We bless your name this morning, Father. We come before your presence with singing. We come into your gates with thanksgiving. Our hearts are full of your joy and of your love. And yet, Lord, we confess that our minds are still confused. We seek that which we know is there. And yet we have not arrived at that place where you have called us.

So, Father, we come this morning in the name of your Son, Jesus, to present ourselves for your Holy Spirit, to change us, to move us from where we are to where you want us to be. Amen. You may be seated.

Oh, did you sleep well last night? Oh, boy, did I sleep well! I thought I was never going to get to bed, but other than that, why, the everlasting gospel was... Went on and on for a while last night. But I could listen to Morris Sheets just for a long time. Fortunately, Morris has got the kind of delivery that keeps you awake. So you really can't go to sleep under his ministry.

But it was a great beginning last night. I was just really thrilled with what God is doing and saying. And this is the first of the teaching sessions. We had determined in the opening days of the National Leadership Conference that we would combine preaching with teaching. There is a subtle difference between the two, where basically preaching moves toward a decision. It is persuasive in what it does, and teaching is basically the dissemination of information that allows you to make a decision without somebody twisting your tail.

In the process. So last night was preaching, this morning we'll not do any tail twisting. I'll leave that up to the Holy Spirit who does a much better job of that than I do. And if we can stimulate you to the place of then allowing the Spirit of God to do something in your own life, then I will be pleased and satisfied with what we're doing.

Morris mentioned last night that... And I have said before that the older I grow, the less answers I have. I just don't have very many answers. In fact, I know a lot less now than I did ten years ago. By virtue of the fact that I am the president of the National Leadership Conference this year, which is an office which usually gets passed along to somebody who was not there at the last meeting.

But anyway, I... special room over here in Pritchell Hall. I didn't even know it existed. It usually gets given to the bigwigs who come in. But there is one room in Pritchell Hall which is a corner room that has a king-sized bed in it. And I slept in it last night. And that's the first time I've ever been to Ridgecrest and slept in a king-sized bed.

It's usually the room that's given to the... to the main speaker during the Baptist Assembly summer that they have up here. And we woke up this morning. Jackie reached over and touched me. She said, "I was just laying here thinking, I wonder how many Baptist bigwigs have slept in this bed." And I thought, dear Jesus, we have arrived.

And here I am sleeping in the same bed that Charles Stanley had slept in. You know, fumigate it before he gets in it next time. But I lay there this morning thinking, you know, if I could have just been here ten years ago when I had all the answers, and now here I am and I don't know anything.

What's happened to me across these years is I've begun asking questions, which is always a very dangerous thing to do, and I have asked more and more questions. And now I've reached a place in my public presentation where I'm asking questions rather than giving answers. And that has caused consternation on the part of folks who like for preachers to give answers.

They like to come and get an answer and go away. They don't ever apply those answers, and all of those of you who are in ministry know that. But they like it just the same. They like the dogmatism of the pulpit, the pulpit thumper, the guy who says, "This is the way it is." Jesus is coming at 3 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. And we all get very excited about that.

And I'm at a place now where I don't even know when he's coming. I believe he is, but I'm not even sure what form he's going to use when he comes back. I used to know all of those things. So I've come this morning with a whole lot of questions. I've been up early asking myself the questions which I am going to ask you as we go along.

So our purpose here is to stimulate. Now, we've got some folks who are kind of standing around the back, and are there any extra chairs? Would you hold up a hand if you... Oh, God, there's lots of them. If any of you all want to come down here, we've got lots of empty seats down here.

There's probably some reason that nobody is sitting beside these people, but you'll... There's a couple right here on the front row in spitting difference if you want to come down here. But there's chairs all around if you'd like to because we're going to be here for a while this morning. It's an hour and a half session and I'd hate for you to have to stand for you.

So anybody else wants one, we still have some extras down here. Just kind of crawl over folks and get in here. Okay, I guess that's everybody who wants a seat. We've still got some down here if anybody wants some. Anybody still looking for some chairs? Hold your hand up again if you've got some extra ones.

Okay, there's a spot here. Okay, that's fine. We'll find them. Just kind of wander up and down the sides here and look in there and see where they are. I have a very dear friend of mine who was in public ministry. I'll not call his name this morning. If I did, probably 90% of you would know who he is.

He has a public television ministry, pastor and evangelist, has a worldwide kind of ministry. And eight months ago, his wife called me on the phone and was weeping, was crying. I was passing through the city where she lives, and I agreed to stop over and see her. Her husband was out of town, as he usually is.

And she just kind of opened up and unloaded on me that she had discovered that he was... that he was on drugs, had shifted to cocaine, and had been on drugs for probably two years, had hid it, and it was still hidden. As far as she knew, she and another preacher on the West Coast, who, bless his heart, had been supplying him, were the only ones who knew this.

He had gone beyond the place of just sniffing a little cocaine when he was with this pastor. On the West Coast, to where he was now buying it off the streets and was going into a process that they call freebasing, which is grinding it up and smoking it to get high. She estimated that he was at that time spending about $250 a day on cocaine, which was being bought with the tithes and offerings of people who were contributing into his ministry.

Spent some time with him, confronted him. We had him down, invited him down to Florida and insisted that he come down. A friend of mine who is a psychotherapist who is in the counseling ministry with us and we had him put into a hospital where he was there for a week in a detoxification program under a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist released him from the hospital saying that he was at least detoxed. And he flew out of there to Charlotte to where he was to be on the PTL program that night. In the process, he stopped in Atlanta and doped himself up again and was back into it. I did not know a great deal about cocaine until I got involved with this. I had just heard things. I mean, I read and heard, but I had never had firsthand experiences with how powerful and insidious this particular drug is.

