My Call, David Booth

That's all right, brother. I did the same thing at the Arlington conference. I was half hour over when I should have stopped You were only 10 minutes Well, I have been granted a 15 minute timeframe here So if there's anybody whose stomach is rumbling and you want to get to your meal blame brother Randy He said I could have 15 minutes Let us turn please to John's gospel chapter 15 and Verse 16 John's gospel chapter 15 and verse 16 The Lord Jesus speaking you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and That your fruit should remain That whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name He may give it you and may God bless the reading of this most powerful verse from his word The risen Christ He had met with his 11 disciples He was going back to heaven and he was going to count on them to take his gospel to the four corners of the world The message that he spoke to them it rings down through the ages right to us in this Conference and I can speak for my brother and I know that each one of us has prayed Over the words that we were going to speak at this conference That it might touch Someone's heart a man a woman a boy a girl and that you might experience a life-changing Moment here Those men they went forth Some of them died a martyr's death But in their preaching they saw men and women boys and girls saved and Those ones they took up the torch and they in turn went out and they preached the gospel many of them gave their lives dying of Overwork and sickness and foreign lands, but as they walked across the page of history They left the mark of the risen Christ in souls What causes a Christian to leave family and friends to leave home and comfort to leave Their occupation and earthly gain what causes them to do that and the answer is this It is a call Their response their heart response to a call from the risen Lord Jesus Christ My own personal journey to a call began when I was saved as a boy of eight When I was in my teens, I was just drifting and God put his hand upon me at that time We were driving home from a meeting and sitting in the car that heaven is my fatherland.

Heaven is my home and the Spirit of God Impressed on me David is heaven really your home My peace was gone For six months. I wondered was I really saved or not? In that six months. I began to read the Bible really for the first time I began to devour the scriptures and I began to pray Like I had never prayed before At the end of that six months my peace gradually returned And One morning in my parents home sitting in the living room meditating over these verses and Talking to the Lord and Asking what my future was going to be.

I Came to this verse you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you When I read that verse I got down on my knees and For the first time in my life. I made a presentation to the Lord Jesus of my body soul and spirit And I would just like to ask in this audience The ones who are saved here You can look back to a time when a place where in a manner how that you got God's salvation Could I ask you can you look back to a time when place where in a manner how but you made a commitment a presentation to the Lord Jesus of your body soul and spirit From that moment There was a difference in my life. I finished my education.

I was Appointed as a conservation officer up in the Arnstein area. I met Nancy and we were married I told her of my exercise for the Lord's work at that time. I thought we would end up working with native people in the north But after we were married I turned against what I knew to be a call I Remembered the times when my dad would be away preaching away for months.

I did not want My wife and family to go through that Just after we were married, I thought maybe Nancy had cancer She had to have some tests and one morning when I went to work I was standing before the gun cabinet and I was just reaching for my gun to take out on patrol and All of a sudden I was overwhelmed by a feeling of impending disaster I got down on my knees and I made a vow to the Lord Jesus. I said if she's all right, I will serve you And she was all right And I translated that vow to God into being a help in the assembly in Arnstein. I felt God would be satisfied with Me being a help in that assembly and preaching the gospel there I'd be at work thanking God for such a wonderful job out in patrol in the boat or in the snowmobile and All of a sudden it would just come crowding in David This is not what you were called to do It came down to the conference at Arnstein 1977 and I was miserable and At that conference Mr. Hanna, he he got up and he spoke in this way He said I feel there is someone at this conference that the Lord would have on the mission field and I knew that It was me I Left that conference more miserable than I had ever been in my life.

I knew I should go and I couldn't make the break Hunting season came I was out in patrol in a my boat snowstorm came down and I didn't have a compass with me and I threw the anchor out of the boat and Waited out the storm. I pulled my Bible out of my briefcase. I turned to the book of Jonah Because I thought there would be some comfort for me there I've always really liked Jonah There's a lot of similarities I'm afraid I Read in Jonah went through chapter 1 came to chapter 2 And job 2 and 9 it said I Will pay that I have out And that just hit me because I realized I had made a vow to God that I had not paid and I was impressed by how God Almighty could simply remove my wife and two children Take them from me because of my stubbornness And right there in the boat, I bowed my head and I said to the Lord Jesus I Will go wherever you want Please guide us Told Nancy about the experience then we told the brethren in Arnstein and Then we wrote two letters we didn't know how to go about ending up on a mission field We wrote a letter to Brian Owen down in the islands and to Doug Reed in Costa Rica.

We We said the first one that answers That's where we'll go Doug Reed called us on Wednesday night. He said Will the brethren command you and I said yes, we've already spoken to them He said will you come And the horror of that moment is still in my mind All I could think of was Our family will starve to death You know God was very gracious I said to Doug yes We will come Nancy and I spent a sleepless night and in the morning in our reading The Lord gave us an anchor to our soul from Scripture I believe in a call and I believe that the call should be confirmed with Scripture because when things begin to Unravel on the mission field that your faith is tried if you have a confirmation from Scripture That can never change It's with you for life Confirmation that we needed so badly that morning was this from the book of Isaiah Thou shalt not be forgotten of me We pasted that Right in our fellowship book and many times over the years We've looked at it and thank God for it Seven months later. We were in Costa Rica The night we arrived there we were doing our reading God confirmed everything from Psalm 50 and 14 offered to God Thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most High and call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver The and thou shalt glorify me.

It was this if God was saying You're here Now begin your work There might be somebody here a man a woman boy or girl And you have felt that God is speaking to you may God in this conference Confirm to you what he wants to do with your life a Century ago a single woman because there are so many women on the mission field as well And God has used them mightily our own daughter is one But That woman raised to wealth and privilege felt God calling her to abandon all and carry the gospel to the children of India Her name was Amy Carmichael. I can never read her book without tears flowing down my cheeks Because it makes me think of Sabrina She wrote this For all that denies thy Calvary Oh Lamb of God deliver me Give me the love that leads the way the faith that nothing can dismay the hope no Disappointments tire the passion that will burn like fire Let me not sink to be a clawed make me thy fuel Oh flame of God Jim Elliot reading those words He penned these words Am I Ignitable am I willing To put everything on the altar for our Lord Jesus may God bless his word this morning