…delightfully something like “Naked came I into the world” [Job] and then something—I think I’m combining two Scriptures here—“and it is certain that I can carry or take nothing out” [Paul]. So we’ve proved it, I’m combining two Scriptures.

So we have a naked coming into the world and a going out having to leave everything that you’ve gained in this world behind us, except that which has gained in Christ which will attend us on the day of the great assize.

But given the fact that we come naked into the world and we cannot abide in that condition, we need certain things along life’s way, such as food, clothing and shelter. I’ve had some thoughts about this and Peter’s prayer was rather confirmatory this morning on this line.

I was thinking in terms of the need for provisions. It’s manifest that all of us have the need to be provided for; we must have certain things. And provisions therefore become a question more for some than others.

Some are born into provisions that last them all their lives. I once covered Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who was a most able governor of New York State. But this is a man who from the hour that he became conscious, to the hour that he died, provisions, needs, they were beyond any need for thought of any kind. They were always there. For others, that’s not true.

But you know it’s important to think less about provisions than about purposes. Turn to Genesis 12:1, a rather famous passage, where we have the beginning of a great adventure. And the text says, “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to a land I will show you.’ That was the command. And there immediately came the promise of what God would do upon his obedience. ‘I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ And that includes every one of us in this room today.

So, what happened? “Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan.”

Now look at verse 2: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.” That was the promise. And except by faith, and the faith of course itself was highly important, Abraham never saw any of that. His main experience was to be tested at length and at great length, regarding the promise of a son to be born in old age out of whom all the other promises only could proceed. Without the son, almost nothing else could come to pass. And in that testing, he became the father of faith and a man who knew justification by faith, as Romans tells us.

Look for a moment at Hebrews 11, just a little, two verses at verse 8, that reflect on this matter of Abraham. “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” And we know that in the course of his sojourning among strangers, he also became an intercessor who reached the place of intercession on behalf of others with God—a tremendously important place to reach, as God affords us entry into it.

And I’m going back to Genesis 13:3: “From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.”

Then verse 18: “So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord,” and what was happening? The true worship of the only Creator was being established in that land by the only man at that point who was fully capable of that worship. He was leading millions toward exactly that worship. But he was at that point pretty much alone in it.

God’s provisions promised to us are not primary. His purposes for us are. And his provisions are all wrapped up in his purposes for us. And, you know, we can seek provisions and seek provisions. And we can find them. People who seek provisions often find provisions. And they come to whatever they come to.

But if we reverse that order and we seek his purposes we will pitch our vision where it belongs and we won’t cheat ourselves out of the most that we can be in Christ. As we go for what God has for us to be and to be about, He will provide in His own way. And I emphasize this: in His own time, what He has for us as we pursue His purposes.

It is one thing, dear friends, to be employed in an office. David, you’ve been an employee over how many years in offices? [David: When I started on Wall Street, I was 18 years old.] And now how old? [David: 30.] You’ve had a good many years working in offices.

You work in an office? There’s a day every week. There’s no mystery about the sum; the check will be there. You know what it’s going to be, unless they put a bonus in now and then. It’s clickety clickety click. Work your five days, show up at the paymaster’s window, get your check or cash in the envelope, whatever it is, and that’s all there is to it. No faith is required. There may be faith in the pursuit of the position, of course.

And that’s something else entirely to be rawly trusting the living but unseen God to deposit upon us all that we need as we go about what He wants us to be about. Because God does not act clickety clack. It isn’t every Thursday at 2:00 that something will drop out of the sky right on schedule. So the mode is different and the experience can be very different, but the result can also be very different.

Consider these patriarchs. They bore in their persons all of the purposes of God for all of human history from Abraham forward. It was from them that the Messiah was to come, out of whom the ultimate capital of the world…. Have you ever thought that no city on this earth will ever have been the capital of world civilization as long as the city of Jerusalem will have been when the millennial reign of Christ on David’s throne is over? For one thousand years, Jerusalem will have been the capital of the world, a world at peace, a world of lawfulness and order. And it will all stem right back to the patriarchs. All of that was being born with only some consciousness of it by them, obviously.

Though he was the fourth in a way, consider Joseph, who was sold by his brothers into slavery and who was on his way not just to wealth. He didn’t just become wealthy later; he made the world wealthy. He provided for all the known region of the civilized world for a time, all through a time that otherwise would have been a time not only of scarcity but of death; they would have died of starvation. He was tested and tested and tested, the Scripture tells us that. The word of the Lord tested him. And then, tested and found true, the Lord could place such liberations for countless numbers of people upon him.

