Let All Who Want To, Return

This is all very much a direct confirmation of the message that we had last night. I’m so glad that the Body of Christ is a sovereign association of called individuals. And also that it is an entirely voluntary association of those individuals. We had once with us a tall young man who had two aspects. One aspect was quite a powerful man of God, that I saw once preaching in the street corner out here on Broadway and 116^th Street. Power was upon him for the declaring of the truth of God in a remarkable way.

And two or three times in the meetings, he said things this morning something that he said once he came to me profitably and said the right thing at the right time in the right way. And it still is of value—do you remember that? That was one aspect. The rest of the time, which was more than three-quarters perhaps, he was sulking. And you could see that he was sulking in his soul by looking at him. He was in self-misery and sulking in the soul. And there came a time when he found that the sulking was so hard that he left.

And then he tasted I guess what Andrew had himself tasted for a time. He was away from like believers, out in the rather cold and lonely world. And he saw more clearly some of the issues. And he wrote and asked if he might not please in the name of God come back. And he was welcomed with open arms. (HL: That’s right.)

And with letters, he could be very good, he could be spiritual, he was a very spiritual writer. He came back for a time, a few weeks. And there came a Saturday when I was upstairs in my apartment engaged in the cleaning of the apartment, and he came up. I think somebody else was there, too, I can’t remember just who. And he said, “Well, I’m leaving.”

And I said, “Well, you left before and you came back.”

He said, “Well, this time I think it’s right to leave.”

Well, I am certain that he expected to engage in a pitch battle of some kind or in a remonstrance or something. And I would have been willing if I had thought it would be profitable at all to sit down and reason with him. But virtually with a dust rag in my hand, I said, “Well, goodbye.” Busy, I couldn’t bring myself to say more than just “goodbye, I’m busy.” He left out the door, I think, rather surprised. And then I went about the dusting.

I believe he lost out greatly, more than perhaps he would know in that event. I’m also sure he lost out…

…thing for the leader Jesus to do at this point. Turn to be given the word encouragement. After all, they are following after, they are accompanying, they make a body of people behind the leader. Well, turn and say something to draw them on. And it is a fascinating bit of godly psychology that Jesus turned and said to them, “If anyone—if…any…one—comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” That is, it is impossible for him to be my disciple. It is impossible for him to go all the way with me or even much further. Impossible.

Now what kind of response can you expect that to have created within the people who were following the lovely Jesus. What—you can hear someone saying—these terms are rather severe. Or perhaps, perhaps my own father and mother, perhaps. My wife? But my children? Brothers and sisters? The whole lot? Everything that I am part of, everything that I have come out for a time from? All that?

And, of course, this word was meant to blight false expectations. It was meant to blight the momentary enthusiasm of those who were moved upon without having decided early and spiritually that individually, singly, before God, that they were going to go with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And perhaps there are those—and there are—who can make the grade of all these severe terms—parents and wife and children and brothers and sisters—that can make the grade and all that. Because they have a certain spiritual…. They can weigh all of that and weigh the Lord and say, “Well, as great as that may be, the Lord is certainly far more to be desired,” and they can go from that point.

But then they stub on the “yes, and even his own life.” And though they can make all the rest, that particular one becomes the stumbling block, beyond which they cannot get. And they could secure no reduction in terms for this.

Now, of course, it is being said now in parts of America that this Scripture is one that really is quite inappropriate. It’s one that is being spoken falsely. This is the charge that is going ahead now: that certain people who are using such a Scripture as this are false teachers. That’s the charge. And I suppose it would be the part of wisdom to abandon for a time such Scriptures, which are so easily open to one misinterpretation, because they can be twisted that way, also by their very application they are so easily open to misunderstanding in the ears of those who hear them. And yet it can never be convenient for any purpose of God to retreat from any truth of God for the sake of meeting enemy’s accusations with a more convenient policy, with a more adaptable line.

And so it remains that the terms are almost, [?] just hardly severe. And also in their potential when they’re applied wonderful beyond easy knowing. Wonderful in a degree that you taste only when you get past the terms. And any battle the terms would make necessary and you conquer the terms for the sake of the Lord and the issues that are contained in each of the terms, if each one can be an issue, I can tell you, each single one of these have things, can be an issue.

Certainly a child or a brother or a sister or wife or a mother or a father, anyone can be an issue. You get past those things until they are dead and powerless any longer to affect or to turn the soul from its course. And you get into a realm, a place of freedom, from all of the pull of that. Now, these are the terms of soldiering.

And nations even apply them in emergencies. Certainly during times of national mobilizations, all of these things are required by nations. Nations apply immediately: “All right, you, father, you leave your children, your wife, the rest of your whole clan home, and you go to New Guinea or some far place to slog the mud,” for in World War II it was several years. Some were in there four and a half years. And then when it’s all over, if you lived, you go back, because the nation does not require, except in times of emergency, any such thing. But it does require quite exactly that in emergencies.

