The first of two taped messages given to a Retreat Group at Stone Lake, Wisconsin.

For a little while, I would like to share with you some thoughts I have from the Word, which I found in one of the epistles. Now in the lesson tonight it is more of an exposition as I have been helped by it in my study, rather than a sermon or sermonizing; just casual thoughts as they came along while reading the Word.

And so I share with you what I have found, and I think that you could go over the same epistle and probably find something that would appeal to you, or that has found response in your own heart. I want to read from Philippians. Of course we can’t take too much of it, but we can start in. Maybe if we don’t do all we want to tonight we can do the rest tomorrow. This third chapter you will probably know by heart when we start reading it:

Philippians 3

“Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.

“For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. 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. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

“Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself."

Paul Opening His Heart to Us

Now when I read that chapter I always feel like personally saying, ‘‘Thank you, Paul.” For this reason. It is a testimony. And when Paul is free to open his heart as he does, frankly and freely to us, I always feel like I want to thank him for doing it. Now very often in the epistles, he is very frank to say the things that we would often want to hide. Have you noticed, he always tells his failures as well as his victories, or haven’t you? Yes, if he has made a mistake in anything, he tells that. Do you remember when he wanted to go into Bithynia, and the Lord got after him and rebuked him twice and the Holy Ghost forbade him to enter the country? Well now, we would have been sort of ashamed to think we made such a blunder as that; that we had ventured out into something without the direct direction of the Lord and had to retrace our steps. We would have been humiliated over that and tried to hide it, but Paul didn’t. He tells that. He gives it to us as an example and as a warning and as a bit of instruction.

Now He couldn’t go up to Bithynia, in the Lord, and then get up there and the Lord say, “I don’t want you.” A venture like that is Paul learning the general rules and principles of Christian living. And he has to learn just the same as we do, that even though the field looks promising and there are possibilities of erecting a church and building the mission there; though it looked possible, he must not do that unless he is doing it in the Lord with a “thus saith the Lord”: the Lord’s command. But he doesn’t do that. He ventures up there in the enthusiasm of his heart because he is so desirous that he says he would even be accursed for his own folks. He has such zeal: tremendous zeal. So he ventures up there and then the Lord has to stop him and He says, “Now Paul, I don’t want you up in here, I want you over there.” So Paul is willing to tell it. How many of us do you think would be willing to tell a blunder like that?! We wouldn’t tell anything like that. We would say, “Oh! the Lord blessed me wonderfully.” But Paul is honest. I like him to do that.

When he is telling us concerning the thorn in the flesh he is very humble and willing to tell us why God permits it. He says, “lest” (that was a danger) “lest I should be exalted above measure . . .” (2 Cor. 12:7). What is he saying? He is saying that in my old natural creation there is a subtle possibility of pride still there which, if it is brought forth in the right position, psychologically speaking, will ruin me. And lest that should hap pen: “lest I should be exalted … (and there is a possibility of me doing that because it’s in me) there was given to me a thorn in the flesh.” Who wants to tell that! How many of us would get up and tell that? No we don’t. How many have ever thanked the Lord that everybody doesn’t know what you and the Lord know?! Well of course, of course. We often say, “Oh Lord, You won’t tell anyone, will You?” He says, “No.” And so then we go on—then we go on. But Paul is so beautiful about it and he is wonderful. You go right through his epistles and every little while he will open his heart just as freely as that and say, “I made a mistake, and the Lord corrected me and this is what happened.” Then he gives the fruitage of it, and then he tells about the thorn. He says,

“I’ll tell you why it was. Did you know that in me, latent within me, there was a possibility of pride that would knock the whole thing over that God wanted? Well God told it to me one day when I prayed about it and He said, ‘That’s what’s the matter, Paul, and I’ll put this thorn here to preserve you—to keep you. I don’t want the lovely thing that you can do all damaged and ruined. I have a great and glorious ministry for you, but this is the only way I can help you. Now don’t cry, don’t pray for anything, don’t rebuke the devil, don’t do all those nonsensical things. You accept the thorn and then accept My grace that will go with it, and we’ll get the thing through.'”

How many can see Him working? But you see we aren’t like that. I love Paul for that. He has told us a number of things that none of us would want to say, but he says it.

Now when I come to Philippians; in this third chapter I always feel he is sharing two things. After he is saved, and of course filled with the Spirit, and all these, what I call, “initial things”—“elementary things” have come, he is not satisfied because he is a great soul—he is a great spirit. Had he never come into God we would have heard from him, because he is a dominating, strange, beautiful, wonderful personality. But God gets a hold of him and so we hear of Paul through the Christian message.

