It is in that place of hardness, in the beginning of
the ministry that you see what you are made of. A grape
does not produce juice until it is squeezed. You cannot
have grape juice and wine, until you squeeze the grape.
Some people need to go through a little bit of pressure to
produce. Sometimes they get into trouble because of their
own stupidity. At other times, the hard place is where
they develop character.
The Bible says God tested Abraham. Also in
Jesus’ ministry He was led by the Holy Ghost into the
wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Some people don’t
understand how it is possible that the Holy Spirit will do
that. But God wants to see what you are made of before
He entrusts something great to you.
Nebuchadnezzar learned what the three Hebrew
boys were made of when he put them in the burning, fiery
furnace. They found out what Daniel was made of when
they put him in the lions’ den.
You Have to Start at ABC to Get to XYZ
So many people want to start at point Z but they
won’t start at A. Until you are ready for ABC, you can’t
get to XYZ. Be faithful with the little God gives you. It
might take five, ten, twenty, thirty or forty years to see it
come to pass, but have the stickability.
Stay with what God has called you to do,
irrespective of the rain, the sun, the snow, the winter, the
summer, the spring, irrespective of adversity, trials,
tribulations, and heartaches. Remain constant. Operate in
the fruit of patience and continue in what God has called
you to do. It will be a process, but God will move you
into a place where the ministry will come forth and into
maturity.
Kathryn Kuhlman went through hell and back
before her great ministry was born. She experienced
many failures and many hours of loneliness. She said that
she knew the day and time when Kathryn Kuhlman died.
Many people think they are out there and no one
recognizes them, but God knows and He sees. He looks
upon the heart. He is looking for a yielded and a willing
vessel.
There Is a Time to Come Forth
It is almost like a lady who becomes pregnant.
She would love to have the baby immediately, because it
will save her a lot of problems. We have had three
children. I’ve been with my wife during every birth. So I
know what my wife went through. It would have been
much easier to have all three at one time. It would have
taken nine months instead of twenty-seven.
As much as that lady wants to have her baby, she
has to wait for the time for the baby to come forth. When
a baby is born prematurely, it must be placed in an
incubator in intensive care. In the case of extremely
premature babies, their lungs are underdeveloped and the
child has less chance of surviving.
It is the same with ministries. People have tried to
give birth to a ministry prematurely and it doesn’t last
long. It will last a year, two years, or perhaps five years,
and then fade away into nothingness.
Two Kinds of Ministries
There are two kinds of ministries in the earth
today. There are the shooting star ministries that will
come in a blaze of glory and disappear or blow up. Then
there are the ministries that are solid, like the North Star.
They will stand the storms of life. They will stand when
everything else around is falling, when other ministries
are quitting, when people are pulling out of the ministry,
when the persecution gets hot. They will stand when they
clamp down even more on the television preachers, when
they mock the preachers in the newspapers and the
media.
These are men of God who will say, “We are not
going to compromise! We’ll not back down on the
healing ministry! We are not going to back down on
casting out devils! We are going to arise and boldly
proclaim the Word of God in Jesus’ name! It doesn’t
matter if they end up locking us in jail. It doesn’t matter if
we go to a foreign field and we give our lives there. Let it
be so. We will obey the call of God!” These are the kind
of people God is looking for.
