Who is God using?

[AI translation] Last Sunday, the question between us was who is bigger? According to Jesus, it is not the one who bullies, shouts, shows off his power, intimidates, thugs, exploits those below and above him, but the one who serves with love. Since Jesus Himself has walked in the way of humble service among us, there is no longer any lowly service, since even the lowliest service has the reflection of His glory shining on it. Since then, service to others has become the Christian way of life, the highest way of life. I would like to continue here, and to do so by showing you, by means of a concrete example from the present day, what it means to serve the Lord in love among men.I am talking about Albert Schweitzer, whose 85th birthday was celebrated a few weeks ago. He was that strange individual who, by the age of 30, was already a distinguished pastor, a learned theology professor, a celebrated organist throughout Europe, a respected writer, and who, foregoing all that, enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Strasbourg, graduating from it so that he could go to Africa as a doctor to heal the many negroes in misery. For him, Jesus Christ meant that he was obliged to serve people with the love that God had given him. He used the proceeds from his concert tours and published books to build hospitals for sick African Negroes. In 1954 he was awarded the Nobel Prize, which he used to expand the medical mission in Africa.
When asked why, if he was going to sacrifice his life on the altar of humanity, he did it in Africa, he replied: 'Because Africans have suffered so much at the hands of the European people. Who could estimate the misery they suffered from the brandy and the many odious diseases we brought them? We are not free to choose whether we want to do them good or not, because we are simply obliged to serve them. If we do good to them, it is not a good deed on our part, but an act of penance. For every person who has caused them pain, someone must go out among them to bring them help, to bring them love. And even if we do all we can, we have not atoned for a thousandth of our sins. And when he was asked why he did not go to Africa as a minister, why he did not even undertake to go to medical school separately, he replied, "The new attitude with which we whites owe the African colored people I could only conceive of one way: not as a talk about the religion of love, but as the pure practice of the religion of love."
I may have quoted a bit extensively, but it is to give you a practical example of what the ministry I have talked so much about looks like. Albert Schweitzer is the best known and most bluest example in the world today of the believer who gives himself totally to the service of others, and whose service is used mightily by God for the good of others. Such men are, in fact, the very people of the passage we have read. Gideon and his companions are men whom God used mightily for the benefit of others, who gave themselves to the Lord's service in such a way that a whole kingdom benefited, a whole nation benefited. Through the ministry of Gideon and his companions, God brought deliverance from trouble to a whole nation.
God works wondrously, doing mighty things when men give themselves as instruments to Him. That is the task of every believer. That is why we are Christians. So that, like Schweitzer among the coloured people of Africa, like Gideon and his companions among their own people, we may all, in our own smaller or greater capacities, be instruments of the Lord's love and service. It has been said many times here, but let me now emphasise again that the believer in God must also be an obedient instrument of God. God not only contacts you to redeem you, but also to use you. In redeeming your life, God's purpose is not only to secure salvation for you, but always to include you as a co-worker in his work. That is why the apostolic epistles again and again contain the exhortation that you who have come to know the redeeming love of God radiating out on you in Christ, now consecrate yourselves to God, your members as instruments of righteousness to the Lord, so that He may continue to work through your ministry for the benefit of others.
God wants to use the believer in Him, as He has used Gideon and his team here, to obtain deliverance from sin for many, many others through their ministry, to give strength and help in suffering, comfort in trouble and sorrow. Through the lives of those who already believe in him, God wants to show and, if necessary, tell that there is forgiveness of sins, deliverance, comfort and strength for others. Moreover, resurrection from the dead and eternal life. So redemption. God, in making you his child, makes you at the same time a friend, a brother, to all those, and especially to those who are burdened with some material or spiritual burden, who cannot manage alone, who need help. God, in making you his own, also makes you his own, so that the pain, joy and burden of others may be yours. This is a very uplifting and lofty thought, but let us add at once that not all believers in God are fit to be used of God for great and blessed service. The point of this story is precisely that even among those who were able to serve, very few were actually truly able. Lo and behold, by the time we found out who was fit, 300 of the 30,000 people were left, just one percent. God would test this army by various trials, and as a result, there would be barely a handful left, the rest would drop out. The rest were not useless, worthless people, not even unbelievers, just not fit to be used by God.
