The Cost of Ministry
As far as I know I do not have another meeting scheduled with you. Of course we’re here Sunday evening, but that’s something else again. I realize that we’re coming to the parting of the ways now very rapidly. EBI is changing her complexion. We are going to be scattered to the four winds before very long, especially with the seniors leaving. You can be sure once that has taken place some of our ways will never cross again. That’s right. It’s surprising how some disappear. You never see them again. It seems only a minority you meet now and then.
In regards to all of us, we’re scattering and only God knows what is lying just ahead. The world situation is extremely ominous. If I err not, this space ship the Russians threw into orbit weighs 3,000 tons. That’s the figure in my mind. If I’m in error, it’s a mistake, but it seems to me, that’s what they said. Of it’s military capabilities when it’s perfected, nobody is in doubt. The world situation has never been as critical in all its history as it is today. Everywhere you look there is upheaval.
The saints seem to have a rougher time to keep saintly than ever before. I don’t feel like a pessimist, but I would like to be a realist, and as such, we can hoist a flag this morning, the signification of which is stormy weather ahead for most of us, maybe all of us.
I want to read to you from Luke, something I felt the Lord was working on me for you. When it comes to the end of the year, there are a number of things one would like to say to a group while you have them altogether. But then, you cannot do that.
“Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like; He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock; and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it; for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.” Luke 6:47-49
Every year at this time I feel, of course, as any other instructor would, the implications of being scattered. You wonder what you did and what you didn’t do, what you should have
done, etc. This morning I want to give to you a rather sober line of thought. I cannot help but have the seniors in mind primarily. That’s a habit of mine. I’m just made that way. I suppose most of us feel the same way.
In a sense now this morning, we are houses. There are different kinds of houses to be sure. These houses of ours, or that which has been wrought shall we say, for these one, two or three years, you may be quite confident they will soon be put to a severe test. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you already begin to see the first signs of a hurricane. Things can blow awfully hard.
I’m wondering in my own mind how well we have built, on what kind of a foundation we have built. You will find in this parable of the Lord, He compares two kinds of houses. As far as I can see there seems to be no indication of any basic difference in these houses. The writer does not assume any structural difference, or a difference in design whatsoever. He simply talks about two houses.
These houses were seemingly built alike. They were subjected to the very same tests. Note that what is said of the one that stood is also said of the other house that fell. One house stood and the other fell. As you read the description, the storm which beat against those two houses was identical. The Lord is picturing both houses subjected to the same kind of a test, the winds blew, the waters beat against that house. If you’ve ever seen a flood! Whew! How those waves can beat!
I remember a stormy sea down in Valparaiso, Chile in the South Pacific after a storm. We went down to the shore to watch the works. OH! Those waves came along and banged against those buildings, and they slashed against those buildings. Some of the water came up in the middle of the road. Over there was the ocean and the water shot up like a geyser from the road. Nice buildings built right up to the shore just crumbled like so many matches from a box. They just went down as these waves came relentlessly, mercilessly. With a big boom they hit those things, the water splashed in the air. UH! What a sight! Down they came, others didn’t.
I hope I’m not painting things too black, but I feel awful serious this morning. I’ve got an ache in my heart somehow. Ahead there are going to be some mighty big waves and strong winds that will bang away at what we said we had. There nature is so diverse sometimes from our anticipation and things occur so unexpectedly that you wonder where you’re at.
Well, what about these houses? You know already that the reason one house stood was because it was built on an adequate foundation. You already know, as well as I do, that the other house fell because it was built upon the sand. What attracts my attention here is the nature of this foundation. Here the Lord is giving us, at least that’s what I see, three basic elements or layers (if you prefer), three essential parts of a foundation necessary to make us stand against the storms that blow against our Christian experience.
We know we have EBI graduates who have backslid. So have other schools. Something went wrong; something wasn’t right; somewhere the foundation wasn’t solid. I myself am afraid for a number of our students. I don’t see how they’re going to make it. They’ll have to do some digging and some building. That’s my judgment.
Notice what the Lord is indicating here. I see in verse 47, three integral parts of a foundation, three absolutely essential parts without which any one of them, we cannot stand. You will find that the Lord, speaking about the house built on the sand, states categorically that the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it collapsed into great ruin. As we’re subjected to the strains and stresses that are yet to come, there are three things that I want to enumerate to you.
