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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature Howard Hendricks, also known as the Prof. According to a 2003 Dallas Morning News article about him, the combined ministries of just eight of his former students, a veritable who's who of evangelical Christians, reach close to 30,000 people in pews every week. And you add radio programs and books to that number, the audience expands to millions. Today, the message from Howard Hendricks is Expand or expire. May I invite you to turn once more in Our Father's Word to the Gospel by Matthew, Chapter nine. May I remind you that this is not what Christ would say if he were here, but what he is saying because he is here. Jesus Christ is more than a person in ancient history. Jesus Christ is contemporary. And what he's saying here, he's saying to you and to me in this generation. Expand or expire. This is the option confronting any evangelical Christian today. It's either growth or the grave progress or perish. Peter Marshall, in his characteristically trenchant fashion, described 20th century Christians in these they are, he said, like deep sea divers, encased in suits designed for many fathoms deep, marching bravely forth to pull plugs out of bathtubs. The challenge, the cost, the conflict, those identifying hallmarks of first century Christianity are conspicuous by their absence today. When one reads the pages of the New Testament and relates what he reads to the contemporary scene in he is compelled to conclude that the relationship is one of contrast, not one of comparison. But why? Why this tremendous disparity between the church of 70 and the church of 1970? We have frequently heard it said, we must return to the message of Jesus Christ. My friends, that is long overdue. But I would like to suggest tonight that not only must we return to the message of Christ, we must also return to the method of Christ. For not only what Christ said, but what he did was inspired of God. He could say in every scene and circumstance of his life, I do always those things that are pleasing today. Matthew, chapter nine and ten. You have a part of our Lord's IBS with his disciple. He was grooming a handful of men for a worldwide ministry, and he was attempting to inculcate in their thinking basic principles of expansion. And I believe men and women, the spirit of God wants to weave them into the fabric of your thinking tonight. First of all, I want you to Note in verses 35 and 36 of Matthew 9, our Lord says to the disciples and to us, you must enlarge your field now. Mark it well. It was in the process of a teaching, preaching and healing Ministry that our Lord encountered the multitude. And the Scripture says when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion on them. What do people do to you? Do they bother you or do they challenge you? You ever go to a football stadium and see 20, 30, 40, 60,000 people packed into the stand? How do you see that? Do you see them merely as spectators or do you see them as souls for whom Christ died? Has the spirit of God ever torn the bandages from your eyes that you might see with sight and spiritual insight to the lost estate of men and women all around you? I'm talking about your next door neighbor, lovely but lost. I'm talking about the kids with whom you may live in the living quarters at the school. Religious, but not regenerate. I'm talking about the kids with whom you knock around on the college or university campus who seem to have everything and yet who are broken at the wheel and who are devoid of reality, which comes only in Jesus Christ. I want you to Note in verse 36 that our Lord's being moved to compassion was no mere emotional stirring. This wasn't a question of going to a meeting and getting all shook up to go home and do nothing about it. The text gives you a rational basis as to why Jesus Christ was moved with compassion. And I believe it is not until you are infected with these reasons that you will ever be moved to compassion and to do something about the desperate spiritual plight of men. My Bible says my Lord was moved because he saw men as fainting. What a graphic descriptor. A few years ago I was riding from the city of Dallas, the Chicago bike plane. A well dressed woman got off the plane just before me. Beautifully coordinated outfit, lovely mink stole around her neck. She walked several steps in front of me until she got to the center of that massive complex attohair. And then she sprawled on the concrete floor. I rushed to her side, as did several, one of whom was a medical doctor, and he turned to me and said, she's fainted and if you will push the people back so that she can get some air, I'm sure she will be all right in a moment. I could not help but think as I was pushing people back, I turned to see a woman, beautifully poised and dressed one moment, the next moment, spirit sprawled awkwardly on a concrete floor for gaping eyes to see. And then it was that this verse flashed into my mind. That is how my Savior sees men. And when he sees men like that, he's moved with compassion. You see, we are living in the generation of the facade of the Front of the veneer and behind the neatly manicured lawns and the lovely air conditioned home are frequently empty hearts. People struggle, fainting, absolutely helpless and hopeless, apart from Jesus Christ. But he goes on to add that he was moved with compassion because he saw men scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Number of