Judging, Being Judged, and the Marks of a Spiritual Minister — Hans R. Waldvogel

Ministers as Examples Who Partake of the Spiritual Fruit

A man told me how God dealt with him about his minister. He found a lot of things that he didn't understand in this minister, but one night he had a dream or a vision in which he saw this minister in charge of a large store, a store in which a lot of things were sold that were good to eat, even candy, chocolate candy.

And he saw this minister in charge of this store and sampling everything. And he got kind of jealous of the minister because this minister dug into the chocolate candy and had a taste of everything that he was selling, everything that the customers, well, what's good for me is good for the assembly.

And what's good for the assembly is good for me, praise the Lord. The husbandman that laboreth must first partake of the fruit. But the thing that impresses me in this verse is this, that the Apostle Paul sets himself forth as an example, a minister who is not an example is not a very good minister.

He must first partake of the fruits. Any man who dares preach something that he hasn't experienced himself is going to fall flat. His ministry is not going to be effective. It is when Jesus Christ has made you an epistle of Christ and has written the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus into your very bones that the word of the Lord will come forth with authority and with power.

And that's the thing we ought to pray for when we pray for our ministers. We should pray for them more than we do. Because what the minister is, we're going to be. And if God could raise a minister that's much more spiritual than those we have now, why, we most likely will have better food to eat.

We most likely will become more spiritual, like priests, like people. And thank God for the Apostle Paul. He says, we are the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mystery of God. In another place he said, who is sufficient for these things?

Fearful Dependence on God in the Ministry

By how many times I've said, my father, why did you ever put me into the ministry? I didn't ask for it. I'm scared. I'm scared. God, it's your responsibility. You know who you picked up. But you know, that very fearfulness makes you wait upon the Lord for instruction and for guidance.

And the man that doesn't walk in fear is not fit for the ministry. A man who is not so fearful of failing God that he sees his need constantly of depending on the Holy Ghost. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves even to think anything as of ourselves.

But oh, how very wonderful when your sufficiency is of God. When it is God, glory to God, that creates within your soul a certainty, an assurance. I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able.

I've committed everything to God and everything I expect from the Lord. And now he says here something about judging. I don't suppose anybody is more judged than a minister, more criticized than a minister.

Learning to Endure Criticism While Pleasing God

That's the one thing God held against me when I came into the ministry. He says, I don't hold anything against you except this one thing. You don't like to be criticized. Why, I knew that I was all the Lord's and that my every moment was spent serving the Lord and I thought everybody would know it.

I couldn't understand how people couldn't see that I was doing my best. They didn't. They suspected me one time of pilfering the missionary offerings. Because we needed a clock in our earliest mission.

And I had some money coming to me which I had earned in the jewelry business and it came back to me, so I went and bought a clock and put it on the wall. And you know these Miriams, they got together in this corner and that corner.

The other corner. Did you see that clock? One of them said, I lost all my confidence and put it on the wall. And then after a while, one woman was kind enough to bring it to me. Then I got them together and made them pay for it.

Then they felt better. Praise the Lord. But you know, today it's different. When people criticize me, I say, well, how can they help it? How can they know? They don't know. You can criticize a bird for flying.

But you better wait until you can fly, then you can criticize. But how can they help it? Why they can't unless they walk the same way that you walk. But I found out that by going ahead in the name of the Lord and making sure that the Lord judges me and that my first job is not to please man.

I must please man, yes. But my first business is to make sure that I please my God and that I do his will. And if I do that, I find out that I'll be opposed on every step of the way. A thief will always suspect somebody else of being dishonest.

Did you find that out? If you want to know a person's fault, let him do the talking. See what they say about other people. That's what they are. We always judge others by our own glasses, by our own standards.

If you're honest, you expect everybody else to be honest. If you're pure, you don't suspect others of impurity. And even when they're caught red-handed, you're still very slow, you don't judge. It's a wonderful thing to walk with God.

A Holy Ghost Ministry That Lives by Faith

And a minister's job is to walk with the Lord. That's his privilege, to walk with God. Let others learn their lesson if they will. And many people don't learn their lesson any other way. I know that in this work, God has striven to set up an example of a Holy Ghost ministry that lives by faith.

