God's profound love and the immense value He places on individuals are demonstrated through His willingness to give "men for" and "people for" their lives, signifying the high price paid for salvation and the desire for a surrendered life. The sermon emphasizes that a genuine call to ministry is a distinct and clear experience from conversion, not a profession or a path chosen by oneself or others, highlighting the importance of God's initiative and the presence of spiritual gifts. Through personal anecdotes and scriptural examples, the message illustrates how God sovereignly removes obstacles and opens doors for those He calls, underscoring that a definite call is essential for effective ministry and a clear message. Ultimately, the sermon concludes that while God loves all His children equally, He holds those with greater gifts to a higher responsibility, urging individuals to discover and utilize their God-given talents in His service.
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Peter, I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Shiva for thee. Since thou was precious, I want you to notice this. We find ourselves redeemed in verse three. This is how God looks upon us. Since thou was precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable. And I have loved it. Three wonderful words. Precious, honorable love. Therefore will I give men for thee and people for thy life. I want you to notice that. Therefore will I give men for thee and people for thy life. You have in chapter three or verse three, rather, the price he pays for our salvation.
That is our soul. But then he wants our lives and he's willing to pay something in addition to get our lives. You have to close the verse four. I thought it would be wise for me to speak for a little while because I want to take up two or Wednesday nights on my life story. Some of that are very detailed. I think some days it may be put in the book. Well, we'll see how the Lord leaves in that. But I think it may be nice to point out how the Lord calls one into his work at his full-time ministry. a call into the ministry is just as real or should be as one's conversion, if not one is going to be in for times of doubt and triumph.
For instance, I've never doubted one moment in my life that I was a Christian, that the night God saved me and I passed from death unto life, I knew the place it was a place, the kitchen of our home and the time, and I've never doubted since that I was saved. I've never given it a moment's thought otherwise. I knew it. Now, the same thing goes for my call into the Lord's work. My call into the ministry is just as definite, just as clear as my conversion. Therefore, I've never done it. I have talked to some of the Lord's work, and they've had some hard times.
In other words, they don't seem to see much blessing in their labor. I'm asked, how did you get led out into the Lord's work? Well, they didn't have much effort. I could mention one man's name. He went out as a missionary, he failed. He came back to this country, and he failed. And how he said he got the call, he was sitting at home one night, and maybe sitting, and his wife went out to hear the missionary. So he said, she came back from the missionary meeting and started talking about what the missionary said. He said, right there I got my mind made up. I was going to that mission field.
That was his call. Is it any wonder it turned out to be a failure both on forum soil and here in a minute? In other words, when God calls a man, it's a very definite decisive exercise of art and a very definite experience. And when you have through trying times which everyone does, I can reflect on some times that were very trying in my own life. The God's call to me into his work was so definite that I had no doubt whatsoever. Devil, try and tell you you made a mistake when you took that step.
Well, if you have that definite call, that clear-cut call from God, The devil can't taunt you. You know it can't in any way taunt you. You know that you're in the will of the Lord. So these are things that one should consider very definite, seriously. Another thing, one can't put himself into the ministry. That's an absolute impossibility for one to say, well, I'm going to be a minister. You can't put yourself, neither can anyone else put you into the ministry. such as mothers or parents putting a son into the ministry. I've known of some boys.
I used to ride with them between Winston-Salem and Chapel Hill and Wake Forest and Raleigh. Pick up these ministerial students in my car because there's quite a busy highway through there. These boys should go over the weekend. I'd often pick them up. It's really interesting to talk to some of these fellas and ask them how they were called into the ministry. This was about, I remember one case especially, these boys were in my car, and I said, what made you think the Lord called you to preach? Well, he said, I hope thought I had a ministerial voice, a deep, red and warm.
That was his call. He had the voice. Another boy said, well, his mother was determined she was going to have one son or preach. And he said, I was the youngest. He said, and all the others didn't turn out to be preachers, so I had to be. That's why he was cutting me. Now, you see, you can't become ministers like that by others pushing you to it, whether it be your parents or whether it be the church. God is not in all of that. And the religious world today, I would say, is suffering from this sentiment and this ambition, men filling pulpits who have never been called of God at all to preach his word.
In other words, they look upon the ministry as a kind of profession, just like a lawyer or a doctor, just a profession. It's a way to make a living, and they think it's a very, very dignified way. to make a living. And therefore, many of them turn out to be ministers, and many of them are sorry they did and are going back to secular and what. That's another thing, education. Take a social worker, can make a money-raiser, and a membership driver, but education can never make a God-called, God-equipped, and God-sent man.
can't do. Today, the emphasis is on education. You see, we've gotten our focus moderately. Another thing to keep in mind is that when Christ called men, which says he offended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now, these are special gifts. And the enumerated barrage in Ephesians, what are the evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Here are the special gifts. Now, there are ordinary gifts, but their gift is important.
