The Fireweed After the Fire

The Fireweed After the Fire

by Tim Ruthven

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

When I got up here last night, it was never in my mind to go in the direction I went in. Matter of fact, my wife asked me what I was going to speak on over in the motorhome, and I told her. And that was not the direction I had planned. And so God, knowing best and knowing what He wanted from us, and the manner in which He wanted to bless us at this camp, moved out in that direction for His own reasons. I want you to know that. I think what He did last night was to set before you a goal, to set before you a desire in your heart, to set before you an invitation. An invitation that was very real. An invitation that’s prophetic. It’s not just for this camp. It’s an invitation to the body of Christ in the day that we live. And I’m sure then that it’s of God. God, you will just hear it being shouted from the housetops, from this minister and that minister. Right throughout the body, you’ll hear a call of God calling us into this more intimate relationship with Himself. And the key is relationship. Not just continual theological understanding about God, but that sensitive heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit relationship with the Father that only He can give.

We can’t learn it in books. It’s grace. It’s grace. All of grace. God’s got to reach out to us and by His Spirit draw us into this experience. But we’ve got to be willing to be drawn. We’ve got to offer ourselves and yield and cooperate with Him. So I just thought I’d tell you that because it helps me to understand this morning where we’re going with the particular scripture that He wants me to share with you. One word came to me very clearly this morning as we were being led in praise and worship. And it was in that second-to-last song when it said He would lead us home. And one of the most insidious deceptions of Satan, and I can’t say that strongly enough, one of the most, and I’ll repeat it, insidious deceptions of Satan, because that sounds good, doesn’t it? Is to continually relay to our mind every time the Spirit speaks to us about going home or anything to do with our relationship with the Father, always he seems to try and cut across what the Spirit is saying. He can’t stop it. He can’t, in a sense, make us deaf to it unless we’re willing to. But what he will do is just put a little slant on it. He means when you die. And always he’s putting that emphasis on our relationship with the Father and on the kingdom of heaven as something that is to be attained, is to be ours, after we leave this mortal body. And that is not true. That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s some other gospel. You do not wait till you die to go to heaven. Heaven is yours the moment that you were born again into the kingdom of God. There is a lot about heaven you’ll never see until you leave this mortal body. But there’s an awful lot of heaven that’s available to you right now. And it’s today, not tomorrow. And it’s this morning now that the Holy Spirit wants to speak to us and lead us into it and open our hearts to it. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow He’ll open our hearts to something new.

God is always moving. And on the way over here I enjoyed the most fascinating conversation. I really did. All I did was ask what a particular flower was. And I was told that this flower was a fireweed. And then it was explained to me how a forest can be devastated by fire and the first thing that will spring up is this fireweed. And you’ve seen that pretty blue flower over there. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? And that’s apparently what immediately follows the forest fire. And then a whole new cycle begins which takes two or three hundred years to restore all the life to its original state. The animals, the trees and everything else. And they are restored in a certain progression. But the first thing that happens after this devastating fire is that this very pretty beautiful blue flower emerges and covers this darkened, black, ugly result of the devastation. And yet you can see that it was to renew the forest again and to bring about a total new cycle because the forest had, as it were, come to a point where it was so choked with growth that nothing could live in it. Does that make sense? And I think that it’s an analogy, brother. I think that it’s an analogy that sometimes our lives, even spiritually, and we live in the world, and our lives become so cluttered up and there’s a glut that we need a fire.

We need a burning off time. We need some of that stuff that’s cluttering up our lives. We can live without it now. It was yesterday’s stuff. We can live without it. We can afford for the Holy Ghost to come in fire and purge and burn so that something once again can emerge which is very, very beautiful and it has the beauty of the Holy Spirit upon it. And you know, often in royalty and when you’re referring to God the colour is purple or blue, and I think it’s significant that that flower even is that colour, that after a devastation you can look and see the hand of God there even in the colour. And I’m believing that’s the way it will be in our camp. I’m believing that some of our lives are glutted. Some of our lives are choked up. Some of us are so full of spiritual knowledge is not doing us any good. And it needs to be burnt off. And we need to come into a fresh new understanding of yesterday’s knowledge. And a fresh new appreciation. And a fresh new growth in God. And I just know in my spirit that if we will flow with Him through these talks that we have morning and night over this coming week, God will bring us step by step, step by step. I think there’s 14 talks. Step by step He’ll bring us into something new.