Normally, the highest sanctions of human life, in normal situations—normal nations, that is, not fanatic nations, not nations under the yoke of some evil power—the highest sanctions of human life are family sanctions. There are no more sanctified sanctions, so to speak, than exactly those.

And virtually everything in psychology, for instance, is geared to the upholding of those sanctions. Virtually everything in law is written to uphold those sanctions, to advance them, to protect them and to uphold them. And that explains why there is such a degree of offense at the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the issue has to be in the words, that no one but Jesus spoke. These were not the words of any philosopher, of any wise man. They were the words of the Son of God, who gave them as His terms.

And they must therefore be reckoned as that exactly, the word of God. And dealt with as that exactly, the word of God. And either surrendered to or ultimately rejected, one or the other. There is no middle place.

There is what seems to be a middle place. What appears to have some of both in it. Discipleship and some remaining hooked and vitally linked and therefore partially subject to the other demands. The reason that that appearance is false is, of course, that it’s contrary to His words.

But secondly, because the mechanism of that is not to prevent a person from serving or appearing to serve the Lord over much of the course of the months of the year or his life, but it’s highly useful to destroy that service at critical times. A person might be moving to a place where they could accomplish something that would count for God. But then the other side is brought to bear at that very point, which is no coincidence. It’s the way the devil operates. Well, now that person must be knocked out by that which hasn’t been understood and dealt with in the way of discipleship before.

So wheels go into motion to compel attention to something other than the attention that has to be at that moment. The person at that point is rendered useless, null and void to the part that they could have in God’s plan at that hour.

Just reading an Old Testament Scripture in Psalm 118:5-25, “Out of my distress, I called on the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me free. With the Lord on my side, I do not fear: what can man do to me? The Lord is on my side to help me; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. All nations surrounded me; in the name of the Lord, I cut them off. They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side; in the name of the Lord, I cut them off. They surrounded me like bees: they braze like a fire of thorns; in the name of the Lord, I cut them off. I was pushed hard, oh yes, I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but (while I seem to be falling) the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and my song, he has become my salvation. Hark, glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has chastened me sorely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we beseech Thee, O Lord; O Lord, we beseech Thee. Give us success.”

There’s another portion of the Psalm that says, “The Lord says touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm.” And he was speaking at that time rather generally of Israel itself, a chosen nation and people who within them collected individuals had the word of God, the revelation of God, the prophets, the scribes, etc. And he said, “Well, touch them not.” So all the nations were told, all of the Gentiles, the unbelievers, were told, “Don’t touch them, and don’t do them any harm.” Don’t touch them. Don’t reach out your hand of force or violence or captivity or anything else. Because if they’re in the right way, if they’re in obedience, and you do that, there’s consequences.

Because every reaching out to touch God’s anointed, to strike by the enemy, falls out to the increase of the plan of God. It has to. Because the enemy strikes in fury and thinks, “Well, cut there!” And in the very act of cutting there, something is done that causes the increase of God’s plan.

I think it has been mentioned twice since the present battle of the occasion when they threw stones at Stephen. And as they hurled the stones in their anger and their fury and their hatred against God and against His anointed, because certainly he was anointed at that point. They threw the stones to destroy him. But the stones that were being thrown into his flesh, into his bones, were creating the apostle Paul. They were raising up such a ministry as the church has not had to that point. And such a ministry as the Lord has never forgotten. Praise God, it still stands as a landmark of human history. Even the scholars and the philosophers of the universities do not deny that, that whatever you may think of Paul as a man, he was a giant of his times. And so as the enemy struck him fury in taking the victim as he thought….

Well, the same thing is true of the cross. As the enemy struck, thinking that he had power that he didn’t have to hurt the Lord, what was falling out was the salvation. The plan of God was being worked out and he was serving the very plan. He was going as far as he could go, but he couldn’t go further than that. And our salvation, we were all in that. We were all drawn out of that seeming attack, seeming defeat, all of us came out of that.

And there is in this, we’ve heard already this morning, that the meeting has been filled with that of course: there is the increase of the Body of Christ, there is the increase of the awareness of what we had in the Lord, of who we are in the Lord, not just we here but the people who will rise at this time. There is the increase of the capacity. There will be awakenings, there will be people awakened from slumber, from indifference, by the present occasion, and who will themselves have things clarified that have not been made clear before. Because they will feel a necessity for that clarity.

When the children of Israel turned in their minds back to their former state, they did not turn to all that was in it in their minds. They turned rather to a few particulars. Andrew mentioned the leeks and the onions and the garlics. Well, those things were there, they did have a certain number of leeks, onions and other vegetables that were part of their slavery. And they were just deluded enough to think of that and not to remember that their backs were bent, that they were turning at the enemy’s mill, that they were making the bricks with the straw, that they were crying out to God for deliverance for that in which they were caught, from the brow-beating of their captivity. And all that somehow had receded from their remembrance, the intensity of that persecution. And they were remembering only a few little items: “Well, I had this and I had that and I had that.”

