The questions went on: why this and why that and why the other thing? It's not to say there's anything wrong with asking those questions. The question was with what attitude those questions were asked. And I listened to this for some time until I was thoroughly fed up about listening to this. So finally I said to him, "I suppose that if you sat upon the throne of God, this world would be in perfect peace. Because obviously you know how to run this world in such a way you could give God a few lessons on how to do it." And suddenly he became very quiet. It was only two or three months later that the words cut into his heart. Just as these words that God said to Job: "Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?" In other words, talking nonsense.
You see, there was a heroic commitment, but the heroic commitment was brought down. The heroic commitment was not different in essence, but only in degree from that of his wife. In other words, his wife broke earlier than he did. There is only a substantial change in commitment when the king moves from the carnal to the spiritual. This is the basic change.
What is the spiritual commitment? You see the spiritual commitment only at the point in time when you hear these last words: "I despise myself." That is not the words of a hero. A hero stands erect, proud of himself, bloody but unbowed. But to despise oneself is to bow down. "I repent in dust and ashes." Repent? Repent of what, my friend? He had always said that he was righteous. How come there is something to repent of all of a sudden? You are so righteous, why do you need to repent? Do you feel — especially those of you who carry heroic commitment — do you feel you have something to repent of? Or do you feel that every statement about your inadequacy or your lack of commitment is unfair to you? "I stood when others fell. When others went down the drain, look at me. I am still standing by the grace of God," you would say. But that is beside the point at the moment.
These little words "by the grace of God" can mean a number of things. The danger of the man with the heroic commitment is that he substitutes the good for the best. When a man is not spiritual, then he has to spiritualize. A spiritual man does not have to spiritualize. What do I mean by this? Well, when you are not very sure what you are doing is really spiritual, you have to convince yourself or somebody else that what you did is really quite spiritual. And that means you go into the practice of self-deception.
For example, you really want to do a thing, but you have to convince yourself that God wants you to do it too. And then if the door suddenly opens, you say, "Ah, you see the Lord did it. He opened the door for me." Does it ever occur to you that Satan can also open the door? Or do you imagine Satan could be absolutely impotent? If he were so impotent, how could he offer to Jesus all the kingdoms of this world? Here we can see this is the danger about the heroic type of commitment. Such a person usually has the utmost difficulty in determining the will of God. He must depend on external circumstances to ascertain whether or not maybe this is the will of God. His thinking is very muddled when it comes to spiritual things.
If a non-Christian gets a good job, why don't you say, "Praise the Lord, God opened the way for you, you got a wonderful job"? Does it occur to you that it isn't only Christians who get jobs? Non-Christians also get jobs. Otherwise, only Christians would be employed, and all the non-Christians would be out of jobs by now. Non-Christians also get quite good jobs. Sometimes the non-Christians get a lot better jobs than Christians do. If our spiritualizing reasoning is that whenever we get jobs, it is God who opens the way for us, this logic is about as absurd as anything can get. The will of God in our lives has to depend on something other than external happenings. But the uncommitted and the partially committed — oh, do they ever have trouble knowing what God's will is.
We must come quickly to the essential of what we have been talking about. Spiritual commitment — what does it mean? It is the commitment to let Christ live wholly, unrestrictedly, unconditionally in your life. That is, you are completely no longer holding back, but let Christ in your life live. The difference between the heroic and the spiritual commitment is so vast that I cannot expand it in a single message. If you say to a Christian with heroic commitment, "My friend, this way of doing things is not right, it's not good," oh, you are going to be in trouble with him. He is going to be very heroic when the thought comes out. "Did you say something about me?" Ultimately, he will be so courteous to you. "Of course, you wouldn't say that." But the inner feeling is: "Do you know how much I have endured for Christ? Do you know how much training I have? Do you know how much I have served the Lord and how much time I have put into it?" The thing you see is that he is hurt. But the man who is crucified with Christ — how do you hurt him? It's not I who live, but Christ. If there is something that is wrong, then I am not living under the fullness of the Lordship of Christ. And if I am absolutely committed to live under His Lordship, anything you can point out to me is a blessing. "Thank you for telling me all this. You are telling me the greatest thing. My life is coming to the pit, and you are wondering where the pit was. I am almost down in the pit, and you are telling me there is a pit."
