SETTLE YOUR CALLING
from
IN REGARDS TO TOMMY ANDERSONMaurice M Johnson
I've taken this position, and still do, when I'm preaching the truth of God: you've got to believe it or you'll answer to God. And that's of course what they say, what you fellows say. You've got to believe it or you'll answer to God because it's not my doctrine, except as I have been allowed to accept it, see. It's not my doctrine. "Now, who does Maurice Johnson think he is?" Well ask him. A sinner saved by the grace of God. "Well, he thinks that everybody that doesn't agree with him is wrong." That's right. Because he knows he can be right. He can stay in his study humbly before God (I don't say I always do, but I know I should), he can stay in his study until he gets straight.
Bob Thompson will remember this, it just comes to me right now. (He said "amen".) I heard somebody say ... I'm going to be more specific. Brother Ed Stevens, Bob's father-in-law, came back from (and I was going to call him the other day), came back from Texas, and had been here awhile, and he said, "Brother Maurice," I was going back to Texas very shortly, and brother Ed said, "Brother Maurice, I hope you can help Bob. He is having some embarrassing, difficult situations from so-and-so. The other Sunday, there was an officer out of an aircraft that came to meeting, he came to meeting, and this particular man, member of the congregation, and a brother in Christ, this particular man presumably corrected Bob right in the middle of Bob's while this guest was there. It was very embarrassing, humiliating, and over and over that's happening. Maybe you can be a help while you're there." I said, "I'll try to." And Bob told me a little bit more about some of this problem.
I said, "Bob, stay in your study, on your knees if necessary till you're sure, if you have the uncertainty, that God has called you to preach and teach, and that you are in Ft Worth, up to now, at God's call. And then stay there in your study till you're sure you have the mind of God as to what to give, then you can lock his ears down if he's against it." Now I used that coarse language.
When we know we have the mind of God, we're invulnerable. "Use sound speech that cannot be condemned." "Timothy, let no man despise thy youth." Well anyway, that was what I believed, and what I hoped and prayed you'd believe with increasing intensity. ? course knows the perimeter, Bob's ? on his face before God, and he'll settle it, that God's called you to preach, if you haven't. And then go on your knees before God until you've settled it, that you are in Ft Worth, up to now, at God's rulership, and so forth. (These books give me trouble in more ways than one.) And then get God's mind as to your being the preacher that God wants at that given time and given place until you get the message that you believe God wants you to give, then nobody can refute it! We got no business to speak ... "Timothy, use sound speech that cannot be condemned." You say, "Well do you always use sound speech?" Well by the grace of God I'm ready for you to jump up the side of my neck if you think I don't. I'm ready for you to call me in question. I'm going to go on with this question with somebody else later on.