That was beautiful, wasn't it? Yeah, every once in a while I feel a little hesitant about doing things. One of the things I miss on occasion is hearing a beautiful piece like that, and because we don't want to make the message of the hymn disappear in our thinking, we'll say something very slight like, Amen. Amen. There's been a lot of really fine special music this whole weekend together, and I would like to clap for those people. Would you mind? Let's join in. Now, I'm sure Goliath doesn't say, okay, I didn't get any glory out of that. He does. But we all enjoyed the special music, and I'll miss one tonight, I expect. What's one tonight, Johnny? Okay, terrific. So that was very timely then. It has been a real ministry to listen to the various ones share with us in their testimony and song, and praise to God. It's been wonderful, really. I will, with your permission, be leaving after this session to go back to Dubuque, get in about ten or eleven a night, and be fresh for classes tomorrow. some dummy that made up the schedule made Mondays and Fridays my busiest days. And the dummy that made up the schedule is speaking today to you. So I'll be hurrying off after. And I'd like to express my thanks for all of you who have had a part in putting this together, especially for the ministry of the week by our brethren. We've all benefited from that, I think I have personally. And it's been a real joy to be with you. Johnny said in his announcement earlier since he's been sort of ragging, living a little bit, that this was a ninety second year for this. I know conferences have lasted long, but this hasn't seemed like twenty years this week, I'm happy. It's been a seventy second if my reading is right of that. But a fine tradition, and I am certain that over the years this has been a time that has been very helpful in the building up of the saints and stimulating them to good works. We've been talking about a couple of areas. The frustration many of us have sensed in the area of our personal communion with the Lord, our quiet time as it's come to be called. The guilt that many of us have felt over the years for that whole area of witnessing when we haven't thought we've done what God is expected and in both of these areas I think we have come to understand a little bit this weekend that perhaps we've done more what God expected than we anticipated and that's a happy discovery to come to. The major areas I think of frustration in our lives as Christians does not really relate to what we do in relationship to God that quiet time or how we relate to people around about us in our witnessing. An even more critical issue relates to what we think about ourselves. Are you happy with yourself? With what you basically are. Unfortunately, most of us have an attitude that said, I'd make some changes. If I could. I certainly wouldn't have the intellect that I'd have. I'd have a little more than the Lord saw fit to give me. And the personality, well, there's certainly something lacking there. God's involvement in my life seems so distant. Spiritual gifts. Well, I can sit and wish I could preach an evangelistic message like we heard Dan preach last night or gently encourage us in a true Southern gentleman mentality that are Brother Lidden did and said, here I am, a bluster and shouting, this is the only way to do it kind of person. And I could wish I had some other kind of spiritual gift. I remember some seventeen years ago when I first came to a Mass that I looked around at the faculty and I said, what am I doing here? There's this man and that man and another man who I had... honored many years earlier when I was a student at the school. And now here they were, and we were fellow faculty members again. I said, what contribution do I felt so insignificant? And I found out over the years that I had a contribution that was part of the big picture that others didn't have. I've had some friends who have come to these faculty members just recently. They look at me and they don't get upset a bit. I don't know what the problem is there. But it is true. And we look around in the church and we wonder, ah, you know, I have such a minor part to play. Insignificant role. Could I put a little parenthesis in here? I meant to say I have a lot of literature about the Mass Bible College up front, and I do. And if any of you would like to... see that or take some home with you and give to the young people or whatever, feel free to help yourself with that. We'll just leave it here throughout the rest of the conference. I would like to do one thing in relationship to Mass. This is all that's fun. How many of you have attended the school or have a child who hasn't attended or is attending? I'd like y'all to see enough, please, this one. If you've attended a Mass or have a child that did or is, let's see that group. Great. We're glad for that. You keep praying for the school. in the ministries of a mass and pray for my classes tomorrow, particularly after the drive back. Close parenthesis. Where are we? What kind of outlook do we have on ourselves? Do we wish we were somebody else? Do we wish we had somebody else's intellect, personality, gifts? And I'll go even one step further. Physical bodies. Our parents, how many of you satisfied with the way you look? I'm the only one with my hand up. And I can't see very well. So there are some reasons for that. You know, I really do things all joking aside. Most of us aren't too happy with what God did in our lives for one reason or another. We're doing it altogether differently. And I'd like to address our attention to certain areas of the Word of God to bring about some degree of encouragement in this way. so that we can enjoy the freedom of being the person God has in mind. Psalm hundred thirty nine is a central passage for the omnipresence of God. God is everywhere. And in the context of that great doctrine, we see his involvement in the life of every one of us from the very start. Verse thirteen, thou hast possessed my inward parts, now has covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hidden from thee. When I was made in secret and intricately wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, thine eyes could see my substance yet being unformed. and in thy book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how precious also are thy thoughts unto me O God how great is the sum of them Jeremiah chapter one Jeremiah chapter one we read The great weeping prophets say something very similar. Verse four, then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee. And before thou cameest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee. And I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. And finally, in this direction, the book of Galatians, In Galatians we read a similar concept in which the Apostle Paul is harking back to his beginning. In Galatians chapter one, in defending his apostleship and tracing God's work in his life, in verse fifteen he says this, But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood and did a number of different things as to his itinerary in all these sections that we have read it is a clear statement of scripture that God was involved in our life from the very beginning now we know elsewhere in Scripture that he was really involved prior to our life. One of the great and mysterious doctrines of Scripture is that great purpose in God that we were chosen in Christ when, before the foundation of the earth. The hymn we sing, of course, spiritual song, I'm not sure which, we sing at camps a lot as I was in his mind. before the world began. And that's true. But at the moment of conception, we see the act of God on our behalf and intricately working in the development of a newly conceived person in bringing that person to be just the person that he desires. At the beginning we are aware of the fact that certain intellectual limitations are set. And I would say low and high. When we think of intellect, we think of the geniuses and how God has intricately wrought in that area and producing a mind that is sharp and alert to the things of life when that person comes to be. But God is not only the God of the genius. He says to Moses, look, I made the dumb and the blind and the deaf. It's the other end too. And it's the same God who is involved. God is at work. We know in that first moment of conception that not only are intellectual limitations in each direction, generally set for the individual that's conceived. Personality traits that are part of parental background are passed along. Ways of thinking will emerge years later that were received at that very moment of conception. And that is not an accident of genetics. God is intricately working at that very moment. in life. The Apostle Paul is aware of this. When he writes, he says, but when it's these gods who separated me to the gospel. Now, if you were going to finish that sentence, where would you put Paul's separation to the gospel? I would put on the Damascus Road. That's when God came in and grabbed hold of Paul's life. That's when Paul said, identify yourself, Lord. Can it be? And the word comes from heaven. I am Jesus whom thou persecute us. And Paul's response is, what do you want me to do, Lord? I mean, it's instant. Here's an illustration of a person being saved and owning the Lordship of Jesus Christ immediately. We all don't do that. Paul did. Because he found out that that Jesus was in fact the Lord of glory. Well, he thought he was serving previously, as a matter of fact. But Paul didn't take the master's robe, did he? He says, from his mother's womb. From the word go, Paul was separated to the gospel. From the time Paul was born to the time he was born again is not a great parenthesis in God's dealings with Paul. In fact, God is working together. in the now established intellect and personality of Paul to make him exactly the vehicle he needed for carrying the gospel into all the world. Theologians call it prevenient grace, the grace of God before coming to salvation. And Paul is born in a city, Tarsus, a seaport town, and he gets a picture of the world. that few had in that day. Because he could see those ships coming from a distance, he could see that sail on the horizon, and that ship would dock, and he would visit with people from strange lands, and he had a world view that was not provincial in outlook, but included all that the world was at that day. It would come and go at his feet. And that was part of a very necessary view for that premier missionary apostle as he'd go on one and a second and a third missionary journey on that great trip to Rome finally. Not only was that a city that exposed him to all the world, it was a city in which was located a great, see the education, it was a learning center. And he could go into Athens and quote their poets and know what the philosophical viewpoints were of the Stoics and the Epicureans. He knew it. Because he grew up in a place where that education, that kind of center was right at his feet. And he rubbed shoulders with the intelligentsia of his day. He was born into an Orthodox Jewish home. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Not by accident, but by God's design. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was not from the liberal sect. He was from the conservative element of Judaism. And he would have as that Pharisee had mastered the content of the Old Testament before he ever came to know Jesus as the Messiah. He was a person who had a mind that was trained and sharpened under the best rabbi teacher of that day. Physically, he was not a very attractive man. Tradition has it. He was short, tall. I love that. Not very nice to look at. And we see reflections of that in some of his writings. He was not the kind of person that would normally be attracted by physical appearance. Even those things that later came into his life as sicknesses were part. of God's great design. But we were looking at those segments of his life before he ever came to faith in Jesus Christ. And during that period of time, we see God's hand molding and shaping this man with the family background and national background and geographical background that was going to fit perfectly. into God's big plan for the Apostle Paul, how it would all fit together. He was separated through the gospel from his mother's womb. In that womb, he was intricately wrought so that he would be precisely that person that God had in mind. And you see that great plan. This morning, Jean Willette handed me a great stack of papers. We've been having a good time in spare time, going through some history. I love history. And particularly the area that Jean had a lot of experience in during the Second World War. And what do you got from the... I'm not even sure where did you get it from, Jean? From the National Archives came the secret documents that controlled the... soldiers with whom Jean fought during the war. And what you now saw were all the detailed plans that went behind every one of those moves that this platoon and that platoon and the other platoon made. And it's kind of exciting, it was for Jean and it was for me to see this, that here from one high, from the general's office down through the various levels of government, of the military, All these thousands of men were being maneuvered about, and all this material being shipped here and there, according to a giant plan. The man down the end got a little statement that says, you carry that box from there to there. And that's all he knew from there to there. But it's kind of exciting to see how the there-to-there fit in with the giant plan that ultimately made it possible for us to be sitting here peacefully today enjoying life. a time of study in the Word of God in Middle America. Wouldn't be for that. I'd be speaking in German. And I'm not sure we'd be studying the Word, would we? I doubt it. But you see, there was a big plan. And the poor soldiers never had any idea of that big plan, did they? Never did. They were secret. They wouldn't even tell you. God has a big plan that's perfect. And the little pieces that come down to us may not seem so neat as we move a box from here to there. It may not have been so neat that you grew up in that unsafe home. But God has a purpose for that. It may not have been such a neat idea, seemingly. Those things that came your way during that period of time in which you aren't a believer, maybe you come from an unsafe home, maybe a safe home. And it's made us all a little different. Our backgrounds made us all different. But at a time in life, God says, now is the hour of salvation. And the gospel is preached like last night, like it will be again tonight. And God's plan is being worked out. And the Holy Spirit brings conviction. And we respond to that great message of salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And thou shalt be saved, and we believe. That's our response. We come to faith in Christ. And at that moment, so much happens to it. Louis Fair Shaver traces thirty-three things that happen at the moment of salvation that we don't even know about. We're baptized with the Spirit, sealed by the Spirit. He indwells us. We're born again. That's the whole big thing of it. the Spirit is, we're placed into the body of Christ, we're adopted as sons. There's so many things that go on. One of the things is that God gives us spiritual gifts. At the moment we're saved. I have no idea what they are at that moment. But we receive them. First Corinthians twelve and in Romans twelve and Ephesians four and first Peter four, they're great listings of spiritual gifts, God-given abilities. And that God who was intricately working in our lives while we were in our mother's womb, who separated us to the gospel at the time of birth and worked throughout all those years or months, however long, between birth and salvation, now gives us some spiritual, one or more spiritual gifts. Grace is given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Ephesians four tells us to every person. Everybody who is a believer in Jesus Christ has received at least one spiritual gift. And he's taken those limitations that he's established. And he's taken those personalities that he's formed and molded. And he's taken that great background that each of us has that makes us distinct. and says, I have worked it all out so that now I can give to this person according to the sovereign will of the Holy Spirit certain grace gifts. And we have those. And very naturally, most of us function according to those gifts. For some years, I've been saying how important it is to identify what your spiritual gift is. And I do think it's important. But I found out that as I would ask elders and people that I consider to be spiritual folks to come to school and tell some of the students about their spiritual gifts, they said, you know, I don't even know what my spiritual gift is. Any of you like that? I'm sure you are. And I'm sure that even though you don't know, you've been functioning that way. Listen, if you have a musical gift, a natural musical gift, how do you find out that you have that? Well, you don't go through a whole lot of tests to find that out. They end up humming. And you're a little thing of, and you see the little kids got rhythm, you know? Okay, that sort of thing. Well, some do and some don't. I don't. Musical gifts? How do you find out what a kid's singing? And he said, son, boy, when he starts playing a piano, it comes to him. Others, it doesn't. You find out about natural gifts by doing what is natural to do. If you have athletic ability and I see this in my son-in-law. From the time he was little, he was always having a ball around, some sort of basketball or baseball or football, and that's all he ever did. Bang, bang, bang. You thought it was part of the birth process. It really wasn't. And he went that way. And that's true with spiritual gifts, too. But I do think