And we've seen such miracles, marvelous miracles. You try to have a work like this without an organization and have every avenue, every part of it, well supplied. We had ministers here from the Assemblies of God who are chief men, they're leaders.

We have ministers here from the Baptist Church and the Methodist Church and they've looked at this work and they said, we can't understand how this thing can function. Without sending out mimeographed requests for money, without any drive for money, how does it happen?

How does it work? Well, it's because we strive to do what the Bible says, to live the life before God, to live in the sanctuary. His priest I am, before Him day and night, within His holy place, and death and life, and both things dark and bright, I spread before His face, rejoicing with His joy, yet ever still, for silence is my song.

Paul's Suffering and Readiness for Anything

My work to do His blessed will, all day and all night long, forever holding with Him, converse, sweet yet silent, for my gladness is complete. And why is it that the Apostle Paul was set forth as it were appointed to death, being defamed, being reviled, being misunderstood, being criticized, being judged by the saints, let alone what the world did.

They stoned him from city to city, imprisoned him, tried to kill him again and again, and all these things the Apostle Paul suffered. I tell you why, he had to. He wouldn't have gotten any place. The church of Jesus Christ would not have gotten any place if God hadn't given to them a champion that was willing to lay down his life to be faithful to Jesus Christ and to do the will of God as He appointed it for him.

And that's the example God has been trying to raise in this work. Oh, to have a ministry. I'm so thankful to see in Germany a number of young men getting the light. How do they get it? Not from me. It's the Holy Ghost that has to do all these things.

The Holy Ghost will use you, make you an example. Glory to God. He'll let you suffer. He'll let you die daily. But as you do, as you surrender to Jesus, don't regard the criticism and the judgments of men who don't understand.

Regard only the command of God and the will of God. And you can't take time to explain everything. People wouldn't understand it anyway. But the result will be that the life of Jesus will take over. The life of Jesus Christ will take over.

And people will get the light and they'll see, oh, it was the Lord after all. It was God. Today the whole world recognizes that it was God in Paul. But we have a photograph here of Paul in his day. Not the kind of photographs that we publish today.

I saw the photographs of a row of ministers the other day and I thought, my goodness, how can a minister be such a monkey? Going into a photo establishment that now, all right now, turn your nose this way and your ear a little bit up.

And then smile with one eye. It's a regular monkey show. The Apostle Paul says, The offscouring of all things unto this day, defamed, criticized, judged, okay. When the First World War broke out, remember how in one day 14 nations declared war on Germany and so they issued a proclamation.

Come on, folks. We're ready to receive more declarations of war. Paul was ready for anything. You'll be ready for anything. Hab ich das Haupt zum Freunde? Bin ich geliebt von Gott? Was schaden mir die Feinde?

Was achte ich ihren Spott? Ich weiß und glaube es feste und rühme es ohne Scheu, dass Gott der Höchste und Beste mein Freund und Vater sei, weil er in allen Fällen mir will zur Seite stehen. So werden Sturm und Welle nicht wert, niemals untergehen.

Preist den Herrn! If I have God for my friend, all hell cannot overcome. And that's my business. That's what he has chosen me for. We are ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. The same mysteries that Jesus Christ offered the world and was crucified for.

And he says, if they call the master of the house Beelzebub, oh, beloved, what an honor, what a great honor to suffer a little bit for Jesus. Unless I receive it as an honor, I'm not fit for the ministry.

Divine Calling and the Bond-Slave Ministry

Oh, God alone can make ministers. God alone can. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, Jesus Christ. And you've ordained me. And you have enslaved me to yourself as a bond slave of love. You have pierced my ear.

I come to do thy will, oh God. Jesus Christ says in my heart when he ordains me to be a branch in the vine. Oh, for such a ministry. And don't think that I'm talking like that to say that I am like this.

But I'd like to inspire us to pray for that kind of a ministry. We need. We need men that are unflinchingly given to do the will of God. Paul was like that. What an example. What a marvelous example. Look at his writings.