God is still sifting His church very heavily today. Today, both in the East and in the West, Christendom is living in a time when great masses are falling away, when many are falling behind, falling out, when great masses of Christendom are increasingly being found unfit for God to give help through their ministry in the troubles of this world. Only when we look around in the narrowest circle, our own congregation (Pasarét, 1960), what do we see? We see that about 10% of the people who are registered on paper as Reformed are those who have a relationship with the church such that they attend services. But even of that 10%, only a small fraction are those who regularly take communion. And how much of this small percentage is actually used by the Lord to carry out his redemptive plan, only the Lord himself knows.
But it is also clear from the Word that there are certain characteristics of this suitability and unsuitability. Behold, we read, "Therefore cry in the ears of the people, saying, 'Let him who fears and is afraid turn back, and depart from mount Gilead. And twenty and two thousand of the people shall return, and only ten thousand shall remain there." (Judges 7:3)
So, "He who fears..." This is the first big filter. It is not a question here of the fear which is pressing on the heart of mankind, as to which way the fate of the world will turn, whether towards a great general destruction or towards a great prosperity. This is not a fear of the future, not a fear of nuclear war, not an existential fear, but something else. Whoever fears that the cause of Christ in this world is not a triumphant cause, whoever cannot believe that victory is certain, whoever fears failure, whoever fears representing the love, humility, goodness, patience and peace of Christ in this world, whoever fears that Christ and His spirituality and morality are slowly being completely squeezed out of this world, is truly unfit, let him stand aside, for God cannot use him for anything.
"He who fears..." - this filter is particularly topical today, because you are all familiar with the atheistic materialist ideological position according to which the Church is a fixture of obsolete social systems and which can only imagine the future life of humanity without the existence and service of the Church. So whoever fears the cause of Christ, the Church, whoever fears Christianity, faith in the new social order, who does not dare to fight for the peaceful coexistence of humanity at the command of Christ, and whoever himself hopes for the Church as the last bastion of the old social order, should really stand out of the line of battle, is really not fit. Anyone who fears that Christianity has really discredited itself, that it is an ideology out of date, anyone who by his behaviour gives the world the opportunity to identify religion and the Church with political reaction, anyone who believes that in this modern world it is not possible to live as a Christian, is really not fit to be an instrument of God, to be used by God to accomplish great things.
Do you sense that this is about the deepest roots of our faith? That is, whether we believe in the victory of Jesus Christ. Do we believe that Jesus is Lord not only of our individual salvation, but also of the world? How big a Christ do we have? Is He one whose love and power extend only to the heart of a single believer in Him, or is He one who claims to be Himself: that is, Lord of the whole created universe, visible and invisible world, earth, heaven, human hearts, world of demons? Here we are really talking about how we see the cross of Christ. Is it as ineffectiveness, as failure, as a symbol of a languishing piety, or as God's mighty victory? Do we really dare to believe that it was there, in the cross of Christ, that God's redeeming love and power was exploded, released? That there the decisive battle with sin, with death, with Satan, had already taken place, and Christ was victorious?
We are now in an age when all dominion and power belongs to Christ, even if it does not appear so at the moment. When I serve among people with the spirituality of Christ, that is, with love, gentleness, goodness, purity, selflessness, Christian living, I am never alone: someone walks beside me, walks in front of me, covers behind me, leads me by the hand, fights with me. So not to be afraid is not a matter of temperament or nervous state, but of faith. Faith in the real Christ, counting on Him instead of my own powerlessness and inability. Then I will not be paralyzed by my own smallness, but inspired by His greatness. Not terrified by the task, but encouraged by His power.