“1) Whosoever cometh to me, and 2) heareth my sayings, and 3) doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like.” Luke 6:47 (numbers added)
1) Whosoever Cometh To Me – Relationship
What you have here is relationship. One of the essential things, and I would judge the first one in order of sequence is coming to Him, the idea being, having a proper, personal relationship with Him as a person.
You recall that I have said more than once in time past, when the Lord called His disciples, it reads like this: “And he called unto him whom he would (that’s the sovereignty of God), that they should be with him.” The trouble is, we put the emphasis on the going, forgetting the going comes out of the being with Him.
I’ve said to all of you before that our first calling is to be with Him. We cannot go unless we are with Him. We cannot preach unless we are with Him. First we are with Him, then we are sent by Him. This being with Him, or having a personal relationship, is not a matter of mere acquaintance. It is one thing to be acquainted with the Lord. It’s another thing to have a personal relationship with Him. Here in Luke 13:23:
“Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved?” Luke 13:23
Isn’t it something how easily people get interested in statistics? Here this man was unsaved, yet he wants to know how many are going to be saved. He forgets all about the primary fact that he needs to be saved, and he ought to be wondering whether he’ll be one of them. It doesn’t dawn on him to ask the Lord, “Lord, will I be saved?” No, he asks, “How many will get into the kingdom?”
Strange isn’t it, how our interests are deflected from primary things to secondary issues. For instance, how people will argue about the time of the rapture. Argue about the time of the rapture! What’s the difference? The main thing is to be ready when it does take place. When it takes place is of secondary importance, to me anyhow, and I think to God. People argue. Those in the victory get mad at each other whether it’s before the
Tribulation, in the middle or after. Well, they better look out. We get so easily distracted with secondary issues, and so this man, “Lord, are there few that be saved?” I like the Lord. The Lord answered him and said, Strive to enter in at the strait gate. In other words, never mind how many are saved. You get in. That was the real issue.
“When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are; Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.” Luke 13:25-27
“We have eaten and drunk in thy presence.” In other words, “Lord, we have a personal acquaintance with you. Why do you remember we sat down in Hardy’s Restaurant, and I brought You a cup of coffee and a piece of pumpkin pie? Do you remember I sat right across from You at the table, and we talked about different things?”
The Lord says, “Yes, I remember.”
“Do you remember it was in my house? By the way Lord, when You healed that woman, You did it right in front of my house at the corner. You were standing on my sidewalk. I’ll get in, won’t I?”
The Lord says, “Well, I don’t know you.”
“But Lord, don’t You remember me, I was there?”
He says, “I don’t know you.” God save us from having a mere acquaintance instead of a personal knowledge of Him. They thought they’d make it through with a casual acquaintance, but the Lord says, “No.”
When it says in this parable here about coming to Him, He doesn’t mean as a casual acquaintance, but as a relationship, which is a vital reality.
“It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” John 6:45
Anybody not taught by God is still untaught, and I don’t care how many doctrine books you can memorize. “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” Do you know that the object of Bible teaching is not knowing, but coming? Do you know the object of teaching you is not knowing? Shouldn’t we know? Of course, we should know, but that’s not the goal. The goal is coming. The truth we learn is to bring us to Him, and until we commit ourselves to the implication of that truth, we haven’t learned even though we make 100% on the test. That’s right.
We tend to make knowing the goal, but that’s the intermediate stopping point. What we know is to bear upon our will to bring us into the implication of that truth. “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” The final test of what we’ve learned is not the grade we make, but whether we come, whether we respond to the truth and to the Person of that truth. We stop short in our learning process. The Book says, “Every man that hath heard, and hath learned.” “Oh, I learned! I got a hundred.”
“Wait a minute. Have you learned of the Father? Have you come to Him?”
“Come? No.”
“Then you haven’t learned. You only gathered information.” Do you know there’s a difference between gathering information and learning? The gathering of information is necessary to the learning, but it’s not complete in itself. The proof of the learning is to come to the Person of the truth. All the truth is to bring us to Him who said, “I am the truth,” so that through the truth there ought to be a constant transformation unto Him. The final test is coming, not knowing. The final test is coming, responding.
Somebody says, “I heard that before. I know that.”
“What have you done with it?”
“Nothing.”