How do you react to the truth? Are you still self-justifying? Do you really experience the reality of Christ living in you? Have you experienced the truth in you? My longing is that everyone here will become men and women of God. Our longing is that we are in the midst of the world to experience the reality of God. Maybe up to now you have known God through the hearing of the ear. And listening to that was enough to raise in you such a response that you've been forged by your heroic commitment. And you can already experience the truth in your heart, and suffer criticism, and leave your home. And that is wonderful. But for your own good, do you know whether your commitment is carnal or spiritual?
In the Middle Ages, the knights of the Crusades went forth to battle, and the blood of many knights was shed on the soil of the Holy Land. When the Crusaders went into the charge, they were so strong that the Arabs didn't know what hit them. They carried the flag of the cross above them. The cross marked on their armor, the cross on the helmet, the cross on their shoulders — there was hardly any place left not to put a cross on it. The entire body covered with crosses. Beautiful to see. Again and again outnumbered by the enemy, they left England, France, Italy. They went to the heat of the Holy Land. They laid down their lives under the banner of the cross. Admirable. Never to go home to see their wife and children again, for the sake of the cross, to reclaim from the hands of the infidels the Holy Land. The prestigious castles to this day, some of them are still standing, so well built.
So what about us? Should we not conquer the world likewise? Maybe instead of having discipleship training, they should open a military camp somewhere. We should have military training. We should use all advanced weapons. We will go forth in tanks and fighter jets. No, no, no, that's wrong. What's wrong? The difference between the Crusaders and many Christians today is that the Crusaders took to the outward expression of it. The difference between the spiritual and the carnal. And the spiritual means that Christ lives in a very real way in you. Do you think that Christ is the one who is deciding what you are living for? Is Christ living within you in such a way that even your thoughts and your decisions are all being governed and led by Him?
Let me read to you once more. Philippians 2:13: "For God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure." Do these words mean anything to you in everyday experience? Is the Spirit of God so living in you that even what you decide, what you think — because how can you will unless you think? — is Christ living within you in such a way that even your thoughts and your decisions are all being governed and led by Him? "To will and to work" — that is, even what you do is by His power, not your own effort. Have you experienced that?
Some people wonder how it is that since I have the responsibility of care of several churches, I am not a total nervous wreck right now. There are many people who are looking after one church and they are reduced to a state of almost near nervous wreck. My privilege is that all the problems they can't handle come through me. So the worst problems come to me. So I should be a nervous wreck right now. But you see, it is not I who live. It is not I who make the decisions. It is not in my own strength that I do anything. The strange thing is that the more I live with the Lord, it seems that I am only an onlooker. I simply pass on the instructions that are given to me. But myself, I don't have the wisdom to make any decisions. So, "Lord, what do You want me to do? How to deal with this situation?" And the Spirit of the Lord, as the Lord Jesus said, brings to my remembrance, if necessary from the past, or tells me from the present what things are according to His will. Or He will now give me new ways to deal with life. So I am not like some little Atlas trying to hold up all the churches in my strength. For me, I must live every moment in the reality: it's not I but Christ.
Many people say, "I don't know whether I am regenerate or not." You can well ask that question if Christ is not living in you in this practical way. Many people say that Christ is not real for them. Before chapter 42, Job's faith was second-hand. "I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear." Only in chapter 42 could he say, "Now my eye sees You." Only then could he say with Paul, "I know whom I have believed." How can you say that? Not unless every day you experience this reality. And every day you see the power of His working. And yet I am not interested in the power of His working in itself, but what is it signifying? What does it mean?
The night before, the afternoon before I came over to Hong Kong, I took one more walk by the lakeside — the lake near where we live in Canada. I walked past the spot where I shared with so many of you, where the fish came out of the water to our feet. Many people are impressed by the fact that the fish came out of the water. I was standing there with a co-worker by the lakeside, and as we stood talking about the Lord's word beside the lake, fish came out of the water to our feet. So I said to my co-worker, "Why don't you pick up the fish?" So he bent down and he picked up the fish with his two hands. And the fish was very vigorous, of course, and eventually he took it home.