They're little fragmentary sentences here and there. And yet, in all them we have a wonderful picture of a man that is a friend of God. Wholly dedicated. Faithful unto death. And that's why the life of Jesus had a channel.

False Apostles, Wise Builders, and the Terror of the Lord

That's what you and I are to be. Channels only, blessed master. But with all thy wondrous power flowing through us, you can use us every day and every hour. And now he talks about criticism. And he warns the Corinthians.

Did you notice that? As my beloved sons, I warn you. He says, I know that grievous wolves shall enter in among you. And I know that you who have rejected me, when some false apostle come along, you're going to receive him.

They will. They'll fall for him. Paul knew the flesh. But he says, I warn you. My beloved sons, I as a wise master builder have laid the foundation. Oh God. It makes my soul to tremble just to think of these things.

And when he says, you criticize me, that's a very small thing. I don't mind. Go ahead. It's good for me. But there's a judge before whom I tremble. We know the terror of the Lord. Oh, what to God he could impress us with the terror of the Lord.

He says in one place, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. We're constantly in touch with people who are called to be ministers in some capacity, maybe not to preach, but to do something for God. All of us have received a talent or 10 pounds from the Lord.

Something that God has given to us that we might serve the living and the true God. Listen, it is woe if I bury that talent in the ground. It is woe if I'm not faithful unto death. And yet there are so many powers of the flesh that keep us from fulfilling in God.

The Call to Prayer and Faithful Stewardship

It was my light right away. As soon as God had really saved me, I didn't want to preach. I had no thought of it, but I knew that I could pray. The Holy Ghost had come to me and I knew that was my job.

Prayer. I did it too. I prayed without ceasing. All my spare time, I devoted to, or most of it, I devoted to the act of praying. I prayed more for my dead church than the ministers did. I had to. God had given me a spirit of prayer.

He had given me the love of God. I suffered continually in my heart because these people were not saved. And while I didn't see much result at that time, today I see great results have come forth. But woe is me if I hadn't been faithful.

As I've often said, I was a boy and all the temptations that come to a young man came to me and all the ambitions, but here was one call. You've not chosen me, but I have chosen you. What has Jesus Christ chosen you for?

Spiritual Gifts, Pride, and the Danger of False Authority

Beloved, I feel strongly that we ought to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost manifested among us. He purchased gifts, but why don't we have them? God can't trust us with. I told recently how I knew a man who had received real gifts of the Holy Ghost.

God blessed him like that. God filled him. God used him in such a way that it was out of this world. And I had been instrumental in helping him and I told him at that time that he was conceited and he was in danger.

He didn't take it. But today he's my enemy because he got so conceited that God withdrew from him and now he's trying to put on a powerful show himself. That's why God cannot bestow gifts upon us. As soon as we have a little gift, will you watch these prophets?

Watch these apostles. They put a feather in their hat and they stalk through the land and they are somebody now and presently they want to start their own work and their own organization and if you don't come to me, you don't get to heaven.

They say that in Germany and you're not going to be in a rapture unless I make you eligible and so on and so on and so on. Why, it's the devil transformed into an angel of light and yet we ought to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost manifested among us.

Presenting the Body as a Living Sacrifice

What has God called you? You will never find it out until you present your body a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God and we're not going to understand any of these chapters in Corinthians unless we take the key, 1 Corinthians 1 .9 God is faithful by whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And what does that mean? Why, I give him my sin, I give him my flesh, I give him my bondage, I give him my body, my soul and my spirit and he takes it and he gives me in return his own divine nature, his humility, his purity.

He has made unto us righteousness, sanctification and redemption, fellowship. Gütergemeinschaft. He that was rich became poor. But you know, we don't work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We do as much as is comfortable and when it isn't comfortable then we cease.

Oh, to be altogether Christ's, to recognize that I don't belong to myself anymore. I don't, I have no right for any decisions on my part, any plans, any ambition, any hope. I belong to Jesus Christ, not for the years of time alone but for eternity.

These things don't come to us unless we actually act upon them, unless we actually. That's why the Apostle Paul speaks so strongly. Ye are Christ's. Oh, that's the wonder of it. Ye are Christ's. And he tells us what the result will be.