“Then you don’t know it.” Do you know why God brings the same truth over and over again? It’s not because the hearers haven’t heard, neither because they do not know, but because they have never responded. They know, but they have not responded. Without response, the truth is barren, so He sends truth in an effort to cause somebody who has known to respond. The end of truth is not knowing, it is coming. The end of the coming is a Person, and He is the Person. That belongs into this foundation that will hold you when the waves dash against you with a roar and a bang. You may tremble, but you stand. Did you get that?
That goes way down where the foundation is anchored. This kind of a believer of the house that stood, it says of him that he digged deep. There was an excavation process. Are you thinking? You better think!
Luke 14:25-30: “And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them,” I’m so glad for the Lord’s honesty. You couldn’t hear him say, “It’s fun to go to church. It’s fun to be religious. Oh no! He told the people the truth. There’s a difference between fun and joy. If I want fun, I won’t go to church. I’ll go to a clown. The only thing is, a clown isn’t funny. I see nothing funny in a clown.
More and more as I get around, I find that here’s the situation. As soon as the young people’s meeting is finished, they make it short so they can go down to the bowling alley.
Say, we’re coming a long way from the foundation that our fathers laid. When you got what I’m talking about, you’re not interested in bowling alleys. You won’t even have time for it. We better do some digging, and dig the alleys out and some other things, and build a foundation where we can stand. Only God knows what you folks will have to go through before you’re threescore and ten. Only God knows! Well, we could say, “Of course.”
Look at the world situation. As far as I’m concerned, there is no time to fool around. Here a few weeks ago, we had such a beautiful visitation of God. I think that the last two weeks, we’ve had more breaking of rules since the 21 years I’ve been in these halls. You wonder what’s happening to people. After such an exquisite revival, you’d think people would shun those things. Some of us better do some digging fast. There’s stormy weather ahead. This man dug deep.
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.” Luke 14:26-30
Do you notice how incongruous our present Pentecostal way of thinking is with the thinking of the Christ? Hating his own life also! Of course that doesn’t mean you go and kick yourself. It simply means that we say NO to the demands of the self-life in order to say YES to the Christ; that we allow no claims to stand between us and His claims upon us. He cannot be my disciple.
“Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” It doesn’t say may not be my disciple, it says cannot be my disciple. It’s impossible to be His disciple. Now we’re taking the cross and ditching it and taking up golf in its place or something. Now I’m not talking about wholesome recreation or something. You know what I mean.
“Which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth down first and counteth the cost.” In those days they counted the cost first. Now they just go into debt. My! How things have changed! Don’t worry about paying, just borrow money from the bank, and pay in installments. If you don’t owe anybody, you have no credit. That’s the new philosophy. You only have credit if you owe money and have met your payments. If you pay-as-you- go basis, you’ve got no credit. You’ll have trouble getting a loan.
“Have you had any loan before?”
“No, I’ve always paid my way.”
“I’m sorry sir. You have no credit.” The man who pays has no credit and the man who owes a lot has credit. It’s crazy.
The Lord believes in counting the cost. Well, I’ll trust the Lord. This man began to build, and was not able to finish. How many of you have begun to build: One year and you’re not finishing. Two years and you decide to call it quits. Now I know there are exceptions. If a student of two years has a boyfriend and he’s graduating and they want to get married, why should she come back a third year by herself? It doesn’t make sense, except nonsense to me. I’m not talking about cases like that.
I’m talking about those who ought to, in God. This man, this girl, this boy began to build and was not able to finish. They didn’t have what it took. “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). What I’m getting at is this: This kind of a relationship of which the Lord spoke when he said, “Whosoever cometh to me,” necessitates renunciation of ourselves, of our lives. It involves a complete abandonment unto Him without reservation or qualification, without which an individual cannot stand the onslaught of things without bringing catastrophe to their house.
It’s not mere acquaintance, it’s a personal relationship, so “those who have heard and understood, come.” Every one who hasn’t learned, doesn’t come. The coming or the not coming is the proof of what we have learned or not learned, not the test papers. The coming or the not coming is the final proof. We need the test papers, but I’m speaking of the ultimate proof. In the final analysis, that’s the test. It’s not nice, is it? But that’s it.
