have people surrendering to the new power whether they are willing or not, simply to save their lives. So they will continue to be heathen in silence. So in 12 years he conquered the nation for himself saying that it was for Christianity. But in doing this he had done more for the Catholic church than he realized. In a few years it would be the Pope who would rule the empire.

In the year 325 Constantine called the Nicene Council which added to the holy days the day of Easter. They accepted this now into Christianity with its bunny rabbits and eggs because it was a celebration of fertility. And that’s the way things got added into Christianity.

This man Constantine, before his reign was over had to flee from Rome for his life to Turkey to establish his capital in Constantinople. He died in the year 337 at the age of 65 years.

The next thing of importance happened in the year 354. Paganism was not stamped out. It was underground. There were many ways that this was manifest. They worshiped the Sun. Solar Sun. They said that December 25th was the birthday of the Sun. Pope Liberius had noticed that heathens who claimed to be Catholic would bow to the Sun before entering the church. Liberius got the idea if he could transfer the pagans allegiance to the Sun to the Son of God. It says in the Catholic encyclopedia that no one knew when Christ was born. But Liberius decided to declare that December 25th was the birth of Christ and made a decree that anyone who wanted to celebrate the birth of the Sun could celebrate the birth of Christ and bring along all of their traditions such as Christmas trees and all that went with it. And that’s where all these things came from. They were not from a Christian source, they were a heathen source.

In the year 370 something else was added. Pope Domicus saw that people were not spiritual. They were natural, materialistic people. So what he did was issue a decree that they should make pictures of Jesus, Mary and the apostles. Remember, this was in Rome, not in Palestine. All the pictures were done in Roman style, not in Jewish style. The only reason a Jewish man would have long hair was if he took a vow as a Nazarite. But remember, Jesus was not a Nazarite–He was a Nazarene. Those disciples of His were not Nazarites–they were Nazarenes. And their hair was not long. But Romans made those pictures in the style of the Romans.

When I was in school taking art, I remember learning about the picture of the Lord’s Supper. The artist used a very handsome man as the model for Christ. Then he spent several years painting the other apostles. When he tried to find a model for Judas Iscariot he looked for a long time to find someone evil, and finally found a man who was very dissipated from a life of wickedness. When he began painting him he found that it was the same man he had used as a model for the picture of Christ. So this goes into the story of those pictures being painted.

Okay that was the year 370. Let’s move up in history a ways. We’ve got pictures now, and images added to Christianity. In the year 600 there was something happening that was very interesting. They issued the order over the empire that the Mass must be said in the Latin language because they said it was the language of the angels that would be spoken in heaven. Now you can see how narrow minded and short-sighted they were. They didn’t realize that other people’s language seemed just as important to them as their language did.

Let me use a little illustration that might help you understand. When I went to the Philippine Islands 40 years ago, we got a man to help us learn the language whose name was Alvar. He was a purist in Tagallo and he loved the Tagello language. However, he could speak both Japanese and English fluently,but Tagallo was his first love. He said, “You know, Tagallo is the most beautiful language in all the world. There’s no language in the world that sounds just like what it means. But when you talk Tagallo it sounds just like what it means.”

To him it did, but to me it didn’t make any sense at all. But that’s the way it was for the Romans in those days. They thought their language was the most beautiful language in all the world. And they made it the language of the church whether people understood it or not. That decree stayed on the books until 1960.

Anyway, let’s come down to the year 788. They made the decree that liberated the people to worship the images and pictures and relics now that they had of Christ. Some people tell us that there were so many relics of the cross that if it had all been put together it would have made a mountain. It was just a matter of selling stuff, selling something, with the purpose of making money.

In the year 800, the fishermen went to the Pope and asked for help because their business was going on the rocks because people had become more meat-eaters, eating beef and pork and other things. So the Pope made a decree that people all had to eat fish on Friday. That’s where it all got started and it stayed on the books until 1900 and something too.

They felt that they could rule over the people in ignorance better than if they were educated. They forbade education and this is what ushered the whole of western Europe into the Dark Ages. And it was an age of ignorance where the people weren’t allowed to get an education. This went on hundreds of years until the Reformation.

In the year 1000, holy water was added. In the year 1090 the rosary was added. Rosary was a matter of coming to the place where they all had memorized prayer and the rosary consists of a chain of beads of 50 small beads and 5 large beads, interspersed. Every 10 beads is a large one. And they pray; when they say an Ave Maria it is a small bead or a Hail Mary. For a large bead they say the Lord’s prayer. They had these memorized. They count their beads, one for Mary, one for the Father. The rosary is actually copied from the heathen and it is still in use today. The heathen also have their beads and their prayers to the heathen gods. So it’s the same old system ushered into Christianity.

In the year 1215, they brought in the confessional which meant that the people were supposed to confess every week before they were to partake of the Mass; that is, to partake of the emblems. They were to confess all their sins to the priest. Every person in the church had to do this.

There was something else added in the year 1209. It was the law of the Inquisition which made it so that they began investigating into the lives of all the people to see if they were worshiping in any other way than the Catholic system. For instance, if they were worshiping in their homes, they would take them out and put them to death. They had many ways of putting them to death. One of them was to put them on a cross and then to build a fire under them and slowly roast them to death. This was one of the worst systems. Hundreds of thousands of people were put to death.

And again, all these records were kept by Catholic priests. One man was given the job of keeping these records during the Inquisition and it became so horrible to him that he decided he would publish it because it was just too terrible that the Catholic church had done these atrocities. And he himself became excommunicated and he became a fugitive and had to flee from Paris to Madrid and back again. Finally he died, just being hounded to death.

Well, we come to the year 1439, the teaching of Purgatory was introduced. It is just a scheme for getting people’s money. Everybody goes to a place of burning fire where they have to pay for their sins. Now that’s the teaching of Purgatory. If this teaching were true, it would mean this. It tells us in the Bible that Jesus went to the cross to die for our sins, to pay for our sins. And if Jesus paid for our sins, then they are already paid for; but if we go to pay for them again, then they never were paid for. It’s a contradictory teaching. And it was only used to make money. And what they do, they say, “Now, your husband or your wife is in Purgatory and you have to pay money for us to pray for her to get out.” And they sap people down until they get all the money they’ve got. And this is what Jesus said about the Pharisees, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees for you devour widows houses and for pretense make long prayers.” The reason for the long prayers is to get the husband out of torment. The Catholics adopted the same system.

Now then, the Catholic church had become so rotten, so foul, it was repulsive. There came a practice of selling indulgences. This meant the priest would go around and people could say that they intended to commit some sin. It could be thievery, adultery, anything and the priest would tell him the price he had to pay. So he could pay the price ahead of committing the sin. That was the practice of selling indulgence.

Now when a power gets so much money involved, it becomes corrupt. You see it in politics or any system that gets money. We could have this happen among us too. If we ever get too much money, we could become corrupt. Because of this corruption, there were those who saw it and hated it and this is when the Reformation came in. One of the Catholic priests who saw this was Martin Luther.

Martin Luther was born 1483 and lived until the year 1546. He was a German catholic priest. There was another man John Calvin born in the year 1509 and lived until 1564. He was a Frenchman and a lawyer. Another man, John Knox was born in the year 1515 and lived until the year 1572. He was a Catholic priest also. These men met in Switzerland. They wanted to take the Catholic church back to the days of the Bible. They were honest men. We will give them that much. They wanted to clean up the Catholic church and take it back to the days when the Catholic church was young. They only knew the Catholic church, the church without a proper ministry and without the church in the home with the testimony. They did not go back far enough. They did not go back to Christ. The Catholic church was like a tree cut down to the ground but its roots were still alive, the root of bitterness.

Luther started the Lutheran church. John Calvin started the Huguenots and the Puritans, something a little this side of the Catholic church. And what John Knox started in 1560 was the Presbyterian church.