It is very wise if the mind would be turned back to remember all that was in it. Not just something here or something there, but the whole package of the enemy’s captivity. Or worse, because if you retreat back into that same thing and you don’t get exactly that same thing, but you get an enraged response and usually a worse condition than you had even when you came out.

When men will go with Jesus Christ through many of these terms and things, they can yet lose the battle in our own soul, in his or her own soul. The kind of life that we would just somewhat prefer to live as opposed to the life of discipleship is just enough to charm us and to call us from it and to have us missing in the day of battle, not on the line of action.

At the same time, it is vital: every connection to have effect has to be a real connection, not a pretended connection, not a half-made connection, not a desired connection even. It has to be a real connection, because then it makes sense. That connection then makes sense. And if this connection, the present connection here isn’t the one, that seems natural in the Lord—natural, I don’t mean natural in natural terms but natural in the Lord, just is the right thing, I am rightly connected to you and you to me. I balance something for you and you balance something for me. I make sense with you and you make sense with me.

If that isn’t there then your soul needs a place where that would be this. A place that will be suited to a state that you either presently have or you desire [?] do that, where you can meet it. And most places I can tell you do in fact exist and they are not far away.

There are places we heard the [?] one this week where praise goes to the Lord at times, glorious praise, and you can get seasons of praise in that place. And there are other places where they are dedicated to certain things and they do a lot about them. And people have parts in that and they do a lot in those parts about those things. And they’re making sense as far as they seem to make sense in the present world. And it makes sense to make sense. Praise God.

So if this doesn’t make sense in every way, soulishly, spiritually, everything else, find out what makes sense. Go to it this week. Find out what makes sense. Pentecostals make sense? Pentecostalism, let that be it, praise God, whatever it is. Make sense with it. (HL: Find it.) Or if this makes sense, well, make sense with it.]

The Scripture reads in Philippians 1:27: “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.” What’s the word translated in RSV for mind? [JP: “mind”] Well, the word is soul, psuche. “With one soul striving together for the faith of the gospel.”

And it’s often the question: if it’s the body in baptism in water immersion—the body is baptized into water. And if it’s the spirit which is baptized by Jesus into the Holy Spirit, what part of man is baptized into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit?

I’ll ask the question again: if it’s the body which is baptized into water in baptism by immersion; I think it’s the spirit which is baptized by Jesus in the Holy Spirit, what part of man is baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ?] [several people: The soul.

That’s right. “With one soul striving together for the faith of the gospel. Because we are connected with God in the spirit. We are connected with one another by means of the soul. And therefore those connections, as John just outlined, those connections have to be made by the power of the Holy Spirit, but those have to work out. Fitting together, functioning together—all that we talk about in terms of the Body of Christ, each member taking his place.

Find your place in the Body of Christ. All that refers to the fact that your soul, your self, your personality is so in subjection to God that He can fit that together with other souls, fitting together into their places in the Body of Christ. That means mind, that means will, that means emotion, that means intellect, affections.

Fitting together with striving together in this case “with one soul for the faith of the gospel. And in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation and that of God.” And that has to work out. There cannot be friction, lack of connection, lack of fitting, lack of pulling together. You can’t expect that to work in the Body of Christ. It isn’t the Body of Christ. It’s just not what it is.

So if there’s the constant affliction or torment or wondering or pulling or backtracking it or whatever it is, just figure it: you’re not baptized into the Body of Christ. It couldn’t be. Now that isn’t the end of it; that’s the beginning of it. The end of it is what God has or what God wants to do. But that’s how it works. We’re baptized into the Body of Christ in a way that makes sense.

That’s why the Body of Christ is not as the Episcopalians and others have it: one mystical Body of Christ. We’re all members of one mystical Body of Christ. Well, it’s so mystical that no one ever knows where it is. It’s certainly not on earth, and it’s certainly not in any of those places where there are like cats and dogs at one another’s throats no matter where you go. There are the rivalries and the jealousies, well, the mystical Body of Christ is somewhere else.

So it’s always left vague enough so you never ask yourself, well, just where is this mystical Body of Christ? It’s somehow in the realm of never never land. Or maybe in heaven. But it’s not on earth, it’s not in New York or it’s not in New Haven or it’s not in whatever city you happen to mention.

The Body of Christ was in Philippi, the Body of Christ was in Corinth, the Body of Christ was in Ephesus or in Rome or in Jerusalem, where there was the functioning together of the members of the Body, and that constituted the Church.

You hear about the mystery of the Church which was hid but is now made revealed. But that doesn’t turn the Church into a mystery. The Church is no mystery once it’s been revealed.

