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God
Can Use Anybody
.
by Charles Simpson
This article is adapted from a talk given by Charles
Simpson at the
Ecumenical
Charismatic
Renewal
Conference
held in Kansas
City, USA in
1977.
JESUS WANTS YOU!
I wish I had a big poster like the one where Uncle
Sam is recruiting men for the army and he's
pointing out of the poster and saying, "Uncle Sam
wants you!" Only I wish I had a big one like that
with a picture of Jesus on it, pointing out,
saying, "Jesus Christ wants you!"
I believe Jesus Christ wants us – that
the Holy Spirit is pointing to us and saying,
"Jesus Christ wants you!" Turn with me to the
first chapter of First Corinthians. I want to read
from verse 23 through the sixth verse of the
second chapter . .
But we preach Christ crucified, to
Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles
foolishness, but to those who are the called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness
of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of
God is stronger than men.
For consider your call, brethren, that there
were not many wise according to the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen
the foolish things of the world to shame the
wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the
world to shame the things that are strong, and
the base things of the world and the despised,
God has chosen, the things that are not, that He
might nullify the things that are, that no man
should boast before God. But by His doing you
are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom
from God, and righteousness and sanctification,
and redemption, that, just as it is written,
"Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come
with superiority of speech or wisdom,
proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I
determined to know nothing among you except
Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with
you in weakness and in fear and in much
trembling.And my message and my preaching were
not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that
your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men,
but on the power of God. Yet we do speak wisdom
among those who are mature; a wisdom, however,
not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age,
who are passing away.
Now the apostle Paul is saying to us that, in the
initial stages of God's dealings with people, He
doesn't approach them as though they were wise or
powerful. How many of you remember what you were
like when you first met the Lord? Some of us
remember that we were really poor. Others of us
may not have been literally poor, but we realized
our spiritual poverty.
What I see from this scripture and others is that
God can use anybody – for
the power is not in the man but in the God who
calls him. Now God may give him wisdom and
strength. God may give him wealth. God will equip.
But it's important to see that God can use
anybody.
ORDINARY
PEOPLE: EXTRAORDINARY DEEDS
Historically, God has used ordinary people to do
extraordinary things. Later, we deify those
ordinary people because we see what God has made
of them and we attribute what they became to
themselves, when in fact they were nothing until
God laid hold of them. We think, "Well, I could
never be like that." But if we could have known
them as God first knew them, we could identify
with them.
One of the things God is doing is helping us see
the people He uses the way they are. God is
helping us to realize that He doesn't need much – He
just needs someone that's available, that's all.
Turn with me to James 5:17.
Now, this scripture tells us about Elijah – one
of my favorite prophets. Elijah was a man with a
nature like ours, yet he prayed earnestly that it
might not rain, and it didn't... not for three and
a half years. Then he prayed again and God poured
out rain on the earth.
The King James version says, "Elijah was a man
subject to like passions as we are..." He had the
same problems. He had the same temptations. He had
the same nature. But God used this ordinary man in
an extraordinary way.
Elijah went in before the king unannounced and
said, 'It won't rain or dew 'til I say so. See you
later."
For three and a half years it was bone dry until
he appeared again. By that time, all the nations
around were looking for him . . he had the water
handle in his hand. When they found him, he stood
and prayed a very simple prayer of around 18 or 20
words, and turned the water on. Fire came down
from heaven and burned a saturated offering on the
altar of God, so that all of Israel fell on their
faces and said, "The Lord He is God. The Lord He
is God." Elijah was a man just like we are. The
difference between him and any other man was God
Almighty. That was the difference.
You know, I can't help but wonder what we would
have done with Elijah had he appeared today.
Elijah comes into town, looks up the local elders
and says, "I feel like I have a word."
"Where are you from?"
"Tish."
"Tish? Tish? We don't know anybody from Tish.
Where were you trained?"
"I have a word that I feel I need to deliver..."
"Well, brother, if you'll just spend a few years
in seminary..."