And his father Jacob, didn’t he labor 14 years for a wife? He thought he had a bargain for seven. He put the seven in and he got cheated. Very slick piece of work. Because the father of the intended bride, the desired bride, wanted seven more years out of him for her and got it. Fourteen years. His wages were changed, it was a case, ten times, where he didn’t know…. He knew there was a paymaster, but he did not know what it would be in many cases.

Turn to Genesis 31. At the very end at Genesis 31, I’ll read sort of in the middle of verse 53. This was when his season with Laban was blessedly over. “So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac. He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal.” And they ate and spent the night there. “Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then he left and returned home.”

And then we come to chapter 32. “Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him.” No such thing was true about Laban. When Jacob went on his way, not knowing what was ahead, and the angels of God were right there to meet him. When Jacob saw them—he did—he said, “This is the camp of God.” So he named that place Mahanaim.

“Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir,” and he told them what to say. And he said in verse 5, “I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, men and maid servants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes. When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, ‘We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.’”

Now, if you are going to meet your brother after—was it 20 or 21 years of separateness—you do not need him to be accompanied by an army of 400 men. And if you remember you left your home because he was going to kill you because you got the birthright from him and then you hear that he’s coming to meet you with 400 men, you begin to wonder what is up. And you think what is up is your life. And that’s exactly the apprehension that set in upon Jacob at that point.

And then down at verse 13. He was getting very sobered at this point; God was very much with him. It says, “He spent the night there.” Oh, pardon me, I want to go first just a little higher to verse 9: “Then Jacob prayed, ‘O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, “Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,” I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff (it’s a walking stick, isn’t it?) when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two companies. Save me, I pray, from the hand….’”

And then verse 13: “He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau…” two hundred and twenty goats, two hundred and twenty rams and ewes, thirty camels plus their young, fifty bulls and cows, thirty donkeys.

This was a selection out of all that he had as a gift. It was a gift that was going to overwhelm Esau when he looked at it. He left with his staff, and that’s all he had crossing the Jordan. And he came back a very substantial company, a wealthy man who had worked for a stingy and cheating paymaster and God did bless.

How did it work? It didn’t work overnight, it didn’t work automatically, it didn’t even work rapidly. But it worked powerfully; God intervened supernaturally to do this for Jacob after his lengthy testing.

God is by nature a provider. We read that every good and perfect gift comes straight from the Father. He knows how to provide and it may not be in a way that we can figure for ourselves at all; it may be very surprising. Living by faith will bring us almost always into testing, and it will inevitably take us into God’s providing. And we will not miss the far larger matter of the foremost aims of heaven for our individual lives.

What was Abraham doing as he went about in the new land among strangers? Establishing a… [break]

…every step he took in faith, every prayer he prayed in faith was saying, “I am the connection. Heaven’s purposes will be effected on this territory, because I will be faithful to the God who called me.” It’s a big matter.

I thought recently—I mentioned it in a conversation or two—of… How many have ever heard of the Far East Broadcasting Company? Some have and some haven’t. I am going to read you just a few samples from a book that tells the story of its origins. It’s a book called Eyes Beyond the Horizon. “Eyes that could see things that no one else could see.” And there’s a word or two above it, it says, “From steel antennas towering above cities, jungles, beaches, clifftops, rice paddies and sugar fields, radio waves carry the message of Jesus Christ to about two-thirds of the world’s population. Far East Broadcasting Company proclaims the gospel in 120 languages.”

And then to come to the prologue: “Far East Broadcasting Company is a unique organization that started with no financial backing, no supportive board and no church denomination. It began simply in 1945 with two young men named John and Bob, who made a quiet commitment to the will of God. Accomplishments never dreamed of are now realities propelled by the miracle-working hand of God.”

Read in a few pages: “Beginning in 1947, Far East Broadcasting Company began to construct radio stations for sending the gospel to lands that had little or no witness of Christ. After building the first stations in the Philippines, they moved on to build others on Okinawa. They purchased a powerful international station in San Francisco and obtained licenses to build stations in Korea and also on Saipan.”

I’m going on just a bit: “This nation struggled at the bottom of its greatest economic depression in the 1930’s. But little interested Bob Bowman besides showing off his car’s performance.” He had a car; he was a young kid. “The spinning, sliding tires sent up clouds of dust, bringing laughter and cheers from the friends who traveled with him. No thoughts drifted into Bob’s mind of what or whom might lie across the calm Pacific, that was a silver streak just beyond the sand dunes. Only daydreams about the world’s great motor speedways captured his attention. At that point in Bob’s life, winning the Indianapolis 500 was his idea of life’s greatest achievement. He seemed a most unlikely candidate to fulfill a purpose of God.

“God often says, ‘My ways are not your ways.’ And his divine timetable for Bob began to tick. Bob Bowman’s life, destined to center beyond the vast Pacific Ocean, was about to take an astounding turnaround.

