Present at the Birth (Part 2): Viewing Through His Eyes

I want to take a moment to tell you what we said in the last two meetings, and you might not recognize it. The first night, what I actually said was, if you’re going to meet here, first of all, please leave your convictions at the door, all of them, along with your doctrines. Now, that sounds terrible in the beginning. After all, isn’t our doctrine Christ? Aren’t we supposed to have sound doctrine?

What are some of those other frightening things in the New Testament we’re told to be? I don’t know. That sounds really wonderful until you get a group of people together. And then you get a group of people together, and each one of them has a different view of what the church ought to be and what you ought to do, and each of us comes from a different background, and most of all, we have different dispositions. Some of you will just sing songs and write and paint sunsets, and others of you will want to evangelize the world.

Dispositions express themselves in a certain way, and those dispositions tend to pick up certain doctrines. I can meet and get to know someone in minutes and tell you, in many cases, what that person is going to be interested in. And I find it most fascinating about people who are so enamored with signs and wonders. One of the ways you can tell is that they don’t ever hold a steady job. And if they do hold a steady job, it’s not much of a job. Isn’t that interesting? They are not ambitious people. They want to tell you about that cloud they saw or heard about over Russia. Had a sign in it. Some people said there was a fire in that cloud.

They are the people who write me letters, and the letters, they’re about this thick. And they are full of so-and-so prophecy and this, that, and that’s disposition. A counselor said to me that all of that particular kind of dispositional person, you can find them all down at the Pentecostal church. They’re not happy anywhere else. That’s right. Now, that was a Christian counselor. That was not my opinion. A lot of our denominationalism is based on dispositions and what appeals to different people. Now, what am I telling you? I’m asking you, I’m begging you to leave everything at the door except the love for the Lord. Leave your criticism, because, my dear friend, we’ve got lots of criticizers, lots to be criticized about. If you expect to come here or any other place that’s informal and find some perfect place, you’re just in for such a loss. I would ask everybody, whoever thinks about experiencing church life, I would implore you to read the second chapter of Life Together, called The Dream Wish. Everybody comes to a fellowship, a community with a dream wish, or, if you please, a dream list.

And then there’s the theoretician. We should be this and this and this. And we have to do this, this, and this. Come up here. Just come up here and look at what I’m looking at. Have you ever had a hundred biddies in a box? Has that ever been your experience, to have a hundred biddies in a box? Does anybody know what it means to have a hundred biddies in a box? Anybody in this room? Well, I used to raise, uh, I used to raise biddies when I was a little boy. My mom and daddy, you did. You put a hundred biddies in a box, you turn around, of them 50 are out, and you start grabbing them and putting them back, and when you got every one of them in there, back in, the other 50 are out. You have made no progress. I don’t know how we ever got them on a box. After you took the lid off. You know what a biddy is?

Baby chicken. Little baby, two, three, four-day-old baby chicken. And they jump out of that box. That’s church. Well, we’re going to do this, this, and this. Go organize those biddies.

Man, at best, we can survive one another, and that’s about it—if we can do that, we work the miracle—if we can just survive one another. Your theories will not work. You’re going to live to be a bitter, sad, disappointed old man. I have a dear friend who comes to mind—I’d better not be too specific—but he’s looking for the perfect church. He’s up in his 70s now. God love him. I know he’ll have a special place in heaven, but he’s not going to find it on earth. Boy, he’s sure not going to find anything that came out of my ministry. Now, the word perfect catches in my throat. Boy, I’ve got nothing to brag about in the way of the kingdom of God. The fact that we meet is a miracle. So, when you come, come general. Don’t come specific. That was my first night.

Last night, and for the rest of this time and after this conference is over, until I have said everything I know to say about this—just giving up the self-reference and coming, not to a God-reference, but to become one with the purpose of God and to share with Him—and I’ll use this word—His zeal for why He created and His purpose and intent behind it. That will take the rest of this conference, and it will be something we will need to return to again and again, for the simple reason: it is very hard for us to hold it. We have a really difficult time holding on to these things. If you begin with the wrong reference point, then every reference point thereafter will also be wrong. If you begin with man, you will always have the wrong reference point. And I would even say, if you begin with God and work to man, this will give you the wrong reference point. I’m even a little afraid of just saying we begin with God, because that’s so simple to say. But if I could say it, I would say if we could begin always in the eternals, in the mind of God, and stay there and take that frame and that mind as our reference point, then you have the right departure, departing place, what is the term I’m trying to say here? Point of departure. To go forward.

Brothers and sisters, we lack that. But for the group of people in this room, and for any of those who would come here, I would say I make a stand this week that this will be our commitment. It will be utterly our commitment. This is all we’re going to do. We will constantly begin with His eternal purpose. That’s where we will start with all things. Here. Maybe somewhere else, we’ll do something else, but here, it will be a beginning with Him as our reference point. I will say to you now, and I will keep saying it, you do not come here for your own needs.

I’m going to ask you to repeat something with me. God’s eternal purpose is not influenced by or affected by man’s need. I’m going to say it again and let you think about it. God’s intent, His purpose, His reason for creation, for our destiny, that which is so innate to Him, is not affected and is not determined by man’s needs. Now we’ll break it up into little pieces and say it once.

God’s eternal purpose is not determined by and not affected by man’s needs. Now then, to say that to you is to make clear what I am seeking to say to everyone here, and that is, dear friend, we are not coming here for your needs to be met. We are coming here to become one with His purpose, and His purpose is outside of our needs. The fall did not determine, did not originate, and did not affect His eternal plan. The needs that you and I have as a result of the fall do not affect or influence what God is doing to fulfill His own purpose. And let me just show you what happens if you do concentrate on the fact that we are fallen, we have been saved, and we’re very needy. We go on looking at that the rest of our lives, and we continue to be needy, and continue to be unwittingly forcing God to bend His present activity, course, whatever we feel He’s doing up there or in here, to come and meet those needs.