How many of you know that if he had gone through
the traditional religious training to get ready to
deliver that word, it would have been too late to
deliver it, anyway? And when they got through with
him, he probably would have doubted everything he
thought he had from God in the beginning. Often we
minister so much doubt to ordinary people that
they can never do extraordinary things because
they lose the simplicity of their faith.
I'm not saying it's wrong to train people and to
equip them. But their function in God depends on
God's choice of them and their availability – because
God uses ordinary men to accomplish extraordinary
things.
Jesus violated all the known norms of His day. He
called ordinary men to change the world. Scripture
goes to great lengths to point out that the men
Jesus called were from among the people – rank
and file; not some group that had already been
chosen and accepted by their society. Yet look at
what God did through them.
God has likewise promised to do a mighty work in
the earth in our day, Do you believe that's true?
You know if there's one thing that I've gotten out
of this conference, it's a new hope and a new
faith that God's going to do something bigger than
I thought He was going to do.
Many of us, when we came to the Lord, were
hopeless... "without hope and without God "
(Ephesians 2:12), But when we came to God, a spark
of life came into us by faith, and as we've gone
on with God, that life has increased and our hope
and our faith have constantly grown.
OVERCOMING PESSIMISM
God has promised to do a mighty thing in the
earth. Now I didn't always believe that. There was
a period in my ministry when hope had dimmed to a
flickering flame ready to be snuffed out
completely by even the slightest breeze. Cynicism
and sarcasm took over my personality. All of my
jokes bit, and behind every smile was acid because
hope was gone.
During that period of time, I became very
politically oriented and joined the John Birch
Society. I became gripped by a negative feeling
that if nothing changed, the whole world would be
communist by the mid- 70's or late 70's. As a
result, I became a negative preacher.
I talked regularly about the need for a return to
the faith, but I'll tell you, without the Holy
Spirit, faith doesn't make any sense. And with the
Holy Spirit, that faith is a live, raging fire.
With every attempt to preach a return to the Bible
and to warn people to look out for liberals,
communists and modernists, things got worse. Each
week, my sermons consisted of the latest crime
statistics and how much worse things had gotten
since the week before. I preached about apostasy
and I got it every week.
It was in that condition, stewing in a squalor of
pessimism and cynicism, that I somehow began to
preach through the Book of Acts. And God began to
thaw out my own heart. Finally, one Thursday
morning in a little prayer meeting in a tiny
storefront building in Pensacola, Florida, Jesus
baptized me with the Holy Spirit and fire! Oh,
hallelujah, what a day of rejoicing that was!
Now, that day I happened to be with an exuberant
group, and I didn't get the baptism quietly. I
have no complaints. You can get it any way God
will give it to you. But I got it loudly, thank
God, laughing and crying and rejoicing. I did
everything but speak in tongues because I thought
Baptists didn't have to speak in tongues. A few
days later, though, God wonderfully liberated my
tongue. But the first thing I did was prophesy.
The interesting thing was, 1 prophesied something
that I did not know. What I heard coming out of my
mouth was that God was going to do something
mighty in the earth... that He was pouring out His
Spirit and there would be a great revival! Now
there was no room for that in my theology. My
theology was that the Church was going to get
sicker and sicker until, on its deathbed, Jesus
would come and get it and give it mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation on the way to heaven. But all of a
sudden, that theology exploded and I was talking
about a glorious church without spot or wrinkle
and a wonderful, exuberant, beautiful bride that
the Bridegroom was coming for. Glory to God,
that's a better picture.
My mind had to catch up with my spirit, which
sometimes takes years. At times I found myself
trying to preach the old doctrine with a new
anointing. You talk about getting messed up! I was
trying to warn people to look out while at the
same time wanting to shout "Glory!" It's hard to
get those two things to go together, so you can
guess which one I let go.
ARISE AND SHINE
I found that when I talked about the glory of the
Lord, a joy came in and people wanted to serve the
Lord more than when I beat them. I also found that
when fed them the word of God and began to lift
their hope by preaching the scriptures like Isaiah
60, where it says, "Arise and shine for your light
is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon
you, " that people wanted to rise to it.
Glory to Jesus! I began to preach that. As I
shared on the glory of the Lord, I saw our people
come alive with smiles and a new desire to be in
church to worship the Lord and pray and read their
Bibles. Something beautiful and wonderful was
happening. We were rising to a vision, yet unclear – but
its truth was dawning; Gad was going to do
something awesome and mighty and splendid in the
earth.
With the help of the Holy Spirit, I began to see
scriptures I never saw before. Have you ever come
across a scripture that you had read before but
never really seen? God starts to show you
something, and you say, "My goodness, Lord... You
mean You're going to do that before You do this? I
thought that was all going to happen over there.
You mean that's going to happen here? Praise the
Lord!" God's word teaches us.
We've heard Joel 2 quoted "it shall come to pass,
saith God, that afterwards... (after all that
fasting and prayer Joel talks about) I will pour
out My Spirit on all flesh." Now Peter quoted that
on Pentecost, and it was fulfilled in a measure at
Pentecost. That was a foretaste. But Joel 2 is
still being fulfilled. It's not finished. It's
connected with the end times.
We have quoted James 5:7, "The husbandman has
patience for the fruit of the earth until it
receives the early and the latter rain," There's
going to be a great rain.
The Scriptures demonstrate that even the prophets
who prophesied destruction and great problems
always ended their prophecies with words of
comfort. "Comfort ye! Comfort ye My people, saith
the Lord. I will yet do a great thing..." The Lord
begins to lift their hope. He rebukes them and
even brings judgment at times in order to purify
them for what He is yet to do. Even God's judgment
is redemptive, for on the other side of the
chastisement is both a glorious reward and
additional work that God wants to do. The evidence
is all around us.
Who could come to this ecumenical charismatic
renewal conference here and deny what God is
doing? It is unthinkable that a movement less that
15 years old should assemble the largest
ecumenical gathering or convention of any kind
right here in Kansas City. That alone is a
fantastic testimony that Jesus is doing greater
and mightier things in our midst.
PREPARATION: THE EVIDENCE OF
FAITH
Now, if you believe the Scriptures, the evidence
that you believe is preparation. It is foolish for
us to testify that we believe God will do a mighty
work in the earth... that the knowledge of the
Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the
sea... and make no preparation. Preparation is the
evidence of faith.
The Lord spoke to a man named Noah, whom the New
Testament calls "a preacher of righteousness."
According to the Scriptures, he's the only man in
his family who found favor in the eyes of God. He
lived in the midst of a crooked and perverse
generation – very
much like the secular society in which we find
ourselves. But his heart was right toward God. He
was a covenant man with a covenant family. He was
an example to his wife and his sons. His sons, in
turn, had apparently been an example to their
wives – and
their families were intact. They were walking in
the ways of God in the midst of a disintegrating
society.
Now God spoke to Noah one day as they were walking
along. "Noah, you know what I'm going to do?" "No,
Lord."
God said, "I'm going to destroy the world by a
flood, But you've found grace in My eyes." Now
Noah believed that.
"So I'll tell you what I want you to do, Noah. I
want you to build an ark . . . a ship 450 feet
long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. I want you to
get right to work on it."
Notice, Noah didn't go home and teach on the ark.
He didn't start the ark prayer group. He didn't
put out an ark periodical. I'm not against any of
those things; all I'm saying is: what Noah had to
do was build the thing. A lot of us have been
content to study the blueprints – to
attend seminars about it – and
to read magazines about it – and
sing songs about it – but
we haven't built the thing. If we really believe
God's going to do what He said, preparation is
required.
That's not easy. Building is dirty and hard and
toilsome. We've got to get beyond the seminar
state into the building state; joint to joint;
member to member; tying in; fitting together;
working it out; reconciling ourselves to one
another; and agreeing together in the Holy Spirit.
It takes a long time to build. Scripture says that
after Noah started building the ark, it was 100
years before he got in it.