He is not easily satisfied. He has done all that he could in his old pattern as a Jew—he gives the history of it—but he isn’t getting very far. Now he comes and he contacts Christ. He finds Him to his great joy. He finds that salvation is in Him; He is the Messiah, and all—that clears up. But that isn’t enough for him! He says, ‘‘There is something more in this Christ and I want that.”

Now in this chapter he tells us of the vision which is shaped before him which is continually enticing and drawing him. And he also tells us the things that he must do to obtain the vision. That is all hidden in this chapter, and this chapter divides itself into these two items:

1. The vision that he has found, that he must follow in Christ.
2. The things which he will do in order to make it a reality.

They both fall into a group of seven; his vision is sevenfold, and the things which he must do to obtain it; that is sevenfold. So you have a grouping of two sevens. The seven things he wishes to attain (to really realize in his life) come under the power of the vision. One time he said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision " (Acts 26:19). We believe that he had reference to the vision of the man in Macedonia reaching up his hand and calling and saying, “Come over and help us” (Acts 16:9). And when he was obedient to that vision, having learned his lesson up in Bithynia (it was a terrific lesson, very crushing, but it was good for him because he grows under that) he left Bithynia, and he came down to Troas, as God directed him. When he got to a place in God’s direction then God could speak to him. But God wasn’t go ing to tell him and show him a vision up in Bithynia. He told him,

“Get out of there, that’s not the place of reception, I can’t talk to you. I haven’t anything for you here, you are in your own order and in your own direction. You come down under My direction and you will come into a place of reception.”

There are a lot of people who like to get things from God but they are in a place of disobedience and they can’t get anything. The disciples never caught a fish while they were in disobedience.

They were in a boat: same fish, same nets, same techniques, same patterns, and all that was all right, but as long as they were fishing in disobedience they never caught a fish. And you could fish all night, you wouldn’t get one, but the minute you were obedient, He said, “Listen! put your nets over here, you do what I tell you, and you will get all the fish you want.”

Peter couldn’t get the fish while he was in disobedience, but when he was obedient to the Word: “Let down your nets,” he got them. But he was letting them down in his disobedience, for Jesus had told him not to do that. He had called him away from it. He didn’t get any.

“Paul, you won’t get any vision up there. Get away from there, come on down here. Come on down. Come on down to Troas.”

And while he is in Troas it is night—it’s night.—He doesn’t mean it was night and the sky was all black, but it is the night of the period in which he has been plunged. He has been plunged into that period of darkness and God is going to speak to him. And so while it is night, then he has his vision.—You will get your vision then. Don’t sit out singing, “In the morning, I see His face …” You probably won’t get a vision; that belongs to the night season; you will get some joy then, but you will get your vi sion in the night—“In the darkness I know His voice."—And so when it is dark He knows the voice of God. And as he sits there in the darkness, He knows God is speaking to him, and God says, “Look over here.”

Now that became an incentive. That is, it was a vision which he continued to follow the rest of the days of his life, and it brought all the consequences, even into this room! How many of you are conscious tonight, that because Paul was not disobedient to that vision we are here? Yes. Well now, how great conse quences hinge upon a very simple little incidental thing! Now in the economy of God there is nothing that is really incidental—it means that it is small but most powerful in its consequences. Just to think that Paul said, “All right,” and he turned around. He followed the pattern that God wanted.

He didn’t want the gospel going over toward the east. He wanted the gospel to come toward the west and to go down into Achaia—down into Greece, Macedonia, over to Italy, all over Europe, from Europe to America, and to girdle the globe: the same pattern as the sun.

“He has risen with healing in His wings,"—under the analogy of the sun.

Well the sun doesn’t come up in the West and go down in the East! It comes up in the East and goes down in the West. He wanted that analogy held that way. God says, “I want the gospel to come up in the East and go westward and travel ‘till it circles the globe.”

And it has done just that. That’s the way it has worked. That’s the way it has worked out, and that is what God wanted him to do. So Paul was obedient on that simple little thing and he said, “All right, Lord, I won’t minister here if You don’t want it.”

Now God took care of Bithynia. Later on the missionaries went to Bithynia and they got saved and had a camp meeting. So don’t worry about that. Just let them alone. We get so anxious and so burdened and distressed; let God take care of the things. Burdens like that are not the burdens that God wants us to carry. He wants us to carry a burden that He sees is suitable for us; that will fit our strength: Like the old woman who was always fussing about all these terrible things!