If you’ll just yield and open and allow that fire to burn. Don’t resist the fire. Don’t be frightened of the fire. I can imagine from a man’s point of view looking at that burning forest it must just devastate him. It must be the most terrible thing that’s happened. And yet what I heard this morning coming over here was so beautiful, as the growth of the new forest was explained to me, how this little tree grew and how later on another tree grew and how it took this two to three hundred years to restore the forest, how the animals returned, how the birds returned. And it must have seemed like a tragedy originally when that fire burnt, and yet what a beautiful thing it must be to be able to watch the growth and development of that forest and seeing it being returned and restored. And I think that’s what’s going to happen to us over this camp. Don’t resist the fire. Are you hearing that? Don’t resist the fire. Even though it does appear that some good things in your life may appear to be put down, destroyed, burnt up as a result of it, and you’ve been hanging on to those doctrines that are so important. And I have in my own experience had some real difficulties with some of the things the Holy Spirit has revealed to me, because at that particular point they seemed to be in stark contrast to what I understood doctrinally.

And then when I yielded to the Holy Spirit, it wasn’t that He was destroying or putting down what was mine doctrinally, but He built on it. He enlarged on it. He made me more sensitive, more alive to the reality of what that doctrine was. I don’t think I’ve ever really changed my doctrine. Does that make sense? I don’t think I’ve ever changed my doctrine, but I’ve come into a new understanding of it. Oh, I’ve had it shattered at times by the Holy Spirit, but I’ve come into a new appreciation of it eventually as I’ve yielded myself to the fire of the Holy Ghost. So that’s my word of encouragement to you this morning, and I want to share a little experience I had with you some years ago because I think it will flow on from last night and lead you somewhere. I had a devastating experience. It would have been alright if the Holy Ghost had kept out of it.

I could have handled it. It wouldn’t have been so devastating. I really could have got it together. I could have walked away from the situation and said, “Man, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” This elder, a very fine Presbyterian elder, came up to me one day and put his arm around me, and he said, “Tim, I wish you’d be more loving.”

And I looked at that elder, and the thoughts that went through my mind were, “Man, if you want as many souls to the kingdom of God as I do, you would not put your arm around me and say, ‘I wish you’d be more loving.’ If you gave as much time as I gave to reaching out to other people for Christ.” I had a Bible study going at lunchtime in the school where I taught. I had a study for Navigators going with university students. There was one student I had to sit with every night for three months because he’d sought to take his own life and was in a psychiatric ward. I was working. Brethren, I was really pouring myself out for the Lord Jesus Christ. It didn’t matter that my wife was ironing every night lonely, waiting for me to come home. But that I didn’t see. And this elder put his arm around me and said, “I wish you would be more loving.” And I had it all together. I had all the answers. I didn’t have to tell him, but I had enough answers to satisfy my conscience. And I could have walked on my way rejoicing he didn’t know what he was talking about. If it wasn’t that the Holy Spirit convicted me, he was right.

And that drove me crazy. I knew in my spirit God was wanting to say something to me. In the natural, God should have been delighted, dancing up and down with joy for everything that I was doing for Him. I mean, I had a reputation in that town. There was no evangelical committee that could afford to sit in committee without Tim Ruthven. For some reason or other, they just had to have me on their committee. Now, I wasn’t on a lot, but I was in the Gideons. I loved the Gideons ministry and the Navigators ministry and the Scripture Union. And I was the co-founder of Christian youth camps in New Zealand. And we were making a mark in that part of our country. And we were known as confessors of the gospel and people who were actively changing other people’s lives. And if the Holy Spirit had just kept out of it, I would have gone on my way satisfied with the answer that was inside me. But the answer that was inside me was totally contrary to what the Holy Spirit was wanting me to hear. And I knew I didn’t have an answer. Ever been there? Ever sat in the meeting and something is being said and the Spirit is reaching out to your spirit and you’re wrestling with the Spirit and somehow you know that what you’re hearing is contradictory to where you are.

And you could handle it, and you got all the answers, if it wasn’t for that fine line, if it wasn’t for the presence of the Holy Ghost, if it wasn’t that the Holy Ghost was trying to get your attention in that area, you could handle it. Well, there may have been somebody here like that last night. I don’t know whether that’s the reason for the Holy Spirit wanting me to move in this direction, but I know in my own life, I’m stubborn, I’m bigoted. I remember when they first told me I was bigoted, and I went home to Marge and said, “What does bigoted mean?”