years ago, I conducted a home Bible class in the city of Fort Worth, Texas, to reach professional men for Christ. And a man came into that class, actually a resident of West Texas, but he was living for a period of time in Fort Worth. And the man invited him to come to the class and he was wonderfully saved. And God has used him in his ministry down through the year. He lives on a ranch in West Texas. Some time ago, he invited my wife and family to come to be his guest. One day he said to my two boys and myself, how would you like to take a ride over the range country? Well, before he could get it out, my kids were in the jeep and we took off out over that beautiful country. And it was August and rather warm, and we stopped under a little clump of trees to get some respite from the burning sun. We got ourselves involved in a spiritual conversation. And I turned to him and I said, miles, what was it that first turned your attention to Jesus Christ? Well, he said, howie, you remember many years ago you came to conduct a Bible class in Fort Worth? I said, yes, I've never forgotten. Well, he said, the first night I came to that class, you quoted a verse of Scripture. All we like sheep have gone astray. We turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He said, I never heard a word you said beyond that. He said, as you know, my father is an internationally known sheep raiser and I have spent all of my life with sheep. And I have seen a hundred sheep go over the side of a cliff, one following the other. I've seen sheep die on their back with all four feet directly up in the air because they have no way of righting themselves. He said, I soon discovered that the faster a sheep moves and the further it goes, the more lost it becomes and it has no ability to find its way back home. He said, Then I realized how desperate was my spiritual plight. May I ask you young people tonight, have you seen men collegiate like that, fainting, scattered abroad as sheep, but no shepherd to lead them back. Please note, I am not asking you to get a bigger field. I'm asking you to get a bigger view of the field. You now have so many of us are asking God for a bigger challenge when the truth of the matter is we need a bigger challenge concerning the task God has already given to us. But I want you to note in verses 37 and 38 there is a second principle of expansion. Not only must you expand your field, you must also expand your force. You see, the moment you get a bigger view of your field, you will need more on the team. So our Lord said unto the disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. You thought that was a 20th century problem. The greatest unresolved problem to confront the church from earliest time is the unemployment problem. Too many drones in the divine high. I tell my students at the seminary there are only two groups of people in the church, the pillars that support it and the caterpillars who crawl in and out week after week, and they occupy 18 inches more or less on a pew. And they shake your hand with something of a pious wine and say, pastor, that was a wonderful sermon. We'll see you next week. And my friend, they seldom come closer to the truth. I understand my New Testament. God gives to every believer a spiritual gift with which to function in the body, not with which to spectate. In the stand. Bud Wilkinson, formerly coach of the University of Oklahoma, was in Dallas sometime to give a series of lectures, and he was interviewed by a young buck reporter from one of our television stations who asked him, Mr. Wilkinson, what would you say is the contribution of modern football to physical fitness? And as if he had been waiting for 20 years to be asked that question, he responded immediately, absolutely nothing. And the poor kid was so nonplussed he didn't know what in the world to do. I could almost see the wheels going around. Nobody told me what to do when you get confronted like a situation of this type. And so he did. I suppose the only thing a man could do under the circumstances. He said, would you care to elaborate? He said, certainly. He said, I define football as 22 men on the field desperately needing rest and 22,000 people in the stands desperately needing exercise. You know, I thought to myself, what a definition of the church. A few people neurotically and compulsively active on the playing field, the rest up in the stand. The interesting thing in this passage is that our Lord gave to the disciples a very practical and spiritual answer. He said, verse 38, Gentlemen, pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth labor. I'm sure I don't need to remind you again that the chapter divisions of your bible were not a Part of the original text. They were added hundreds of years later. And here is another very unfortunate chapter division, because it destroys the sense, the connection, I believe, designed by the Spirit himself. He said to a group of men, men, I want you to pray about a shortage of laborer. But the very men he asked to pray, I read, he called unto him his 12 disciples, and he gave them power. You see, it's a dangerous thing to pray. When I was a young boy, I heard a man by the name of Dr. L.L. legters, Great Bible teacher of the last generation. Frankly, I don't remember anything he said, but I've never forgotten an illustration he used. He said on one occasion he was pastor of a church, and he had $50 in his pocket. Now, what a pastor of a church would be doing with $50 in his pocket, I'll never know. But he