Now then the mistake they made was that they did not go back to Christ. The people who did people a real favor are the ones who took man back to Christ….It’s a long chain of human beings. If I take a piece of wood one foot long; a one by two. I tell you to cut ten thousand pieces just like that. You cut a piece of wood and throw away the pattern and use the next piece for the pattern and you keep on cutting ten thousand pieces, always using the last piece for a pattern. The last piece will be 14 feet long because you have used the last piece for the pattern instead of using the original pattern.

You must be sure that we use the pattern of Christ for the ministry. That makes all the difference in the world. We may not know where God’s people were in all ages but that doesn’t matter. If God has raised up in our day a prophet that has gone back to Christ, that’s all that’s important. We must keep that firmly in our minds.

I walked beside the vast wheat field, paused and looked around.

Not so long ago this field had been but barren ground.

“How can this be?” as I observed the wondrous picture now.

Seeds sown a few short weeks ago have sprung to life, somehow!

A desolate, wasted field I’d seen so many times before.

So cold and hard, forlorn it seemed, with hopes of nothing more.

The sower in his wisdom saw beyond the rocky soil

And fought the element’s harsh demands in weeks of weary toil.

The seeds fell ‘neath the broken earth, waiting, dying there.

Then sprung to life and would behold the sunshine and the air.

The blessing of the gentle rain would help them start to grow

Abundant life now in that field, a harvest to bestow!

I cannot know the price they’ve paid, the cost, the faithful sacrifice

When called to labor in that field. How can I know the greatness of the price?

I cannot know what they have felt, the tears, the seed, the barren ground.

They could have had what others have; at Jesus’ feet, they’ve cast it down.

And lives consumed in waste and ruin fall on their knees and pray.

Like sunshine beaming on the field, now see the perfect way.

A ray of hope for darkest day, the Gospel message rang

And from the empty shell of life, a resurrection came.

It’s all about the harvest and the loyal servants’ toil.

They sow in hope the seeds will fall in waiting, ready soil.

It’s all about the harvest a heart bows broken, bent

And they’ll rejoice on that great day because someone was sent.

The shafts that bear the grain aloft are very slender;

The roots that hold them to the soil are very tender,

Yet all the grain is lifted high to ripen under summer sky

And tell the millions by and by of God the sender.

The men who bear the Word aloft are often lowly;

The ties that bind them to the work all strengthen slowly,

And yet the Word is carried wide to every land on every tide,

The peoples manifold to guide to God the Holy.

I have enjoyed thinking about Matthew 13:44 again, in the light of what we find in the will of God. Here are some of the treasures, but you’re probably finding a lot more:

In the field of repentance, we find the treasure of forgiveness.

In the field of weakness, we find the treasure of strength.

In the field of faith, we find the treasure of God’s miracle work.

In the field of obedience, we find the treasure of The Holy Spirit.

In the field of patience, we find the treasure of salvation.

Bernie read from Matthew 22:17, “Tell us therefore, what thinkest Thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?” The coin had Caesar’s inscription on it. He said, “A penny doesn’t have much value, but it has buying power because of the image of the king impressed on it. A blank coin is worthless and useless, and it has no buying power at all, just like our lives. It is because of the grace of God that His image can be impressed upon us and we can be of value in the Kingdom, and have power: buying power. We have great access to the Throne of Grace through the image of God in us, and we can obtain so much to enrich us. Money represents the earthly king and his kingdom. When God’s image is impressed upon our lives, we represent an everlasting King and His Kingdom, One who will be on the Throne forever.

When one is guilty of breaking the law, they must pay ‘an admission of guilt’ a fine, and then they are set free. Because of the image we bear, we can be forgiven and set free because of Grace: if we repent and admit our guilt. In any other country, the money has no value and no buying power. We must make sure we do not fall into wrong hands or wrong company in a strange country. There is no corruption in His Kingdom. He trusts us with His Image. We must not disappoint Him by doing that which is not fitting to the Image we bear.

Impress Thine image on me; fulfill Thy blest design, till others see upon me that beauteous Face of Thine.

Don’t let the struggle die in us, but be willing to die in the struggle.

Kindness has never hurt anyone and it has never left a scar.

A little humility can save us a lot of humiliation.

Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that grace can restore.

Touched by a loving heart and wakened by kindness, the chords that are broken will vibrate once more.

Beasts of burden, or working animals that assist mankind, are often thought of as horses, oxen, donkeys (asses), and mules. In the Bible times, horses were generally associated with war, either pulling chariots or carrying warriors. The ass (donkey) and the mule are the main transportation animals in the Bible, while the oxen were revered for strength, dependability for the most difficult tasks. The traits or characteristics of each contain valuable lessons.

THE ASS

The ass is the biblical name for the donkey, a distant relative of the horse. The high, perhaps even haughty, spirit of the horse probably signifies pride and human nature and a willingness to go to battle, while the smaller less attractive ass signifies humility. Jesus entered proud Jerusalem “riding on a colt the foal of an ass.” The ass is sometimes referred to as the poor man’s horse. Some of the traits that differentiate the ass from the horse are:

The ass is smaller and sturdier.

Pound for pound, the ass is stronger than the horse.

The ass is much more sure-footed than the horse.

Requires less and poorer quality food than a horse. (No regal fare required)

The ass carries a permanent cross on its back. (Different colored hair)

THE OXEN

The oxen are a type of God’s servants. Unlike other animals, where oxen are offered as a sacrifice, it was not one or several oxes, but two oxen that are offered. The profitability of the oxen as servants is explained in Proverbs 14:4, “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean; but much increase is by the strength of the ox.”

Our responsibilities towards the servants (ministry) are defined in I Corinthians 9:9-11, “For it is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for the oxen? Or saith He it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be a partaker of his hope. If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?” Following are some natural traits of the oxen:

Oxen need to be broken, becoming yoke easy.

Until they are broken, the oxen find the yoke restrictive. Chafing at the yoke causes tiring and lathering.

Oxen can pull with their horns, but it is uncomfortable and they cannot pull as much as with a yoke.

The broken oxen will bow down their head to allow the yoke to be placed on their necks.

One ox alone can pull seven times its own weight.

Two oxen yoked together can pull seventeen times their combined weight.

The oxen start a heavy load with their feet braced (anchored) and they use their neck muscles to pull.

The oxen pull their very best when they are anchored on their knees with their mouths in the dirt (praying and living for others).

Oxen never balk.

Oxen are not showy or flashy.

Oxen are slow and steady.

Oxen are best for removing stumps and boulders, and the breaking of ground — for turning a wilderness into good soil.

Oxen are most useful when they will work on either side of the yoke.

Oxen want to be together even when out of the yoke.

The split hoof of the ox increases its traction where the footing is poor.

THE HORSE

Compared to the oxen, the horse is spirited, more attractive, and much faster. Meekness in a human has been compared to a broken horse. Some natural traits of the horse are:

A horse must be tamed and broken to be of use to its master.

Horses require regular work to retain their discipline.

A workhorse is most useful after the ground has been broken.

Usefulness in a horse is dependent upon communication between the master and the team.

Horses must learn to work together as a team.

The master knows the best place for each horse in a team — willingness to fit in and have abilities put to best use.

The haughty, proud and regal horse can be turned into a faithful servant and beast of burden just as our haughty and proud human nature can be brought down and made meek through the workings of the Holy

Spirit — proof of the power of God. (King Nebchadnezzar in Daniel 4)

Mark 1:35, Jesus rose up a great while before dawn and went out into a solitary place to pray.

We have so much power that we can tap into, but rarely do. The only restrictions on the place of prayer is what we place on it ourselves. Prayer is what sustains life.

* Psalms 107:6, Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them out of their distresses. It was in times of trouble that they cried and the Lord heard. Jesus is always listening when we cry unto Him in trouble.

* Luke 10:21, Jesus prayed, He was thankful for hiding these things from the wise and prudent, but revealed to babes. When we are thankful for the Lord’s revelations, we should pray to show we are thankful.

