“I look at it, and the first thing is to count.” He gives it an estimate, and in his counting he says, “I count all things other than this as absolute loss, failure, refuse, in order that I may have it.”

In our study the other night we had this whole idea of counting and we hooked up with it the fourteenth chapter of Luke where Jesus says concerning discipleship, that it is on the basis of counting.

He says, “If you will meet these conditions you may be a disciple, but if you don’t meet them you cannot be a disciple. If you will do this, you may come in; and if you do not do this, you cannot be a disciple.”

He was not dealing with the question of salvation; He was dealing with the question of discipleship, or a closer union and understanding in the ways of the Spirit in Him. Those are all conditional. Salvation is a free gift, absolutely free gift, that’s free. BUT, when it comes to understanding Him in the deeper fellowship, that’s conditional. And when we meet those conditions we can enter in.

Now meeting the conditions is not earning it. I spoke along that line years ago, not just exactly on that text, but along that line, and someone met me after the meeting and said, “Well, Brother Follette, where is your idea of grace? Isn’t there any such thing as grace? Don’t you have any grace?”

Well, I said, “Yes.”

But he said, “Salvation is free; grace is free.”

I said, “I wasn’t talking about salvation tonight and I wasn’t talking about grace, I was talking about conditions which are laid down to meet the thing God wants you to have, and He says it cannot be met; it cannot be realized unless you meet these conditions.” To meet the conditions is not work to earn a thing; it is to make the thing possible. That’s quite a difference. You can’t work for salvation; He gives it to you as a gift, but you do meet the conditions which make the fellowship possible. He has it there, but He can’t just put it down unless there is a basis for it. That’s the same as the principle we discovered last year in our study about the blessing of God. God always stands with a willing heart to bless us, but He never coerces us; He never forces us. The blessing is always contingent upon the basis of a confession and the opening of our hearts for it. You can trace that from Genesis clean through to Revelation; it’s always the same principle. A confession, the outness, the openness, the confession is always the basis for the blessing to rest upon, and you don’t get your blessing without it. It started in Genesis when God wanted to bring the deliverance to Adam; it was God Who took the initiative to approach him. Adam was all out of touch; he knew he had failed; the communion was broken, and here he was under a spirit of fear. That is the introduction of fear in this system that we are in. Fear was not in the category of God. Fear is the result of sin and disobedience. There was no fear before that. There was a perfect understanding; fearlessness, openness, oneness with God. They walked in the cool of the evening in openness; there was no fear. But fear came as a hangover; as the result of disobedience. We found in the first meeting in this Retreat, the thing that made it possible for Christ to win the first phase of His victory (His victory falls into three departments) was given in the six­teenth Psalm … “I have ever kept …” what? ‘‘Thy face before Me - I have set the Lord always before Me." This was the secret of the victory that He had in that one field. When Adam turns from God, his back is to God; his face is not to God. When the back is to God there is no reaching out in victory; you don’t get that. So he goes continually away from God and as he goes away from God, he seeks a place of seclusion and he hides. But wouldn’t it have been wonderful on his part, when he realized that, if he could only have turned and said: “Oh God, this is all wrong, help me!” But he has the spirit of fear. So he disguises it; puts on his camouflage; makes the fig leaf aprons or dresses to cover them, which is, of course, all figurative. They might have made dresses; I am not interested in that particular. I am interested in the thing that it is telling: He had to hide a SPIRITUAL disorder by a NATURAL covering. And the natural covering will never hide the spiritual disorder. And here was a spiritual disorder which he was seeking to hide by a natural endeavor. Now that is always the good works and the good front that humanity puts on if it comes face to face with God and the spiritual demands that are made. Now come back to the thing I am after. Since Adam will not turn of himself, God seeks to deliver him; He wants to help him; He wants to bless him. So He comes down and asks him a ques­ tion. The question was not for plain everyday information; it was put there because He is telling us a secret. He is telling us a prin­ ciple that is going to run all the way through the whole Scripture. So He says, “Adam where art thou?” We don’t