it's very nice if we can come to understand just what they are. What is the spiritual gift that God has given to us? And there are ways to go about doing that, I think. Find out what they are. The four chapters that I mentioned, it's nice the way they fall. First Corinthians, twelve, Romans twelve, Ephesians four, first Peter four, two twelfths and two fourths. Listen. And the best thing we can do if we want to find out what our spiritual gifts are, find out what the options are. And it's not a spiritual gift to be able to fly. You'll never find that any place in Scripture. So don't worry about that. You can't fly as a spiritual gift. But there are some others. And there are all sorts of gifts, some twenty, twenty-two different spiritual gifts. So make a list of all of them. Do a little word study. Using one. Oh, the books are all gone. Using the concordance or vine word study or something like that. Find out what all those spiritual gifts are. Now you know what your choices are. You know what God's choices are. Now some of them aren't around anymore. Dan was talking about that last night. Some of them aren't here. and we want to draw some lines through. Now that's a hard exercise I want to tell you to figure out which ones are here and which ones aren't. I draw some lines through a whole bunch of them, but we're not going to get into that debate at this time. But let's take one that really isn't very questionable. The gift of apostleship. We know there are no apostles around today, unless there are some very old people in this. Okay? Because an apostle, by definition, is one who accompanied with the Lord from the time of John's baptism, to his death and were witnessed to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Anybody here qualify? I don't think so. So we can draw a line through that. And through various other ways, we can eliminate some of those temporary sign gifts which were practiced to confirm the new message of the church. I believe in a miraculously confirmed message. And those miracles, as Hebrews points out to, were worked by those and confirmed to those to whom the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles spoke. And we've heard about that through Scripture. We believe in a miraculously confirmed message. And there were some wonderful miracles, resurrections and all, in that process. And that's the confirmation that we have recorded in Scripture. But having done that, having eliminated certain temporary gifts, a difficult job, but having done that, There remain a lot of spiritual gifts that any one of us has. And I want to find out of those what my spiritual gift is. And I want to try. I want to try evangelism. And maybe we're not the passive person we were talking about earlier. Maybe, in fact, some of us are the evangelists that can confront and bring a person across that line in a very effective manner. A God-given ability, not to all, but some. Or maybe some of us are administrators. Or some are teachers. Or pastors. Or helps. Or people who are hospitable. What are those gifts? You know what's beautiful? God has taken that person in whom he had a particular interest in, marked him out and worked with him from the very beginning, marked him out. worked in his personality, brought all these pressures to bear prior to salvation, and now equipped him with a perfectly matched set of spiritual gifts for that person. Isn't that exciting? Just what I am. Look, we don't have to be afraid it does. God is not going to say, okay, this person, I'm going to make this an introvertish type person. We need some of those in the church, or somebody who'd like to talk a lot. We need somebody to listen. Okay, isn't that good? And God made somebody that's quiet and an introvert by nature. That's the way God wanted it. Okay? And now comes time and salvation that is going to give him a spiritual gift. He's done. Ha-ha! I'm going to make him an evangelist. And he'll be miserable in all life. Because I can get out in front of people and shake and stammer and all the rest of them. Well, God's not sadistic. The God who wrought our beings in that intricate way... before we were ever born, who separated us to the gospel at the time of our birth, whose work with us in that convenient grace from birth to salvation. In fact, God has a max set of gifts that's perfect for us. He wants us to enjoy the exercise of our spiritual gift. He doesn't want us to be in misery. Well, I might be afraid of God. In that respect, he wants us to enjoy serving him. And that's one of the very tests we'll put to it. What are those gifts? Eliminate the temporary ones. Turn out what else left. What do I enjoy doing in service for Jesus Christ? What do others say I can do in a way that makes me a little unique? That's where the elders and the leaders should be operating to help us determine what we can do to be equipped of God in a particular way that others cannot do. And if I put those tests to it and keep at it, I will find out that according to God's grace, there are certain gifts that I have, that you have, that make me different from anybody else God has ever made. Isn't that exciting? You're not happy with yourself. You know when you're not happy with yourself, you know that you're really not happy with? You're really not happy with an omniscient God. Why did you make me this way? Well, one day God may tell us this. But he made us that way so that we could perfectly fit into the body of Christ. So that you and I can do things individually, empowered of God, that nobody else can do it in quite the same way that we do it. And that's a wonderful thing to know. You can look around at all the Sunday school teachers that function in your assembly, and if you're one of them, you are a Sunday school teacher with a unique contribution that only you can make. If you find yourself with two other men at a conference like this, there's no sense, at least there should not be, no sense of competition amongst us, is