* Colossians 1:9, Paul said, “We do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual understanding.” We should pray when we want to help others.

* Matthew 6:6, “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” We need to ‘shut the door’ to everything else, when we pray. It doesn’t say, “Hearest our prayer,” but “He seeth us in prayer, He will respond.”

* Acts 1:13-14, There are times when we pray openly in a meeting and times we pray in secret. Here the disciples were continuing with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren. Praying in a meeting is when we are praying to the Lord and our brethren hear us and can enter into our prayers. When we give our testimonies, we are speaking to our brethren and the Lord hears.

* I Timothy 2:8, “I will that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands, without wrath or doubting.” There are times during the day when we can’t just drop down on our knees to pray. We can have a silent communication with the Lord anywhere or anytime.

* Hebrews 11:6, “He that cometh to God must believe that He is and a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him.” We have to believe there is a God and that He hears our prayers.

* Luke 6:12, “It came to pass in those days that Jesus went out into a mountain to pray,” and continues all night in prayer to God. Long prayers are for the secret place, but short prayers are for meetings. All of Jesus’ public prayers were usually no more than one sentence (Luke 10:21). Meeting prayers should never be more than 2 sentences.

* Matthew 9:38, “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest.” His harvest is souls. We need to pray that the Lord will move on the hearts of young men and women to go into the harvest field.

* Colossians 4:3, “Withall praying for us; that God would open a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ.” We need to pray for those in the ministry that they would keep encouraged for seeking souls.

* James 1:3, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally.” We all need the wisdom from above and will never have enough of it, so we need just to ask God. Ask in Faith, knowing that He will give it to us.

* Matthew 5:44, “I say unto you, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.’” This is probably the hardest thing that we will ever have to do and it can’t be done without the help of the Holy Spirit.

* I Timothy 2:1-3, “Pray for those in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in Godliness and honesty. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.”

* Mark 13:33, “Take ye heed, watch and pray.” We don’t know when the Lord will return. Verse 32, no one knows when this will be, not the angels, not Jesus Himself.

* I John 5:14, this is the confidence we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us. We know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. This is probably the most important thing in praying: that we ask according to His will.

* Luke 18:7-8, God will avenge His own elect who cry unto Him night and day. But when Jesus comes, will He find faith on the earth? Faith in God is absolutely necessary for salvation.

* Romans 8:26, “The Spirit helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us.” How grateful we can be for this help.

* Psalm 66:18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Iniquity is our own thoughts and will.

* He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law (doctrine of Christ), even his prayer shall be an abomination.

* James 4:3, “Ye ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts.” This is a selfish prayer for our own human desires.. we’ll never receive anything this way.

*Psalm 122:6, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (God’s Kingdom) “They shall prosper that love Thee.”

* I Samuel 25:30-31, Abigail gave David some very good advice, “When the Lord has appointed thee ruler over Israel that this be no grief to thee nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hast avenged himself.” This advice was for when David became king over Israel, and he used it.

The power of prayer is without limits and will never be exhausted, and can be used anytime day or night.

I would like to speak to you this morning about the fellowship meeting as we find it in the Scripture. I am thankful that God has arranged this meeting so His people can gather together, receiving help from Him and help from one another.  If I were to ask the children on which day of the week the disciples came together to break bread, I wonder if they could tell me? Acts 20:7. This tells us definitely that those disciples of Jesus came together on the first day of the week.

Over in North Africa, we have the Moslems that gather together on Friday, and the Jewish people that gather together on Saturday, and of course those that gather together on the first day. The Lord’s people over there gather together on the first day. I am sure that it is the same here in California. We are thankful that as we travel around from one country to another that whatever we would say from the Scriptures, it is fitting no matter where we speak it. We come together on the first day of the week.

Someone has said that it is better to come to the meeting with a prepared heart than a prepared testimony. The spirit in which we come to meeting is most important. I looked into the Scriptures and said, “I wonder if I can find an example of Jesus in this respect?” I thought of the last night that Jesus spent with His disciples, eating the Passover Supper. Jesus came to that meeting with a wonderful spirit. I looked into that upper room in Jerusalem and tried to find out all the things that happened there that night. These disciples weren’t perfect, and Jesus knew that from that meeting Peter was going out to deny his Master. He knew that Thomas, a little later, would doubt. He knew that Judas had already gone and sold his Master. He told them that very night that when the Shepherd would be smitten, the sheep would scatter. Jesus showed a wonderful, kind, loving spirit to all those disciples that night in spite of their weaknesses.

When you go to meeting, do you take that kind of a spirit? It can be a great help to a meeting. One of the best ways to have God’s presence in the meeting is to take a measure of that spirit with us. Jesus said to Peter, “I have prayed for you.” If we know there is going to be a weak brother in the meeting, or someone who is not all they could be, if we want to help that person, pray for him before we go there. Jesus rose from the table and took the water in the basin and gird Himself in a towel, and washed those disciples’ feet.  He washed Thomas’ feet; He washed Peter’s feet; He came to Judas and He washed his feet. Although He knew Judas’ heart, He was just as kind to Judas as He was to any of the rest of them.

Just previous to this, Judas was at that little feast that they had made for Jesus in Bethany. Judas had a critical spirit there when Mary anointed her Master, and I don’t suppose he had gotten over that.  Criticizing the testimony of another is an awful thing; this sacrifice had pleased Jesus so much-the way He saw it was so different from the way Judas saw it! When Judas was at his worst, Jesus was at His best. In that meeting, Jesus took that little piece of bread and dipped it into the dish, and gave it to Judas.  At a feast in that day, when the one that made the feast wanted to show love and friendship and special favor to another, he did it in that way. It was as good as telling Judas that His love would not fail, and His friendship would not cease. Jesus took a wonderful spirit into that meeting!

Where do you go to meeting here in California? Wherever I have been, God’s people have always gone to a HOME for meeting. Do you know what that suggests to me? It suggests that God would like to keep us ever in remembrance that this is a Family – a Family gathering.  Luke 22:10, Jesus gathered His disciples together in a HOME, and it was there that He established the breaking of bread. Over in North Africa, the Moslems go to a mosque to worship; the Jewish people go to a synagogue; the religious people have their temples or church buildings; God’s people always go to worship in a HOME. (Luke 22:14)

“When the hour was come Jesus and the twelve sat down.” Do you know what that suggests? It suggests that these people were present at the time when the meeting was to begin. Over in Manitoba, I was in a little meeting, and one man was five minutes late.  The next meeting, he was five minutes late. When we arranged a Gospel meeting in the afternoon, we changed the morning meeting time to a half-hour earlier than usual. Do you know what time that man got there?  Just five minutes late! It would be too bad for meeting time to come and you’re just a block away, hurrying to get there, or just entering the door.

1 Corinthians 14:23, this teaches me that when the Christians came  together, they were each filling their place in the meeting. The WHOLE CHURCH came together; God would like all the members of the church to be present. What do you do in a meeting? 1 Corinthians 14:15.

These Christians SANG in their meeting. How should we sing in a meeting? With the spirit, and with understanding? Singing with the spirit means it comes from the heart – you are thinking what you are singing. These Christians PRAYED in their meeting, IN THE SPIRIT and WITH UNDERSTANDING. I have been in meetings where people get their heads down and bury their faces and speak so low that I couldn’t understand what they said. When you pray, be sure others can hear you. How else can those who are listening say, “Amen?” Every member in that little meeting was listening when the other one was praying. Did the servants of God ever teach you that? Listen to others and join in their prayers. Maybe you will think I am a sinner when I say that one time I was in a meeting and I was glad when the prayers were over. Quite a number took part in prayer – long, long prayers. Each one would repeat almost the same thing that was said before. It was tiresome. Were you ever in a meeting like that? We can have long prayers in the secret place, but God would like us to have short prayers in the meeting place. If we have prayed with our brother or sister when they were praying, then we don’t have to repeat, do we?