We are Christ's. Why, then there will be the outflow of the rivers of life. But here he's talking to babes. He says, I've got to talk to you as to children. You're not able. Oh, we ought to be able to receive some strong meat but we might not like it.

We might not be able to digest it. I've seen people get up mad as hops and run from the meeting because they got hit. Why, we ought to enjoy. He that judgeth me is the Lord. Thank God. Walking in the presence of God, walking in the light as he is in the light.

Every truly baptized soul that walks with God has the Holy Ghost within them like a great sun of righteousness illuminating every part of your being. Nothing is hidden from the heat thereof and from the light thereof.

Oh God, be praised for the Holy Ghost. What a teacher. Glory to God. I judge not myself. You don't have to judge yourself. I feel sorry for these people that have to go to confession and they'll call good evil and evil good.

The Lord's Judgment Exposes Spiritual Pride

They'll confess things that are not sinful at all in the sight of God and the things that are really sin. I listened to a holiness preacher, a woman. She really preached like a house of fire and she would point at you.

If you had any yellow in your glasses, your glass frame, or if you dared have a pen that was yellow. You went straight to hell, to a devil's hell. And I tell you, she had reluction in her preaching but she didn't see the spiritual pride that possessed her.

These little things were hell-born sins. She told how that as a child she had stolen a penny and it came to her mind, no, she had stolen a penny when she was a child. So she hunted up the party she stole it from and she says it took a long, long time before she got up enough courage to return that penny.

What a sin. Mind you, a penny with an Indian head on one side and God we trust on the other. And she'd stolen a penny and she was preaching really in reluction. And she said, you know, if I hadn't returned that penny, I would have gone into a devil's hell to roast for all eternity.

But she didn't see the Luciferian pride that possessed her. She had no sense of that at all. Beloved, it's a wonderful thing when the Lord judges us. Though you're walking in the light as he is in the light, he won't let a thing go by.

The thing that really displeases him, walking in the light, darkness is exposed, is defeated, that's what I need. God said to Abraham, I am the almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect. That's the first job of a minister, to walk with God like that.

Oh, how I need that light, that light. And that's where the two-edged sword comes from. And that's the way God ordains his ministers. We don't spend enough time in the presence of the Lord. We don't break through the clouds and through the fogs until we actually bathe in the sunlight of his presence.

And yet that's the place, the only place of safety for a minister. He that judges me is the Lord. Glory to God. He takes over. He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. I often think of that kid in Switzerland when they should have written an essay on the dog.

The teacher gave them that job. Describe your father's dog, his height, his tail, his color, his ears. Little Hans came without the essay. But he brought his dog with him. He says, I'll let the teacher look at him himself.

Judging Nothing Before the Lord's Coming

And that's what I do. I bring my dog with me. Let God look him over himself. That's the best cure. Glory to God. The only cure. But he says another thing that before I sit down, I'd like to call your attention to.

Judge nothing. What a wonderful thing. My, what a relief. What a relief when all that care for other souls is taken from me. Judge nothing. Do you know that we cannot judge others? We don't know how. Maybe somebody that seems very faulty to me is much dearer to God than I am.

Only God can judge. And when I expose myself to the light of the Holy Ghost, I will soon lose all courage to judge others. I'll find out how very weak and infirm and unable and unfit and unworthy I am.

And if I see a fault in someone else, I know that what they need is what I need. And what God provides for them is what he has provided for me, Jesus. But I think this is very encouraging. When the Lord comes to bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of the heart, every man shall have praise of God.

Jesus always finds something to praise. Not only that, but many times in people whom he has really chosen, he hides their true worth under a lot of faults. And outwardly they look crude and sometimes they look very unkempt and unfinished.

But, oh, inwardly God has his work. There's love and joy and peace and longsuffering. There's real love for Jesus Christ. And we ought to be very, very, very careful not to judge. We're so apt to judge others.

People in other churches, the Lord has said we talk about the dead churches without much Holy Ghost love. But you know they're going to surprise us in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of those saints are going to shine like the sun and, oh, it's such a good thing not to judge before the time until the Lord comes and the Lord will have praise for every man Glory to God.

We'll walk in the light Beautiful light.