And she told me, and I didn’t like it. I discovered it was no compliment. But I took their word for it, and I knew that in the natural, that was me. Haven’t you ever been there, and yet in the midst of it, the Holy Spirit is reaching out to you? You’re not particularly caring for what you hear. In that area of your life, you’ve got it together in your mind, you’re an intelligent person, and you’ve studied this many times, and you’ve contemplated this many times, but now somehow, if it wasn’t for the fact that the Spirit was in it, and starting to strive with you, you would just let it go, but you can’t let it go, and you can’t afford to let it go. And I’ve learned never to let go what the Holy Spirit is saying to me, even though I can’t flow in with it, even though I react to it at that moment, the fact that I react to it immediately implies that I’m out of step. Are you hearing that? So I went to the Lord, and I prayed and asked Him to show me, show me in Your Word, speak to me in Your Word, I can trust Your Word. I can’t trust that Presbyterian elder. I know that Presbyterian elder, I’ve known him for years, I know his lifestyle, I know his family, God, I’m not going to take what he said to me, but if You say it to me, I can handle it.

Isn’t that true? If You’re going to cut my spirit in that manner, if You’re going to open up something inside me and expose it to that Holy Ghost fire, I can receive it from You, but I just can’t receive it from that elder. And so He led me to a scripture. It’s here in John’s Gospel, chapter 21. It said, Simon Peter, in verse 3 it is, “Simon Peter said unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth and entered into a ship immediately, and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus said unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered Him, No. And He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girded his fisher’s coat unto him, for he was naked, and had cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship, for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits, dragging the net with fishes.”

“As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. Jesus said unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great fishes, 153, for all there was so many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus said unto them, Come and dine. None of the disciples durst ask Him, Who art Thou, knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh and taketh bread and giveth them the fish likewise. This is now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples, after that He was risen from the dead. So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He said unto Him, Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He said unto him, Feed my lambs. He said to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He said unto Him, Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He said unto him, Feed” I don’t know if you have a doctrine of backsliding. And I don’t know what that doctrine of backsliding is. But I want to tell you, if you will keep your eye on the Lord Jesus Christ, if you will keep your heart centered on Him, if you will keep your life in focus in Him, then it’s very, very difficult for you to make a success of backsliding.

Did you know that? Now, I’m not trying to be funny, because there was a time in my life when I decided I would backslide. I came to a point when I was hurting. I came to a point where I didn’t know which way to turn. I came to the point where man was speaking to me and the Holy Ghost was speaking through man, and I just didn’t like what I was hearing. And I was struggling with what I was hearing. And I didn’t want to walk in that direction. Even though I had heard the Lord speak to me for years that this was the way, walk ye in it. And there came a point in my life where I was resistant to what the Holy Spirit was doing in my life and the direction that He was leading me. And I decided the only way out was to backslide. And I guess Peter felt a little like that. How would you have liked to have stood up here this morning with Peter’s testimony and be able to tell how you were on the Mount of Transfiguration, and there the Lord Jesus Christ was transfigured before you, and you saw Him in that beauty, that Shekinah glory, that holiness that must have descended upon Him, where He just glowed in all that purity and beauty that his eyes couldn’t stand.

And then when his eyes got accustomed to seeing the Lord Jesus Christ in such glory, he recognised that the two people he was speaking to were Moses and Elijah. How would you have been able to have stood such an experience like that? Or as a baby Christian to have had the experience of being able to answer Jesus, and to hear Jesus commend you and say, “Son, Peter, flesh and blood didn’t reveal that to you. That’s not a product of your intellect. That’s not just a product of your understanding. My Father, my Father in Heaven gave you that. That is revelation. You could never have seen me as the Messiah. You could never have seen me as the Christ if my Father hadn’t revealed that to you.” Or maybe you would have been thinking about that prayer meeting that Jesus took you to. It was late at night and you were all tired, and you’d just been and celebrated the Passover. And there at the Passover, a most unusual thing happened. Jesus took the cup of redemption and passed it from one to the other and said, “This is my blood.” And then He took the bread from the table, and He broke it before them and said, “This is my body.” And that they were to eat all of it.

Strange things happened that night. He sent Judas away and told Judas, whatever he was going to do, go and do it quickly. And then Jesus led him out into the garden with a couple of the others. And there He asked them to pray for an hour. They couldn’t pray. They fell asleep. I wonder if the story would have been different if they could have stayed awake. I wonder if the story would have been different if they could have just for one hour entered into the intercessions that Jesus was entering into. I wonder if Peter’s position in the Lord Jesus Christ, and his ability to walk in the circumstances that followed, would have been different if Peter could have just entered in to that one hour prayer meeting. I wonder what would have happened when Peter stood before that little girl warming his hands and heard that cock crow. I wonder how Peter would have felt. I wonder if he would have felt differently when he saw the Lord Jesus Christ eyeball to eyeball as they took Him away to interrogate Him. I wonder if things would have been different. I wonder if Peter thought things would have been different if that had been a successful prayer meeting instead of them falling asleep. I wonder if these are the things that were going on in his mind.

I don’t know what was going on in Peter’s mind. I just know what the word says. He was instructed. Peter was taught that the Lord Jesus Christ would go to Jerusalem and He would celebrate the Passover there. And then He would be taken away and He’d be crucified. And on the third day He would rise again and that He would meet Peter in Galilee. Peter was in Galilee but he wasn’t expecting to meet Jesus. Peter hadn’t heard the teaching. He had heard it with his intellect but it hadn’t got down into his spirit. It hadn’t got down into his heart where he could walk by faith in the obedience of what Jesus had said to him. He had enough faith to get him to Galilee. Galilee anyway was where he was at home. Galilee was where he felt comfortable. Jesus loved that northern regions of Galilee. When you go there, you can feel it. And you can understand why. When you get up into the mountains up there, into the ruggedness of it. And you can just feel the presence of the joy of the Lord in that place. What a place to train and teach and instruct and build into people’s lives the reality of the kingdom of God. So Peter returned to Galilee.

And he returned to what he knew how to do best. And that was his fishing. And he got the boat out. Remember, this is a professional fisherman. And he goes out at night. And I fished for years. And we didn’t go out hoping that we caught fish. We went out to the grounds where we knew the fish were. We chose the grounds where the fish were, depending on what sort of fish we wanted to eat. We didn’t throw our lines in the water and sit half a day catching fish, hoping we’d catch fish. I don’t remember a time when we went out in our boat that we didn’t come back with the fish that we went out to get. If the particular fish we wanted weren’t in that particular ground, then we went to another one. We had a variety of fishing grounds that we could line up with the points on the shore and guarantee to catch fish. Peter was a fisherman. He knew how to catch fish. It was ridiculous to think that he had toiled all night and couldn’t catch fish. The reason he couldn’t catch fish was he had dedicated his life to the Lord Jesus Christ to be absolutely incapable, desiring to do nothing except the Lord Jesus Christ should do it in his life and through him.

Are you hearing that? And so he wrestled in the flesh all night. And Jesus came on the scene to demonstrate exactly that point. “You’ve got no fish? Well, let me tell you where they are. If you would just throw your net on the right side, you’ll have all the fish you needed. You didn’t need to toil all night, Peter. If you’d just been doing what I told you, if you’d just been waiting in the place that I suggested to you, if you’d just had that expectancy, that desire in your heart for my coming, you’d be back here on the seashore waiting for me to come. Well, I don’t need your fish, Peter. I’ve got a little fire going here and I’ve got fish here for you and I’ve got bread here for you.” And Peter just jumped over. Peter couldn’t wait to get ashore. He threw a cloak around him and jumped over the side of the boat and waded ashore and just stood there in front of Jesus. Just at last, he’d come to a place of peace again. And Jesus put His arm around him and took him for a little walk. Now, I understood all that until I got to the point in my reading where Jesus took him for a little walk.

And what did He do? He did what that elder did. He put His arm around him and said, “Lovest thou me? Come on now, Peter. Lovest thou me more than these? More than your fishing? I’m not sure if you love me more than your fishing. I’m not sure that you love me more than your friends. The last three days has left some doubts about that. Come on, Peter. Lovest thou me more than these?” And He wasn’t just saying, “Do you love me like a friend? Do you have an affection for me like a friend?” He’s saying, “Do you love me the biblical way? Do you love me with all your heart and all your soul?” And Peter had to reply, “Jesus, I have an affection for You. I have something going for You. I have a good friendship going for You.” And he was saying it in a manner that suggested, isn’t that enough? So Jesus said again, “Hey, Peter, do you love us, thou me?” The biblical way, the way it is in the world. “Love us, thou me with all your heart and all your soul. I’m not asking you if we have a little thing going. I’m not asking you if we have a little friendship here. I’m asking you, is all your heart mine?

Is all your soul mine? Is all your spirit mine? Are you totally yielded to me?” And Peter answers, “Oh God, I know the limitations of my affections towards You are only of a friend.” And so Jesus, in love for the brother, turned around and changed His word and said, “Then Peter, do you love me then in this friendly, affectionate manner that you proclaim?” And Peter said, “Lord, You know that I do.” And Jesus said, “Go and do something about it.” And I knew that God was getting at me. I knew that God was reaching down into my spirit. I knew that the elder was right. And that there was an ingredient missing in my love. And that my love satisfied me for that moment. But what satisfied me didn’t necessarily satisfy Him. And that there were limitations in my love for Him. And so I cried out, “Well Lord, You’ve got to teach me this. You’ve got to build this into my life. You’ve got to lead me in this thing.” And I’ve discovered that He always answers prayer. And I’m talking to you now over a period of time. I’m talking to you now over a progression. I’m not talking to you now about something that was instantaneous. I’m not talking to you now about something that took place in a meeting.

Because you responded in the meeting. There was an initial response. And then another response. And then another response. Until it grew and grew and became part of my experience. And the way God did it was He sent fire. He sent fire to burn it off. That was real fire. It wasn’t Holy Ghost fire. My second youngest daughter came into me while I was lying in bed and says, “Daddy, can I have a fire in our bedroom?” And I said, “Sure you can.” I didn’t know. She’d been to her mother and says, “Mother, can I light the fire in the grate?” Because every bedroom had a fireplace in it. It was set. There was the paper. There was the wood. There was the matches. All she had to do was put a match to it. And so she somehow went into her room and she figured out, “Now, Dad said I can have a fire in the bedroom. Mum said I can’t have one in the fireplace.” So she removed the wood and the paper and she put it in the wardrobe. And she put a match to it. And you don’t have to use much imagination to know what happened to that room. That room burnt through the roof. That room burnt through the wall.

We had a pretty good fire going in that house. And everything that the girls owned went up in smoke. The fire brigade came and they put their hoses through the roof. And they took their axes and chopped through our living room wall. And, of course, our family of how many children then? Five. We’re busily being evacuated and taken to the neighbours. And after the fire was over, a Presbyterian deaconess came to visit. And she brought little clothes for the children. And during our conversation, she discovered I grew up in an orphanage. And she says, “Did you know, Tim, that the widow of the superintendent of that orphanage you grew up in lives not too far from you at all? Just across the valley. Not very far away at all.” And suddenly, when her name was mentioned, and the realisation that this lady, whom I had scented hate, whom I had scented bitterness, whom I had scented anger in all these years, suddenly welled up within me, came alive within me, almost consumed me. I couldn’t believe that there was such an anger there. I couldn’t believe there was such resentment there. I couldn’t believe that there was such bitterness there. God, have You forgotten I’ve been a Christian for seven years? God, have You forgotten that the blood of Jesus Christ covered all this sin?

Have You forgotten that I took this to the cross at Calvary? Surely this is a trick of the devil. Surely the devil is trying to recover something from the past and bring it up to my mind and confuse me and seek to destroy me. But brethren, that resentment was real. That wasn’t brought back to the imaginations of my mind. That resentment and that bitterness and that anger was coming from deep down within. I don’t know where God found it. It must have been so deep and so buried. And it must have been lying there for all those years. And God had to do a deep thing. He had to send some fire. He had to send an elder whom I couldn’t agree with. He had to send me to the Word to show me that there were things still deep down in the realms of my spirit and in the realms of my subconscious that He had never got to by the blood of Jesus Christ, and that He had never dealt with, and that He had never healed me from. And it devastated me. It devastated me because it violated my doctrine. My doctrine was that all was forgiven when I went to the cross, and all was dealt with when I went to the cross.

The blood of Jesus Christ was equal to everything that was in my life the day I went to the cross. And now suddenly it seems something has been neglected. Suddenly it seems something has been uncared for. Somehow it seems that the power of the cross hadn’t dealt with this thing. That it maybe had been hidden from the cross. I do not know how to interpret it to you. I just know that it was there and it was real and it was shattering. I am born again, faith in the blood of Jesus, baptised by the Holy Ghost, functioning in the gifts of the Spirit. And suddenly God reveals, opens a door, something deep inside me that I didn’t even know was there that says to me that I had not forgiven, that there was resentment, that there was bitterness, that there was anger. And the deaconess is saying to me, “Why don’t you go and call the lady on the telephone? She would appreciate so much hearing from you.” And here I am devastated, falling apart. I’d like to dig a hole and bury that lady in it. I go to the telephone full of fear and anger and call the lady. And this loving little voice comes on the other end of the line. And when she finds out who it is, she’s excited about it.

And she’s asking me, “When will you come and visit me? Please come and visit me.” “Visit you?” “Yes, ma’am.” So we make an arrangement to go and visit her. And I go to her home. And there on a coffee table in front of the settee that we’re sitting on, she has lined up all the pictures of all the boys that I grew up with in the orphanage. And she’s naming them all. And she’s telling me what these boys are doing. Who are married? Who are not married? Who’s been in jail? Who hasn’t been in jail? Who are making it and succeeding? Who aren’t? And she knew where every one of them were. And when she’d gone through all these boys, one at a time, and she came to the end of them, then she looked at me. And she says, “Tim Ruthven, you’re the only one that didn’t come back. When you entered the military, we never heard from you again. For some reason or other, you never returned.” She knew nothing about the hatred and the bitterness and the anger that was in my heart. I looked at the photographs, and I looked at her, and I saw for the first time in my life how wrong I’d been, how confused I’d been, how that childhood teenage anger and rebellion and bitterness was unfounded and ungrounded, and how it was just all a confusion within me through my own selfishness and from what I was and my own sin.

And suddenly I saw in this lady something I’d never seen in the years that I was in the orphanage. I saw that she loved me. And that love communicated, and it pierced my heart, and I didn’t know how to handle it. And I left her home, and I went home skipping. I’d had a deliverance. I’d had a healing. Something had happened inside me. God had reached out to me, and He destroyed something that was destroying me. He destroyed something that was limiting the flow of love and limiting the flow of the Spirit that was available to me. And I knew I’d had a deliverance, and I knew I’d had a healing, and I knew I was walking in something, but I knew, too, that somehow I wasn’t there. Have you ever been to the dentist, and you just got over your fear of going to the dentist? You want the tooth fixed, but you don’t want it to hurt. And if you could just go to the dentist and know it wouldn’t hurt, and you get to the dentist, and you get through that grueling experience, and it’s all over, and you just relax, and you’re relieved, and he says, “Well, I could only do so much today. You’ll have to come back again.” And suddenly you just got over it all, and there’s that horrible feeling in the pit of your tummy again. You’ve got to go back. I just got over it all, and I had that horrible feeling in the pit of my tummy. It wasn’t over.

And that God had more to do. And He was going to do more in this area of my life. And I didn’t feel too comfortable with it. But I wanted God to do it. And I wanted God to do it quickly. And He didn’t do it quickly. It was a long, drawn-out process.

Oh God, if only. If only there was some way to bring this thing to a conclusion. Show me in Your word where I am. Lead me in Your word. Develop Your word of my spirit. Close the door on this episode by Your word. So that I can go forth with that confidence. Knowing that healing has taken place. That deliverance has taken place. And I can walk now in that newness of life and love. That You have in mind for me. Well, He led me to another scripture. Turn with me to it. It’s found in Exodus chapter 21.

Oh, God knows this. Exodus 21. My attitude at heart was this. God, You can’t. You can’t minister to me through Exodus 21. I am now under grace. That was my doctrine. God, You can’t do this. This is law. I’m under grace. What provision in the law could You have made for grace?

Let me read it to you. “Now, these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve. And in the seventh, he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out free.” God, this is rubbish.

God, I can’t relate to this. Why don’t You choose another scripture? This just doesn’t make sense. I know what it is to be incarcerated. I know what it is to have to fulfill a commitment. You cannot tell me, Lord, that anybody would set themselves in a bonded situation, a bonded situation, I should say. Maybe the man’s in debt, because this is the context in which the law is written, that if a Hebrew, one of God’s people, should be in debt, then he had a last resort. He could sell himself, as it were. He could commit himself to this servitude for a period of time, and time limits were set so that man would not be cruel and exact more than what was required of him. And he could sell himself, as it were, into this bonded situation. And I can understand that. I can understand a man being so low that he would look for this way out. I can understand a man being so bankrupt, so materially exhausted, that even for the sake of his wife and children, if he were married, he would bond himself in a service relationship that his wife and children would be supported and provided for. But I cannot relate, I cannot understand that when that time of service was over, when a man might serve seven years and come to the end of that time and say, “I love you, my love for you, my respect for you is such that I don’t want to leave you.

I don’t want to be free. I don’t want to be independent. I don’t want to once again have a home of my own and gather my family around me. I don’t want to seek my own vacation. I just want to stay and serve you in this servitude.” I couldn’t relate to it. I thought of my father, who was born again in a prison cell in Paparua Prison in the South Island of New Zealand. And I remember at his funeral, the man that stood up and testified as to what had happened in that prison through his conversion. And my father had a wonderful born-again experience. But I cannot, not for one minute, can I contemplate, can I consider, that when his long prison sentence came to an end, that he would ever look one of those guards eyeball to eyeball, ever look one of those who were in authority over him eyeball to eyeball, and say, “Brother, I love you, I don’t want to leave.” There is no way I could relate to that. My imprisonment wasn’t in a civilian prison, it was in a military prison, and that’s a little different. It’s not quite so humane. And I couldn’t imagine. I thought of those guards. Forgive them, I hated them. I would have killed any one of them, given the opportunity.