1 Corinthians 14:31, all these Christians had a part in the meeting – I wonder how many take part in your meeting? I heard some children playing meeting in Canada. The older boy was telling them:  “You be so-and-so, and you be so-and-so,” and to one boy he said, “You be Percy.” The little boy replied, “I don’t want to be Percy; he doesn’t take part in meeting.” I think it should be encouraging to all of the young people to know that each one can and should have a little part in the meeting. I have been in meetings where some of the very youngest who took part fed my soul. What comes from the lips of babes in Christ is so pure and so precious! We should not be discouraged if we can only say two or three words; just a few words from the heart goes to the heart.

You can talk fifteen minutes from the head and it just goes to the head. It costs everybody something to have a part which comes from the heart. There are three things I notice about helpful testimonies:  SINCERITY, SIMPLICITY, BREVITY.

Before you close the meeting, what do you do? Break bread – this is something I fear doing in a formal way. This is to be done in remembrance of Jesus. God knows that we are so forgetful. By nature, it would be easy to forget the wonderful sacrifice of Christ and the cost of salvation. I was in a meeting lately, and asked someone to give thanks for the bread, and thanks was given by a brother in sincerity and brevity. I have been in meetings where the Lord’s people have given thanks for the bread and they offer long, long prayers, thanking God for the privilege of this meeting, and for a lot of other things, and the kernel of giving thanks for the bread was almost hidden. We have already had a time for letting our requests be known. We should remember that at this time we are giving thanks to God for the most wonderful gift that the world has ever known – the gift of His Dear Son.

All that I know about the Will of God has come because Jesus came to teach me and to show me how to live. When I look at the bread before us (often it is covered with a little white cloth), it reminds me of Christ, the Elder Brother who came and died and gave His life for me. Look upon that cup and think of that wine – I think of the drops of blood that were sacrificed when Jesus died between two thieves – He did that for me. If we could just get a picture of such love! It was just for you and just for me. If He hadn’t made that provision for us, where would we be? Don’t you think that you can look upon that cup and be thankful for that blood which cleanses you? It puts a purpose in my heart to do and to give my best.

In a meeting where bread and wine are not used, it is nice to even sing a hymn to remind us of that sacrifice. Never go out of a fellowship meeting without being reminded of the love and sacrifice of Jesus. Some of you are saying, “I don’t have a meeting to go to.” My dear mother doesn’t have the privilege of getting to a fellowship meeting. There are no friends close by. Sometimes the only meeting she gets are conventions and special meetings. She wrote to me one time:  “Every Sunday morning I have a little meeting. I go into my room. I look at a hymn. I pray. I pray for others of God’s people and for myself. I read a portion of God’s Word.” If it is impossible for you to get to a meeting, I believe that God will make up for that. If there is a place to go to  meeting, and we don’t go, we are going to be the losers. These little meetings are God’s plan for feeding His people.

As I write this, I realize that the experiences and revelations I’ve had on this issue, although mine personally, were brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit. You and I know that the Holy Spirit will never reveal one thing to one person and something different to another. One of the objectives of the work of the Holy Spirit, we could agree, is unity in our fellowship. Therefore, if my experience can help another understand and be willing for God’s will, this will be a worthwhile endeavor. My experience began in 1971 when my wife Claudia told me she was having a love affair with a man named Larry V. He was in my squadron in the Air Force at Cannon AFB in Clovis, New Mexico. Claudia wanted a divorce so she could remarry Larry right away.

The workers in our field that year were Kay Stout and Gertrude DenHerder. I asked Claudia to reconsider and asked her to take a trip with my sons, Galen and Jason, to visit her mother in California for the summer and think about what she wanted. That summer, I went to Happy, Texas convention by myself and Kay asked why I had come alone. Claudia had been professing up until this time. I told Kay and she in turn told the overseer, Gilbert Richter, who recommended in this case, if Claudia would not consider reconciliation, to get a divorce from her.

During the summer of 1971, new workers came to our field, Joe and Mark Crane. Because I was barely holding on mentally and emotionally, while still in the Air Force, the workers spent a great deal of time with me to try to encourage me. However, Joe made it very clear that if I were to divorce Claudia, there would be no way I could remarry and be right in the sight of God. He showed me the scriptures in Matthew 5 and Mark 10:11-12. I was stunned. I was shocked.

At the age of 25, knowing I had my whole life ahead of me, and not being the one who wanted the divorce, I could not understand how God, being Just and Fair, could ask such a thing of me. In my heart, I doubted I could remain single for the rest of my life. I am, by nature a people person and never could handle solitude well. To live a celibate life, not by choice, looked impossible at the time.

About this same time, Larry drove to get Claudia and the boys in California without my knowledge and Claudia pushed for a divorce as soon as possible. We were divorced on October 1, 1971 and Claudia married Larry October 15, two weeks later.

While in the Air Force, I was also attending Eastern New Mexico University, working on getting a teaching degree. In August 1972, I was discharged from the Air Force and went to the university full time. Meanwhile, Larry got orders for Germany so in the winter of 1972, Claudia, Larry, and my 2 sons moved to Germany for 4 years. It was at this time I went into a severe depression and thought about taking my own life. Only God prevented this, as I look back now.

I did not stop going to meetings, although, my service was less than whole-hearted. About the time I completed my teaching degree, in the spring of 1973, a very fortunate thing happened to me. Larry Blair, my contact who brought me to the Truth while in air traffic control tech school in Mississippi in 1968, came to visit me in New Mexico and invited me to come to California with him and work with his dad, brother, and himself in their construction business in Hayward, California.

Still suffering from extreme depression, I did go to California in late March 1973, just after receiving my teaching credential. I lived with Larry’s parents, John and Gladys Blair, and looking back, I see so clearly the hand of God in this. Living with the Blairs was like being in a “spiritual hospital,” because they nurtured me and cared for me like I was their own son. It is doubtful I would have ever continued in the Truth without their love and support. They encouraged me to be true and were there to talk to when I had down and blue periods, which happened way too often. I can’t say enough about how important love and support is to someone who losses a mate by divorce…and an added burden was the loss of my sons for 4 years as well.

However, in 1975, my mom had a serious heart-attack and I came back to Denver to be with her. While staying with my mom, an old high school sweetheart, Jeannie, dropped by to see my mom in the hospital and right away I felt something for her. This was to be my first serious test about my convictions concerning divorce and remarriage. Jeannie felt the same way about me and we talked about marriage.

Here was to be my first strong experience concerning the will, hand, and power of God. In October 1975, Jeannie and I made plans to get married and I felt I owed it, out of respect, to go to Mississippi and tell the 2 sister workers I professed through, Maurine Baker and Mary Lucy Mask, that I was getting married and would likely no longer be going to meetings.

During the months that Jeannie and I planned our marriage, although I had still continued to go to meetings, my heart wasn’t in my service anymore. As I flew to Mississippi to attend the Jackson convention that year, 1975, I wondered if God even cared about me anymore or even thought about me. I remember thinking, “I wonder if God even thinks about me anymore?”

The first hymn chosen at that convention was “Thou Thinkest Lord of Me.” The presence, and the power and love of God was stunningly REAL! I wept and wept and knew without a doubt, I would be transgressing the Will of God by getting remarried. God spoke to me very loudly and personally at that convention and I changed my mind about getting married. I never told Maurine or Mary Lucy about Jeannie or my plans to remarry. It was settled…for a season. I told Jeannie we would not be getting married.

Jeannie kept hounding me to marry for about a year but my “no” held firm. I had a deeper relationship with God than ever before and prayed more earnestly and deeply to stay true than any time previously. My prayer life and spiritual life deepened and for the first time since I professed in 1968, I really felt I had a vital, daily, living relationship with God. And of great help was the love and support of the whole Blair family.

It was also at this time that I had a revelation about Matthew 5:32, “…saving for the cause of fornication…” In Jewish law, when a couple were engaged to marry, if one of the parties was unfaithful BEFORE marriage, they could, PUT AWAY the one who was untrue. It became clear that this did not apply to married couples as the word would have been ADULTERY…not FORNICATION.