2) Heareth My Sayings - Doctrine
Again in Luke 6:47, “Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them.” The word “sayings” here refers to the things which Christ taught. In order to build that foundation of truth, it begins with an attitude. Bless you heart, we sure need to know the truth. Do you recall in Matthew 13, the Lord’s words were rejected because of a wrong attitude? They were astonished at His teachings, and said, “Whence hath this man this wisdom? Isn’t he the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his sisters with us? Where did he get all these things?” And they were offended.
Do you realize these people were offended and did not learn what Jesus said though they heard what He said because of a wrong attitude?
“Well, we know His teaching is...but where did He get it from? Who is He?”
“He’s the carpenter’s son. Why, we went to school with Him. We know His sisters. Why Him!” And they went their way.
Do you know that a right attitude is essential to a right learning? The other day I had corrected a test paper. I had felt that this particular fellow had no use for Beuttler, which of course, is to be expected. I knew he was at least more than of average intelligence, but
I sure remember his face and the way he sat in class for quite a number of years to come, quite a few, I think. He sits there, bright-Oh yes! He’s disinterested, indifferent, giving you the feeling, “Who cares.”
I corrected a paper the other day and what a poor return. I don’t know how many points were lost - quite a set of them: 10 off, 10 off, 10 off, 10 off. What I consider one of the brightest fellows in the school. How come? Attitude. Some folk are so bright that they hold such disdain, they don’t even learn what is offered because of attitude. I have other reasons for saying what I do. The right attitude is essential for right learning.
In Matthew 22:29, Jesus made this statement, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” These people to whom the Lord referred erred for two reasons: 1) Not knowing the scriptures and 2) Not knowing the power of God. You can err not knowing the scriptures even though you know the power of God, and you can err knowing the scriptures and not knowing the power of God. These men erred knowing neither the scriptures or the power of God. We need both.
Those of us that are so interested in the gifts, in manifestations, and in the presence of God, need to remember you err with that unless you have a good sound knowledge of the principles of the Word of God. We need knowledge of truth as well as knowledge of power, and vise versa. If we lack either one, our foundation is inadequate and cannot stand the test.
Do you remember the statement of Paul to the Galatians? “Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that which I have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” So sure was Paul of what he believed. You and I have to be sure and convinced of the truth that nothing and nobody can shake it. The devil will sure come around and shake you if he can, but we don’t need to be shook. Excuse the grammar. We don’t need to be shook. We can stand when the flood beats vehemently against it with all their pounding, pounding after pounding, wave after wave. While you may tremble, you stand because you know the truth. What would we do here if we weren’t sure about something? This foundation involves a doctrine which knows so you can say, “Thus saith the Lord.”
Brother Swift has his own teaching on Revelation as some of you probably know. Of course he indoctrinated me and I’ve never been able to change from it in my own position. He was saying some things, teaching in one particular church, and a young lady who presumably had a bold mouthpiece, or she would hardly do it. She challenged him on something. I think it had to do with the rapture.
Brother Swift said to her, “Now, you give me your scripture.”
She said, “Oh, I have to go home first and get my notes from Bible school.”
Do you have to go home first and get your notes from Bible school, or can you say, “Thus saith the Lord?” Do you see what I mean? Second-hand knowledge won’t do even though you did learn it from us. You have to know it for yourself so that even though we
change, you’d still stand. I stand today on things my teachers taught me in Bible school and they have changed their whole philosophy. I have never changed because they so convinced me. Some of my teachers in CBI today are repudiating what they have taught me. I still repudiate their repudiation.
Back there when I listened to them and went before God in prayer, He impregnated those truths in my heart and they became so rooted that when the wind comes along and shakes them, it only tears off the leaves. When the leaves are off, the tree still stands and grows new leaves. Why sure! What they taught me is heresy today, yet they convinced me because they ministered under the anointing of the Spirit. I poured over this Book and I took this Bible on my bed and read over and said, “Lord, that is it! Hallelujah!”
That’s why I’m incorrigible. I can’t throw out the things I was taught in those years because they have taken root too deep. We need conviction in these days. The winds are blowing, cyclones. Sometimes you hardly know where you’re at. You think the wind is blowing east, and then it’s blowing west. Can you stand the winds out there when you get into the current? They’re there all right.
My! How some folk change! The things they avowed they would never give up. It wasn’t two years before they did. Why? “Well everybody believes it this way. It’s too much trouble to stand up to it so you just go along with it.” There you are. Supposing your Master had done that. He stood up against all the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and the people and incurred their enmity.