“Three thousand miles away on the Atlantic Coast, another young man in his early 20’s dozed uneasily on a New York City subway car. Why? Because it was the only place he had to doze or sleep. The loud clattering rhythm of the rails provided a kind of lullaby. His dreams were covered by bright lights flashing by, sudden hissing stops and starts, and blasts of stale air caused by the onrush of unnamed odors as the doors opened and closed at every stop. End of the line and back. The all-night journey for a nickel offered cheap lodging for an aspiring actor in a temporary between-jobs financial pinch. This pattern of living was an accepted norm for those in theatrical careers during the unstable years of the 30’s in New York City. No sacrifice seemed too high a price to pay for achievement.

“And John Broger soon learned both extremes of the success spectrum. He got to act in soap operas on commercial radio. He entertained in night clubs. His acting abilities and quick sense of humor provided opportunities to enjoy the bright lights and promises of success and adulation. In time, he lived in a New York City penthouse, drove an auburn convertible and wore tailored suits and monogrammed shirts. He made it out of the subway to a big wage. He had the best.

“Many would have considered this life exciting. But success did not fulfill John. It disappointed him. He wanted to make a move away from it. The depression year of 1933 presented two young men, one on the Pacific coast, one on the Atlantic, from different backgrounds of different temperaments with different goals and with little probability of ever meeting, that God had destined that they would meet and that their meeting would have an impact on the lives of millions.

“Over time, Bob Bowman discovered that sports, fast cars and having fun no longer fulfilled him. He too was at the point of a complete change of direction in life. He remembered the day when he was a 9-year-old boy, who went to the altar in a small church and accepted the forgiveness and new life offered by Jesus Christ. That was a memory laid aside for many years. But not in heaven. God marked that act on that day.

“When Bob startled his family with the announcement, ‘I’d like to go to Bible school,’ one member wasn’t surprised. Bob’s mother had prayed faithfully for her youngest son. Many years later, Bob said, ‘I really don’t know why I said such an unexpected thing. It may have been to head off the remonstrations I knew Mom was going to give me. But partly out of a deep need I felt to change my life.’

“Regardless, his proclaimed interest in Bible study threw everybody into action. His mother called the pastor, and they got him into the Bible school of southern California at Pasadena before he could change his mind. But he and the conservative school were not a match at all, and Bob had to make a painful turnaround in his life.

“The southern California Bible school, although emphasizing the deeper work of the Holy Spirit, was interdenominational. This fact served Bob well all his life, giving him an unprejudiced view of the spectrum of Christianity. After that, he would look beyond denominational divisions. How else could the message of an undivided Savior reach the far parts of the world where people worshipped innumerable gods?

“Behind the speaker’s platform in the chapel, a map greeted Bob every morning: the whole world spread before his eyes with its needs calling out. Over it, in carved letters, touched with gold, William Carey’s words shone (he was a missionary to India): ‘Attempt Great Things for God—Expect Great Things from God.’” Every morning, he looked at that challenging proposition and statement in that Bible school auditorium. God was working His purposes out.

“Sometimes, I should say that because he had a very good singing voice, Bob Bowman was invited to join a small men’s chorus. And that chorus became the singing voices of the Haven of Rest gospel broadcast. And he was just moved into radio by singing with that… I think there were four, I think it was a quartet. And it was a very beautiful broadcast that Christians liked. It introduced Bob Bowman to radio and its potential, how it was used. It also began to make him somewhat known among believers as a very young man.

“Sometimes when Bob sat on the platform of a Haven of Rest church meeting and watched people come to the altar, a strange unrest stirred in his heart. The world map that hung in the chapel of the Bible school repeatedly appeared in his mind. He thought about the vast expanses of lands untouched by the gospel, some inaccessible to missionaries. Plenty of non-Christians need to be reached here in America was the thought with which he tried to dismiss the nagging uneasiness.

“The Holy Spirit continued to speak gently but persistently to Bob’s heart, until this question gelled in his mind: if radio can bring nonbelievers to Christ in this country, why not use it to reach people in very distant places where there are vast populations and little or no witness of Christ?” That was the thought, and that is what you call a fruitful thought.

“Meanwhile, in New York City, John Broger searched through books on philosophy and psychology. Existentialism, hot on the scene, appealed to him for a while, but ultimately he found it unsatisfactory. He turned his back on the New York lifestyle, sold many of his possessions and returned to his home in Miami.”

And then Pearl Harbor was bombed and we got into World War II, and here were these two young men.

Stepping out on a venture of faith is like being propelled swiftly down an unknown path in the dark. There is confidence and excitement instead of fear. If the way leans suddenly over the edge of a cliff, faith says the foot will find support if God underwrites the venture. (Was that in your word this morning, it was something about finding your footing will then make clear? [Yes.]