Fornication is sex between TWO unmarried people. If one OR both were married, it would be adultery. This was something God made real to me because I wanted to know God’s will on this matter. The scripture is not a matter of opinion but truth. To me it was, and still is clear. In Mark 10:11-12, the condition of fornication isn’t even mentioned. God hates divorce. Although I had made a man-made vow, until death do us part, I made a binding vow to God to be true also, which is far more binding than a marriage vow, if taken outside the Will of God.

As I continued to work with the Blairs in their construction business, I did struggle with the flesh and although there was a constant war within me, I knew there would be no happiness outside the Will of God…and I knew if I remarried, it would be outside the Will of God.

As the years rolled by, there were temptations. However, the miraculous Hand of God kept me and as our old hymn #5 said, there was a love that would not let me go.

In 1978, my dear friend, Gary Bassett, came from New Mexico to live with me in Hayward. His companionship and fellowship was heart-warming. We had daily Bible studies together and had many friends and workers in our apartment in Hayward and had golden days together. Gary filled emptiness in my life that Claudia had left and I never seriously thought about remarriage during the 6 years that we lived together.

In 1984, I moved to Mountain View to be closer to my job at House of Printing. Gary moved back to New Mexico and I had a cast of different professing roommates in the San Jose field: Jim Robinson, Roy Farkas, and Rocky Geiser.

In 1989, my youngest son Galen, who was then 19, moved from Ohio to live with me in San Jose. A year later, he professed and it was like a dream come true. I had prayed so earnestly for both my sons and then in 1990, my oldest son, Jason came to live with us and he professed. I felt so blessed. Then a year later, Gary Bassett came to live with the boys and I and I had my sons and my dear friend all together with me. It seemed almost too good to be real…and it was.

In 1992, Gary, Jason, and Galen all got married and left our 4-bedroom home in San Jose. I instantly started suffering from severe, “empty nest syndrome,” and felt a profound loneliness.

For many years, I had a friendship with Betty Stanton from San Antonio, Texas. We would see each other occasionally and we kept in touch by letter and phone calls. Betty’s brother, Bob, had professed in the same meeting in Mississippi that Claudia and I did and I had met Betty at a convention in Mississippi in 1971, just weeks after Claudia and I divorced.

Betty came from a divided home. Her mother was staunch Lutheran and her dad was as hearty and zealous in Truth as anyone I’ve ever known. Betty had felt called to the work and offered while she was still in high school. However, as a child, she had polio and was crippled in one leg, much the same as Lily K. Hubert Childrers, the overseer in Texas at the time, didn’t think Betty would have the strength for the rigors of the work, so told her it would be best to pursue another calling. It devastated Betty because she felt truly called. A few years later, Hubert Childrers changed his mind and told Betty they had a place for her. However, Betty did not feel able to go at this time. Betty has always had the heart of a worker. She is one of the most Godly women I’ve ever met and has a very high standard. Her only fault, as I look back now, was falling in love with me and being willing to marry me. I’ve always felt that I married the wrong woman at the right time and the right woman at the wrong time.

In 1995, my mom suffered from another heart-attack and I flew back to Denver to be with her. It was obvious that she was going to need long-term care and I wouldn’t be able to give it. Betty was out of work at that time and I asked her if she would be interested in coming to Denver to help take care of my mom. She said she would be willing and I would be there with her for a few weeks before I had to fly back to California to return to my job at House of Printing. I paid her for helping take care of my mom.

During those days that Betty and I worked together taking care of mom, it was obvious to both of us that we had fallen in love. I asked Betty to marry me, not really thinking ahead to the future. In a moment of weakness, and on impulse, we got married in March of 1995. The day we married, heaven was shut to me. I lost my peace. I not only knew I had done something very wrong, worse, I didn’t seem to care.

Looking back now, I can see that I was acting on emotion rather than reason. It was a choice that I would regret deeply for years. I became more and more miserable and unhappy, although Betty was a perfect wife. We lived in Ceres, California and at that time, Rob Newman and Tom Fredgren were in our field. No one had to ask us not to take part in meeting…I knew I was wrong and didn’t take part.

Betty, being from Texas, where cases of divorce and remarriage are handled differently than California couldn’t understand why so many of the friends in that field shunned us. I learned a valuable lesson from our friends that loved us and were kind to us, and others who refused to even come in to our home. Kindness is always in season. Kindness neither condemns nor condones. Kindness leaves no scars.

For years, I had always been very close to Dick Middleton. When I married Betty, he was the first worker I told. He was devastated and felt he had failed me and let me down. We had a talk at a Denny’s in Mountain View and I will never forget that visit. He asked 3 things of me: (1) Don’t stop going to meetings. (2) Don’t get offended if others should turn their backs on us. (3) Please remember, he said, “I can’t stand behind you as a brother, but I will stand beside you as a friend.”

Uncle Dick kept his promise and once, when we were at Mountain Ranch for convention, we were sitting at a table outside having lunch, and although no one would come and sit by us, Uncle Dick got a tray of food and came and sat with Betty and I and visited with us. Roy Farkas also sat next to Betty and I at convention often times. No one I know has a clearer conviction against divorce and remarriage than Roy and yet he was kind to us and was a friend to Betty and I.

There were many Sundays that I didn’t want to go to meeting. Each time the emblems passed me by, I felt condemned. Sundays were miserable for me. Often times, I would lie in bed early Sunday morning and think I was not going. However, Betty would always be up early, reading and praying and she would always go to the piano and softly play hymns. This always softened my heart to be willing to go, if for no other reason, for her sake.

Herein lies a revelation I’ve often thought about. Had I married Jeannie, a beautiful woman who had many wonderful qualities, but wasn’t spiritual, I think my conscience would not have had the power it did. Marrying Betty, who is a very Godly woman, kept me close to the Will of God, even while on the outside of it.

From the year we married, 1995 on, I felt more and more miserable and my conscience condemned me and I had no peace or joy. Others in our meeting at Wainwrights could see it.

2001 was the great turning point in my life. Nick Enrietta, who knew both Betty and I very well, invited Betty and I to go with him from Elizabeth convention to the Vietnam Vets reunion in San Antonio in July of that year. While there, Uncle Fred Allan, who had brought the gospel to Vietnam, and Phyllis Munn and Bonnie Dalhin, the first 2 sisters to labor there, all asked us to pray for the work and friends in that country. I was faithful in doing this from that time on.

Another thing I started to pray for at the reunion, and every day forward, was for God to grant me the willingness, the power, and courage to get right. For the first time in the seven years Betty and I were married, I felt like my prayers were finally getting through to heaven.

In November 2001, my job at House of Printing was terminated after 20 years. I had seen this coming and had renewed my teaching credential to prepare to go back into the teaching profession.

However, as I was at a turning point in careers, I felt I was also at a turning point personally. Also, at this time, AMTRAK had given me a free pass to travel for a month for free. In order to sort things out, I decided to use this pass and travel before I settled in to finding a teaching job. One of the stipulations of the AMTRAK pass is that I had to travel also on at least one route in Canada. My mom had a cousin in Victoria in British Columbia, so I planned a trip there to ride a train that went up and back on Vancouver Island. It was on that trip my life made a U-turn.

The train from Victoria, up the island, a 6 hour trip, turned around and made the 6-hour trip. It was on the way back that it came fully in my heart to make a U-turn also. It was on December 22, 2001 that I purposed to get right with God. God gave me confirmations that He would deliver me from the mess I’d made of my life. Someday, Richard, I’d like to share in person more about these confirmations.

The next day, in a hotel room in Seattle, while on my knees, God made it very clear to me that he would give me the power and the courage to get right. And, while on a train in Washington, headed back for Modesto, I wrote Uncle Dick a letter telling him that I had come to the end of my rope and wanted to get right. I asked in the letter, what I should do.