She wanted to pray this, and pray that, and the Lord to do this, and telling the Lord to go there, and save this one and do the other thing; she got very tired and she was going to bed and she said, “Dear Lord, will you take care of the world a little while? I want to go to sleep.”

That’s about the way it is. Let the people in Bithynia alone. “Well, what would become of them, Brother Follette?” Well, Brother Follette doesn’t know and doesn’t care, because they are in God’s care, and when they are in God’s care, how many know they are very safe? They are very safe. I don’t know what’s become of any of that business at all; that’s God’s business. So Paul was not disobedient.

Now here is another vision. He tells us a little about it over in Proverbs. What is it the missionaries always use? “Where there is no vision the people perish” (Prov. 29:18). Now as a rule they may use it, but that isn’t primarily what it is teaching. He is say ing, “Where there is no vision …” (In your Hebrew it is this: “Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint. ‘1 Why? Because the vision has a restraining and constraining power over the life. And if there is no vision to restrain or constrain, you have a loss—a failure. Where there is no vision to carry you through, your life is lost: that is. it never accomplishes anything. Where there is no vision to constrain you, to hold you, to invite you, you cast off the restraint of that vision, and you just walk anywhere you please.

“Where there is no vision to constrain you, to hold you, to invite you, you cast off the restraint of that vision, and you just walk anywhere you please.”

That is what He is saying in that Scripture verse. It has nothing to do with losing your soul and finding your soul. He is giving a principle, a law, that everyone is governed by some kind of a vision. Paul’s vision is both positive and negative. Paul says, “The love of Christ constraineth me.” What is that? That is the positive power of the vision that he catches in the gospel. He has found the Lord Jesus; he has found the truth; he has found the power of the gospel, and he says, “The love of Christ, the power of that, constrains me to preach.” How many see him preaching under the motive of love? Do you see him preaching under the motive of a constraining power of God that calls him, because he has caught that vision? Now listen to him: “Woe to me if I preach not …” How many get something else now? “Woe to me” now. What does it mean?-That he feels the power of that thing in negation as well as something which is positive. “Woe to me”—disaster, failure,

calamity “Woe upon me,"- judgment upon me-“if I preach not.” So you see it swings both ways. Now for instance, there are people who are obedient and walk because the power of the vision that holds them entices them; and for the power of that vision they will sacrifice anything in the world. For instance with music, Gust happened to think of that) a great artist who desires to really make something of life and to make his life that of music, music is held before him like a vision continually; it’s just a vision. What is that? It’s the possibility of swinging out into that life with great power and wonder. How will he do it? He is held under the constraint of that vision until he will go without things; he will sacrifice things; he will practice in cessantly. When other people want to do things, he will say, “No, there is something holding me here.” Paul gives it under still another truth exactly the same: “They do it,” to what? “to gain a crown of laurel leaves” (1 Cor. 9:25). Do you remember that? It’s exactly the same truth. They run in the race and they do everything in order to make that race a suc cess. They will keep their body in shape; they will go without; they will train; they will sacrifice; they will deny themselves in order to get that prize. And Paul says, “After all, the prize is just a little laurel wreath that they happen to give them as a token of their success. How much more, now in the heavenly race, should we, should we, deny everything—let it go, that we can win this prize.” He speaks of it in this third chapter of Philippians. Now what is it? It’s the power of the vision. A vision will constrain you or it will restrain you. It will restrain you from much that will be harm ful and it constrains you because it is enticing.

So when Paul saw what this message really was—the impact of truth that Christ had brought to the world in its fuller ramifications (aside from merely getting his salvation) he saw that here was truth; here was the heavenly message; here was God speaking to the world again in His Son; here was the Word made flesh; here was a communication—

It was God’s invasion in the Christ bringing this. “Well,” Paul said, ‘‘that’s the most tremendous thing that has ever touched the earth! It is the most tremendous thing to be associated with. It’s worth everything in the world to know the power of that—the mystery of it, and to walk under the power of that lovely gospel truth, which is like a vision.”

Now when we consider this as a vision, he sees seven things that he wants realized in it. It isn’t: “Oh God save me.” He is saved. He is baptized and he is almost glorified and has all the gifts and has everything; he is not talking about that, he is talking about realizing more fully the potential possibilities in the Christ which are available for us. I call it “our inheritance in Christ.” And he saw a great inheritance there. He saw something more than getting to heaven.

“Why,” he said, “Christ has brought a revelation of light and truth which should regulate the whole life; its conduct; it should become its aim; its objective; its joy; its strength!"

So now, if you want to take any notes, I’ll tell you the seven things that I found as I was reading this and the Lord was speaking to me.