A Man God Can Use — E.A. Johnston

Moses's Forty Years of Preparation

In Exodus 3 .1 we read,. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

That verse, friends, represents 40 years in the life of this man Moses. Moses was 40 years in Midian, in a season of stripping and self-emptying. To Moses, his domestic shepherd life was only a refuge from Pharaoh on the uneventful backside of a desert tending another man's sheep.

But it was much more than that. It was a training ground in Christ's school for the work God had called and prepared him to do. And his greatest adventure lay before him, an extraordinary experience of the Lord God.

Moses's Intimate Walk With God

For what transpires next in the life of this man Moses is an adventure of 40 years and an intimate walk with God where he would join in the divine work of the deliverance of a nation and witness miracle after miracle performed through God's wondrous works on the behalf of his people.

The Christian life is an adventure lived in a higher altitude than most mortal man. It is one of unspeakable plateaus and far-reaching vistas in an exhilarating climb of a lifetime. For to experience God in an intimate walk with him is to breathe thinner air in a realm of the impossible where with God all things are possible.

Biblical Examples of Extraordinary Encounters With God

The apostle Peter tasted it atop the choppy sea of Galilee as he defied gravity and walked on the water to his Lord on the Isle of Patmos. The apostle John saw a vision of the risen Christ. His head and hairs were white as wool, as white as snow, and his eyes as a flame of fire.

And when John saw that, he fell down at his feet as dead. An encounter with God will knock you off your feet for sure. And the apostle Paul was taken up to a third heaven in the incredible sights he beheld.

He never divulged and kept a breathtaking vision to himself for 14 years. The prophet Elijah got the ride of his life as he ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire, all a smoke and a blaze with the glory of God.

Enoch was translated with God as a reward of his intimacy with God. An encounter with God will so alter one's life that the normal no longer satisfies. One will long for a supernatural walk of such challenges and proportions that it can only be lived by a power greater than man.

The Hardships That Accompany Divine Calling

The road to this great adventure is accompanied by hardships, trials, afflictions. And whoever treads this solitary path will be exposed to great strippings, purgings, prunings, emptings, and losses, where eventually a death will occur within as self goes down in annihilation.

But the benefits and the rewards will be innumerable, both here and in eternity. I once knew a minister in Scotland who knew Duncan Campbell, who was so mildly used in the revival in the Scottish Hebrides.

An Ordinary Man Surrendered for Extraordinary Use

And I asked this minister to describe to me, in one sentence, the man Duncan Campbell. He thought about it, and then he told me Duncan Campbell was an ordinary man who had had an extraordinary experience of God.

And I believe, friends, that God is still on the lookout for an ordinary man surrendered to him that he can use to do extraordinary things through for his glory.