Well, after Noah had this conversation with the
Lord, he went home to his wife, She said, "What's
the matter with you?" He said, "Let's have dinner
first."
She said, "Have you and God been talking together
again?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Well, what did He say?"
"You're not gonna like it."
She said, "Tell me anyway."
"Well," he said, "God told me it was going to
rain!" "What's rain?"
"Well, you see all those clouds up in the sky?
They're full of water and when that water falls
out of the clouds down to the earth, they tail it
rain!"
"They do?"
"Yeah, and God tells me there's gonna be an awful
lot of water – that
it'll cover the whole earth. He says we gotta
build a boat."
"I see. Are any of the neighbors gonna build
boats?" "I don't think so. I think we're the only
ones!"
"You mean our yard will be the only yard with a
boat in it?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Well, how big a boat?"
"Real big! And we're gonna build it out of gopher
wood and we have to put two of all the animals in
the boat with us."
"Us and the animals all in one boat?"
"That's right!"
"How long are we gonna stay in that boat?"
"A lot longer than you'll want to."
So Noah and his sons started gathering gopher wood
to build the ark. Remember, they didn't have any
modern tools to work with.
Twenty-five years later, the boys were talking
together one day while they were still cutting
down that gopher wood, without a saw – lust
rough, crude old axes, and Sherri says to Ham,
"You think it's going to rain?"
Ham said, "I think so."
Thirty years later, "Daddy's never lied to us
before."
Fifty years later, Japheth said, "Well, at least
it's a different group criticizing us now. The
other group died off,"
Seventy-five years later, and they didn't call him
Noah anymore, but "the guy with the boat in the
front yard. You'll see it; it's on the right."
But a hundred years later, when it started
raining, the boat was ready. it would have been
sad if 95 years later – after
things had continued to get much worse – Noah
would have said to his wife one day, "You know, I
think we ought to start on that boat." It takes as
long as God says it takes to do what God says must
be done. It's too late to wait until it's
apparent. Now is the time to start preparing.
Zachariah and Elizabeth
Zachariah was a man who prayed but didn't believe.
Zachariah and Elizabeth prayed all the time that
God would give them a child. A lot of years had
slipped by, and they were up close to 90, well
past child-bearing age. But Zachariah was a
religious man, the kind used to praying without
getting answers. And he had done it all the time.
One day he was standing before God's altar and the
angel of the Lord appeared to him... and he got
scared – which
tells you there's a lot of difference between
ritual and reality. When reality hits a
ritualistic person, it scares the daylights out of
him.
But the angel of God said,
"Zachariah, your prayers have been heard. I'm
going to give you a son,"
Zachariah said, "You can't do that. What do you
mean, give us a son? Why, Elizabeth and I are too
old."
God said, "Well, you'll still get your son,
Zachariah, but you won't talk till it happens
because you didn't believe Me." And after that
Zachariah went around writing for nine months. The
Bible says he praised and prophesied when God
loosed his tongue. I'll bet you he did.
Simeon
Simeon was a different kind of man.
The Bible says he was just and devout, looking for
the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was
upon him. When Mary and Joseph laid the little
baby Jesus in his hands... of all the hundreds of
babies laid in his hands... when this one baby was
laid, Simeon said, "Take no home, Lord. I've seen
your salvation." He was looking. He was prepared.
PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT GOD SAYS
Now if we believe, it makes no sense to believe
and do nothing about it. The Bible says, "Take
earnest heed of the things that have been
entrusted... Don't neglect the salvation. War a
goad warfare. Listen to the prophecies that have
gone on before time" - 1 Timothy 1:181.
Now there are prophecies... and there are
prophecies. Some prophecies are for exhortation,
edification and comfort. Sometimes God will give
you a revelation that will change your life. Other
times, a prophecy may just he words of the flesh.
But it pays to discern prophecy, and when you
believe God has spoken, to take note of it. The
Bible warns us not to despise prophesying. There
have been instances when prophecy has affected the
course of my life.