This encouragement is found so often in the Bible: do not be afraid. And it is always when the Lord sends someone on a mission among men. It's as if he were saying: You have no reason to fear if you are on my mission. Of course, this is not fear, this is courage, this is not daring, this is not recklessness, this is not cuckoldry. Daniel did not rush about in the lions' den, but looked around with the confidence that even over a formidable foe, a dreaded power, God is Lord. So God is able to use the one who is not afraid, who truly believes in him.
Then God can use those whose suitability he has tested. Oh, God can test the fitness of his own in many ways. For example, through temptation, through suffering, through joy. Here, in a very special way: by which one drinks the water from the stream: whether he falls on his knees or just stands. Behold, then, all seems to be well in the host who have survived the first filter. Behold, they themselves have taken up the fight, they are not afraid of failure, but it seems that at some point their lives are not yet in order. Perhaps it's something very small that makes them unfit.
We have these little signs of our own inadequacy. One may be unfit because he has not yet committed his finances to the Lord, another may have a prayer life that is not regular and serious enough, a third may be crippled by family dysfunction, a fourth may be hindered from being truly used of God by a sin that has been committed in his life. As long as a man lives a double life, as long as he walks with a divided heart, the Lord will not accept or bless even the most fervent service of such a man. In fact, he will put him out of the line of battle. Until then, he is unfit for military service for the kingdom of God.
Why did the Lord choose for Himself those who drank water standing upright in the palm of their hand? Were they perhaps the strongest, the best nerves, the most talented? No! It was because they were the most able. The way they drank the water, standing up, ready to go on, looking forward, was an expression of the spirit that they had the Lord's business before their own comfort, rest and refreshment. This is the great doctrine here, that one must not be strong, skillful, able, in order to be used of the Lord as a blessing for the benefit of others, but ready. In the book of Psalms, the phrase, "My heart is willing" is used several times. God can work with people who say to him: Lord, my heart is ready, my hand is ready to do what You want it to do, my feet are ready to go where You send me, my mouth is ready to say what You are now saying through me to someone. So, a man of action, whose immediate and total obedience is not hindered by reflection, deliberation, worry, procrastination, by saying well, then, but not now... So then, he who lives among men with that constant spirit of listening to the Lord: 'How, Lord, can I be of use now to those among whom I am? Or: What can I do, Lord Jesus, in your name, for the person with whom I am now speaking, with whom I am now going on the road or doing the work? Yes, such believers can then be used of the Lord in a wonderful way.
However, if there are such strict conditions on who the Lord uses, are there not very few left? Are not their numbers reduced to a negligible few? Yes! Here again, of the 30,000, only one per cent were those whom the Lord found really suitable, but that was enough. God does not work with the masses, but with a chosen minority. We are usually impressed by the crowd. The world thinks there is truth, there is power, there is victory where there are more. Not so in the things of God. Let us be free from the magic of big numbers! The small group of the Lord's elect and Jesus Christ: together they are more, more powerful than the whole world. In Sodom, ten believing souls were enough to save the whole city from destruction. Ten men whose faith could have caught the saving grace of God. In the beginning, 12 men represented the cause of Jesus to the whole world, one of whom was a traitor. The apostle Paul went alone to Rome, then the capital of the Gentile world, alone with the invisible Lord, and his cause would prevail! It is not important how many people do not believe in Jesus, but it is important that those who are his, however few, truly believe in him.
You who are here, you believe in him! And then, if you are alone even at home in the family of believing souls: may you awaken! If so many of us who are here now truly believe in him, the whole congregation can be renewed, a new reformation can take place in the Hungarian Reformed Church! Do not want to be on the popular side at all costs, dare to stand alone if you must! And when you are alone, maybe you will be with Christ.
Talk to the Lord today, if He could use you too. He will triumph in His cause without us, but woe to us if we miss His victory, if the remedy that would heal the world fails at our hands.
Amen
Date: 14 February 1960.