Travailing - Part 6

You'll suffer loss. You don't usually laugh if you suffer loss. When we look back and see the turn in the road, the wrong choices we made, we didn't wait on God enough.

We didn't obey him enough. I wonder what kind of compassion. No, I don't.

I think if Paul came back today, he'd look generally over the church and say, you know what I do? I don't sleep much at night. I don't eat much. My whole spirit is groaning.

I travel. The man that honors me, and too many come to my door almost, but the man that honors me is the man that honors me with his burdens. I've not come for money.

I've not come. I've got such a burden. I've got such a concern.

I'm in such agony. I'm in this, that. So what? What if God himself puts a burden on us? Do you know one sign of spirituality is when you ask God to give you a burden nobody else wants to carry.

Unless you didn't say amen, but it's true anyhow. Share your heart with me, God. God says to one of the churches there, you know, people say it goes to the Great Commission.

What was the Great Commission? Going into all the world. That was God's message to the church. Prove it from scripture.

You can't. That was the message of Jesus to the disciples. The last words of Jesus, not going into all the world and preach the gospel, the last words of Jesus were to the church, repent.

And he says to one church, I counsel thee to buy eye sars from me. And that was the chief industry of that church, that city. They didn't have glasses like we have to screen their eyes.

Their eyes got very sore going down dusty roads and seeing the white sand. And so they exported from that town, eye sars that went all over that part of the world. And the irony is the Lord says you need eye sars yourself that you can't make and you can't buy.

I counsel thee to buy of me eye sars. Remember that hymn that says, open my eyes as I may see, glimpses of truth are sars from me. I used to like that till I found out it's a favorite hymn of the Spiritists, so I don't sing it anymore.

But there comes a moment, this blessed man on the Damascus road was what? Blinded with the light. I've not read this anywhere else, but I'm sure of it. I don't believe he ever got his eyesight back again.

This eyesight, yes, yes. But he never saw the world the same, he never saw men the same, he never saw eternity the same, he never saw heaven the same, he never saw hell the same. He was born into the presence of God to see the lost world as God saw it, to see eternity even caught up into the third heaven, and never said a word about it.

You know, if you're going to a mission field, whether the mission field is a hell of a hole in America, ghetto, or London, or somewhere, Soho, or to a foreign country, if you don't have this love, you'll break down within six months of going to a mission field. You'll be a casualty there. You'll be a liability instead of an asset.

The mission field isn't dying for want of miseries. Most of them will be better come home. They malfunction after a while.

Why? They went out of compassion, went out of sympathy. We went to teach, we went to help the poor. Very good.

But not the primary object of the man of God, or the woman of God. It's to go with an anointing, to go with a love that surpasses everything they have ever seen. A selfless love, an undying love, an unbreakable love.

It's not the love of the poets, it's not the love of a book, novel, it's the love of God. Can you imagine that, Paul says, the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost? We try to prove we're filled with the Spirit by our different gifts, I'm not going to argue about that. There is one qualification that proves we're filled with the Holy Ghost, and that is we live a holy life.

One qualification, that is that the love of Christ constrains me. You can trample on me if you like, I won't squeal. My richest gain, if need be, I'll surrender even my citizenship.

I know a man that did that in India. When you've been there 15 years, wanted to come home, the government said you can go, but you can't come back. I must come back, this is my life.

Well then you surrender your American citizenship. I have to think about it, I've got a boy 15, I've got two or three children. I take them out to America, they can't come back, no, no.

And he renounced everything, his citizenship, and everything that he had in order that they may stay there and burn out for God. Exactly what Jesus came, did when he came to this lousy world in which we live. He took upon him, not the form of angels, it took upon him our human flesh.

He took human limitations, he laid his glory by. They bowed down to him every day and cried holy, holy in eternity. Down on earth they spit in his face and pulled his beard.

Oh, that this love could possess our hearts. This undying love, this unbreakable love, the love that doesn't seek its own, that is not provoked, that thinketh no evil, that beareth all things, and hopeth all things, and endureth all things. Look, let's face it, why don't we get honest in God's name.

What the church of Jesus Christ has had in America, or any other country in the last 25 years, has not changed one of those countries. So something needs to be changed. We've gone to other countries, have we taken them? No, we haven't taken the gospel, we've taken American Christianity, or English Christianity, Bible Christianity.

It's the most costly thing in the world. It's the most beautiful thing in the world, it's the most glorious thing in the world. Paul says, I remember the time when I sat down and I did everything up.

There isn't one thing, my citizenship, my position in the church, the tribe of Benjamin, the seed of Abraham, there isn't one thing that I will not forfeit to God. There's not one thing that's worth putting up as a barrier, that he can't come in and possess me in my spirit, and my soul, and my body. I've told you before, and I say this as I finish talking right here, I think the greatest honor that was ever given to a man on earth, was given to the Apostle Paul.

Remember when some men tried to deliver demons out of the man, and the demons jumped up and beat the preacher up? I think he had every right to do that. What did the demons say? Jesus we know, and Paul we know. Didn't that take your breath away? In the same breath they say, Jesus we know, and Paul we know.

He's on par, he terrifies us when he moves. We have to have a council meeting in hell every morning. Which way do you think he's going today? Oh you don't know, because he doesn't walk in the flesh, he walks in the spirit.

Before he gets very far he'll turn round if needs be. Everybody's disappointed. He was going to Bithynia, but he went somewhere else, because God told him so.

One of the hardest things is to change your mind when God says, that tests your pride. What will people think? Well if you've any sense, you know people don't think anyhow. But what if they do think? Are you living for what people think? God help you if you are.

There's only one thing more difficult than finding the will of God, and that's difficult at your age, I know that, for many of you. One thing more difficult than finding the will of God, what's that? Doing it. When everybody says you're a fool, why don't you stay at home? Why don't you take over your daddy's business? You could make a lot more money and give it to missions.

God isn't asked for money, he happens to have all the world. There's never been a prayer meeting with dear old Dr. R. R. Brown there in Okoboji. He was in that great...