The special gifts are not any more, you might say, precious in the sight of God than the other gifts. God loves all his children. But here is the Lord Jesus ascending up on high and giving gifts on the men and those gifts are evangelists, pastors, and teachers. The man can receive nothing, Scripture says, except he receive it from above. So a gift for the Lord's work is definitely a gift from God. The Bible says a man's gift make up room for itself. I want you to know that that. A man's gift make up room for itself.
He doesn't have to make room for his gift. If he's got the gift, it'll make room for him. You'll not have to say I'm a preacher. People will detect it when he does preach. And Paul said to Timothy, Stir it up. That needs to be done. Stir up the gift of God which is in them. It was in them. Therefore it needed to be stirred up. Then they, for instance, the incident in Acts chapter three. Here the Apostle Paul and Barnabas, they've been out preaching. They were mending tents and making tents. for years, and they were out preaching, seeing assemblies planted, but all of a sudden the elders, and I want you to notice it, was the elder brethren in Corinth, gifted, capable, godly man, and the Spirit of God said to these men, Separate me, Barnabas and Paul, for the work whereunto I have Paul left.
You'll notice Paul and Barnabas did not go to the elders of that assembly and say, we want to go preaching. No, the initiative was taken by the Spirit of God. God said, by the Spirit to these three men, separate me, Barnas and Paul, for the work we're done. I have called them. I've called them. They've proven themselves. They've been out preaching. They've established the family. They've approved themselves. Now I want them to give themselves full time to the work. There you have a scriptural case of being called into the ministry.
You know, the Bible says let the prophets speak and let the other prophets judge. No man is a judge of his own ministry. No man can get up and say, I'm gifted from God. for others to say that. No man is a judge of his own minister. Let the prophets speak and let the others judge. Not your parents judge, your relatives. They'll be favorable. But let the other prophets, the other men, let them judge whether you have the gift from God or not. In other words, you can easily see when a man is gifted whether Any blessing is following his ministry.
Whether people are being saved, whether people want them to come back and preach, whether the crowd filled up every time he does preach. These are indications of a young man if he has a gift from God. Now, to violate these scriptural principles, and they are scriptural principles, simply means this you're going to invite disaster and humiliation. day of trying to pry a door open to push a door open against the will of God when God has shut a door here is fighting disaster and that's all God will open the way and I've given you this little outline to begin with before I tell you how God did dig me out into the world I want to say first of all when God selected his twelve But Christ selected the trial followers.
He selected men who were faithful in their business. They were hard at work in their business, and they were successful in their business. God never calls a man for the ministry who is not a success. Okay, other things. A successful men, hardworking men, that have proven themselves as God will call them a full-time work on that spot plainly. in your life. Now my own experience, I might say when I was three years of age, I don't remember this. Mother tells me that she saw me drawing one day.
She hadn't thought by the way I was drawing because I was drawing my grandfather's crutch that was in the corner. What are you going to be when you grew up? I said, I'm going to be preacher on Sunday in the doctor through the week. Now I was only three years of age. Mother, she taught that as every mother would. Mother was saved, and she did love to think of the possibility of me being a preacher. From that time on she began telling me that I was a little sinner, that I needed to be born again, that living a good life wouldn't take me to heaven.
that I had to have a definite experience. I had to know Christ before I could reach the mother. That's what I was nurtured in and brought up in until the age of nineteen, I was saved. When I was nineteen years of age, you've heard my conversion from time to time, I might say that back in my mind constantly lurked what I had told my mother, the age of three, as she related to I was going to be a preacher. That lingered back in my mind. I used to fight it down. The time came when I was sick. Then I knew at that moment God had called me to preach.
One of the first things that was an encouragement I want you to notice, how the initiative was taken on the part of others, not me. About a month after I was saved, I went around to see Mr. Taylor, one of the godliest men I believe I've ever been associated with in my life. He was one of the elder brethren at Strasbourg Assembly. I went around to see him one evening and he said, Lester, he said, I want to tell you this. He said, you have all the equipment for an event. And he said, what we want you to do, the assembly wants you to do, is to give yourself the prayer, the study of the Word of God, and be more willing now for two or three years to learn than the dreams.