mean to be so silly to think he got behind a tree and the Lord didn’t know about it, and the Lord said, “There! He is flitting around here; now he has gone behind some tree, Where are you?!” How many know it isn’t a silly thing as that! That’s to me very ab­ surd. I don’t have too much patience with people who are such literalists in things, that they lose the possibility of loosening up in order to get the spirit of the thing that God is after. They are always parking on the material side of the thing: What kind of a tree it was that he got behind … That is not the point at all. This is what He is after: 50 “Adam, where art thou?” Not for God’s information, but for Adam’s blessing. He didn’t ask it for information, for He knew. Jesus does the same. How many remember an occasion when He made a remark to Philip: “This He did not for His sake,” but what? “for Philip’s sake.” He says, “Oh, here is this great company,” and Jesus - imagine Jesus saying it! And He turned to Philip and said, “Here is this great company, and what will we ever feed them?I” “…this He said to prove him: knowing what He Himself would do”(John 6:5,6). See the point? But He had to ask it just the same. God doesn’t ask, where are you, for information. He is asking it to make it possible for Adam to be helped. So Adam has to answer. And in the answer he makes a confession. And his answer is the confes­ sion. God is so glad to get that confession out of him, that admit­ tance from him. Now, He says, “I can bless you.” Remember how He starts the redemption right away with him? He has an answer for him and He has a way of escape. He has a way of deliverance. But God won’t give it to him until he comes around to make the answer. Always there is a little principle. You get it right in that book of Genesis again with Jacob,don’t you? You get the same thing again. And Jacob wants help; he needs help, but he can’t get any help from God until the angel has to deal with him. We sing it, “And Jacob wrestled with the angel …” No he didn’t! It was the angel who took the initiative. The angel wrestled with Jacob. 51 Well why? Because Jacob won’t have it in him, he won’t, but the angel has. God was more concerned in helping Jacob than Jacob was in asking help from God. How do you know? Because God sends the angel to wrestle with him ‘till he brings him through to his confession and makes a basis so that God can meet him. It is God every time seeking; it is God Who has to do the work. God sends an angel down and it says, “The angel wrestled with Jacob” (Gen. 32:24). Then of course Jacob responds and he gets into a tussle, he wrestles too. How many see the question coming right away? Did the angel ask for information, didn’t he know who in the world he was wrestling with?! It was dark and he said, “Oh, I grabbed a hold of a man here and I am having an awful tussle, I wonder who it is?” And so he said to him, “Say, who are you?!” Why no, don’t be absurd. The angel knew specifically who it was. But the angel in obedience wrestles with him and keeps on. And Jacob becomes conscious of that fact, that he is in a death-grip - he is in a death-grip. The angel wrestles and the only question the angel asks is, “What is thy name?” (Gen. 32:27). “Oh Lord bless me!” “What is your name?” “Oh Lord, I won’t let you go until you bless me.” “What is your name?” How many get the other night’s point: “Behold the Lamb of God?” Do you see it hooking right on? There was no answer for them. They came the first day and said, “What is all this about?” John the Baptist says … “About? It’s about this: Behold the Lamb of God.” They went back the second day: ‘‘You have something more to tell us, what about …?" “Behold the Lamb of God.” Third day … “Behold the Lamb of God.” If those two disciples had gone back every day for a month, John the Baptist couldn’t have given them any more information, he would have to continually say, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Well, why is that? That is an issue and they have to meet that Lamb of God and either deny Him or accept Him or do something with Him. When they meet that for the third time: “Behold the Lamb of God,” they accept Him. They said, “All right, if this is the Lamb of God, then we want to know more about Him.” What is their question right away? They follow up to Him and say, “Where dwellest Thou? Where are you from? What is the source of this thing? We want to know You too. We have accepted what John the Baptist has said and upon that basis we come now to You. What’s your source? What’s this all about? Who are You? What do You come from? What is this thing?” Jesus says, “Fine, come, and see” (John 1:39). But they cannot see unless they come. Condition? Certainly! Condition? Certainly! “But I want to see!” “You have to come to see - ‘Come, and see.’ But your ‘see’ depends upon your ‘come.’ And if you come, then you’ll leave. You have to leave the position; you have to leave the experience; you have to leave that to come into this. But if you will come, you shall see. “But I am not going to bring that to you, because this is a progressive thing, ‘Come - see.’ " Well, how did He do that? That was all done through question­ ing. How does Jacob get his answer? Through questioning. And when that angel says, “Who art thou?” He didn’t want him to say, “My name is Jacob.” It wasn’t that! He was saying more than that! When he said, “Jacob,” he was making a disclosure of his life and nature and character, for Jacob means supplanter, deceiver, crooked one, and Jacob didn’t want anyone to know that! The name is the character that he bears, and Jacob doesn’t want to own that up. And Jacob wrestled well, and the angel kept right on. Isn’t it nice the angel holds you? How many of you are glad he keeps right on? He won’t let you go. He just holds you and keeps right on with you, keeps right on. “But I want " “You can’t have it ‘till " “Can’t?” “No.’’ “Well, bless me " “No.” “I won’t let you go until " “No, what is your name? Come on, come on, what is your name?” In other words, make that confession; expose your need; own up to it; own the barrenness; own the lack; own that; then He can bless you! And as soon as he said “Jacob,” “Oh!” the angel says, “That is Jacob here, but do you know what you are with God now? You are a prince!” (Remember he prevailed?) And the angel says, “From now on we are not looking at you as Jacob­ I am glad that you said Jacob, because you have to acknowledge that.” And that little confession will release God and make it possible for Him to bring you the thing that He wants. It’s all through the Scriptures, all through the Scriptures. I took it for a little homework one time. Look through the Scriptures at the questions which are asked, which on the sur­ face seemed quite unnecessary, or almost absurd, and then find underneath that question, the blessing that was resting, because it exposed the need and made the blessing possible: Question: “Adam where art thou?” Well, God knew already but He had to ask the question. Question: “What is thy name?” He knew already, but He had to ask a question. Remember when they were fishing in their disobedience? The Lord had called them from it, but their faith couldn’t bridge that little chasm, that little interim, that little place where their faith wasn’t able to carry. And they were afraid of what was ahead of them; that little fear was in them. They couldn’t reconcile the 55 fact that Jesus had spoken and taught and done as He had, and they were left in this seeming distress. Peter, who is the sanguine one of the group (he is not John) says, “Evidently this thing isn’t panning out as we thought it would. We thought He was going to be the Messiah and set up a kingdom, and He hasn’t Messiahed for us very well! He died on our hands, and He is gone - left us holding the bag, and now what will we do? I am not such a mystic as the rest of them; I can do one thing. I evidently don’t understand this thing that He has been doing, but I understand the fish, I fished all my life! I can do that! So now you can do what you please, I am going back to my nets, I am going back to my nets! That’s something I am sure about; this other thing I don’t seem to be sure about. I thought I understood Him! He talked about a kingdom and I believed it and then the kingdom all went into evaporation of some kind, and now there isn’t any. Then He is alive! Then He is dead! Then He appears! And then He disappears! What’s all this about? I am going fishing. You can do what you want to.” So Peter goes fishing. 56 What is this? This is the return to the natural set-up with which you werefamiliar before God begins to test you in faith to launch you into the thing that He wants. And he says, “I want you to leave that position; I want you to leave that, and I want to take you into this. I don’t want you there. I’ll make you a fisherman if you want that, but I want you to fish for men - not this. You got that thing in you; I will channel it in another way; I’ll make it a spiritual thing. You come with Me.” So they did. Oh they thought it was going to be wonderful. But you see when the test of faith comes, and there is a chasm there for him to move over in faith, Peter can’t do it, so he reverts to his natural again. That is always the common way. Don’t you know? Yes, you do. You revert right away, either to the natural, or to the thing.from which He has been calling you. You say, “I am pretty sure about this, I got blessed so far, maybe I better let well enough alone.” No, don’t let well enough alone, for the good thing can be the great hindrance to the best. You can have a lot of things that are good, but good isn’t yet the best. It isn’t the best. So what happens? They go out and fish. You can’t catch a fish that way. God will withstand you, and you can’t get the thing that you so want, because you are walking against the light. You are not walking in the light. You have walked in the shadow of it, over here. So they get in the boat and they fish, fish, fish - How long are you going to fish? Well, you fish all night. You won’t get anything. You won’t get a thing. You can’t, because you are in a disobedience. You could have fished and gotten things there before this happened, but after this has happened, that’s ruined, that’s ruined. 