this? Praise God we're different. Look, Christians are not clones, you know? We're clowns last time, but we're not clones, okay? And we're not all the same. Everyone is different. And I can sit and enjoy the ministry of my brothers. And if I am in tune with God, I'm not saying, I wish I was like that. I wish I was like that. And they're not saying the thing. And we're not having a popularity contest to see how many votes one another give. Are we? Where we're for God. All of us. In our own individual ways. Through the personalities that God has. place in these bodies, these bodies which he has determined should approximate. We've got to be careful here. Should approximate what they're like presently. I have a little bit to say about my body. I'm working on omnipresence right now. I think that would be great. But the fact of the matter is it's God who has done all that. And he brings it all together at a given moment so that only you can do what you can do at this particular moment. And it takes out that whole concept of competition in the local church and brings rather the concept that we all complement one another. I can do some things that you can't do. You can do some things that I can't do. You can reach people that are turned off on my ministry. And I can reach some that are turned off by you. See, that's the beauty of God's great working. And if I can get hold of that fact, I can be happy with the product. I am what I am by the grace of God. And we all are. We all have an individual contribution to make to the unified, harmonious functioning of the body of Christ. And we should not desire to be anybody else at all. I am. just what God wants me to be. If, in fact, I am submitting to God's desire in my life, and that's the given I'm operating on. Let's not use this approach as a, oh, well, it doesn't matter how I act, it does. But what I'm saying is if we are spiritually minded in the first place, and we want to serve God, and we're devoting our life to Him, we have a contribution to make that is totally unique. God doesn't make any copies in the church. He makes us all different. For harmony. For unified working. For cooperation. For support. And psychologically for this. One of the biggest things. Is we all have to feel that we're needed. And in the body of Christ. Guess what? We're all needed. Every one of us. Is needed. For proper function. As we go back to our various assemblies, let's not go back with a viewpoint that says, oh, I'm just a minor number. I'm unimportant. No such animal in God's family. Let's not have those who are the movers and shakers and those who just tag along. We're all part of that body that's growing together. We need one another. Let's not have any feelings of inferiority. because we are by the sovereign will of the Holy Spirit gifted in a special way. Some, those who are public, some those who are behind the scenes. And quite frankly, the behind the scenes people are generally more important than the public people. The house, the encouragement. Let's face it, what do you really enjoy about the meetings of the church? Do you enjoy the preaching service or in-between meetings better? Which? A lot of times we come down from in-between meetings, will you? That's really when you have the fellowships, you enjoy one another. You get to encourage and you have in the aisle ministry and you go home out. Not by what some preachers, Paul, his sermon, it says, but what the lady said to you as you pass down the serving of. A little word of encouragement. And that's been the big thing for the conference. And the poor preachers thought they were doing it all. And you see, all that sort of thing fits together into one great whole. And when I look at myself in the mirror and say, God, you made a mistake, and I look at my intellect and say, God, you made a mistake, I'm not satisfied. I'm insulting the great general. Let's put the whole plan together for his glory. You know why he does it this way. He takes puny people like we are, weak, mutually dependent on one another, builds his church through failing Christians. Unbelievable how that's worked, isn't it? Build this church through failing Christians. And here we are, two thousand years removed from the Lord. And the church is still here. And you know it's not our work that did it. It's his work through us. And when he does it that way, guess who gets the glory? He does. And that's what it's all about. That he might be all in all. Let's not be disappointed with ourselves. God has called us to freedom. to be who we are uniquely in Jesus Christ, recognizing that God has worked differently in the lives of every one of us. So at this given moment, we can serve Jesus Christ and God in a way that nobody else in the entire world can. And that gives a dignity and a meaning and purpose to my life and to your life that we can hardly appreciate. I impart of an eternal plan and walking in obedience to God, I am just what He wants at this moment in time. He's at work. So if you are that kind of person, don't look at another person's gifts, intellect, physical appearance or attractiveness. Recognize that we are a product of an omniscient creator who one day will receive glory. for the wisdom that he has manifested in the church. Let's close in prayer. Father God, we pray that in the uniqueness that each of us has in your Son and in the body of Christ, we may find satisfaction. We pray that we may each function according to those various spiritual gifts that you have given to us. We pray that we may do this for the building up of the body of Christ, both qualitatively and quantitatively, that your name might be glorified and lifted up. As we return to our several homes in the coming day, that we may in fact take our place in each assembly, functioning according to the gifts and to the limits that you have designed with each one for your glory, for the edification of the saints, And for our personal enjoyment and benefit, we pray this in your son's name.