It had gripped him as a demon would grip. And he was hooked into it, still able to function and look normal. And in fact, over dinner one night, he joked with me and said it really enhanced his preaching, that he was a much better preacher when he had had cocaine than he was ordinarily.

And I guess if you are not anointed by the Holy Spirit, you can be anointed by a whole lot of things. A. Allen, one of the old Pentecostal preachers, candidly confessed before he died that he preached better when he was drunk than he did when he was sober, and finally died of acute alcoholism.

We finally, through a whole series of events, were able to get this fellow into a program where he is now off of the drug. And is functioning again, although there's a lot of carryover problems, as you can imagine, from this. Carryover into his family, into many other areas where there's many problems that are still in existence.

Now, as the word got out to a very small group, I mean small group, I mean four or five people, six people perhaps, who knew of the situation here. And invariably, I began hearing people say, he needs to be out of the ministry. He should not be in the ministry. And I imagine that, as I have just shared, what little bit I have shared here with you, that that immediately has come into your mind also.

What's a man like that doing in the ministry? And yet when I talked to him, he said, "I can't leave it." He said, "There's a drive inside of me. That if I don't do this, I'll die. If I don't preach, I'll die."

Can you understand that? Yeah, okay. I hope you can, because that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the call of God.

Now, it's such a big subject that, as I said, the best I can do is raise a few questions, and I'm not here to give you very many answers on this. But I am here to stimulate you to think about it. Is it inside of you that drives you on? That inside of you because my friend says, "I've got to do it drunk or sober, high or low, detoxed or full of drugs, it doesn't make any difference. I've got to do this now. It's more than a matter of this is all I know how to do."

It's a drive. If you're going to starve to death, you've got to get money somewhere to buy food with. But it was more than that. Something much, much deeper inside that says, "I have got to do this." If I don't do it, I die.

I have another friend. I don't know why I attract people like this, but I had breakfast with him this last week, living in my town in Florida, a little town on the East Coast.

We were in college together. Went to college. He was a year behind me, I guess. Went into the ministry when he finished college. Went on to Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville. Came out of the seminary, pastored some large Southern Baptist churches. Was successful in his ministry.

But the whole thing began to fall down around him. The ministry began to crumble around him. And he began to drink on the sly. And the alcohol immediately took effect into his life. And he became alcoholic and lost everything.

A friend of mine, a friend of his, gave him a job in the motel business. And he clerked in motels. And then rose to the position of manager of a motel and was finally transferred to Florida where he showed up at a meeting where I was speaking.

And something sparked inside of him after having been out of the pastorate for several years off into the motel business. It sparked inside of him. And he came and visited me and I prayed for him. And he received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And I baptized him in water in my swimming pool.

And he went back into the ministry and began pastoring independent, spirit-filled congregations. And again, there was a success about him because he's a dynamic, charismatic personality. By charismatic, I mean in his own personality. He's got a lot of charm and ability to do this in his strength.

And this time the Holy Spirit was working through him and there were miracles following after him. And immediately the ministry began to grow, and he began to travel, and as he did, he got intrigued with the whole concept that maybe he was called into a national or an international ministry.

And he met a young woman who was a really beautiful young woman who was a musician, and they started to travel together. And before I knew it, he had divorced his wife and had married this young woman who was 20 years his junior.

And found out that she was with child in the midst of all of this. And all of a sudden, everything fell apart on him again, and he started to drink again, and then shifted into drugs at the same time.

He called me one night from far, far away and was saying that he could not go any further. He was going to take his life. In fact, he was up in the Dakotas, and I told him that I would... I would not help him, counseled him against all of this, that if he could make his way to where I was, that I would help him.

But I would not send him money, and I would not bail him out of his terrible situation. And so he got on a bus and traveled 30-some hours and finally came to where I was. In fact, I was in Pensacola with Ken Summerall at the time.

He was a mess. I mean, he was a terrible mess. When I took him to eat that night, he could not even make a decision as to whether he should order coffee or tea. And he just looked at me and he said, "You make the decision." He couldn't tie his own shoes. I mean, everything.

He was gone. And I didn't know whether he was going to live, physically live or not. And I told him that we would bring him to Melbourne. And I said, "I am not going to restore you into ministry."

He said, as far as I'm concerned, the ministry is dead. It's gone forever. You'll never go back into ministry. I said, "The only thing I can do is save your life." And he said, that's more than anybody else has offered.

So we brought him down to Melbourne and got him a job, digging ditches, literally, with a friend who's in an irrigation business, to put him to work at $3.50 an hour.

With his young wife and a child that's younger than my grandchildren. And here he is, my age. And he has done that now for two and a half years. He has dug ditches.

And I had breakfast with him this last week. And I asked him to preach for me on a Sunday night over the next three weeks. And he sat there at the table and wept, just wept and wept and wept.

And he said, "Look at my life." He said, "I've divorced my wife. I've married another woman. I've left my children. I've destroyed everything I've touched."

He said, "I'm not fit to preach." But he said, "I cannot escape inside of me that this is all I have ever wanted to do all of my life, is to do that."

And he said, what am I going to do with this call? First of all, who's going to have me? And I said, "I don't know whether you're ever going to go back into the ministry, per se. I don't know of a church that would have you.