The Church is very real, and it is so definite and it’s so real. That becomes more real to you and more actual to you than anything else that ever was real or actual to you. Because you know that that’s God’s chosen vessel—He chose us individually to be vessels unto honor—but He chose the Church to be the very expression of the life of Christ, Jesus on earth, “the fulness of him that filleth all in all.”

And that’s on earth and that’s in men and that’s in women and that’s in those who fit and function together. And thank God for it. So praise God. If our light affliction works out to the furtherance of the joining together of members and the getting forth of members and connecting us with others like-minded or who are to be like-minded, it’s well worth any price we pay.

The Lord said to us, “1973 is the year to move out,” and he proceedeth to move us out. He didn’t wait to consult us, well, just how would we like to move out? Just what terms do we see the seed of our moving out? He proceeded to do it, and we weren’t consulted and thank God. Had we been consulted, we might have asked for different conditions or terms. But he saw fit to move us out and who knows what yet; we’ve just got started. This is only the first five weeks or six weeks of 1973. But we had no choice about it. The Lord said, “Move out,” and he proceeded to make it impossible for us to do otherwise. And praise God for that. Amen.

It all goes back in my mind to Gideon. The children of Israel had done evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord proceeded to deliver them into the hands of the Midianites. Seven years, it was slow going. Because they had done wrong.

In the hand of the Midianites, they had to go underground. They went underground and they dwelt in dens in the mountains and caves and strongholds. Did you realize that? I just never got it like that before. When Israel had sown and also they would come out and sow their fields and try to get something to eat. And as soon as they’d get it up a little way and start to reap, the Midianites would come and crack down on it and take it all away from them. It was a pitiful condition. The Amalekites as well.

So they just destroyed the increase of the earth and till such and such a place. Neither did they have a sheep nor an ox nor an ass—they didn’t have even an animal. But on the other hand, they came with their cattle, their tents and they came as grasshoppers. And they just outnumbered everything. They had camels without number. They entered into the land to destroy it.

And Israel was greatly impoverished because of this. But they cried unto the Lord. “To whom,” as Peter said, “can we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” They just had sense enough to know it. And when they cried to the Lord because of these Midianites, a prophet came. Isn’t that wonderful to have prophets that are on a high level? That’s not any…sometimes I say bedroom prophecy or room prophecy. On the high kind of level just like….

And those are in the times of the deepest distress when they told Ezra he couldn’t build a temple anymore. And the word had gone forth and the king said, “Don’t build, you can’t build,” and they stopped building and folded up, put their chisels and things away. And two prophets Zechariah and Haggai came and said, “Rise and build,” and they didn’t care what papers were out, what decrees had gone forth, they rose and built.

So here’s a prophet that comes and says unto them, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. I brought you up from Egypt. Let’s recall. I brought you out of Egypt, and I brought you forth out of the house of bondage, terrible house of bondage. And I delivered you out of the hands of the Egyptians and out of the hands of those that oppressed you. And drave them out before you and gave you their land. And I saith unto you, ‘I am the Lord your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.’”

Up until now, they cried but there’s more to do than crying to the Lord. There’s the obedience with it. As I heard this person that prays hours at a time. I mentioned that the other day, hours upon hours you can pray. But you have to have the willingness and you have to have the obedience with it. You can’t use your own stubborn will while you’re crying to the Lord. “Oh, I’ll go in and I’ll shut myself in.” As I told you, this one woman with an alarm clock. And she had herself timed by the alarm clock go up. Well, of course, she went to sleep at times, so that’s why she had the alarm clock. I said, “Well, you prayed for two hours, but I heard the alarm when it went off, what do you need that for?”

The praying around the clock—people say, “Oh, I pray around the clock, and all my life and since childhood, I’ve been going.” But what’s wrong? Obey the voice of the Lord, but you didn’t obey my voice.

The Lord heard them in His sovereignty and caused an angel of the Lord to be sitting under an oak tree that pertained to Joash, so and so and so on he was. And his own son was getting out of a cave or getting out of a stronghold and had watched his little wheat patch up to a certain point and it came time to the threshing of it. So he had gotten up at intervals and got that far.

Well, of course, those without number were watching that little patch. They had him do all the work, so that they could….

And that’s what Satan loves, he loves to take your time, your money, anything he can take and just keep it. When it comes time, he’ll just take a big grab out of it. That’s what he’s trying to do. Because the money’s going without end. What we had with the telephone and now with lawyer or whatever it is. And we have a lawyer, the one that is above us, I don’t know how much this one charges, $60 an hour. So you know what that means. That’s what he tries to knock off. Anything he can take to try to take off what you have.

Here he’s just waiting for this poor Gideon to get a nice threshing, a nice harvest of wheat, and then to come up and grab it.

But thank God the angel of the Lord was sitting there, calmly sitting there, I guess nobody noticed it especially, sitting there watching. “And an angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said, ‘The Lord is with thee.” The Lord is with you.