I couldn’t believe that men could be so inhuman. When that sergeant major looked at me and cussed me out, and said that you will stand 28 days in that one spot, and then turn to the guard and say, “If he moves, beat him.” And there the guard stood with sidearms to make sure that for 28 days, that I never sat, I never walked, I never turned, I never did anything except by the instruction of the guard. You tell me that at the end of that 28 days in that cell, I’m going to learn to love him, I’m going to come to a place in my life where I can say, “I forgive you, I love you, and I don’t want to leave this place, I don’t want to go out free.” That’s all I thought about was getting out. That’s all I thought about was how I might leave that place, and I devised schemes on how I might get out of this situation in this cell that I found myself in. God, I can’t relate to what You’re saying.

What on earth has this got to do with this work of grace that You’re doing in my heart? And then I began to see. I was building in my own life. I was building a little prison. I began to recognise that something had taken place in my life that I hadn’t seen. And I recognised it because I was going out the door one evening to go to a Gideon’s meeting, and my wife said, “Where are you going?” And I said, “Oh, just another meeting.” And suddenly something happened inside me, and I thought, where did that reluctance come from? What’s happened to that love? What’s happened to that joy that was in me when I first started going to the Gideon’s meeting? I thought of the time when I used to cut the grass around the church as a baby Christian, and that’s all I knew to do to serve the Lord was cut grass. And round and round the church I’d go cutting the grass, and there was such a joy. And I’d run in before the altar in this little Presbyterian church, and I’d say, “Oh, Jesus, I hope You’re pleased with the way I’m cutting the grass.” And He was pleased. The deacons weren’t pleased. They had a meeting and said, “If we don’t stop Tim cutting the grass, he’s going to cut it.

It doesn’t get a chance to grow, and he’s out there cutting it again.” But there was a joy. Are you hearing me? There was a joy. There was an excitement. I didn’t know any other way to serve the Lord. Marge brought me that lawnmower especially so I could go down there and cut grass. And every opportunity, I was down there wanting to pretty up that church and make it look the prettiest thing on the block. There was a love. There was a joy. There was an excitement within me. What had changed? Why was I now going to meetings begrudgingly? Why was I saying, “Well, just another meeting”? And He started to show me that I had built myself into a prison. I had built myself into a place where I wasn’t serving in love and joy and there was a freedom in it. I was serving out of reluctance. Are you hearing me?

So I resigned from the Christian youth camps and they said, “Tim Ruthven’s had a breakdown and that’s the end of Christian youth camps. It will not succeed. It depended on Tim Ruthven.” I tell you, it’s going good today. It’s going better than it ever went when Tim Ruthven had it. Hallelujah. And somehow the Gideons didn’t fail when Tim Ruthven left. And somehow the Navigators went on just as well without me. Everything looks really good in all those works where I was. They never missed a beat. They never missed a step without me. And a still small voice said to me, “He made of Himself no reputation. No reputation.” And made a distinction between a reputation and a testimony. And I knew that I had built a reputation for me in that city. And that very reputation had become a prison. And I was going to meetings more concerned out of what they would think if I didn’t go. Are you hearing me? And what He was wanting to do was to bring me back to that simple childlike love, joy, relationship that I had with Him in the beginning. Well, God, what’s that got to do with Exodus 21? Well, it says in verse 6, “Then his master shall bring him unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the doorpost.”

When will he bring him unto the judges? When he makes a confession. When he’s willing to make a statement. I love my master. And I will not, I will not, I will not be free. Are you hearing me? I don’t want to have the right to make choices. The only choice I want to make is my will, Your will. My will, Your will. So that my will serves Your will. So that my will fulfills Your will. So that my will is Your will performed in and through me. Oh God, I give up rights to everything. I give up rights to being a minister. I give up rights to being a missionary. I give up rights to being a successful teacher. I give up rights to everything that You have given me. So that my life is Yours. Is that what You want from me? That’s what I want to hear. I want to hear you plainly say, “I love my master. I love my master. I will not go out free.” Oh, glory. Then You hear it, Lord Jesus. You hear it because I’m going to shout it from the housetops. You hear it because I’m going to bellow it into Your ear. I want You to hear me plainly say, “I love my master. I love my master. I will not go out free.” Oh, glory. I’ve arrived. No, you haven’t. Look at the text again.