But I want you to come and share. All we're going to do is take it one step at a time. I'll open the door. I think you've got something to say out of your life. To this group of people, maybe to nobody else, but at least to this group of people who have stood behind you and who have helped you financially and who have followed you through these last two years of ministry.

I don't know where we go with that. We don't have a staff position that's open. And even if we did, I'm not sure that you're the right man for that. But we'll give you a start.

And he said, "All you've done is open the door on something that I've tried to shut for years now, for two years. I've tried to close this door on this call. In my life."

Shove it back into the closet. He said, every time I open the door, there it is, alive, wanting to come out again. What do I do with it? What do you do with it?

What do you do with the situation? Do you understand what I'm talking about, that there is something inside of some people? It's not inside of everybody.

Morris was talking about it last night, and he put his finger on it. It's that subtle difference between being a man of God and being God's man. It's that subtle difference between being the called and the chosen.

That for some reason, and I'm not sure I know why, God has selected certain people, put his hand on them, and said, "I have chosen you." And I don't care what you do with your life. I don't care how you try to destroy it. I don't care how you try to destroy others.

It's always there.

Now, we'll not have time this morning to do an extensive Bible study. We'll take a look at a few verses as we go along. But just recall with me for a minute a man by the name of Saul who was the first king of Israel who was called of God.

He was called of his people and he was called of God. And he messed his life up. I mean, he was a mental and emotional wreck if you'll just read through the life of King Saul.

I mean, who would want Saul as pastor? Here's a guy who goes into tantrums and screams and beats his head against the wall and throws spears at people and gets involved with the witches and seeks answers from all different kinds of things, messes around with the occult. Disobeys God.

And yet David, who was a man after God's own heart, took a look at King Saul and said, "He's anointed." He's anointed, and I cannot touch God's anointed. I have to leave that up to God.

What do you do with a man like Saul, who has a call on his life, but he does everything he can to destroy that call, and yet God says, "I have called him."

Passage in Romans. Let me read it to you. This is Romans 11. You're familiar with it. As far as the gospel is concerned, this is Romans 11, 28.

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account. He's talking about the enemies of Israel. But as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.

Now, I think

Here is the cleaned-up version of the sermon transcription:

I was kind of like the lives of my two friends that I have described here this morning. I was not into drugs or alcohol, but I had effectively destroyed every bit of ministry that I had. I had been a speaker up here at Ridgecrest on occasions before as a Southern Baptist pastor. And then all of that had been... taken away from me. Actually, it wasn't taken away from me. I threw it away in a lot of foolishness, which I'll not go into here this morning.

Anyway, I had lost all of my status as a Southern Baptist, had been fired from two Southern Baptist churches. Everything was gone. And I would get around people every once in a while who would say to me during that very, very dark period of my life, "You don't belong in the ministry. You're not fit to preach." In fact, I heard those words from people in my church before they threw me out or after they threw me out.

Sometimes it's easier to say it when you're down than it is when you're up. They have their foot on your neck. And I remember the sinking feeling inside. That's the reason I can empathize with my friends. The sinking, terrible feeling on the inside. Not fit to preach. But what else can I do? That's all I'm called to do.

That's all I'm called to do. I could go into business, I guess. I can get a job. But that does not satisfy. All that does is put food on the table. That does not satisfy this thing inside of me that says, "This is what I have called you to do." What do I do with that? What do I do with God's gifts and his call are irrevocable?

I sat down this morning early. Just at dawn when I got up out of that king-sized bed here on the Baptist conference grounds and went over to the little desk and started making some notes on this yellow pad of paper of the things that I know for a certain that I am called to do.

And I had a big, long list of things. And could I ask if Garland Bayer is here, his wife needs him. Garland here? Not in this room.

Okay. Okay, the things that I was called to do. And I had this big, long list. And then I began to differentiate between the things that I was called to do and the things that I was gifted to do. And realized there's a difference in those things. I am gifted in certain areas, but I'm not sure that I'm called in those areas.

I can do a lot of things. In fact, I want to do a lot of things. And that's gotten me into a lot of trouble. Because I have not been able to distinguish between the things I want to do and the things that I am called to do. I think it's Gordon MacDonald in a little book that he's written recently called Ordering Your Private World, which is an excellent book in which he distinguishes between those who are driven and those who are called.

He says most of us are driven rather than called. It's the push rather than the ongoing tug. And there's a difference between a push and a tug with this. I am trying to distinguish in my own life between the push and the tug. The push comes from those things that I'm qualified to do that I would like to do. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.

I'm struggling, for instance, with my whole writing ministry right now. For years, I wrote collaborative books. I worked with famous people and wrote their stories for them. Some of them became famous because I wrote for them, because of the combination of somebody who is gifted in one area and their gifts in another area.

There's a chemistry that happens out there. And Nicky Cruz was one of those people. Nicky became famous because I joined with him in putting together a book called Run, Baby, Run. Others I worked with who were famous in their own right, Catherine Kuhlman, Corey Ten Boom, even Pat Robertson.

And all I did was augment what they were doing with the gift that I had on the inside. But anyway, I worked with a number of people in collaborative writing for a number of years. And then I really felt that God was saying to me, "Don't do this anymore." Start writing on your own. I have given you some things to say. And you're not to collaborate with other people now.

The as-told-to days are over, as far as I can see. And yet every once in a while there'll be an opportunity that will open out there. One of the things that's happened is that the bottom has kind of fallen out of the book business right now. Books are not selling as they were 15 years ago, 10 years ago, when I could write a book and it would sell a million copies like that.