God once spoke a word to me when three of us
Baptist ministers – Ken
Sumrall, Ralph Branham and myself – were
together. The three of us had been filled with the
Holy Spirit together and night after night we used
to drive 60, 70, and 100 miles just to be together
to pray.
t that time, each of our ministries was in quite a
state of turmoil – Ken
had been asked to leave his church, Ralph was
about to be asked to leave his, and I wasn't sure
about mine. Back then there was no charismatic
movement that we knew of. We just knew we were
being asked out of something and into a sort of
wilderness, to trust God.
The night God spoke to me, we had been praying
together late at night. All the lights in the
church were out except the altar lights and it was
about midnight . Ken and I were walking up and
down the aisle together praying, and Ralph was
standing in front of the altar.
Now, Ralph had a way of prophesying colossal,
stupendous things... and I was always the careful,
conservative one. God will always put those two
kinds of people together to do each other good.
Ralph used to always get me into trouble and then
I'd have to pray my way out.
Anyhow, this particular time, Ralph began to
prophesy concerning Ken Sumrall and me. "Thus
saith the Lord, even as you two are walking up and
down the aisle together, so shall you now go
around the world and preach the gospel." I said,
''God, You've got to forgive Ralph. He gets
carried away. I've hardly ever been out of this
county preaching the gospel, let alone the world."
But five years later, when Ken and I boarded a
plane together in New York and sat down heading
for around the world, it hit me. I said, "Do you
remember that prophecy?" Ken said, "I was just
thinking about it."
God's word is faithful. If God says it, He will do
what He said. One night, when about 20 or 25 of us
were gathered together, seeking the Lord in our
prayer room, God spoke to us. We'd been through a
real persecution – at
least in our understanding of persecution – from
other Christians. We'd been through the fire. In
the middle of that situation, as we were waiting
before the Lord, God gave us a word. He said,
"When you are not gathering the harvest, don't sit
around on the porch. Get your tools ready and get
your barn ready because when the harvest comes,
it'll be too late to do that. And the harvest is
going to be so big that when you're bringing it in
from the field, you're going to drop it along the
way and weep because there are not enough of you
to get it all in. Get ready. Don't wait."
There was just a handful of us then, but most of
those men heard that word. And today, twelve years
later, most of them are sitting right here in this
room because they got ready. Nearly all those men
are full time harvest gatherers now. Because they
got their tools ready, they now know the joy of
the harvest. And I want to say to you: This is not
the harvest, this is just the laborers' meeting.
The real harvest is out there! Let's get ready for
it.
You say, "Charles, I'm not experienced in
gathering the harvest." Well, let's just touch on
the kind of laborer I'm talking about. I'm going
to say something that will sound strange to some,
but the calling that I see in Matthew 9:36 is not
your typical evangelistic laborer – he's
a shepherding laborer.
Prior to Matthew 9:36, Jesus had just toured the
whole area and had great miracles, deliverance,
healing, tremendous revivals. If I had conducted
that campaign, and someone had asked me about the
results, I would have said, "Hallelujah! We've
just had great victory. God is moving." But what
Jesus said was quite different. He was downcast...
He was sorrowful... He was compassionate... and He
said, "The thing that impressed Me about the
meetings was that there's nobody to take care of
all those people. They are sheep without
shepherds." Then He said to His disciples, "Pray
that the Lord of the harvest will send forth
shepherding laborers who will take care of the
harvest."
BEING AVAILABLE
Now, we can't ripen the harvest. God does that. We
can't send the rain. God does that. But
conservation and care are our responsibility. You
say, "Well, I'm not experienced in that." Well,
Peter wasn't experienced in it. Neither were John
or Andrew. I want to stress one word – what
God wants from you is availability.
Are you available to the Lord? Not everybody has
the same calling. Not everyone will be a pastor or
an evangelist or a prophet or apostle; but all of
us, under God, need to be available to God.