met one of the missionaries home on furlough who said, you know, Dr. Legders, I really think it's providential that we've met because we're having an urgent prayer meeting over at the church, and we'd love to have you join us. Well, he said, fine. And he was a somewhat blunt, brusque type of individual. So he said before they went to prayer, now, let's not pray out of ignorance. Let's pray out of intelligence. What is it that you need? Well, they said, Dr. Lecters, we have an urgent financial need. We need $50. Fine. Let's pray about that. So they prayed, and they went all the way around the circle. And when they got through, one of the missionaries said, you know, Dr. Lecters, I don't feel that we've really laid hold of the Lord in this. Let's pray some more. Fine. Let's pray again. Around they went. The second time, third time around, God said to him, legdars, what about the $50 in your pocket? And he stopped the lady right in the middle of her prayer. He said, hold it, lady. God answered your prayer. He said he has right reached in his pocket and he put down this $50 note. And as a little kid sitting right up near the front of the auditorium, I can still remember a long, bony finger coming out over the pulpit as he said, ladies and gentlemen, it's a dangerous thing to pray. Have you ever learned that? You know, my friends, I have yet to see a local church or an organization languish for lack of leadership when the people in that organization dared to get down on their knees to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labor. But when you pray, don't be surprised if he taps you on the shoulder and says, you're my man. You're my woman. There is a third principle that I want you to see. And don't miss this, my friends, or you miss everything found down in verses nine and ten. In the intervening verses, you have a list of those whom our Lord chose after an entire night spent in prayer. And in verses nine and ten, the principle that was to regulate their life. You must expand your faith, Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves for the workman is worthy of his meat. He wanted to inculcate in the disciples the fact that there was only one principle of spiritual operation, and that's the by faith principle. But you know, that's a scarce commodity. It was then and it is now. Oh. This same group of disciples had heard some profound lectures on faith given by the world's greatest teacher in Mark, chapter four. My friend, you don't communicate faith by lecture. You learn it in the laboratory of life. And our Lord was a good instructor. He gave examinations, not the kind that we give, the cramming kind. Had to communicate with a student. Some time ago at exam week. He was sort of in limbo, walking down, and I came up to him. He said, prav, don't touch me. I'll lose everything I've got. You ought to be able to identify with that at this stage of the game. Now, our Lord didn't give that kind of an examination. He gave an examination in life itself. He just finished the series of lectures on faith and said, gentlemen, let's go to the other side, Roger. And they start taking off and they get into the middle of the lake. And Mark tells us, not only was the boat in the water, that's where it belonged, but the water was in the boat, and it doesn't belong there. And not a group of seminarians, but a group of professional fishermen came running to Jesus Christ and said, lord, don't you even care? We're in a process of going down. The implication is, at least you could help to bail out. And the Lord gets up and he calms the wind and the sea. No problem there. And then he turns to a group of disciples and says, how is it that you. That's in the emphatic position in the original text. You of all people, have no faith. They just wrote a blue book on faith and it came back with a great big F on it. And that wasn't for faith. They sunk Jesus Christ did not say, gentlemen, let's go to the middle of the lake and drown. He said, let's go to the other side. But when they got to the middle of the lake, this is it. May I ask you tonight, suppose Jesus Christ, were it to speak at the 1970 IBS graduation, what would he say? Is it possible that with all of his love and graciousness, he would say, how is it that you, you, you. You of all people have no faith? The passage of scripture was read in your hearing. I'd like to direct your attention to the passage to which I turn more frequently every year. It's numbers, chapter 13. We mentioned earlier in our studies that the children of Israel were wending their way through the wilderness came the Kadesh barnea, and they made a decision there, a decision that determined their destiny. The majority came back, and they said, man, we're not able. And only two men brought back the minority report, they said were well able. You know, I thought this afternoon you could take the Class of 1970 in IBS at Arrowhead Spring and you could draw a line and you could class everyone on one of two sides. Either you are overwhelmingly convinced that God is able to, or you are convinced we are not able. You know, if I go to a Sunday school and ask the youngest children, who are the two men that brought back the minority report? Some little kid will holler out, joshua and Caleb. But I defy any of you to give me the names of any one of the other 10 men. They're all found in the opening verses of chapter 13. But who wants to remember them? Oh, somebody says, the majority is always right. Really, the majority was flat wrong. They perished