And that's not happening now. You do very good to get the first printing. So I've shifted a lot of my attention over to other kinds of writing, magazine writing. I'm working strongly with Charisma magazine and now doing some work with this newsletter, which I may talk about a little bit later.

A whole different kind of writing. But every once in a while, the door will open. I'll get an invitation. In fact, James Robinson called me a couple of weeks ago. Talked for a while. And James is a friend, and I really believe in what he's doing. I appreciate and respect his ministry, where he is, kind of standing between the evangelicals and the charismatics.

And I believe that God has placed him here as a bridge to shake both camps. And James called, and then his publisher called, and wanted me to go to work on his life story, that nobody has really put this thing together. And I said, "I can do that." I know I can do that.

I know I can feel it inside of me. I can do that. And not only that, but this guy's got this international ministry, and maybe it's time to drop back over and sell a few books. That would really be nice. I've struggled with that over the last two weeks.

I mean, really struggled with it. I just finished writing James a letter and telling him of the struggle that I'm having with this. He's not pushing. He knows where I am. But I don't know what to do with it. I'm seeking what God is saying in the midst of this. What am I supposed to do? Because I felt that I heard God calling me to say, "Don't do this anymore." Shift over into this area.

Now the door swings open and there's a possibility of doing something, putting a little time into it, getting a huge return, blessing him, blessing the body of Christ, a whole lot of other things. Because I know I can do it. I'm gifted in that area. I know I can sit down with a person, I can hear their mind, I can put their words on paper, and I can do it better than they can do it.

But that's a gift, that's not a call. And I'm having to distinguish between the areas where I'm gifted and the areas where I'm called. And I'm at a place in my life to where I don't want to do anything if I'm not called to do it. The very fact that I can do it is not sufficient reason to do it anymore.

It was for a while. I'd do anything that came along. You know, when you're hungry, you just, you know, you grab the first morsel of food that floats by and stick it in your mouth. And in those days, God was blessing that. He was only allowing those things to float by that he wanted me to eat on.

But now I've got a full table in front of me. And it's a matter of what do I select? What do I choose? And it becomes much more difficult now than it was when you just grab whatever came up. Now I'm having to make choices. And one of the things I have discovered as you grow older and mature in the Christian faith is that God steps back away from your life.

And he says, "It'll not be as clear as it was in those early days." I'm not in front of you anymore. Guidance becomes much more difficult. As you move on with God, are you following me? Let me tell you what happens with this. Just listen to me for a minute.

In those early days of moving in the Spirit, it was as though I was under the cloud all the time. All I had to do was to walk out of my tent in the morning and look up and see if the cloud was there. If it was there, hallelujah, I'd stay right there. If it's not there, I'd find out where it is, and I'd go get under the cloud.

That's wilderness wanderings. But when you get into the promised land, the cloud's gone. It's a whole different method of guidance. In fact, if you're following the cloud, it's a pretty good indication that you're still in the wilderness. But if you get into the promised land, it's a whole different type of guidance.

Now it's inside. Now you have to hear the cloud as it speaks in your heart. And that means you have to spend a lot more time on your knees. Because now there's many choices that you can make. You can storm the city of Jericho if you want to. Or you can hear God and you can march around it seven times and do something which is so asinine and foolish that everybody's going to laugh at you.

But you do it because God told you to die. And so in those early days when I was... had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and was so excited about where I was going, it was simply a matter of just grabbing hold of God's coattail.

And Lord, wherever you go, I'm with you. And it was like being on the tail end of it. You remember how I used to play Crack the Whip as kids? And you had a whole bunch of kids and all hold hands and somebody, and you start that thing swinging.

There's always the guy on the end who was just kind of holding on like this, you know. Just swung around all over the place. And that's the way I was feeling. As long as I could hold on, I didn't know where the spirit was going. But boy, were we in motion. I mean, it was just like that.

And now I found that I've been put way up to the head of the line. And I say, which direction are we supposed to go? And God says, "That's up to you." I am not going to be in front of you anymore. Now I am going to step behind you.

And the only time you're going to hear my voice is when you take a wrong step. And then a voice will speak up that will say, "This is the way, walk ye in it." And God says, now I put you up at the head of the line. And if you make a misstep, you're going to pay the price of this. You better be sure you know where you're going before you... Take a step.

It's the call of God. That's the difference between the gifted areas and the call. And so you have to make some distinctions in there. I have friends of mine who are missionaries who tell me that they are on the mission field because of the need.

And they say, how can you stay in the United States when the need is so great out here? And I spend a lot of time ministering with and to missionaries. My heart is more and more towards the world. Everything inside of me is beating in a world condition rather than just my own locality.

I feel that changing inside of me all along. But I have said to them, the very fact that there is a need does not constitute a call. There is a difference. The need is every place. I mean, it's not just there. It's every place.

You've got to hear what God is saying about who you are and where you should be and what you should be doing. And it's not just enough to go wherever the need is. The Bible recently, looking at all of these people who are called, you just read through the scriptures.

Noah was called. Abraham was called. Jacob was called. Moses was called. These are all very distinct calls. Gideon. And we remember all those little scenes that are outlined in the Bible where God comes to these people or sends an angel to them and calls them either to a specific task or to a lifelong mission of some kind.

Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Jonah, the disciples, each one with their own specific call of Jesus walking along the seashore and saying, "Come, follow me." Paul. All the way through the Bible, from the beginning to the end, we find God calling people and saying, this, this, this, this is my plan for your life.

