You Got A Purpose, A Target to Hit
Spiritual Building-Stone No. 184
Philippians 3:7-16, “… Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus….”
You got a purpose, a target to hit. [1]
Let us watch, what the Prophet of God said about it:
When God speaks
to a man, he has faith, and he has ambition, and he has a purpose. When God
speaks to a man, He gives him a purpose. When God speaks to a man, He gives
him ambition. When God speaks to a man, He gives him faith to do it, to accomplish,
or achieve what his purpose in life is (Romans 8:28-29), what God called him
to do. He's called us to be in the church of God. Amen.
Let's just make it our purpose in life to see that we are the church of God.
Let's have ambition, not set around because the Jones' want it. What do we
care about the… if they don't do it, let's us do it anyhow. [2]
There's only
one form of Eternal Life. If you've got Eternal Life then you, yourself, was
in God's thinking before the world was created (II Timothy 1:9). You're an
attribute of His thinking, 'cause eternal never did begin, or never can end.
You're a part of God's economy always. It's just reflecting.
Now, you've got one more picture to develop, that's death. Then the negative
becomes positive. Then you're in the Bride, and with Christ. As He taught,
like husband and wife today, so God, Christ and the church will be the same.
Now, the elected, called.
And brother, sister, if you've got Eternal Life you were ordained to do a
certain thing, maybe a good housewife, maybe something else. But nobody can
take your place. God has made you a place. Don't try to take somebody else's
place. That's carnal impersonations, shows there's something wrong with you.
Be what you are, just exactly. Don't be nothing else (I Corinthians 7:20).
[3]
Just look at
the Billy Graham's is in the land today. But, you know, Billy Graham could
never take your place. I couldn't take Billy's place; he couldn't take mine.
I can't take yours, and you can't take mine. You're an individual in God.
God made you the way you are for some purpose. If we would just find our place,
and then abide there. If we try to do something different, then we're in somebody
else's territory, which we just gaum up the picture of God.
We take like Billy Graham in the denominational world today, as he's, if we'd
call it maybe to the football player; he's got the ball. Now, if you try to
take the ball away from your own man, you're just messing up your team. Guard
your man. See? Keep guarding him, keep the rest of them so he can make the
run. And we'll have the touchdown after while, and Jesus will come, and then
it'll all be over.
Have a purpose in life, something you're going to do. God has placed you here;
do something about it, every member of every church. There's a revival in
town. That revival's there for a purpose. Let's get something out of it. Let's
do something about it. [4]
But first thing, a seed planted in the ground, if it isn't germitized it will not come up. It's got to serve God's purpose in order to come up. And so do we. We are a germitized seed in the ground, and we must serve God's purpose, or we'll never come up in that first resurrection (Revelation 20:4-6). Come up for judgment in the last, just like a hybrid corn; it comes up long enough to take its judgment of the sun, and dies, and goes back and that's all of it. Exactly right. But the real seed leaves, lives again, produces itself. [5]
You know, I think
about the time that He saved me. I'll tell you why I stand the way I do. Not
to be different, I made myself clear on that. I hope I have. But I... When
Christ saved me, there were millions of people groping in sin. When He saved
me, He had a purpose in doing it. He had a purpose in saving me. He just seen
an ignoramus like me, and somehow or another... When there was plenty of smart
men, more able men, men that could do it... Me here, with not even hardly
a 7th grade education, when there was men who's studied in school and got
degrees, and doctors of divinity and philosophy, and so forth... But when
Christ saved me He had a purpose in doing it, or He'd have never saved me.
Listen, brethren, I love you and you know that. But I'm determined in my heart
that I'll never back on that Word. I'll stay right there. That's my Absolute
I've been tied to all these years. Now, He had a purpose in doing it. That's
right. And I aim to see that purpose through, to stay with that Word, not
to be different, not to be mean, but to be honest and sincere with God. That's
right. [6]
Look. Let's take a simple drop of ink. Everything is for a purpose. You've gathered here this morning for a purpose. I eat at your house, Charlie. Nellie, you cooked for me for a purpose. Now, everything's for a purpose. This church is erected for a purpose. There's nothing without a purpose and a cause (Job 23:14, Proverbs 16:4). [7]
And each one of us is born for something. We just wasn't put here for nothing. That mountain never happened out there just to be. That tree was put there for a purpose. Everything's for a purpose. It's got to serve. And we are here for a purpose. Maybe it's to testify to one person and get them saved. And out of that might come a preacher who'll send a million souls to Christ. [8]
He has a purpose in your life each individual, that no one else on the face of the earth can take your place. God's got something for you. You're made like that. You was did that way for a purpose. God's sovereign in His Word. [9]
“He hath
made us!” (Rev. 1:6). Oh, there are certain truths we need to emphasize.
This is one of them. He! He hath made us! Salvation is His doing. Salvation
is of the Lord. All of grace. He redeemed us for a purpose. He bought us for
a purpose. We are kings, spiritual kings. Oh, we are going to be kings upon
the earth with Him when He sits on His throne. But now we are spiritual kings
and we reign over a spiritual kingdom. It says in Romans 5:17, "For if
by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance
of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus
Christ."
And in Colossians 1:13,
"Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated
us into the kingdom (reign) of His dear Son."
Right now we reign with Christ, having dominion over sin, the world, the flesh,
and the devil. Showing forth His praise and glory; showing forth Himself,
for it is Christ in us, willing and doing of His good pleasure. Yes, indeed,
even now we are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. [10]
In John 6:37
& 44 it says, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and
him that cometh to me I shall in no wise cast out. No man can come to me except
the Father draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day."