in the wilderness. The only two men who ever got in were Joshua and Caleb. And in verse 30, I read Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, let's go up at once and possess it, man. I love the enthusiasm of this man. Here's a guy who had the tiger in his tank early in the game. They were well able to overcome it. If you look in the context, you'll discover it was because he believed God was able. But the men that went up with him said, man, we're not able to go up against the people. They're stronger than we are. And he brought up an evil report of the land through which they searched unto the children of Israel, saying, the land through which we've gone to search, it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. And all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants. And besides, we were in our own sight. That's grasshoppers. PS and so we were in their sight. You know, every time I come back to this, I ask myself what was the difference between Joshua and Caleb and the other 10 men? You think Joshua said to Caleb, caleb, I don't see any giants up here. Do you wear in the world of the giant? And I think if you had interviewed him on cbs, he just said, that's right, Cronkite. Just a group of God's grasshopper reporting for duty, sir. The only difference between the majority and the minority, the Joshua and Caleb saw God. By the way, what do you see tonight? Oh, you say man, you should see the campus we're working on. We've got giants out there, Texas side. And besides, Brother Hendricks, we're just a group of God's grasshopper. Campus Crusade for Christ grasshoppers. As I say, man, you got a tremendous view of the giants and you have a pretty accurate view of the grasshoppers. Your real problem is your God is too small for the size of your God will always determine the size of your faith. How big is your God? Does he specialize in the impossible? You know, that's a wonderful thing to go back into the history of any organization. I was reading just the other day the recent book by Dr. Bright. It goes back to tell those thrilling days, difficult days, but so exciting. One miracle after another, my friend. God conceived this work in faith and he's maintained it by faith. And if you're ever going to get to 72 and 76 and 80, there's only one way you'll ever get there. And that's the way this started and has continued. And that's by stretching yourself out on the infinite God who specializes in the impossible. I shall never forget Dr. Ironside relaying to me the story of the early days at the seminary. It galvanized my faith. Wonderful to be a member of A team with 470 some college and university graduates who are called of God to study the Word, to proclaim it to the ends of the earth. But it's another thing to go back and find. How did God bring it into existence? How did he maintain it started in 1924 and the depression hit in 29 and it just about capsized it. So close did the school come to bankruptcy that they met for prayer on a Friday morning, convinced of God that if the money did not come in to liquidate the debt, they would have to Close the doors of the school. That morning, Dr. Chafer and a number of men of God, including Harry Ironside, met for prayer in the President's office. They've been praying for a while. Dr. Ironside, in his characteristic way, said to the Lord, lord, we know that the cattle on a thousand hills are thine. Please sell some of them and send us the money. And while he was praying in the office, a tall Texan with boots walked into the business office and said, I just sold two carloads of cattle in Fort Worth and I feel God would have me give the money to the seminary. He puts the check down. And the dear little girl almost comes unglued because she looks at the check and it is for the exact amount of the indebtedness. And she takes the check over to the room where they're praying and very gingerly knocks on the door. And Dr. Chafer opens it, takes one look at the check, goes over and says, harry, God sold the cattle. And you know, men and women, it's a fantastic thing to be a member of a team when you know that the Almighty God is your only explanation for existence. We don't have any high powered group. We don't have any singled out individual of wealth. We just have the people of God all over the world who support the work. And we are completely dependent on him. As I read that book, I could not help but think, that's the story of crusade. And my friend, if it ever becomes anything else, God will write ibad over this movement. The glory has departed. And as you go out into the world to which God is calling you, I trust you will go out with a spirit ripping those blinders from your eyes. That you will see a field fainting scattered abroad. That you will go out to become a part of a growing force of men and women who are committed to the use of their spiritual gifts in a concerted, constructive way to get the job done in our generation. But that above all you will go out with an enormous God. That he will teach you who he is. In fact the Almighty God, the one who specializes in the impossible. And you go out to stretch yourself on him. Father, we pray that Thou will inflame us and that Thou wilt stand strip us of all of our apathy and smugness and that Thou will give us the drive of the Spirit himself, whose heart was moved with compassion. For Christ's sake, we ask it. Amen. You've been listening to Howard Hendricks. Listen to Faith of Our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.