“How come He stood up?”
“Because He heard from God.” Even though we teach you, you still need to hear from God. And if you don’t hear it from God, that hearing isn’t going to take you far. Some things I’ve heard from God, I don’t give up, not for you or anybody else. You haven’t asked me, but you know how I mean it. When you hear, you don’t give that up. Jesus heard. When you hear, you’ve got something that will make you stand.
That’s why Paul could say, “Though an angel from heaven had come.” If an angel had come with a big flaming sword, “Oh, I got another gospel, thus saith the Lord.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I got it from the Lord, Mister.”
“Oh, yea? Where did I get mine from?”
“I don’t know.”
Paul would say, “Listen angel, get out of here,” because he knew what he knew and held to it.
Take some of these apostles - Peter, who was crucified upside down. Take Isaiah who was cut asunder from head to foot into two pieces. Take the sufferings of some of the others in the Old Testament. How could they do it? They heard, they knew. What they knew, they knew and nobody could make them un-know it.
Some of you have said in this school, and I have nobody in mind. I don’t know whom anymore. “Hallelujah! Oh that’s God. That’s it. Praise the Lord. When I get out, I’m going...” Will you? That remains to be seen. Others have said that and sold out. Can you stand? Can you be Pentecostal outside as well as inside, or will you trade in promotion for the dynamics of the Spirit, commotion for devotion, trading in the armor of the Spirit of God for Saul’s armor? Many are doing it. They find it cheaper.
One said to me, “I find it easier to just go along.” Of course.
But God is looking for those who will stand, upon whom God can depend to proclaim that which He has put into their heart. They may shake, but stand. It remains yet to be seen how many of us are going to stand, and how many of us are going to fall. You can be sure not every one is going to stand, but every one may stand, and can stand given the proper foundation.
3) And Doeth Them - Lordship
One more thing in Luke 6:47 again, “Whosoever cometh to me (relationship), and heareth my sayings (doctrine), and doeth them (lordship).” It’s not only the knowing, it’s the doing. The knowing is absolutely necessary, but it’s not enough. It’s the doing.
Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Ye search the scriptures, and they testify of me, but ye will not come unto me.” They studied of the Christ to whom they never came. They did not submit their lives to His lordship.
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me.” Matthew 11:28-29
I’m not speaking along the line that Miss Wedding would speak, and so deliciously well, but I want to present a principle. If you go to Jeremiah, you find Jeremiah is using the yoke as being symbolic of submission. He took the yoke upon his neck, thereby declaring that Judah was to submit themselves to Nebuchadnezzar, the yoke of submission.
The recognition of the lordship of Christ involves submission to His yoke. The implications here are enormous. You know what a yoke is, don’t you? My grand pop was a blacksmith, and he was a farmer at the same time. He put these two cows under the yoke so he could control them. They only use cows there for milk and work.
I’m not trying to get at anything or anybody, but look here. If the Lord does not succeed to put a yoke upon us here in the school, what chance is He going to have after we’re out
of school? Somebody said to me, “Brother Beuttler, at least 40 students went without permission down to Philadelphia.” That number may be a guess. I was given the number 40. We know the number is large. To my recollection, we haven’t had that in all these years. At least that we know about - and some other things I wouldn’t dare mention or I’d send the bloodhounds going. I don’t want that.
“Who cares? What do I care? What’s the difference?”
Do you want to know what the difference is, my friend? The difference is between standing in the storm and collapsing. That’s the difference.
“Well, we’re not going to have any rules next year.”
You’ve got another guess coming, and then another one if you think that. Take my yoke. “Wait a minute brother. HIS yoke, not the school’s yoke.”
Wait a minute. God, in His providence, has brought you into an environment where there is of necessity a yoke of restriction without which no school could possibly operate. It would be an impossibility, and no school operates that way. God, in His providence, and I say that not to get at you - please don’t - I don’t mean it that way, I want to help you. God, in His providence, brought you under the yoke of the rules to teach you to know what it is to be yoked in order to bring that lack of restraint, and stubbornness, and self- will and what goes with it into subjection. The yoke you meet beyond EBI is going to be heavier and more confining than the yoke you have here.