John 1:12-13, "But as many as received Him to them gave He power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born, not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
Ephesians 1:4-5, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him. In love
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will."
Now without getting too involved in the subject of the sovereignty of God (for that would take a book in itself) let me point out here that according to these verses, Jesus Christ is choosing His own bride just the same as men choose their brides today. The bride today does not simply decide she is going to take a certain man for a husband. No sir. It is the groom who decides and chooses a certain woman for his bride.
John 15:16, "Ye have not chosen me; but I have chosen you."
Now according to the Word of God, the Bride was chosen before the foundation of the world. This choosing of the Bride was purposed in Himself. Ephesians 1:9 and in Romans 9:11 it says,
"That the purpose of God according to election might stand."
You can't read it any other way. The heart purpose, the eternal purpose of God was to take a Bride of His own choosing, and that purpose was in Himself, and being eternal was decreed before the foundation of the world. [11]
We unworthy creatures, deserving of hell, but His grace holds us through it. Looky how many lost and blind, how many sinners was there in the world the hour I got saved. God saved me for a purpose, and I'm determined by His will to do that purpose. I don't care what anything else goes; I want to do it. [12]
No matter how
little you are, how big you are, how important you are, or how unimportant
you are, you are here to serve a purpose, just as my finger is here for a
purpose. My nail on my finger is for a purpose. My eye and every part of our
bodies is to serve a purpose.
And it was not put here just to see what it would look like when it was put
here; but it was put here to serve its purpose. It was God's Divine plan to
do so. And if we were put here for a purpose, then there is nothing can destroy
us until God's purpose is fulfilled. Nothing can harm us until that purpose
that God has put us here for has been made manifest.
No matter how much trouble we have, how much heartaches or sorrows that we
go through, all of these are reasons, and there's a reason for it.
We will take, for instance, Noah in the Bible. There was a flood that came
on (Genesis 6:5-7). And all the earth was destroyed. The vegetation and everything
was destroyed but Noah and the seed that he had taken into the ark.
God's purpose can never be defeated. There is nothing can defeat it. So how
happy ought we to be today, resting upon that beautiful revelation of the
Word of the living God, that there is neither things present nor things that
can come; there's no sickness, no sorrow, no death, no perils, nor nothing
can separate us from the purpose of the living God. (Romans 8:38-39)
What God has imagined in His mind, what God has purposed in His heart to bring
to pass, there is no demon, there's no power, there is nothing can ever separate
God's great immortal eternal plan. It must be as God has said. [13]
Moses, being born with
this great gift of faith, then he was anointed and commissioned at the burning
bush to deliver God's people. Now, see what great qualities this man had.
He was born for a certain thing. God had a purpose in it. God's got a purpose
of you being here. See? If you can only get to that place, how much trouble
you save God and yourself too.
Moses borned and then he was... (Exodus 2-3) …brought to the place where
he was anointed. And notice the seed laying there with the intellectual conception,
with all the faith that he was born to deliver this people, and yet it never
come to Life until that Light from the burning bush flashed across it, until
he seen, not something he read about, but something he'd seen with his eyes,
something that spoke to him, and he spoke back to It. Oh, how that did bring
things to Life. [14]
I want to thank
each and every one of you all for your prayers for me while I... You know,
I had a little explosion down on the range down there. And Satan tried to
kill me and... 'Course he couldn't do it; God wasn't through with me yet.
So he just can't do it until it's all over. When God's finished, then I'm
ready.
You know, the devil can't kill us till God says, "Come on now."
Then we want to go, don't we? That's right. Until then he's just trying in
vain. That's all we... The Lord Jesus is our Help and our Refuge (Psalm 46:1).
[15]
It reminds me
of a German painting in Germany. It's like the great picture of the betrayal
at Forest Lawn, so large, they had to build a mammoth big half a million dollar
building to put the painting in. The German painting is called "The Cloud."
And when you're a way away from this picture, it is the most miserable dismal
looking sight. It's a bunch of clouds just mixing together. And as you start
walking to that picture, it gives you a horror. Oh, what a dreadful sight
it looks. But when you get close to it, it's Angel's wings beating together.
See, it looks different when you get there.
That's the way it is with you tonight. You don't know just why you are sick.
You don't know just why... What about this. But maybe it is a blessing in
disguisement. It looks like a gloomy dark end for you, but it may be the Angel
wings beating together. [16]
References:
[1] “Taking Sides
With Jesus” (62-0601), pg. 764-98
[2] “What It Takes To Overcome All Unbelief” (60-0729), par. 73
[3] “Voice of the Sign” (64-0321E), par. 21-23
[4] “Doors in Door” (65-0206), par. 64-66, 88
[5] “Scriptural Signs of the Time” (64-0410), par. 48
[6] “An Absolute” (63-0127), par. 61
[7] “God In Simplicity” (63-0317M), pg. 60-4
[8] “Victory Day” (63-0421), par. 52
[9] “Identified Masterpiece of God” (64-1205), par. 32
[10] “Revelation of Jesus Christ”, CAB pg. 35
[11] “Smyrnaen Church Age”, CAB pg. 149
[12] “Feast of the Trumpets” (64-0719M), par. 27
[13] “I Know My Redeemer Liveth” (58-0406S), par. 12-13
[14] “Why Cry, Speak” (63-0714M), pg. 10
[15] “Way of a True Prophet” (62-0513M), pg. 2/8
[16] “Be Certain of God” (59-0708E), par. 35