Your time will come when you have plenty of opportunity to sort it up now. That was booted up. But that was the first encouragement. It came from the outside that They said that I had the qualifications and the equipment for evangelists, and so was up to me now to develop that which God, by nature, had given. But two years later, I preached one Sunday night. After I had preached, Mr. Taylor, the spokesman for the rest, came to me and said, Lester, when you're ready to give yourself to the Lord's work, this assembly is prepared to lay its hands on.
said before. Once again I did go to them. They came to me, carrying out what we've done in Acts chapter thirteen. The initiative was always on God's part. God lead in that way. I want to notice some of the things, point out some of the things we have suggested here in this verse. Verse four, since thou was precious in my sight and has been honorable, that I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for thee. I want you to notice that. I will give men for thee and people for thy likeness. After I was saved, Mr.
Taylor had spoken to me, I was in, I think I've told some of you, in close companionship with a long friend of the family, Frank Long. Instead of me having the good influence over Frank, he was having the influence, or rather instead of him having the right influence over me, I was having the wrong influence over him. For instance, he had been exercised before I was saved. He had been saved four years. He was exercised about going down to Spain as a missionary, and he was studied for that end.
He was keeping company with my younger sister, May. Then when I got saved, Frank and I went back together because we were very much attached to each other before either of us were saved. So when I got saved and we're back together again, as I say, instead of Frank giving all this evening to the study of the word, I should, Frank, let's go out and do this, do that, go here, go there. Get down in my heart, I knew that I should be studying the Bible. The fall of the year came around, Frank went and bought a motorcycle, a sidecar. He said to me, do you know what we're going to do?
He said, I've got an uncle who lives out in New Zealand with a large ranch. He said, you've got thousands of sheep. He said, supposing in the spring we drive the motorcycle out to the west coast to catch on one of those boats, he'd already been on many boats on the sea, before he came to Stratford, let's catch one of those boats and work our way across to New Zealand and get a job with my uncle on the ranch and appeal to me. I said, fine. This day came the ninth of December. Frank and I went out hunting and he was accidentally shocked.
I caught him in my arm. few days later he would enter each other day to meet his wolf. He was pulling the gun out, he left it loaded, left it loaded, he was pulling the gun by the vial out from the sidecar on that trigger cock, the hammer cocked the seat, and he got the full shot right under his arm. Standing beside his casket, the Lord spoke That's why Frank's there, that you might do what I've been wanting you to do. Look on the field there, point, already the heart. I walk from his casket where he's buried from our home up to my bedroom, and I open my Bible.
There, right looking at me with that verse, say not there are four months yet to harvest. Lift up your eyes upon the field, there point, already the heart. A little while later, I was promoted in the railway shop. But I was only up about two months, and while I was promoted, I bought an automobile. Then, about a month after I bought the automobile, I bought on time, I was demoted because the union had lodged a protest against the railroad company that there would be no promotion long as they worked on a forty-hour week.
And I have been promoted while we were on a forty-hour week. So the boss said, we're sorry. We've got to put you back. Well, I was so upset about this. If I hadn't bought that car, I see how the Lord overrooted. If I hadn't have bought that car, I sold it like that. I'd gone to the West Coast because a man out to the West Coast had invited me out there, and I had a pretty good thing offered to me on the West Coast. I'd have quit my job immediately. Hadn't been on it bought that car. I thought I'll sell the car, and then I'll go. When I thought I had a buyer for the car, a fellow named Archie McAllister, I thought, well, here's my chance.
Shoal-hating, a man that lived down the street from us, grew up dead, and he worked in the same apartment I did, and there was no... I was promoted again because the only way they could promote a man all the time around forty hour week was a naked she made because of death. And he was naked. So I was promoted and I stayed off. A few months passed. One day I was working in my job with Mr. Ord, the foreman of the boiler department, a place where about two hundred and twenty men worked. He came over to me and he said, George, he could call me George because that was my mother's name.
He said, George, I've got something to tell you. I said, well, what is it? He said, I'm going to let you go. I said, is that right? Now, he said, I want to tell you quick, but it's not that I'm dissatisfied with your work. You're a good worker. And he said, that's the trouble. I want to promote you, but he said, I can't. Mr. C., the superintendent, has got it in for you, and he will not hear your name mentioned in a promotion. I've gone through four or five times to have you promoted, and he puts his foot down. He says, absolutely not. Now, the reason for his attitude was, before I was saved, of course, I used to run around at night, dance, and so on.
At daytime, I did my sleeping up inside the water. And I've been caught a half a dozen times. And being a hockey player, you can be pretty brazen up there because they won't fire it. And when other people were scattered at their job when Mr. Ceeley, the superintendent, came down, I didn't have to do it. I didn't care what he saw or what he did. And he had it in me. This is the reason, Mr. Lord says, he will not have your name mentioned for promotion. So he said, I'm not going to have a young man with potential like you've got work here without advancements. I'm going to let you go. I said, all right, Lord, when do I go?