“Brother Beuttler, I disagree with you. When I go out I can go to bed when I want to. I can eat what I want to. I can go where I want to.”
Sure you can, but not if you’re yoked to Him. If you knew the rigid yoke I’m under when I’m overseas, you’d be amazed. There’s nobody there to boss me. No, nobody. Nobody to say, “Brother Beuttler, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that.” No, I set the pace; I set the studies; I tell them what I want. I say, “I want a chair, and I want to sit, and I like the class to be an hour and a quarter long. Then we’ll have a 15-minute tea break, and another hour and a quarter class. I like to rest in the afternoon. Is this okay?” They go along with it.
What about the time in between? What if you sit for 7 hours on a plane in Holy Ghost intercession so that you can’t eat your meal? You just sit there groaning in your spirit - all the time. You don’t call that a yoke? Try it. When you could run around here and there and yon, but you know you’ve got to give yourself to the job you’ve got to do for God. So you go to your studies - 17 Bible studies a week for 5 consecutive weeks. There’s no time to run around. All you can do is do your work, get some rest and do your praying, do some eating and that’s it. Talk about a yoke - blessed yoke. It’s easy.
“Easy?”
“Yes, it’s easy.” Oh! It’s hard on this physical body, but it’s easy. Why? Because when you submit your will, it’s easy. Do you know what makes it hard? Our pressure against the restraint makes it hard. It’s always fight, fight, fight. Do you know that in the final analysis, the yoke of self-discipline is greater than the yoke that others put on us?
Submission to His lordship: We’re not our own. We’re bought with a price. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me. You’ll find rest. Have you ever noticed that some of our students have no trouble with the rules? The rules don’t bother them. Laws are made for the lawless, if we must use a principle. Those who bother the rules so are those who have such a spirit of umph, that they constantly clash. Others aren’t bothered by the rules. The more difficult we have it with the rules, the more we reveal our rambunctious nature that needs to be brought into subjection. Take my yoke. “Not everyone that saith Lord, Lord.” Lord, Lord, Hallelujah! Glory!
Wait a minute! “Not everyone that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my Father,” acknowledging the lordship of Christ, not merely by word, but by deed. I’d like nothing better than to stay home for a summer and watch the grass grow. I’d like nothing better, but I have a yoke. You have a yoke. Many of our conflicts come from constantly straining against the yoke instead of submitting to it. When you submit, it’s easy. Oh! It isn’t heavy. The heaviness comes from the will that resents the yoke that’s upon us.
Lastly, I’ll come back to a scripture I’ve used several times, and I’ll not work it too much, but simply stir up your remembrance. I have to remind myself of this often also, so don’t mind the repetition. Just ask yourself, “I know I’ve heard it, but have I ever submitted to it?”
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkest whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” John 21:18
How often when we’re young we talk in our immaturity, “I’m going here. I’m going to go somewhere else. I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that.”
Oh yea?
“I’m going to be an evangelist. I’ll get a pastorate.”
Oh yea?
When we’re young, we’ve got our own ideas, but when thou shalt be old, when thou shalt mature, when you get to know Me better, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands in helplessness, in dependence, another shall gird thee, and carry thee, and take thee whither you would never choose for yourself. That’s the yoke, that’s the submission.
“Whosoever cometh to me (relationship), and heareth my sayings (doctrine), and doeth them (lordship), I will show you to whom he is like: He is the one who built on a rock, and the winds come and the waves beat against that life. They hammer away with their thumps, but could not shake it, because it was founded upon a rock.
(Prayer)
Our Father, these are weighty thoughts and serious contemplations, for we realize that ahead there are things which surge against us, which will prove and test the foundation of our house. Father we pray, that while a little time, but oh so little remains, we shall look well to our foundation that in the days to come we shall stand and not fall. To the glory of Your Name we pray Thee. Hallelujah! Amen.
This message is one of the sixty-six surviving transcripts of Walter Beuttler's teaching. To hear his voice, visit the Messages page. To read the story of his life — from the Brooklyn Bridge to the school of the Spirit — see Who Was Walter Beuttler? The True Story of the Man Who Knew God.
The Man Who Knew God
Walter Beuttler was never famous, yet he carried God's presence to more than a hundred countries. His students said that when he walked into a room, the air changed. This is the first full account of a friendship with God that was specific, sustained, and costly. Read the story of his life →