Now the point about it is not that such a thing happens, although it's remarkable, a marvel in itself. The most important thing is not that such a thing happened. But what I constantly meditate on is: this is a sign. What does the Lord say to us? The carnal man is interested in the act itself. The spiritual man is interested in what it means. We pray for a sick man and a sick man is healed. Everyone is impressed by the act. But a person who is concerned about what does it mean that God did such a thing — that is a different matter.
But for men of God, and as you learn to let Christ live in you, this will become common experience for you in due time. Many people read stories of Sadhu Sundar Singh and people like that. He was walking in the jungle and a leopard came up behind him. He turned around and saw the leopard, and he just patted the leopard. But that one could have an explanation. An agnostic or an unbeliever might say that maybe this was a cat he had reared. Because of course, Sundar Singh is known to have spent many weeks and months in the forest, in the jungle, and that he in fact was always very friendly with the animals. So somebody might say, "Well, maybe this panther was motherless at one time, and he reared it. He was taking a walk and his pet panther came up behind him." And I can assure you that I have never kept pet fish! But of course, Sundar Singh has experienced other really marvelous things. So some of these things can be argued against by unbelievers.
The point that I want to say is: don't concern yourself about the miracles as phenomena. But consider when these things happen, what they really mean. And so I meditated on what it meant. The Lord did such marvelous things. You know what they mean? Have you experienced the power of God to do things which are beyond all understanding? I would like you to experience these things, not because I want you to be interested in the miracles, but so that, like Job, God may speak to you, and speak to you in such a way that your life is transformed. You know that God is real. When you walk with God in this way, you are guided by Him moment by moment.
So when I read books on how to get guidance from God, I find it interesting. But that is not the way God guides. "He is at work in us to will." That is how He guides. And when you are totally committed to let Him live His life in you, you don't need any other techniques of guidance. So wonderful that you know His will at any given moment.
In Matthew 10, verse 19, the Lord Jesus says to His disciples: "When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say. For what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you." Now I guarantee you that if you are suddenly arrested, and you haven't been living under the power of the Spirit, it's not going to happen on the spot. The Lord is not saying you can live any sort of life, and then one day you get arrested and you are under trial, and suddenly the Holy Spirit will speak through you. It's not quite as simple as that. Of course, it is only because all the time they have been living under the power of the Spirit that this will be true at that moment.
One final point before we close. When the Spirit of God governs your life, you will experience other things in your life, such as a profound sense of peace. Whenever I feel tension within me, that is a warning that I am taking back the control of my own life. I am faced with a deep and serious problem, and then I begin to feel tense. I immediately say to the Lord, "I am sorry. I am trying to deal with this problem myself again." Immediately, I yield my life over to His control. Whatever parts I have taken back are immediately given back. And no matter how big the problem is, I have perfect peace within me.
That is why a servant of the Lord does not get spiritually tired. Because when you have peace, you are resting within. When you are resting within, you can't get tired. When you have inner turmoil, you get very exhausted. In other words, living the spiritual life has many, many practical ways of being implemented. And one of these gauges is the degree of peace or lack of it that you have. And if you do not have peace right now, I think your commitment is either partial, it is either conditional, or it is heroic. You are trying to fight the battle in your own strength, and you are wearing yourself out.
And when you have peace, there is something else that always comes together with peace: a deep sense of quiet joy. And with it comes a warmth of love that overflows from the Spirit of God. If you begin to feel a lack of love towards somebody, you are in trouble. It is not the Spirit of God living in you. Your life is not under His control. And so it goes on through all the fruit of the Spirit. These things are not decoration for us. These things are the reality of moment-by-moment Christian living. If any one of those nine things are missing in your life, you know you are not living in such a way that Christ lives in you.
You see how practical the Christian life is. We have so many indicators, so many gauges on our instrument panel. Every moment is checking our position in relation to the Lord. And after that, who dares tell us that Christ living in us is really a mystical thing? Anyone who says that doesn't know what it is for Christ to live in us. You have those nine marks on your spiritual instrument panel. Keep checking them all the time. If they are all in the right position, you know, praise the Lord, things are going well. And then you will find something happening: there is power in your life. And everything you touch carries the power of God. And you will experience all kinds of marvelous things happening. And there is something that is an experience of truth. That is how the Christian life works. That is the life of God.