But how do I relate to that? If you'll read through the scriptures, you will find that there are some who are called to the vocation of the gospel. That's a scary kind of thing. Let's do a little scripture, page flipping here for a minute.

Start with Matthew 22. Matthew 22 begins with the story of the Jesus story of the wedding banquet. Let's pick it up about three-fourths of the way through with verse 11. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He didn't have his tux on.

Friend, he asked, how did you get in here without your wedding clothes? And the man was speechless. And then the king told the attendants, tie him hand and foot and throw him outside. He was a party breaker. Tie him hand and foot and throw him outside into the darkness where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

For many are invited, are called, but few are chosen. Many are invited, but few are chosen. You remember the story of where a whole lot of folks had been invited and only a few responded to that invitation.

Now I struggle with that, between the called and the chosen. Remember Corrie ten Boom giving me a little answer to that. And she said there's a door in life, like this swinging door over here. And she says, you'll look at it on this side, it says called. And if you walk through it and the door swings shut and you turn around and look at it, it'll say chosen on the other side.

Everybody is called. But only those who walk through the door are chosen. So you have to respond to the call to be numbered among those whom God says are chosen. Well, I think I understand that. I don't like that because there's something inside of me that says I would like simply the fact that I am part of the chosen generation that I just enjoy my inheritance as such.

But if I understand this, you don't enjoy your inheritance unless you respond to that which God has called you to do. So it's not enough to have a call on your life. You've got to respond to the call. We're asking questions. We're not giving answers. Let's look at Romans 8.30.

As you know, this is all part of a whole concept here. We really need to back up to 28, which you're familiar with. Romans 8.28. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Even if you have been called, if you are not functioning in his purpose, all things don't work together for good. We have to be very, very careful. By saying that everything that happens to us is for our benefit. Sometimes it is not for our benefit. It's only for our benefit, and we are blessed in it if we are functioning in this area of being called and responding to that call according to His purpose.

Those whom God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called. So here we find predestination equated with the call of God. We are called or we are predestined. It is an equality concept.

And those he called, he also justified. And those he justified, he also glorified. What shall we say then in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Here we find the call of God equated with this whole concept of justification, of predestination, of glorification. We're called. Called to what? Called to be like Jesus.

This is where it's equated here. Now, the term call of God is used in many, many different ways. In the scriptures. It is not always used to do with a vocational aspect of life. In fact, in that passage in Romans 11, and if you'll flip over there with me for a minute that I read from just a minute ago, we find the call of God equated with election.

Romans 11, 28. As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account. Remember, we're talking about the Jews who were combating the Christians. But as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs. They have been elected.

They're part of a whole generation of people, a whole nation of people. That God says, "I'm going to bless these people." They are elected. I have elected to call, they are to be called my called people, my chosen people. For God's gifts and call are irrevocable.

A couple of more scriptures. 1 Corinthians 1.26. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth. There's a small group of Christians who are there and he says, Brothers, 1 Corinthians 1.26. Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many of you were influential. Not many of you were noble birth.

But God chose. God chose. Here he is equating calling with choosing. God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus. Here you are called to be in Christ.

The thing gets broader and broader and broader as you go along. Look at Ephesians 1. These are all familiar verses to you. Ephesians 1.17. This is that marvelous prayer that Paul has where he says, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. The riches of his glorious inheritance in the same. And his incomparable great power for us who believe. That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know

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Now, it's in this same context of Ephesians 4.1 that if you go over to verse 11, it was he, God, who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, etc. There's a difference between the calling and the gifts. Some are called. All are called, it looks like. Some are gifted in certain areas.

Well, we could go through all of these. In my list that I was making this morning, I asked myself the question, "Am I called to preach?" And I answered the question by saying no. I'm not called to preach. I'm not sure anyone is called to preach. I think that's a misnomer.

We have these wonderful clichés that have been passed along through the family of God. They've come under the category of the language of Zion, which basically doesn't mean anything. I remember hearing it. That was a good Baptist term. I think the Pentecostals may use that term too. I'm not sure.

I didn't grow up as a Pentecostal, so I don't know. But it was a term that I heard bantered around here at Ridgecrest and in college and the seminary and a lot of other places that folks were called to preach. Usually it was accompanied by the shaking of the jowls at the same time. You had to have a lot of pain in your throat to say that correctly.

And I said, "Well, am I called to preach?" If I'm called to preach, then I'm in big trouble if God says, 'That's not the way you're supposed to do it anymore.' So I had to answer, what am I called? I'm called to communicate. And there's a whole difference between preaching and communication.

I do believe that there is a call on my life to communicate the gospel. But that opens up many different kinds of avenues for this. I can remember my dad, years ago, talking about what happened with the Pennsylvania Railroad. A fellow came to them and said, "Railroads are really booming at this time." And they responded by saying, "No, no, no. We're called to be a railroad. We're not called to get into something speculative like flying people."

It's too expensive. How would you ever get them from one place to the other? It's too dangerous, many other things. And as a result, the railroad passed up the opportunity of going into the airline business because they missed something. They said, "We're in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business."

If you're in the transportation business, then you look at every kind of avenue that you get out there. And so I've had to take a look at my life. Am I called to preach? No, I'm not called to preach. I'm called to communicate.

Now, what does that mean? That means writing. Am I called to write? No, I don't think so. I'm gifted in that area. But that means writing is simply another means of communication.

And so every time another means of communication opens up, I've got to take a look at that – television, radio, maybe it's to drop back. I'm struggling with some things right now about the lifestyle of Jesus. Really struggling with this. Of whether I'm even supposed to be doing what I am doing right now.

Speaking at conferences with a large group of people who come from many different areas. Jesus did a little bit of that. But the thrust of his life was with a group of people that he kind of walked around with, and ate with, and slept with, and just a handful of folks. He didn't seem to be enamored.

In fact, he was always trying to escape the crowd, where all the rest of us are rushing toward the crowd, let's go. And Jesus was constantly trying to pull back, "Let's get out of this thing, and get alone to where our group is." So I'm having to look at those things.

Am I called to be in the location where I am? Am I called to Melbourne, Florida? I don't know. I think that I am. I believe God told me years ago, "Put down a root here, and you're to stay." And I have done that. But I also know that that could change.

There's nothing inside of me that says it ever will. But if I don't stay open to that, then I'm going to miss something else that's down there. At least I've got to constantly be questioning God.

Am I called to a location? Maybe. I think that I'm to be there the rest of my life. And I have told our people that I am to be there the rest of my life. And that has given stability to the body which has grown up around me.

When I went there, we went there to stay. And I think that's been healthy. As far as I know, I'm going to be there. But I can't say right now that I am called to be there.

Well, am I called to be married to the woman that I'm married to? Well, I can get into all kinds of problems, and I know some folks who have, with coming up with all kinds of weird things as to whether they were called to this woman or not. Really doesn't make a difference whether I'm called to her.

I have entered into a vow with her. That's a difference in the call. If I'm just called to her, then if she's no longer here, does that mean that I am never free to hook up with another woman? I can't imagine that.

Jackie says to me every once in a while, "Don't you think it'd be nice to have a young wife?" And I used to think it would be nice. And then I look at some of these young wives and I say, oh God, thank you. But I can't say that I'm called to her.

I have made some commitments there, which as far as I'm concerned are irrevocable. But that's different from a call. The only thing I can really say is that I am called to be in Christ. And then whatever he wants to do with my life, he can do with my life.

But I also know that deep inside there are certain areas where I feel like Paul, and I feel like my friends who mentioned earlier, if I don't do it, I have got to do it. There is a drive. Now, that can change.

And I know, but it has not changed. I am open for it to change. I remember a friend of mine, a Southern Baptist missionary, went to Japan. And, you know, I grew up with thinking that once a person goes to the mission field, that's the highest of all the callings and he's there forever.

And when he left Japan and came back to the United States and went into business, I thought, "You know, he's given up on God." But he really hadn't. He came back and went into business so that he could send a whole bunch of other missionaries. And he's made a lot of money and has used all of that money and is now working on mission boards and administration on a whole different level than where he was to start with.

So this all gets tangled up with something we call the will of God. What is the will of God? How do you know you're in the will of God?

Excuse me for asking questions. But how do you know that? Matthew 6:10, we pray that little prayer. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Not my will, but thine be done.

David crying out, "I delight to do thy will, O God." And Jesus saying to all of those folks who had gathered in the synagogue when they came and said, your mother and your brothers are outside, he says, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" Those who do my will.

What is the will of God for me? Does God have a will for me? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. He has a will for you, a purpose for you. Unlike everybody else's. Who's going to tell you what it is? Oh, nobody is going to tell you what it is.

You must determine that for yourself. Now that will be adjusted by circumstances and adjusted by friends around you. Praise God for both.

Can you say amen? Okay. Remember that, that you said amen. When the circumstances adjust you, modify your course of action. Those big rockets that we send off from the Cape, where I live, that occasionally go into orbit now. But they have side rockets, little motors, that go on and off.

They can be controlled from the ground to adjust the course of the rocket itself by just short bursts of firing. They can change the course of the... of the missile itself. And circumstances do that. If you're moving in the wrong direction, there'll be a voice from behind that says, "This is the way, walk ye in it."

And if you don't hear very well, then God will arrange circumstances. He'll have you fired to adjust you into his will. Because he loves you. Because those whom he loves, he beats the hell out of.

So people and circumstances are placed into your life. I was so grateful for what Morris was saying last night about working with the people that God gave you because he places them in your life.

There's that marvelous passage, which I like to think is the 11th of the commandments, if you'll read through Exodus 20, and we won't do that this morning, to where right after God gives Moses the 10 commandments, there's an 11th commandment. He tells him to make an altar and not to use cut stones, but to use uncut stones for the altar.

And I said, "What's that all about?" Well, because in Egypt, every altar that was built was made with cut stones, shaped stones. And when he got him in the desert, he said, "I want to show you something. I want to show you that you can worship me with an altar of uncut stones."

Just gather the stones from around the desert. It doesn't have to have any shape or form. Just kind of pile them up in a big stack and use that for your altar. It doesn't have to look like the forms of Egypt.

And I said, "I understand that." I have been worshiping in an altar of uncut stones now for the last 20 years. We have a situation down there in Melbourne that has no shape or form.

It changes every day. I mean, we just keep piling stones on top of it, and they keep tumbling off, and people coming and going, and they've all got sharp edges. And I keep saying, "Lord, when am I going to get back into a temple, into a cathedral?"

It was so comfortable being part of a system that just kind of moved along. When we were here in the Southern Baptist Convention, that's a system. It was a program.

And it was comfortable being part of that. It's nice being the passenger on the train. There's a whole lot of difference in being the passenger on a train and being the guy that has the axe to go out to cut the survey trail to where the rails are going to go.

And that's where I feel like I've been most of my life. That's the uncut stone altar. God places certain folks into your life to adjust you. And he keeps them there until we are adjusted.

I keep thinking I can outlive some of them. They're not going to move. If I can just hang on long enough, if I eat the right kind of food and exercise, and if they get fat and die, why?

But then there's always the new ones coming in. We got a guy, I was thinking last night while Morris was preaching, a fellow showed up in our church recently who carries a sign, has a great big sign, and he's sitting back there in the morning service with this huge sign that's got... repent kind of sign on it.

He's waving that thing around during the service. And I said, "I thought we had graduated from this." People are beginning to wear ties when they come to the service.

And here's a guy with shorts and tennis shoes and a sign back there on Sunday morning in the midst of all of our people waving this thing. We've alerted our ushers. We don't know what he's going to do.

You know, if he gets up in the aisle or if he heads to the platform, see if he can put a stop to this kind of thing. And I said, "Wait just a minute." God always sends these kinds of oddballs.

Every time we begin to think that we have formalized why somebody will show up with a sign or take their clothes off in the service. I'm terribly concerned that we will miss the prophetic voice sometimes.

What would we have done with an Isaiah or an Ezekiel? Who showed up with a word from God in our service? I'll tell you what we'd do. We'd stone him. We'd do it in a civilized way, but we've got some brawny guys who are at the back of the church that could grab hold of both elbows and squeeze him.

We'd just get him outside the camp someplace so that we could go on with our normal kind of worship. God continues to send people into our lives, either into the life of the church or into our personal lives.

Adjust us for that. Okay, now, I think I've done all I'm supposed to do by throwing out a whole bunch of different concepts here and just opening myself up a little bit.

Let me field a couple of questions. Where are you with all of this? Let's take a few minutes and see if we've stimulated anything as far as this whole concept of the call of God is concerned.

Are you called or chosen? Or are you just battered around? Do you have a comment or do you have a question?

Yes, sir. In the ministry of health that I'm in, I can't possibly belong to a particular pastor or church. So I work with uncut stones in a particular altar where I minister.

But how do you, in a large church or in a small gathering like me, submit? Well, if you'll come to my afternoon session this afternoon, I'll give you an answer for that. We'll be talking about small groups.

But I don't want to get simplistic with you. I would not tell you that my submission is to the Lord. That's an answer I used to give.

It's interesting. I interviewed Pat Robertson last year for an article we did for Charisma Magazine. And one of the questions I asked him was, "To whom do you submit?"

And he gave me that answer. He said, "I submit to God." And I said, "Well, I'm not going to judge that, but I know that when I used that answer, it was a cop-out for me.

I have learned that if I don't submit to those that God has put around me and over me, that I really am not submitted to God. I have to submit to his body.

And I have to submit, and by that I'm talking about actual submission. It's not just to have a board, a group of people who advise me. Was it Morris who was talking last night about boards of advisories, that all we really want from them is their money, not their advice?

But I'm not even in a position to where I am advised. I'm in a position to where I am controlled by certain people.

And I have determined that as an act of my will, that these people have authority over my life. Now, I can break from that at any time I want to, and go on my merry way.

But I have discovered in the past that every bad decision comes from not submitting to those around me.

Here is the cleaned-up sermon transcription:

I have made a decision concerning my purpose in life because I have gone against the counsel of those who God has put over me or around me. So, I have gathered people around me that I submit to, and they are the voice of God.

For me now, there are other ways, and we won't go into all of that now, but I'm simply saying that I think it's mandatory for a person like me who has difficulty hearing a clear voice from heaven. I must hear it in English vocabulary and I must hear it from people who put their arms around me who will correct me without rejecting me. And I must hear it from people that I have chosen to submit myself to.

I have a terrible time if I am thrust into a situation and told to submit to people. This has to be a voluntary kind of submission on my part. But these are the people who help me determine what the will of God is for my life. And that's at two levels. And I'm serious when I say we will talk about that this afternoon.

I'll not give the whole thing when we talk about small groups, but I'm submitted basically on two levels. I'm submitted governmentally to the elders of our church. I am submitted personally to a home group that I'm in covenant relationship with. And that's where my life is lived.

Yes?

But the preparation of God from that life to heal that person and set them free of those things that someone is here for is a marvelous thing. Albert, I am convinced that when a person commits their life to Jesus Christ, that from that time on, after they are in Christ, that everything that comes into that life is designed by God to form them into the image of Jesus Christ.

Everything that comes into that life. If you are in Christ, called according to his purpose, then all things do work together for good. And all of that is part of a preparation process to bring you to whatever that end is out there.

Let me say this very quickly along with this: I am convinced that what happens to us and how we respond to what's happening to us is far more important in the eyes of God than whether we achieve or accomplish an end result out there. In other words, I believe, and this is something that's simply born out of my own experience and out of scriptures as I understand them, that the means are always more important than the end.

The end is constantly changing. There are many ends. But God is judging us on our means, on how we respond to the circumstances that he puts in our life. Because becoming the image of Jesus Christ is a million times more important than winning the world through Jesus Christ.

Well, God keeps me in the cloud, if that's any consolation. I remember waking up one morning several years ago and hearing God say in my heart, "You and your church are no longer under the cloud." And I said, what does that mean? He says, you're no longer under my anointing. And I said, but Lord, I can see the cloud all around me.

And he reminded me very quickly that that was not the cloud, that was the dust of our activity.

So I know what you're talking about, but I also know as we go along, there comes this concept of God saying, "I want to speak to your heart." I will not guide you by externals. I will guide you by internals. And that is a whole different form of guidance.