He was just an insignificant Israelite, no special tribe, great blessing on him, he wasn’t a Levite, he wasn’t something specially to be blessed, just an insignificant youth, just like the Israelites there.

“Thou mighty man of valor.” Valor, he’d just been creeping around there coming out and planting a little and getting it in. I said sometimes he must have looked back over his shoulder and said, “Who’s he talking to, let him step out?” Who is this, wait a minute? You see some people that they wait for somebody else to have the valor. They don’t specially want it because it comes to facing a test. So you look back and say, “Go ahead there. Go ahead, you go right out there.” I would think that he would be so shocked that he would wonder who is the angel talking to anyhow?

“And Gideon said unto him, ‘Oh my Lord, well, if this is true that the Lord is with us, why are we in such a condition?’” That’s what he’s asking for? “He said, ‘Where are all the miracles? If this is true that you are with us, why don’t we have something moving in our midst for us?’”

You could ask this here today. Where are the miracles? We need miracles. If this is true that we’re the Body of Christ, whoever is and you’re calling out, well, we have to have miracles, we have to call for miracles. We have to believe for miracles.

Here’s Gideon asking, “Well, where are all the miracles? Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?” He knew his Bible. “And how the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hands.”

And the Lord looked and said…. What’s that song, “Go in this thy might,” don’t we sing that? [man: “Caleb Saw the Lord.”] That’s right, “Caleb Saw the Lord.” “Go in this thy might.” [several: “One shall chase a thousand, two put ten to flight.”] And he says, “Have I not sent thee?”

Well, then, of course, he wondered and he put out the fleece and the Lord answered. Read it for yourselves, it’s just wonderful. You put the fleece out and the Lord answered and then put it out the other way and the Lord answered. Well, so, the Lord did the miracle. He asked for miracles, and he got them. He got two rights to start with.

Then we know too that the people started to accuse Gideon of having so much power that the false idol fell down. And the father, he had to have words of wisdom. So the men brought him to task about this, “This is your son that’s causing our idols that we’ve served for years.”

So the father answered and said, “Well, if that idol is so great, if it fell down and broke into pieces, why doesn’t he pick himself up again? Just get the idol to pick himself up again, put himself together, then we’ll believe him.” Good for the father. Praise God for the father. A good answer, the father had a wonderful answer.

So when Gideon rose up early and started to get himself together and the Lord gave him it was 30,000 men. Blew the ram’s horn, called them to battle, and 30,000 answered. Sort of a mob psychology. 32,000.

And just like somebody was talking about this, that Jesus had the multitude, the people were following him and it was sort of going the way the crowds go. This is what they were saying, “Go the way the crowds go.” Jesus ministering to the crowds, but when he turns to them and tells them the cost price—there’s a tag to it all.

You go and see something beautiful in the store. You like it so much and sometimes it doesn’t have the price on it. You run around to the saleslady and ask, “What’s the price of this, I like it?” And she says, “Well, that’s…” way up there. You just put it down softly and walk away.

But there’s a cost price to this following Jesus and you have to think about it. And that’s why you can see woven into that message as John just gave us that there’s a price to pay and the price part that he brought out in this there’s plenty more not going on with the death to self. Because that goes into after that mother, father, so on, so on, so on—and your very self—because some people don’t live with anybody, but they don’t have the victory. Because it’s here.

Because when you live with somebody, of course, as I say, the Lord doesn’t have to use the Gibeonites and the Midianites or the Gibeonites or anybody. But he just used the Johnites against the Jaanites, and the Jaanites and then…. Because he uses those that he can use, it can get somebody and call somebody way off there. He uses one and he has there the different -ites. And then swishhh, swishhh. See, that’s what you have to watch. You can get way up here, but you know when you come down to look at the -ites in the face, you know, that’s the next thing. Do you have the victory in that? That’s what will tell the tale.

So it comes down to the cost of discipleship is not just all of this being cut off and cut off, but your very self. And as I said before, that people that don’t even live with anybody that have any -ites to deal with, but they have the selfite. And the selfite is there, and just like I said, “Well,” you say, “I can flee as a bird to the mountain,” but then when you get to that mountain, you’re the same bird. You say, “I can flee from it all,” but you’ve got the same bird there. The birdite, and there he is to deal with. Well, praise God.

Gideon had the two miracles: one time he put the fleece out and it was wet or dry and vice versa. Anyhow, I don’t remember, but it was just the opposite. Well, he rose up in that strength, and he might have called out these miracles. These miracles were going to [believe] because he got his strength on that. A personal miracle to prove to him. It wasn’t some great miracle, everybody knows, but whether he told them about the fleece, I know he got faith. He had so much victory that 32,000 people listened to him. And came out ready to go against these people that were like grasshoppers. And they had been weaklings, for how long they had suffered, they were impoverished, surely their bodies weren’t all up to it. He could have said, “Well, wait until we get a certain strength and eat more, fatten up or something. Just on the strength of those two miracles to him personally the Lord proved, he could get 32,000 together.