He said, well, the weather's a little rough right now. He said, when would you take good time? I said, about the first of May. Well, this was the end of March. He said, all right, the first of May. He said, Lord, I want you to get right out. I remember saying this to Mr. Orr, how about giving me a free pass to the West Coast? She said, what do you want to go to the West Coast? Well, I said, I poured a swan with the girl out there. She snapped back, you leave the girls alone and get into some good job and work your way up. I'll not give you a pass. That was it. About two weeks later, it was a hockey game all, one of the championship games.
I saw Mr. Orr... and Mr. Cook, former attend the shop, shaking hands, was Freeman's defies. They had made a bet on the hockey game that night with a gentleman's bet. That was Freeman's defies. Quarter after, by Mr. Orr was a corpus. He left the shop and went over a few four blocks, and the shop where he worked, an eerie street that was shoveled and shoveled, no off the sidewalk he dropped in his tracks. Seven o'clock that evening I went over and looked on his form still on the couch covered with a blanket.
He's the one that said I was to go the first of May. Who should step into his job but Mr. Barrow, fine Christian devil, went to the little Baptist church in Stamford. Mr. Barrow was a real Christian and he had caught me sleeping in my unsaved days in some of these boilers. He knew what my life was, but he also knew that I had gotten saved. His boy was out one time in the big open-air meeting when I gave my testimony, and his boy went home and told his dad, and he had been here these days. So when Mr. Barrett took Mr.
Ord's place after Mr. Ord's death, that was three deaths, had a big part in my life. Mr. Barrett went to Mr. Sealy, said Mr. Sealy, I'd like to promote Lester Wilson. Mr. Sealy got mad. He said, I don't want that man promoted. Now Mr. Barrett could do something Mr. Ward couldn't do, for Mr. Ward was an idiot. Mr. Barrett said, Mr. Sealy, do you know what's happened to Lester Wilson? year or two ago. No, what happened? Well, he became a Christian.
And I think the Lord's going to use him as a preach. And I'd like to see him for more. That kind of took Mr. Sealy off that. He was a big church. Whether he was saved or not, we don't know. And he thinks, that will come to think of I haven't seen him standing around. They haven't caught him idle. There must be a change. Mr. Barrett explained to him that I found Christ. And I was altogether different from what I used to be. He agreed to my game of the Lord. The outcome was that I stayed there until the Lord opened up the way for me to come down to North Carolina.
Now, did you notice that text at the end of verse four? Since thou was precious in thy sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for thee. He gave his son for us in verse three. But I will give men for thee, and people for thy life. I want your life. In connection with Israel as a nation, God redeemed them out of Egypt by the blood of the Lamb, but then what did he do? He removed the obstacle. They were in their path to the promised land where he was leaving. Remember, he dried up the Red Sea.
And he took care of them going through the wilderness, the manna and the water. Then when he got to the Jordan, he rolled the waters back, and he took them to... And the Bible says he reproved the kings for their sake. He removed kings. He removed nations because his people were to be his witness. and he removed every obstacle in their path. God does the same thing. And it went for those things in my life. And this all happened before I was commended as an evangelist. It went for those things. I might question whether I took a step in self-will or not.
But with those evidence, how could I conclude otherwise when I'm in the rule of the Lord preaching His word? That's one of the first steps in my life. We say more about it next Wednesday night. But I do want to say this. You may think it's a wonderful thing to be so called and to be so used. But I'll tell you, it's a big responsibility. The more gifts you have, the more responsible you are. To whom much is given, much is required. I'll be more responsible to God than you.
If your gift is smaller than mine, mine is bigger than yours. There are other gifts in the church, just as important. And because one has been given a special gift from God, doesn't mean to say that he's any more precious to God than all his children. There are no favorites in God's family. He loves them all. But he does think about certain men. He said concerning the Apostle Paul, he had chosen them. God has given other gifts. The gifts of teaching elders, as we read, elders in the assembly who can teach and who can preach. Deacons, Sunday school teachers, singers, musicians, they all have their gifts.
God will bless them in their sphere. It's up to each one to find out where he belongs. and give himself what he does. To whom much is given, much shall be required in that day. So God wants your life. If you're not in his will right now, using what talent you've got, and your exercise was being used of him, he'll remove that. God wanted Abraham to follow him when Abraham hesitated, God would cheer up. Abraham's father out of the way that Abraham might follow the Lord.
So I believe that everyone who's out preaching the gospel today would have a definite call to the ministry. You wouldn't have the religious world immense. It's in today. For many of them not only don't know that they're saved or not, they have a lot of question markers as whether they were really called into A man who's not definite about these things, how can he be definite about his message? These are things. Exercise, this is the first chapter of my life story.