57 God spoils so many things. He only spoils them to give you better things. So the dear Lord sees them. He couldn’t let them alone. He is a great One to trail folks; He trails them along. He sees them, and comes down on the shore and calls out (question again - these eternal questions!). What does He say? Does He say, “Good morning?” Nol Nol Nol He says, “Did you get anything? What kind of luck did you have? Did you catch anything?” Why, He knew very well they didn’t have a fish. Well then, what is the use of His asking? He HAS to ask it! He is showing us a pic­ ture. He is telling us a divine, spiritual, glorious principle in the life of the Spirit by a little dramatic picture. He said, “Did you catch anything?” And He is saying that to people today, “Did you get anything? Now you have had your way, you have had your self-will.“How many people in their selfish self-will have gone out in their little boat! They say, “I have caught fish here before, I am always sure of that!” You can go over your old fishing ground, and you know every bank, and you remember the little shoals; you know the deep places; you know where the marshes are; you fished there and caught dozens of them, but you can’t now. You won’t get one, you won’t get a minnow, you can’t. He said, “Did you get anything? Now you have had your way; you have tried it; did you get anything?” “Well, I used to.” “I am not talking about ‘used to,’ I am talking about now. 58 Have you got anything?” Why does He have to say it? I suppose it must have strangled them to own up and say, “No-O-O-o-o-o.” That released the whole thing, didn’t it? Surely it did. Just as soon as they said, “No-o-o,” the Lord said, “Cast your net there.” Look at the fish! Do you see the difference in casting a net in your own order, or casting it when He says cast it? All the difference in the world! But it made a nice story, didn’t it? It was a real nice lit­ tle episode in the life of Jesus, but don’t you let any of these little episodes move along and see only the miracle that He worked. He worked a miracle, but I am not especially interested in a miracle. Do you know what I am interested in, what I like in there? Do you think I am thrilled because they had a miracle? I am not thrilled at all because He had a miracle. What has thrill­ ed me is the discovery of the workings of God in the Spirit, work­ ing out His divine scheme in the realm of Spirit, through a little dramatic picture. Then what happens? They get their fish. How many follow me? You trace that right on through the Scriptures and that is always the way it works. A confession, an openness - an acknowledgment. The desire - an acknowledgment of it. The need - the acknowledgment of it will open the way; that will open the way; that’s the basis; then the blessing comes. Did you ever hear of anyone getting salvation without a confession? How many discover a principle in here? You will see it through the Word; you will see it through history, and you will see it through lives; that there has to be an acknowledgment of some need. That has to be, because there can be no salvation without it. How can you save something that doesn’t have to be saved? How can you save something unless there is a consciousness of its need? So we find this principle running through the Word: “Adam, where art thou?” (I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.) Confession-release. “What is thy name?” (Jacob.) Confession-release. “Children, have ye any meat?” (No.) Confession-release. 59 It is a principle; it figures all the way through, but of course the little dramas are all different; the personalities are all different, but they are used in the economy of God to tell you things. So we have this idea of “counting,” (coming back now to counting). You sit down and count. You make this evaluation and you say, “Is this worth this? Is that worth that?” Paul is not talking about salvation because you don’t earn it; it’s a gift. He is now winning the fulness of all this inheritance in Christ, and he says, “I am doing these things. I found that I had to sit down and count it.” It is the same with discipleship, (we spoke on it the other night) where it says: “He sat down …” (he is going to build a tower)… “and counted the cost.” (Luke 14:28) The king going into a battle also sat down and counted the cost whether it were possible for him to take so many soldiers or so many. (Luke 14:31-33) He didn’t just rush into battle; you don’t. These things in God always mean consideration. He never forces us; He never coerces us: He invites us. The second thing Paul speaks of is: