His Doing

Transcript

And hello, radio friends, how in the world are you? You’re doing alright today? Oh, I trust everything is alright at your house. If you struck a snag, look up, trust your Lord Jesus to bring you through. He didn’t drop you into this situation to forsake you, He led you into it so that He could bring you out of it. That’s the truth you find there in Deuteronomy 6. He led them out that He might bring them in to the promised land. God always has a reason for the experiences with which He trusts you and me. So, if you struck a snag today, if it’s a rough day, look up and say, “Lord, see me through this for Your glory,” and He will. I often think, I haven’t said very much to people who woke up happy, I suppose because there’s so few of them. Most of us yawn and stretch and groan and say, “Oh God, do I have to get up today?” [chuckle] Well, if you woke up happy, bless your heart, keep happy. Keep on rejoicing in the Lord, and remember happiness is a by-product, it’s a result of walking with your Lord. “Now the God of peace fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Ghost,” Paul says in Romans 15. So, joy and happiness is a by-product of walking with your Lord. Keep in step with Him today.

Come with me to Colossians 2. We have a lay-out of truth in Colossians 2:19 that tells us how to maintain a viable and growing Christian experience. The head is Christ, the body, that’s all of us. Joints and bands, nourishment, the nourishing ministry of believers to each other, the ministry of sharing God with people at the point of their need. And then He said, “And knit together.” That’s where we were the last time we met by way of radio, knit together. The oneness of believers.

A knitted garment is one where every stitch depends upon every other stitch. If you drop a stitch, you have the possibility of unravelling the whole business, isn’t that true? Every stitch depends on every other stitch in a knitted garment. Well, you can see the analogy very clearly in comparing that truth to our Christian experience. Every believer depends in some way upon every other believer. And you’re not alone today, and you may be greatly gifted, my brother, my sister, but you need God’s little people who aren’t as gifted as you, but who are faithful. Or you may be severely limited, beloved, and think that you don’t count, but yes, you do, for everyone else that loves your Lord depends in some way upon your faithfulness and your prayers and your service. We need each other. Now that’s where we were the last time we got together, just as the broadcast closed.

Now, it says knit together, increases with the increase of God. Increases with the increase of God. Never be satisfied, pastor, with just a little solid work that isn’t going anywhere, but seem safe. I talked with someone years ago and I said, “Well, how is your work going?” “Oh,” he said, “It’s not doing much, but it’s safe.” By which he meant he had a job assured, he wasn’t about to get fired and although there wasn’t anything exciting going on, he was alright. Don’t be satisfied with that, beloved. Either in your own personal experience or your Sunday school class or your church, or whatever it may be, the increase of God is the standard that you and I must look to. Increasing with the increase of God. Just for moment I’m gonna turn back to the book of Acts and show what happened in this matter of increase.

If you’d just let me turn the pages here of my big Bible, it says that when Peter preached there were 3000, I believe it was, who gave themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ. “They that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day there were added unto them about 3000 souls.” Okay, then you go on in the third and fourth chapters and see what happens. It says that… I’m turning the pages again, you can hear that, can’t you? It says that there were other thousands added and they were all of one heart and one soul and they gave, and they witnessed and with great grace, and great boldness, they gave testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then a little later on, it says and more people were added. “Believers were the more added to the Lord,” this is chapter 5:14, “multitudes both of men and women.” Now, what is this anyway? What kind of an increase is this? Well, it’s not arithmetic is geometric.

By multiplication. By multiplication. They weren’t just added, they were being added in a fashion that involved great leaps of increase. Now, why is this? Well, very simply, if you take the old illustration of starting with one penny and doubling it every day for a month, how rich would you be? Have you ever tried that? Well, you’d be a millionaire by the end of a month. And so it is that in the providence of God, you and I have been trusted with this blessed gospel message so that we might bring others to Christ. And the process is found in Timothy 4:2. Two, I should say. The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.” That’s the process, you see. That’s the process.

2 Timothy 2:2 it is. “The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.” So, it’s Paul, to Timothy, to faithful people, to many people whom they will disciple. Dos Trotman, of course, is now with the Lord, since 1950, what was it? Six, I guess, when he was swept into the presence of Christ through what seemed to be a human accident of drowning. But during his lifetime, he discovered this, this principle. I heard him tell in his own words what the Lord did for him along this line. He said he was quite active and busy every day, he was working at a secular job during the day and at night he’d get on his big Harley Davidson and drive many miles to some meeting where he would preach and witness and seek to lead people to Christ.

Very busy, but it dawned on him one day that nothing much was happening with the people whom he called his converts. There didn’t seem to be much fruit. There wasn’t very much going on and it was implemented dramatically to him late one evening when he picked up a hitch-hiker along a California road and immediately began to witness to him and seek to lead him to the Lord, and the boy said to him, “Well,” he said, “Mister,” he said, “about a year ago, you did the same thing to me and I prayed when you asked me to.” And it developed that the boy wasn’t any different, he hadn’t gone on with the Lord, he hadn’t grown any. There wasn’t any evidence of Christian dynamics in his life at all. And so Dos Trotman said he began to realize that he needed to start with a Timothy, a faithful person, and one who then could be trained to win others to Christ.

And he began to pray that God would give him one Timothy, and he found that person and spent time with him and then later on, the young man happened to be a service man in the Navy, later on when his ship went to sea, Dos Trotman said he didn’t hear from him for some months. And then when his ship came back into port the young man got in touch with him. Said, “I want you to meet some of your own children in the faith,” and permission was granted for Dos Trotman to go aboard the ship and there was a considerable gathering of, I don’t know how many, but a very significant gathering of young men in the service of our country. And Dos Trotman said that these young men had been won to Christ by the Timothy that he had discipled in answer to the idea that you need to teach people to multiply.

Now, that’s the increase of God. Yes, I believe in large meetings. I’ve been in many of our brother, Billy Graham’s meetings ever since that first time we had him preach at Youth for Christ in May of 1944, in Orchestra Hall. I still remember his sermon, he preached on Belshazzar’s feast in Daniel chapter 5. “Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting,” and there were many who came to Christ at that time.

But at the same time, the way God increases His church is not only by the public meetings such as the one that happened when Peter preached the day of Pentecost and just afterward, but also by this quiet process of multiplication, where it’s one and then two and then four, and then eight and then 16 and then 32 and then 64 and so on.

God does it that way. “It’s the increase,” it says, “of God.” Now, let me ask you something, pastor, Sunday school teacher, and Mother and Dad. Is the fruitfulness of your life, the increase of God? Is your church growing because people are winning folk to Christ? It must be admitted that for the most part, the people in the church depend on the preacher to do the soul-winning and they say, “Well, we pray and we pay and we leave it to the preacher to win the souls.” That, generally, is the case in many churches. But the church that is growing, beloved, is the church where John Q. Citizen, folk just like you and me, are out winning others to the Lord Jesus Christ and then are discipling them so that they too, can win others to Christ.

I preached in a southern church some years ago and I’m accustomed to give a gospel invitation at the end of my sermon, as you know. But on this occasion the minister said to me, “Now when you get through with your sermon, you turn it over to me and I’ll give the invitation.” Well, I was used to that because I did the same thing when I was leading Youth for Christ. I would say to the visiting speaker when you get through with your sermon, just say let us pray and then step back from the microphone and I wanna give the invitation. So I was used to that. I said, “All right, Brother. Fine.” And so I did, I preached as well as I knew and gave the gospel and finished my sermon, stepped back from the microphone and the dear pastor got up and gave the invitation, and they began to sing ‘Just As I Am’ and people began to come down the aisle. And then he turned around and said something that I still break up when I think of it. He looked at me and he said, “These people aren’t coming because of your sermon, brother. We won most of them last Tuesday night when we were out calling.” [chuckle] And he turned around. I tell you, that kept me humble till breakfast. [chuckle]

No, but it’s true. It’s true. The increase of God involves everybody in the church winning souls and discipling people, so that they too will be able to win souls and disciple people. Would you start that process in your church and in your Sunday school class and in your youth group and in your organization today? And in your own life? God bless you as you do it. It’s the increase of God that counts.

Dear Father, today, grant us the joy of seeing God’s increase in our work, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!