The call remains the same, but the method of guidance is a different situation.

Well, I don't know how effective I am with this. I've gone through a major change in my church, for instance, over the last two and a half years, coming up on three years now, when I felt that God was saying to me, "You're not the pastor of this church." You never have been the pastor of this church. You have been the leader, but you have not been the pastor.

And the church has grown rather large now, several thousand people from its beginnings of just a handful. And that I felt God was saying we needed to have a pastor who was to be in that church, and we have...have called a man, Curry Vaughn, who is here with us this week, to be the pastor of the Tabernacle Church in Melbourne, Florida.

And I have shifted into a new role, the role of overseer, or basically it's an apostolic role. One of my Episcopal friends says, "You're a bishop with one church under you." Graduated from father to grandfather, or as I told my elders, I'm going to move up from head coach to athletic director.

It's a whole new field, and I don't know of anybody else who's doing exactly what we're doing. So we've had to pioneer in this, and to try to communicate this to the people has been one of the major things that I have been doing over the last two years.

And I have done it the only way I know to do it, line upon line, precept upon precept, over and over and over again, simply saying to them, "My life is changing and your life is changing and this church is changing."

I am no longer father, I am grandfather in this congregation. We have a man who is the father, who is the leader of the flock now. I'm going to hover over and I'm going to be behind. I'm going to be here all the time, but I'm not the one that will be directing this organization.

That's been a big change in me. Those are exciting changes.

It had been tough because in the very beginning, nobody understood what I was saying. The elders went along with me simply because they love me and respect me. But they didn't have the vision, and my wife even battled me on this. She said, "I think you're making a terrible mistake by doing this."

But we've taken a step at a time as we've done it. We've just not leaped into it. We've done it. And time has proved it.

That we were right as we've done it.

How can we help young people who are called to wait on that preparation of God and wait on God sending instead of sending themselves?

The question is, how can we help young people who are called that God will send them rather than they send themselves?

I remember Derek Prince saying years ago that the way you determine as to whether you're a pastor or not is to whether you have folks that are following you.

The man says, "I'm called to be a shepherd." And I say, look over your shoulder. Are there any sheep behind you? You're not called to be a shepherd unless there are sheep who are following you.

And so I think you always start where you are.

I remember some very wise counsel when I was coming out of the seminary years ago. We were in Fort Worth, Texas. And I went to my pastor, Dr. James Harris at University Baptist Church.

And I didn't know what I was called to do vocationally. I knew that I was supposed to go to the seminary. That's all I knew.

I was supposed to prepare myself for that. And I said, "What am I supposed to do?"

And he said, "Why don't you teach a Sunday school class of junior boys?" He says, "I've got five boys over here that don't have a teacher."

And I said, but I'm a senior in seminary. I'm studying homiletics, hermeneutics, Greek, Hebrew.

Teach five junior boys.

And he said, well, if you're not faithful with five junior boys, how can God ever trust you with anybody else?

And so I started there.

And for a year, that was my ministry.

I have found that everybody wants to leapfrog over all of these preparation steps to get on out there, to wherever out there is. Rather than starting.

So I'm constantly saying, start exactly where you are. People are coming to me and saying, "I want to get into the ministry."

And I say, fine. Form the ministry. Well, where? Where you are, in your neighborhood. Go to the guy next door. Start a home Bible study. Get out on the street and preach if you want to.

Don't look to me to put you into the ministry. I will not put you into the ministry. I cannot do that.

You start exactly where you are and then let God build it. And that's the only way I know to do with that.

Now, I think of some other things. One of them has to do with how people respond to that. If you start something and there is a response, that's a pretty good indication that there's something that's going in there.

That's happening.

I'm constantly looking at people who are going into ministry starting and the thing constantly is breaking down. It's not working.

And I say, stop it. Put a stop to it. Kill it. Put a gun to its head. If God is not blessing it, then why do you keep trying to prop the thing up?

Pull back. Hear God. Find out where the anointing is. Put your net where the fish are.

Don't keep trying to fish in some lake that's already fished out or where the fish are not going to bite.

I want to find out where the anointing of God is and get over where that is.

And that's just one of the criteria.

I mentioned that I've started this little newsletter, and I struggled with this for a year ahead of time. I didn't want to write a newsletter. First of all, it's like a milk cow. It comes out every two weeks, and it's bellowing in the pasture all the time. It's got to be fed, and it's got to be milked.

And every two weeks, if I'm not there to pull on its tits, it does funny things to me.

And so for two years now, I've been milking this thing. And I had to buy a portable word processor, which I have up there in my room right now, set up with all kinds of stuff because I'm constantly pouring material into it.

And I said, how am I going to tell whether this is God's purpose for me and God's will for me?

And my wife said, well, you can tell by whether people read it or not, whether they subscribe to it. It's a subscription thing.

If they subscribe to it, it's the will of God. If it's not, you're going to go broke, and I'm going to go broke, and the publisher's going to go broke, and we should put a gun to its head and kill it.

And so I said, okay, we'll give it two years.

And just recently, just whoo, I mean, the thing has begun to take off. And we've had all kinds of people who are...subscribing to this.

And I'm beginning to have some fun in doing it. It's a whole different kind of writing of what I'm doing.

I'm trying to analyze some things that are going on in the kingdom of God.

And I say, why should everybody come to a conference and hear me when they can subscribe to this thing?

And I'll just send it into their home.

Here it is with a whole lot of things that are going into it.