What can you do? I mean, say you start out doing to another place, you’re rising up in faith, what are you going to do? Do you believe it? Well, when you believe it, it goes into others, and 32,000 got something. But just like this multitude, 32,000 (whew) that’s up and at it, “We’re well able to possess the land, let’s go forth.” Well, but the Lord. Gideon thought that was great, but the Lord looked them over. The Lord seriously said to him, “Gideon, you just have too many people.” But how could you have too many? You needed more. [JP: Not enough.] You’d need more. 32,000, what can I do? Now watch it, Lord, don’t cut me down. 32,000.

“And the Lord said unto Gideon, ‘The people that are with you are too many’” Too too. T—O—O many. “For me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves.”

Because they would have said, “Well, look how many people and look at these different tribes and look and so-and-so’s the head of the tribe and all of that. Well, then they’ll really gloat to think that they had done it. But the Lord wanted to prove that Israel wasn’t doing it because they had disobeyed.

The Lord was doing this, you could say, with sovereignty. He wanted them to come out of it. He had a man that he could use, just one man. Just like Noah, well, you could say, this one man. I wish you could only go with me, you had to strengthen me, there had to be two of us, or there have to be five of us or something. He had one man. And that was Gideon. And he said, “Whosoever is fearful or afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead.”

And this there came to me while coming in here was whoever wants to go or who is fearful or who is afraid or not satisfied or isn’t suiting them or something. Or as Mary said, that she criticized the people in here: “Look, they get away with certain things, they don’t put this down right or they don’t look right or…. And look, I don’t do that.” So what she was doing was a great comparison was saying how bad everybody else was but how good she was. And she poured that out too, you could see the “well, I wouldn’t stoop to do that.”

But the extreme that is anybody that isn’t satisfied. If she isn’t satisfied, if you aren’t satisfied. If there’s anything that you’re watching somebody else and that’s why you’re in such a calamity today with such a face that somebody didn’t smile right or they criticized you or something. You have perfect right to go home or anywhere else you want to go. And it’s the same with Gideon—he says the Lord told him, He said, “Go proclaim whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead.”

And there were…well, my, you’d think how the 32,000—it  could be that a couple thousand would leave me. Well, my. But when he saw those people turning around, I don’t know what he would have thought because he was up to a high pitch then. He had the faith himself, God has spoken to him, an angel had said he was a man of valor, and then he got 32,000 out on the front lines, right up on the mount there to look down over those valleys and say, “We’re victorious, we’re victorious.” And when he said, “Anybody that wants to go home can go home. He had the choice.”

Anytime…. Who was it the other day that said, “Well, who did we ask to come here? Who are we begging to stay here? Are we depending on anything that you’ve got? Or is anything that you’ve ever paid in or anything? Is it anything that you can ask yourself that the Lord would need you for just the sake of needing you? Or we would need you. Nothing of that has been put upon anybody, as far as I would know. If they feel it, I don’t know where they get it from.

“Whoever’s fearful and afraid, let him return and depart from mount Gilead.” And straightway—you could put in there—straightway, 20 and two thousand there. Out of them, there were 10,000. And can’t you imagine them running back to their tents and saying to wifey, “Now put me on a nice breakfast, the general Gilead said we could come home. I was shaking some and I don’t know whether he’ll make it or not. And we didn’t count how many left. I know I didn’t feel like going, I was trembling in my boots,” or whatever it was. “We thought we’d have to go early in the morning. Oh how good it is to be home again. I just was longing for this, and there he is, just longing.”

Well, Gideon just about this time figuring on breathing a little easy, I mean, after the shock is over, of course. “And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many…”

“What, Lord?” Well, he could hardly get that out of his mouth. “Am I hearing right?”

“There are too many you’ve got with you. 10,000 to meet those armies.” He had three kinds of -ites he had to face. And they were thousands strong, with camels without number, laden with the best of the land they had robbed them for I don’t know how long. They had the finest of the wheat, the finest of everything and bulging and busting with health and strength and could fight and swords and whatever was needed. And here’s this little beaten down company for years that hadn’t been able to….

It was seven years, wasn’t it? It starts out with seven years they were under it. Seven years, they had been under it. Seven years. What can seven years do to you under the hand of the Midianites? And creeping around there trying to get a few little things together. And here are these, well, I don’t know what they ever looked like, those four thousand I guess wretches just to look at them. Midianites would talk just like Goliath. They would say, “Did you mean to send out this little thing to fight me? Who is he? This is an insult that I’ve got this little thing coming up the mountain after me. It’s a big insult that anybody would think…. Who does he think he is?”

And his own brothers had said to him, “Who do you think you are anyhow? Go back home and mind those few poor sheep that you’ve left. They’ll be needing you.”