In 2 Kings 6 and 7, the Scripture talks about a
time when Samaria, which was the capital of the
northern ten tribes, had fallen into such grave
sin that God had allowed the Syrians to lay siege
to them. A siege is the most horrible form of
warfare. Those under siege were literally
devouring one another. It's a hard chapter to even
read. Two women having a controversy over eating a
child sought out the king, and the Scripture says
the king had rent his garments and he was
humiliated. He wasn't humbled, because he didn't
seek God – but
he was humiliated and frustrated. This king got
angry at God, which is what sinful people do when
they get in trouble if they don't repent. He got
mad at God.
Now Elisha, the prophet of God, was in town, but
he wasn't starving to death. He was sitting in a
house with the elders. And he said to them, "That
son of a murderer (talking about the king) is
going to try to kill me. Even now his messenger's
at the door, and bet he's right behind his
messenger." Sure enough there came a knock at the
door and the man walked in with the king right
behind him. The king said, "Why should we pray
anyway? God's the One that did this."
And Elisha said, "Thus saith the Lord, 'Tomorrow
wheat and barley are going to be normal and
there's going to be an abundance and it's going to
be great."
Now the next verse could have said, "And the Lord
raised up a mighty warrior in the land who went
out and slew the Syrians," Or it could have said,
"That manna came down from heaven and angels came
with buckets of water and the people were
satisfied." But it doesn't say that, either. You
know what the next verse says? it says, "Outside
the gate there were four leprous men,"
"Aw, come on, God! You're not going to fool with
them, are You?"
"Yeah, that will be interesting. I'm gonna use
four leprous men."
"Leprous men, Lord? But, they're not even in the
city dying with everybody else. They're dying out
here by themselves'
"Yeah," He said, "they don't have nothing to
lose."
They were just there dying-at the gate in their
filth and starvation – and
logic overtook them, with the help of the Holy
Spirit.
One of them said, "What are we doing sitting here?
If we sit here, we're just going to rot. if we go
in with those inside the walls, we're going to
starve to death. We don't have anything to lose.
Let's go over to the Syrians and see what will
happen," I like that.
Now the Bible says, "They arose early the next
morning." I bet they hadn't been getting up early
in the morning before that. You know, the minute
you get into the purposes of God, something
exciting begins happening to you
So they went over to the Syrians, four excited
lepers, not knowing if they were going to be
killed or what, God didn't fool with those
Syrians. He didn't even get His hands dirty. He
just thundered, and the Syrians said, "It sounds
like the army of the Egyptians coming after us. So
they fled in panic and left everything: the food
on the stove, their horses, their goats, their
tents, their clothes, everything!
Can you see those four lepers coming into that
camp? "Well, what have we here? My, my, barbecued
goat – right
on the grill." They began to eat and they began to
try on clothes. One said, "How do 1 look in this?"
They began to ride around on the horses. I don't
think God bothered them for a while. He just
laughed with them, After a while, one of them
said, "You know, this is not good, We ought to go
back and tell the king's household about this,"
Available. That's all those lepers were.
When John the Baptist said of Jesus, "Behold the
Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world,"
there was a throng, but there were only two or
three that were available. The Pharisees were
there, but they weren't available. The scribes
were there, but they weren't available. Somebody
said, "Why doesn't God use the best people... the
wise people?" Usually because they're not
available.
When Jesus went up to Galilee He looked at Peter
and He said, "You want to come with Me?" Peter
said, "I'm available." Something about the way
Jesus said it grabbed him.
Jesus walked by the tax collector's table and
said, "Matthew." Matthew said, "I found all there
is to know about money. I'm available."
"Thomas?"
"Well, 1 doubt if you can do anything with me, but
I'm available."
"James and John?"
"Well, if there's a fight around
we're available.
We always did want to see fire fall on somebody."
GOD USES AVAILABLE MEN
Jesus believed the Father. The Father had told
Him, "You're going to be a light to the Gentiles,"
He believed the Father in spite of Peter's denial,
in spite of Thomas' doubt, in spite of James' and
John's immaturity, He believed the Father, that
God would fulfill His promise.