When I got back home to Betty, our relationship had changed. I moved to another bedroom and we never slept together from that time on. I didn’t tell her right away that we had to separate as I was waiting for a reply from Uncle Dick. Weeks went by and there was no letter or call from him. Maybe he hadn’t received my letter.

In February of 2002, when I couldn’t wait any longer, I called Uncle Dick and he said he had received my letter but just didn’t know what to tell me. He said this was between God and I. I asked him what I must do. Should I get a legal separation, a divorce, or what? He said he had prayed about it but no answer came. This was between me and God.

I started looking for teaching jobs and did substitute teaching while waiting for a full-time job to open up. I still hadn’t told Betty why we had to sleep apart. Finally, feeling I had totally withdrawn from her, Betty demanded an answer. I told her, for the first time, that when she and I married I had lost my peace and each year I was just getting more and more unhappy. I told her she and I had to separate. Betty was crushed and devastated. She asked what she had done wrong. I told her, that was just it; she had done nothing wrong except marry me. She had been a perfect wife. I could not imagine a woman more ideal for me than Betty.

In the spring of 2002, I applied for a summer school teaching position at Waterford High School and received it. I told Betty that once this job was over, I would be moving out of our house in Ceres. This was to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. After my teaching assignment was done at the end of the summer of 2002, I told the workers in our field, Claudia T. and Lily K. that Betty and I would be separating. Lily told me she had been praying for that day ever since she had heard Betty and I married. Lily had spent about 6 months in San Antonio for some of her medical training before she went into the work and she and Betty were very close ever since those days. God could not have put anyone more supportive for Betty in that field than Lily.

On a Sunday night in the summer of 2002, I kissed and hugged Betty goodbye and we wept in each other’s arms for a very long time. This was the saddest day in my life. As I backed out of our driveway for the last time, I just sobbed. I felt I didn’t want to live any longer. I could not have peace with Betty and I couldn’t see how I would ever have a day of joy again in life. I wept all the way to Bob Pfister’s home in San Jose where I would live until I left for Vietnam in 2003.

My first morning at Bob’s, when I got down on my knees to pray, the overwhelming, and very strong and REAL presence of God came back to me with such force that I wept on my knees for hours. My peace, after being gone for 7 years, came back. It was as if God had thrown a spiritual quilt around me and comforted me like never before. Having God’s help to get right, and then having God’s peace for the first time in 7 years just overwhelmed me.

Although I still didn’t have approval from Uncle Dick to take part, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was right with God and had true, unspeakable peace. I called Uncle Dick to see if I could take part and he said he would be going to Seattle to have a meeting with the older brothers from the west coast and from Canada and they would discuss my case, as well as other issues. When Uncle Dick came back, he said they had discussed my case but there was a difference of opinions about my case. Some brothers said just separating from Betty was sufficient to me made right. Others said a legal separation was the right thing to do while others said a divorce was necessary to get right. Uncle Dick, once again said he didn’t know what I should do. It was up to me and God, he said again.

In desperation, I prayed and God said a divorce would prove to all, including myself that Betty and I were no longer man and wife. On March 12, 2003, I decided to file for a divorce. It was the right thing to do and it removed all doubt in my mind that Betty and I would no longer, in any sense, be man and wife. While living at Bob Pfister’s, I worked at substitute teaching while applying for full-time teaching positions.

Once my good friend John Parish came to spend a few nights with me at Bob’s home and in the kitchen one night, he said God is a debtor to no man and what I did would be blessed by God. What more blessing could I have besides peace, I thought.

In May of 2003, I’d heard that there were teaching positions open at a school in Hanoi. I sent an email to the school and shortly after, an email arrived from John McCracken that began, “Welcome! Welcome to Vietnam! We have a teaching position open for you.” Little did I know that John was a worker and the school was used for meetings. While this door opened, no teaching positions opened in San Jose. I had prayed for Vietnam every day since the reunion and now I had the opportunity to go help answer some of my own prayers.

Perhaps you would know Richard, why the 4 years I spent in Hanoi were the happiest years of my life with the exception of this one. Seeing my mom profess in September 2007 and seeing her pass on in February of this year, has given me tremendous peace, joy, and comfort. God has blessed me richly and I can say a hearty AMEN to John telling me that God is a debtor to no man.

And, herein, I caution myself that I can still slip through the ice at any time if I ever stop watching and praying. My relationship with God is deeper now than it has ever been but I still don’t trust this wicked heart of mine. I most often pray that God would save me from myself. It is not those things outside of me that I fight so much as that which is within me.

In writing this, it has given me a clearer picture of divorce and remarriage and of my own relationship with God. I’ve been on my knees many times while writing this and doing this makes me just want to thank, glorify, and praise God for His unspeakable gift of Jesus and what He taught about all things, including divorce and remarriage. The scriptures are so clear to me on this. My own experience confirms the words of Jesus. Some may argue scripture, and there is a division amongst us. However, one can never argue with a person’s peace. Peace, beyond understanding, has a price and I never want to lose my peace again.

Before I put my head on my pillow tonight, I once again will thank God for giving me a conscience that dictates doing the right thing. The more I obey my conscience, the more it demands of me. The way gets narrower because of it. But, the joy and peace increase. As you so aptly put it when you were staying with me in Hanoi, death produces life.

As divorces and remarriages increase alarmingly in America, they are increasing amongst our fellowship also. There is a clear standard and in time, I pray and believe that there will be but one standard on this issue: divorce and remarriage is wrong. No society is stronger than the families within us. The families are the cells that make up the whole body of a society. A society is only as strong as the families within it. God’s standard is for unity.

You can see the wisdom, guided from above, that Uncle Dick used. It MUST be up to the individual to decide what steps must be taken to get right with God. No worker in California ever told me I couldn’t take part. No worker suggested that Betty and I separate. However, after I filed for a divorce, Uncle Dick and I had an unforgettable visit about all this and he asked me whether or not workers are right for asking people not to partake if they are divorced and remarried.

Richard, although to me, the issue of divorce and remarriage is very clear, a person who is divorced must want, from the depths of their heart to know the truth and be willing for God’s will and keep the same standard. You and I know that if there are two standards, God’s standard is always the higher of the two. It is a higher standard for a divorced person to remain single than to remarry. The Holy Spirit has made it very clear to me in this experience that I need to remain single in order to please God and do His will.

If there is one issue Satan is attempting to use to divide our fellowship and sow discord amongst brethren, it is this issue. I do not know any other reason that there would be division among workers about this issue. Leslie White wrote a letter to all the workers on the Colorado staff apologizing for mistakes he made while here in this state. Although he did not specifically mention this issue, I feel he wishes now that he would have handled these cases differently.

Although this is just my experience, I feel it underscores the heart of God on the issue of divorce and remarriage. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this with you.

With sincere appreciation and divine love,

your brother,

David

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

My Dear Brother Mel,

YES! If my experience can help ONE person, one soul, it will all be worth the pain of the past. The peace in my soul far outweighs the pain of separation from a beloved dear woman. People can argue scripture and justify themselves but no one can argue with our peace.

Thanks for considering my experience worthy of being shared…

Come visit me in Hanoi whenever you can…

With love in Him,

your brother,

David

B patient, B prayerful, B humble, B mild,

B wise as Solomon, B meek as a child.

B studious, B thoughtful, B loving, B kind,

B sure you make matters subservient to mind.

B cautious, B prudent, B friendly with few,

B temperate in argument, pleasure, and view.

B cheerful, B grateful, B helpful, B firm,

B peaceful, benevolent, B willing to learn.

B courageous, B gentle, B liberal, B just,

B aspiring, B lowly, because thou art dust.

B penitent, B circumspect, sound in the faith,

B active, devoted, B faithful till death.

B honest, B holy, B transparent and pure,

B dependent, B Christ-like, and you’ll B secure.