And yet as he said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that defies the armies of the Lord? Who is he?” He is saying, “Who is he?” “Who does he think he is? Well, who proved it?” Praise God.

And as the giant rushing forth, well, that didn’t cause little David to go back at all. He rushed that much faster toward the goal, knowing that by faith he could do to death this wicked uncircumcised…. That’s the part that’s so important there—he’s not a believer, he’s not of God. Because that’s in those days if you’re a believer, if you’re of God, you’re circumcised.

He said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that would come against the living God?”

“And the people are yet too many.” Well then, he put a test to them, whoever was on the job more or less, thinking about the battle more than their stomachs, it would turn out to be, more than their thirst. Because the others had that more at heart, their thirst was more at heart and they had let down, you could say, into passivity at that moment. And the Lord was trying them on passivity and on, you could say, lust of thirst. Lust of flesh, lust of food, lust of thirst. They were saying to themselves, “We can’t wait any longer, we just let everything down.”

And the others, no: they were drinking but prepared all the time, sword in one hand and ready to go. They didn’t let down in the time of battle because they know that the enemy could creep up on them. What’s the enemy going to wait while you take a drink? What’s the enemy going to wait while you say, “Well, I know they’re after me so I’ll just go into the store and get something.” You can’t let down when you’re in battle. You can’t have an off moment. You can see it here, there’s no off moment there. And they let down, they weren’t ready. Should the clash have come, they wouldn’t have been ready. So they didn’t let down.

“And I will try them for thee there.” So the Lord tried them for Gideon. He wouldn’t have known what test. But the Lord said, “I’ll try them out. I’m watching them and I’ll see who’s ready.” So he brought the people down to the water and the Lord said unto Gideon, “Everyone that lappeth the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon their knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were 300 men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.” Sort of let down their armor. The things that were supposed to be buckled, they didn’t have strengthened at that time, they let down.

And the Lord said, “By the 300 men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place.” Praise God.

We know that the victory came and he went on and on. Well, not only that day, but he went on and on to perfect victory, praise God. And he was obeying orders, the Lord was leading every step but he was surely moving in the Lord.

But the main part as I said that I was feeling and getting was that everybody that’s fearful or afraid or trembling or don’t think you can make it or it’s too hard a way for you…. Some have said…. We had a young man that came to Bogotá and he did well in so many things, he surpassed some of the others. But he said, “This way is too hard. I cannot make it.” I don’t know what he ever said afterwards—do you know? But he admitted it that far. Very few will admit it.

He said “the best time in his life.” I said, “The only thing this reminds me of the rich young ruler. He must have been convinced that it was right what Jesus said to sell all he had and to give it to the poor, and this he was not willing to do. But he didn’t up and argue with the Lord or have a big fight with him. But he just silently left. So this young man silently left and he’s whatever he wants to be today, which I don’t know whether he’d ever have any sorrow for.

But if this is too hard, if it’s too much of a strain or you can’t keep it up or you get weary in your mind about it or that it requires too much or you can’t die to yourself or whatever it is, go home. The Lord plainly said for them to go home. Go home. And find out what you’re to do wherever you are and do it. It’s too much for you.

You long for this or you long for that or the other days or whatever it is. But it’s too much. And it’s certainly not doing the Body of Christ any good. The misery of it. Because it’s a misery to be with such people. It’s a misery to be in a meeting with such people. It’s a misery. You’re a misery and causing the rest to be a misery. Go home.

And, well, the Lord didn’t say to them no more than he said to Adam and Eve. He put the whole thing down: eat everything you want of this garden, but just one tree, don’t eat. That’s all they had to remember. One thing: don’t eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Showing, as I was talking to someone the other day, that they had their own free wills. By that you know that every man or woman that’s born into this world has his own free will. He can do as he wants with Jesus Christ: he can accept him or reject him and he can crucify the Son of God. It’s always like a silence as far as God is concerned in so many things. Because he left them for I don’t know how long.

Because he always came in the cool of the day to have communion with them. Every day with the sweet communion he had and the fellowship, which He wanted, which God wants, which God longs for, which is the greatest thing for God to have communion with His children. He went for I don’t know how long the time was in those days, but He came in the cool of the day to have communion. And that day when He came, Adam and Eve weren’t there. They were hiding, because they had disobeyed, they had their eyes opened that they were naked and they heard what God… you could say the curse that God put upon all three of them as He brought them out as judge what would happen to them.

But they had their own way. And that’s why the whole world suffers. Today the prisons are full, the sickness, the death, the germs, the everything that goes is because they disobeyed. That one…. You say, “Well, God won’t do anything for you with one thing.” Well, the whole world was sold out because of one sin. Jesus Christ died on the cross because of the one sin, the selling out of Adam and Eve. They disobeyed, the sin of disobedience. So there we have it. It was like a vacuum and sucked off everything that we see today came into the world because of that—the curse upon the very vegetation, thorns, the ferociousness of the beasts, everything that came because of that one sin.