“The incorporation papers of the Far East Broadcasting Company stated that the organization would be nonprofit, noncommercial, interdenominational. It would cooperate with all evangelical churches.

“However, there was no missionary organization, no board, no foundation, no denomination, and no wealthy underwriters backing the operation. There was no example to follow, no precedent for this sort of endeavor had been attempted in the Orient. It had been in Africa and Europe.

The war years had devastated Asia, especially the areas to which John and Bob wanted to go. They owned no transmitters, they had no staff members, there was nothing in their hands except a vision from God and the faith to follow.

“God chose two very different men and brought them together in his mysterious design. Bob seldom counted the cost. (I love this.) John always did. Bob, full of faith that anything could be done, surged toward a challenge with enthusiasm and excitement. John looked things over calmly and carefully, assessed the cost, then went ahead when the plan was clear. Bob loved people and people loved him. John, more reserved in nature, earned the respect of those who got to know him and his thoughtful approach to problems.

“This combination of abilities and personalities formed a perfect complement. Each partner possessed qualities the other needed. Each supplied the ministry well with his special talents. John planned, Bob met the public, yet each did a bit of every job. And from that a staff of hundreds of broadcasters and engineers came together, one by one by one. And I just want you to hear of one such coming together. (If I can find this…. Yes.)

“A man named Fred described this fateful moment in his past: ‘Ten thousand watts of radio frequency current was burning me alive. My head felt like it was locked in a vise, held precariously in an electromagnetic field. Is this death, I wondered? Then through this sparking and the arcing, I heard my own voice saying, “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.” I realized that my own program was going out over the antenna and my head locked by the radio frequency power was acting as a conductor. As I lost consciousness, I cried, “Lord, I commend to you my spirit.” Then I fell. I regained consciousness a few moments later eight feet below. My leg caught in a brace, saving me from the deadly fall to the ground.’”

He’d been up in an antenna, trying to repair it, without having had it securely grounded, and all the power went through his body, because he hadn’t gone after God’s call. And God was determined to get him where he wanted him.

“Fred pastored a small church, got some Bible training. Temptation came as it frequently does in legitimate form. He was invited to accept an engineering job with high starting pay. He read the letter to his wife. ‘I don’t care how good the salary is. You made a promise to the Lord never to take a job that was not connected with spreading the gospel.’

“‘We could support pastors with that extra money,’ Fred explained. But his wife would not agree. That night, when Fred went to the station to record his program, he decided to write the acceptance for the job anyway and tell his wife later.

“That was the night when the need to mount that tower occurred.” And the next words are “On the hospital bed, Fred renewed his promise to God never to take a job that was not connected with spreading the gospel.” And he became an engineer who played a key role with the Far East Broadcasting Company.

Now, in all of this, there was unseen factor. These thoughts, this getting into radio, this desire to reach out over the oceans to the millions. They did not know when all this was coming into formative being that China would be taken over by a Marxist government that would do all in its power and authority to scour the land of missionaries and the gospel as far as it could. And to say, “Stay out, it’s foreign, we don’t want it here,” and to lock out hundreds of millions from the truth. And nothing less than that was riding on these two young men. For as they got radio built up, they were able to beam the gospel past the customs barriers, right into China in a number of languages.

“In Shanghai, there were 11 million plus people; in Beijing, about nine million. In Sichuan, Chongqing, etc., all of those cities received the gospel by the Far East Broadcasting Company’s signals.

“The joyful sounds “Jesus Saves, Jesus Saves”—that’s a song—resounds in more than 100 languages around the world, beamed from the huge antennas of Far East Broadcasting Company. Daily, FEBC transmits its message of hope through 300 program hours from radio stations in five widely separated countries. Only a few people ever see the stations and their tall transmitting towers. The announcers’ voices are heard by many millions.

And they describe some of the ways these came together. At one point, they needed a large transmitter. “The company that made them in Sweden had come to the end of the year and they were going to retool for a new style of transmitter. They sold all of that year’s production save one tower which was exactly the tower style that Far East Broadcasting Company needed at that point. They came together. The company was happy to sell it at less than full cost, so they could just have it off the property and go fully into the new retooling.”

And again and again and again, they saw God supply. They had the vision and the necessities without which the vision could not have been realized.

Two young men, and they were joined by a third, got hold of a purpose of God and pursued it. A purpose far larger than they originally knew. And out of nothing but faith and vision—and that’s all it was—came provision after provision after provision. God supplied. They overcame for the Lord, for the gospel, in one of the greatest human crises of this century, having to do with shutting China down.

What if they had gone about seeking provisions for themselves? They would have gotten them and known nothing of all of the rest to go with this. Amen.