Isaiah, the servant of the Lord, said God’s people were trees of righteousness. The reason they were called trees of righteousness is because they were the planting of the Lord. In the creation God created many natural trees – they were not all alike. They were alike in this respect that they all fulfilled God’s will. Since leaving our country, I have seen many many trees I have not seen before. When we were in Japan, one of our friends took us to a beautiful Japanese garden. In that garden there were many trees I had never seen before. Some of them had names on them, but we could not read the names, so we asked, “What is the name of those trees?” He told us the names of those trees, but we could not remember them, nor could we pronounce them. Since we came here, we have seen many trees we have not seen before and they have told us some of their names. We may not remember your names, but we will never forget your spirit of fellowship.

When the Lord planted the trees, He planted them for His enjoyment. When He planted those natural trees, He said, “It is good.” We are thankful God has His trees of righteousness in all countries. There is one thing that we as trees of the Lord’s planting have in common. We must all draw from the same source for fruitfulness. Our relationship with God will help us to fulfill the purpose for which we are created. Some trees were used in the Bible days for building purposes. When Solomon built the temple, he brought many trees from other lands for many reasons. Some of those trees were used for pillars in the temple; some of the wood was used for making harps and musical instruments. The pillars brought strength into the Kingdom. The musical instruments brought harmony into the Kingdom. These two things were very important in the temple. We are thankful today for those who are pillars in the building of God. Jesus was that great pillar of truth for all righteousness. Jesus was that great pillar that brought strength into the Kingdom of God in His day. People today who are the Lord’s planting can be like that also. The harps and the musical instruments were very necessary just like the pillars were necessary. We are very thankful for those who bring harmony into the Kingdom and preserve harmony in the Kingdom. We are thankful for the true foundation that we have in Christ to build upon. None of us know how long we have to build. Some may have many years, some may have only a few years. Because we do not know how many years we have, we want to do the best with the years that we have.

There was a man in our field who was building a house and he knew he had a terminal illness. He told us one day, “I may not have long to live, but I want to build in such a way my children can enjoy it.” We appreciate today people who think about the next generation and want to build well. We can so clearly see in the life of Jesus all the things we need to put into our building for eternity. Some trees are just used for food, like fruit and nuts. We think of Jesus, who came from heaven, who was the Bread of Life. Jesus also shared with many, many people that Bread from heaven. When we are aware that we are the Lord’s planting, we too would like to have bread to share with other people. We read about Joseph how in his day and generation he fed his brethren with bread. I am thankful for the many people who have been feeding me all these years.

Some trees are just shade trees – that is all the purpose for which they were created. We can think of many of the Lord’s people who are like that, shade trees. We read about Deborah who was a Mother in Israel. We read that she sat under her palm tree and people came for judgment or advice. We think of people today that are just like that – we need some advice or help, and we go to them in our need. Many years ago, my companion and I were very young in this Work. There were times when we just felt we had to have some advice, and we would go to a dear sister. Sometimes we just wanted to sit under her palm tree. Sometimes we walked many miles just to spend a few hours with her because we needed her help. She was the Lord’s servant, but she was not well and she was spending that year resting. We always felt thankful we could sit in the shade of her tree. There are many people who need that kind of fellowship today, also.

There are some trees just used for medicine. There is a certain tree that produces balm for healing. I think of people in the Bible, as well as in our day, that are like balm to us. These people just have a way of bringing healing to our soul. There was that experience about Naaman in the OT. He had a very distressed spirit; he was very angry because he did not want to follow the instructions of the Lord’s servant. Naaman had some wise servants who went to him and talked to him. He said, “Master, if the servant of God had asked you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? Wouldn’t it be better to just do what the servant of the Lord told you to do?” Those servants had the balm that quieted his spirit. We are glad that there are people God uses to calm our spirits, that is just like giving us that balm. I think we all remember that story about David and Abigail. David was going to avenge himself and take things into his own hands, and that would have brought him a great deal of regret and sorrow, but Abigail went to David with a little balm and the words she spoke to him caused him to change his plan and his mind. Later David thanked Abigail for her godly advice and help.

Some trees are used for a certain kind of perfume. I think of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians that they were unto God a sweet savour of Christ. When Mary broke the alabaster box, it was a very wonderful savour that went up to God. When she was in the presence of Jesus and others, she broke that box of ointment. When she was breaking the box, I am sure all eyes would have been upon her, but when she anointed Jesus, all eyes would be on Jesus. It is a wonderful thing when we just point people to Jesus in spite of ourselves.

When we were in Hawaii, I saw a tree I have never seen one like it in our country. You may have a tree like that here, I don’t know. There it is called “the traveler’s palm.” It is like a huge hand or fan. This tree always points in the same direction, east and west. In the old days, when travelers were lost, they would look for that palm and they could always depend on that tree for direction. We think about Jesus coming into the world to give direction to people and people could depend upon Him also for direction for their lives. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. We can depend on His direction today just like the early travelers and the early disciples. We are thankful for people in the Kingdom that also are like that.

In our country in America where I labour, we often see trees that are only used for one purpose. There are rows of trees planted around a farm for a “wind break.” They are not fruit trees, they don’t produce anything for fragrance, and have not the purpose of other trees, but they make wonderful windbreaks. In the winter when the storms are raging, the fields are protected by these wind breaks. All of God’s people can be like that to their brethren. We all pass through storms in our exper­ience in life. Many times people have been like that with us, they helped us in the storm. There are many experiences that our brethren go through which we have never been through, an experience we have never had like that. We cannot really understand because we have not had that experience, but everyone of us can say, “We care.” Sometimes it is just the fact of people standing by and helping us by their spirit. Storms are not forever, but friends in Christ are forever. We are just thankful for people who stand in their place that are just like those windbreak trees. It looks to me that every person that is a planting of the Lord has a place to fill. Whatever place God has given us, I hope we will appreciate it. We don’t know how many people are depending on us to fulfill the purpose of God.

In another place Isaiah said, “The trees of the field would clap their hands.” I have never seen trees clapping their hands, but I have seen the Lord’s people when they are happy. Isaiah said that these trees would clap their hands, they would go forth with peace and joy. I think of the Lord’s people here at convention and all the good things we are getting from heaven. We can all go forth with peace and joy in our hearts.

Baptism is one of the great provisions planned by God, for the good of His people. It is included in the last command of Jesus, Matthew 28: 16-20 to be carried out “unto the end of the world.” Baptism is not an optional step. It should not be looked upon as something to be put off until a more convenient season. It is one of the most important steps that we take in the way of salvation, one that requires very serious consideration.

Baptism, as it is taught in the Scriptures, is not a form. It is not a matter of a person being immersed just because Jesus was, or because Jesus taught that we should be. Baptism is an act of burial. Romans 6:4, when we began following the Lord in His true way, it automatically separated us from our old manner of life and the things for which we were once living. Baptism is the act whereby that dead past is then buried behind us. The following verses list some of the things that the Lord’s people are encouraged to die to, or to turn their backs upon: 1 Corinthians 11:14 -15, 2 Corinthians 7:1, Ephesians 4:22-32, 1 Timothy 2:8-10, Titus 2:11-14, 1 Peter 3:1-4, 1 John 2:15-17.

Some of the above verses refer to ornaments. They speak of things that are superfluous as far as a child of God is concerned. The wedding ring is not considered an ornament. It is a symbol of a sacred vow and is worn as a reminder of that vow. Ornamental rings, however, are superfluous and among the ornaments that should be “put off.” There is a reason for this. The end toward which the Lord has always laboured is to make His people different. We are intended to be different in spirit, different in appearance, different in our manner of life. Exodus 33:16, this is what makes us a light in the world around us. Phillippians 2:15, if we’re like the world, which is living in darkness, there would be no light. Our only hope of being a light is by being different.

Baptism is also referred to as a planting, Romans 6:5. There is nothing very beautiful about a seed that is planted; the beauty is in the new life that comes forth. Likewise, there is nothing beautiful about our old manner of life, or its characteristics. But, when it is planted there is something very beautiful about the new life that comes forth. This thought is brought out so well in Galatians 2:20 and Colossians 2:12, 3:1-4.