Pentecost was no surprise to Jesus. It might have
surprised a lot of people, but it didn't surprise
Jesus. God has promised, and if we'll believe Him
in spite of ourselves and in spite of what we see,
we'll see what He promised come to pass.
Jesus taught His men to look for other men like
themselves and do in them what He had done. He
said, "1 want you to go fish for men – just
ordinary men. It's not the kind of men they are,
primarily. It's what you're going to do for them,
and what you're going to teach them."
Jesus was the best fisherman there ever was. He
could stand and see a man under a fig tree and He
could cast over there and hook him. He knew how to
fish, He knew how to bait His hook. A good
fisherman knows when, where and how to fish and
what to fish with.
Good fishing is not an accident. Catching men is
not a mass plan that gets some by luck, but misses
most. It comes by the discerning of the Spirit.
Now, I have nothing against mass evangelism. But
right now I'm talking about fishing for men
individually – personally.
A good fisherman is not necessarily the man with
the biggest boat and the most seats in it. He's
the man with the fish.
I want to close with this story. Douglas Hyde, who
was the number one communist leader in England
years back and who edited the London Daily
Worker, wrote a hook after his conversion to
Christ called Dedication and Leadership.
In this book, he said, "There's one condition for
making a leader, and that's dedication." One day
he was challenged by a man who came up after one
of his lectures. The man was obese, introverted
and shy and he had a terrible stutter. He was an
unlikely candidate for any kind of leadership, but
he walked up to Douglas Hyde and said, "Mm–m–mister
H–y–y–d–e,
mm–m– make
me a 11–1–leader."
Hyde said he almost threw away his idea.
But Douglas Hyde took that man, and tutored him.
He said he saw one thing in this man – he
was dedicated . Hyde taught him dialectic
materialism until he knew the book backwards and
forwards. Soon the man became confident because he
knew what he was talking about. And then Hyde gave
him one man and said, "Tutor this man." And he
tutored that man – and
then he tutored another. Then Hyde taught him a
trade, and he became so successful in his craft
that finally he became president of his union.
Douglas Hyde said that when that man died, he was
the leading labor leader in all England at that
time.
That man had one quality. He was available.
God's going to do a mighty thing in the earth.
He's looking for laborers, and as I give this
message, I'm looking at a lot of laborers. Are you
available? The job is open. We don't need to make
the plan. God's got the plan. All we need to do is
give ourselves to the will of God, to make
ourselves available.
I want to ask you four questions and all I want
you to do if you're available is to say "Yes"
right out loud. If you're not available, keep
silent. Now here are the questions:
- Are you willing for Jesus Christ to be your
Lord?
- Are you willing to be controlled by the Holy
Spirit?
- Are you willing to be trained by someone who
has proven they know how to fish?
- Are you willing to commit yourself to walk
faithfully with your Christian brothers?
If you're available, and if you've said "Yes" to
those four questions, you can count on God. He's
going to use you.
Charles
Simpson is an internationally-known
author, Bible teacher, and pastor, serving in
ministry since 1955. In 1964, he experienced a
profound personal spiritual renewal and began
traveling and teaching in churches worldwide.
He became widely recognized as a pioneer in
the modern Charismatic Renewal Movement.
Charles Simpson became part of the inaugural
issue of New
Wine Magazine,
an international publication dedicated to
Christian Growth, in 1969. During the next
seventeen years, Charles wrote and served
alongside other notable Bible teachers on the
board of New Wine, including Don Basham, Ern
Baxter, Bob Mumford and Derek Prince.
Charles resides in Mobile, Alabama. His wife
of 47 years, Carolyn, went home to be with the
Lord in 2008. Charles has three adult children
and nine grandchildren.
This
article is adapted
from a talk given
by Charles Simpson
at the Ecumenical
Charismatic
Renewal
Conference
held in Kansas
City, USA in 1977.
First printed in New
Wine Magazine,
Vol. 9. No. 9,
1977.
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