And God gives you all along. You say, “Well, I have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I’ve been baptized in the Body.” You still have your will that you can say anytime, “I don’t want that or it’s too much for me and I can’t stand it. I can’t make it, I don’t want it.” In the end, it isn’t that it’s too much. It’s that you don’t want to pay the price. It’s the death to the self you don’t want to put down.

And God gives you…. And you can hear that word go out from the Lord, “Tell all those that are fearful or afraid, go home.” God said, “If you have these things,” and then you could name the things, whatever you have. Name the things for them: it was fearful or afraid.

Because what would have happened if the fearful and afraid had gone out to battle? [man: They would have been wiped out.] Well, of course, because you’d have people with weak hands weaken…no matter what you say, you can just sit in that corner there and it’s pouring out faith or defeat.

AB: In Deuteronomy 20, actually what Gideon was doing was nothing more than following the law of Moses, because part of the law of Moses is the law of warfare. In Deuteronomy 20:5, describing how… The first verse is “When thou goest out to battle” and you see all this, be confident. Verses 5-8: “5 And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it. 6 And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it. 7 And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her. 8 And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.”

(HL: Let him eat to his heart’s content.)

And you know how careful we are, say, in the United States, about having people of even coming into the place of having their visa and been here, say, well, 20 years or 10 years or something, if they had anything communist or they had anything that… Alexander didn’t go out because he’s from Hungarian parents and he’s naturalized here and everything, because he still had relatives in Hungary. Any kind of a thing that would ruin the battle.

We know that when David was hiding out so many times and he had to run from Saul and make his home elsewhere and even ask the king to allow his parents to come where he was and he had a set-up there. And he was such a friend of that king—that king just thought the world of him and all that.

And then, when they went out to battle, somebody told that king, well, why do you have this one that…. They said, “Saul slew his thousands and David his ten thousands. And you’ve got him here in the army?” No matter how much you think of him, he could ruin us. He’s not really straight at the bottom. And the king listened. And David had proved himself so right, he had guarded the kingdom and helped him and everything. They said, “Don’t let him go out to battle, because they’ll ruin the battle, you don’t know when he’s going to turn.”

You can’t have people in the battle. This battle that we’re in now is so severe that we’re fighting. And those demons that are rebuked and all. Where will they fall, those demons, if you’re not in victory? It’s serious, you’re sitting around and riding out on somebody’s platform or trying to get on the chariot and then these demons rebuke, and you’re around or to wherever it would go. Say you could go and be not here, you’re in your home. It can fall right on you, the very things that you’re going against can fall, because you’re not with it, you’re not in victory. He that is not for us is against us and something will scatter abroad. [AB: He that gathereth not with me scattereth.”]

If you’re not with whatever it is and think, well, there could be a doubt or

we just don’t know, you just know you’re not with it. You know you’re not with it in the battle, and anything can happen to you. You just can’t say, well, and I’ll just withdraw, but I’ll still be with them on Sundays or be with them…. Where are you the rest of the time? Are you standing all the time? In your stubbornness and in your rebellion, how can you be there? And what’s the devil going to do with you?

He says, “Go home,” and then he said…. That was a terrible cut-down for him. But thank God that he had that faith that he got through that double miracle there, pulled him through, so that he could stand there with 300 and be just the same as if he had the 32,000. And he had 300. Well, it would be like…. He had less than 1% left, just what that meant. [AB: Out of every 100, he had one left.]

I mean, am I going to complain then? This has cost me years. The message is the same; I haven’t changed it. The Body of Christ is the same; I cannot change it, because I know it’s right. It’s so easy if you see it, but it has to be revealed. You can’t try to get members to be in the Body of Christ. It doesn’t come through membership, the right hand of membership. You can’t get it. It has to be revelation that I must be part of that Body. And if you get it and you’re on it, but if you don’t, it hasn’t percolated. It isn’t taken like it should be and still out there floundering around.

You can have fish…. I’ve got three, four little fish over there and I’m so scared to put any more fish in it. Because we did have a lot of fish and they have a disease and they’d go. And we’d get another one and have nice four little fish going around, and they’re all healthy seemingly. And if you go out now and buy a set of fish or whatever you want, they come in and then you’ll find all of them dying off one by one, those four little ones would be gone, because they’d bring that whatever they got. Ich. And they’d bring that ich and you’ve wiped out, so you have an empty fish bowl. So I just leave four little ones fluttering there and I don’t want any more in there. Those four little ones, they’re all right in health—they’re living.

So you can see it like that. You have four little fish. You want to have more. But you wouldn’t dare to get them because you’ll have them wiped out. Just maybe one new one and a real pretty one. It just could wipe the whole thing out. Just see, don’t get any fish. Be glad you got four little flutterers.

“Go home.” Find where you belong.