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, Paul used the Red Sea experience as a type of baptism. This presents the true order of baptism. God sent his two servants, Moses and Aaron, down to the people with the gospel of deliverance. Their response to that gospel brought them into touch with the Lamb, which was a type of Christ. It was this that saved them. Exodus 12:1-14, the next step was the Red Sea, which was their baptism. They passed through those waters, which closed in behind them, burying forever the things that had once held them in bondage.

The authority to baptise was given to only one type of ministry. The ones to whom Jesus gave this authority in Matthew 28:16-20 were men who had been willing to follow Jesus in His way. This is very important. No minister can bring you into anything more than what he has. The wrong kind of preacher, even though he may baptise by immersion, can only bring a person into the church that he himself is a part of. On the other hand, when one is baptised by a minister who is in fellowship with Jesus, he shares with them that same pure fellowship that he is enjoying, 1 John 1:3.

I was reading about a little boy – a little boy, a little lad, it says, who had 5 barley loaves and 2 small fishes. And I just wondered how he came to have 5 barley loaves? It was more than he would have needed on the journey. It could have been that he was selling them – if he was the baker’s boy. But anyway, he had enough for the Lord to use and feed the thousands. And, I thought he must have kept near the disciples for Andrew to have noticed him – he said to the Lord, “There is a lad here who has 5 barley loaves and 2 small fishes” and we know that as we keep near to the Lord, the provision will never be lacking.

It caused me to think of famine. I know we have been feasting on Royal dainties but we also know that the time of famine will come unless we keep near the Lord all the time. It tells us about famine in the days of Abraham and Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there. Sojourn – it says “to remain – to dwell for temporary – a little while – just a little while.” But, as we heard, it didn’t go too well with Abraham and he left Egypt.

Then we read about another famine in the time of Isaac and before Isaac could go down to Egypt, the Lord said to Isaac, “Don’t go down to Egypt.  Remain here in this land and I will be with you and I will bless you.”

We read that Isaac dug wells in that land of the Philistines and it says that he sowed and he reaped a 100 fold – he was obedient to the voice of the Lord. And it was also just sojourning – he was never meant to stay amongst the Philistines.

As we have been reading about famine in the time of  Joseph’s days, Joseph’s family came down to Egypt where he was and they were fed by Joseph. When we were working in the Free State, one of our farmer friends told us that the government at that time had a plan for famine. Every time there was a very good harvest, they would put away as much as possible in the granaries so that they would not be caught napping in the time of famine. And whenever there was another good harvest, they first used what was put away and then they filled up the granaries again so that there would always be bread – also to feed the neighbouring countries – they called it the Joseph’s Plan. I don’t know whether we have any plans today, but anyway it was a lovely thought to me that such provision was made.

Then we read of other famines – we read of the time in Judges when the Midianites were very busy and they were destroying all that God’s people had and Gideon was alive and awake to thresh wheat near the wine press so that the enemy would not get hold of it and he was called a Mighty Man of Valour because he saw an opportunity of doing something in time of need.

We read of the time of Ruth and Naomi and Elimilech they went down to Moab in time of famine. Also it says to sojourn there. That sojourn was for 10 years and Naomi felt that she was bereft of everything that was precious to her – her husband and her two sons as she said, “The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.” As we know, Ruth had to be found – it was as the only way that Ruth could help –  some people and then – Naomi and her husband were going down to Moab but then Ruth came along and as the people said, she was better to Naomi than 10 sons were – wonderful worth was found there in the land of Moab.

In Elijah’s day, there was also a famine and in II Kings 8 we read of another famine. Elisha had come by the home of that faithful woman – it says she was a great woman – she had spoken to her husband about building a little room on the wall for this man of God who passed by often. And they could make use of that room and they could rest there. She was from Shunam and the time came when there was going to be a famine and Elisha warned her and said, “Go where you can find a place to sojourn and stay a little while until the famine is past,” and that famine lasted 7 years. Then she came back.

While we were in Port Elizabeth, one day – I think it was the last day, Saturday – the bread van was late and there was a bit of a hurry-scurry that there would be no bread for the evening meal and the pantry ladies were on the phone, “Where is the bread?” They phoned and said they couldn’t find the place but anyway, they gathered together and put on some tables, a few slices of bread, hoping that the bread van would come in time, and well, they had bread for supper. But so often we don’t realize the need for the bread to be ready at the right time. We were encouraged in Port Elizabeth to be more spiritual and not to be proud – it was said over and over again! Because there is just something in our human natures – we also heard there is nothing wrong with being good at anything but it is very wrong to be proud about it! And there was such a longing in my heart to know how to be spiritual – not holier than thou, but so often it worries me when we come into a home and we talk and we talk about anything but things that we are living for.

We read in Malachi that the people of God came often together and spoke about these things and the Lord heard it. And it was written down as a remembrance. It’s very precious in God’s sight and sometimes when we have been workers together and we have traveled and somehow we have lovely conversations and I thought, “Now, why don’t we always do it!” Because it is such a help – such an encouragement when we feel God is drawing near and if we don’t feel it we are so empty.

In David’s day, there was also a famine and then, the thing that was really in my mind was – David it says, when he was still serving in Saul’s service, it says David behaved himself wisely and more wisely! Now, David’s army was strong and he said to his captain of the host – he said, “Go number Israel for me.” I don’t know – I would not like to judge David, perhaps he was proud but it says 800,000 strong soldiers there were. But anyway, Joab didn’t miss God’s word and he said, “Why does the King delight in this thing? I am always astounded that Joab was the man who told David, “This is not right.” Anyway, it says that God was working also and David did this thing and brought back the number and it was then that David’s heart smote him. He still had that tender conscience and he said, “I have done very foolishly.”  Isn’t it so that sometimes we think back of times that we have done things and have said things and we feel that we have done very foolishly. We should have had more of the wisdom of God. I feel the need to pray for more of that wisdom that comes from above. We know what it is like.

Then, I was just thinking of Amos saying, “There will be a time coming when there will be a famine in the land – not a famine for bread but a famine for the Word of God and they will go from north to south and from east to west, without finding it.” I just thought how God has blessed us in these conventions and has drawn so near and has touched us as we heard in a way no one else knows about. But it is for us to go out and do it, not just be a wishful thinker and I just long that God would help us because we have a desire every day just to draw a little nearer – a little closer so that we may keep this spirit with us.

David prayed at one time when he saw the people offering willingly for the temple for Solomon, his son – he prayed to God that he would keep this spirit in the imagination of their hearts.  I also long to do this for myself.

Ida Mae wrote the following story.  I liked what Lealand told us Wednesday evening of Portage – that we, as God’s people, have the privilege of bringing the gospel to those about us and to not hide or shrink from questions asked of us.  So this account seems confirm that to me – of being sensitive to the voice of our Heavenly Father.

Reuben Stephen from India, before he was in the work, he liked to help the workers in whatever he could.  He was returning from work on his bike and saw two blind men walking, so he offered to go with them so they would not trip on something.  When their ways separated, he told them “goodbye,” but a voice told him to go with them to where they lived.  So he did, and on the way, they asked him who he was and about his faith.  They were invited to go to the meetings, which meant that Reuben had to go get them and take them by bus and get them back by 8pm, or they would miss their supper.  Another blind man heard about this, and wanted to go too.  He came in his beard and Bermudas, but he would remain after the meeting to ask questions, knowing he’d miss his supper.  He professed, married, and had a son.  The son became ill one day, and in the hospital he was in a room with another boy, who died.  The parents of this boy were so impressed with our friends, they wanted to hear and came and professed.  The first two blind men did not profess and moved up north.  Seventeen years later when Reuben was in the work, they wrote to his mother saying they wanted to hear again and they professed.  The wanted the workers to go to visit another blind man in another city, where they had meetings, and two couples came and professed.  So he said if he had not paid heed to that voice, many would never have had the opportunity of serving God.