Oh, my. “Then his master shall bring him unto” what? A place of examination. Did you know that Father looks on the heart? He hears what comes out of your mouth. But what comes out of your mouth is not necessarily what you’re going to walk in until it gets down into your heart. And so He examines the heart. And we have to bear that examination. I heard Campbell McAlpine say when he was speaking on the parable of the fig, well, it’s not a parable, on the fig tree. Remember Jesus cursed the fig tree? Remember the fig tree looked beautiful from a distance and Jesus went up to the fig tree and He found no fruit on it and He cursed the fig tree because it bore no fruit? And I heard Campbell say our lives are like that. Our lives look good on the outside. But when they’re examined, when Jesus gets close to our lives, can He find fruit there? Can He find the product of His presence in our life? Or are we just a bunch of leaves? Can our life bear a close examination? And it must bear that close examination, because we must make that statement. We must confess these things. It must get down into our spirit. It must get down into our heart, because He’s going to examine.

He listens to the intents of the heart. And so first of all then, there must be the confession and then there must be a coming to a place of examination. And then he says, “Bring him to the doorpost.” Well, the doorpost is obviously the cross. Oh God, I’ve been to the cross. I’ve seen the cross. I’ve seen the Lord Jesus Christ crucified for my sin. But son, that’s not the cross I’ve got in mind. It’s not. What are you talking about? A still small voice crept into my heart. And just persisted in saying, “Present your body a living sacrifice. Present your body a living sacrifice.” I wrestled with it. Oh, I knew the text. You want me to preach on the text? I’ll preach on the text for you if that’s what you want me to preach. But I knew it was nothing to do with what I might tell others. I knew that somehow God was going to make this a reality in my own heart experience. And then it happened. It was on the island of Bali. And I felt that nearness, that presence of God. And I knew I was to draw away and get alone with Him. Like a wounded animal slipping away to die quietly on his own. That’s exactly the way I felt.

It felt like there was death surrounding me. I felt that this was the end. I was frightened suddenly of death. God, I don’t want to die. For years I’d had no fear of death. For years I’d looked forward to being with the Lord Jesus Christ. For years I had longed for the fact that my spirit might leave my body, and I might be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. But now I didn’t want to die. Now, Jesus, can I go back to New Zealand? Can I see my wife first? Can I see my children first? Can I just have a little time with them before I come to You? But deep down inside, that wasn’t my problem either. The problem was that God was showing me something in my spirit. And it was so dynamic. It was so frightening. It was a cross. I tell you, that cross was as though it were real. I have never seen a cross more real than that cross. And as I saw that cross, His words persisted. Present your body a living sacrifice. Present your body a living sacrifice. And I knew that it would not cease until I got up off my bed in that little motel room down on the water’s edge in the island of Bali.

And presented my body a living sacrifice. And lay upon that cross with great reluctance. Believe me. With a great struggle, I got up and I laid upon that cross. And as I laid upon that cross, I saw another image. It was like looking at a television screen with two images. There was another image upon that cross. And as I lay upon that cross, those two images became into focus and became one. And suddenly there was a revelation. Suddenly there was a burst within me. I understood exactly what the Spirit was saying. I heard the words within me just bursting upon my heart. Saying, “I have been crucified with Christ. I have been crucified with Christ. Not I. But Christ now liveth in me.” Are you hearing me? And I turned to the Scriptures. And I found this Scripture in Galatians 6:14. It says, “But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” Well, I knew the cross that crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. I had seen it by revelation. I knew the cross that had delivered me from sin. I knew the cross that had redeemed me. I knew the cross that was sufficient for my redemption.

And to be made acceptable in the beloved. But suddenly, Father led me now to a cross that crucified me unto the world. And the world crucified unto me. Are you hearing something this morning? It was a long process. It was over a lengthy time. It started with an elder putting his arm around me and saying, “Tim, I wish you’d be more loving.” And I reacted. And I cried out my heart. And I said, “God, if only he could understand me. If only he knew how much I did for the Lord Jesus Christ.” And I was to discover that it wasn’t how much I did that pleased Him. And it certainly wasn’t doing it in the right attitude that brought Him any joy. Those wrong attitudes and service had just led me to another prison cell that was just as dreary and as dead and as uncomfortable as the one I’d been in the military. Now I was doing it because of my reputation instead of for Jesus. And He had to lead me into a place of healing and into a place of liberty, into a place of joy. And He had to lead me back to the cross again. The blood of Jesus Christ had to be brought to bear in my life. Only this time, the one who shed His blood for me took an awl and took my head and leaned it against the doorpost.

And took the earlobe and pierced it with it all that my body might bear the imprints of a crucifixion, of a dying and yet of a reviving and a refreshing. And coming to life again in Him, knowing that not I, not I, no longer I, but Christ liveth in me. It was all over and I remember going back to New Zealand. I was a very quiet little boy for a long time after that. And I remember going back to our community. By then we were living in community and my daughter-in-law saying to me, “You have changed. You have changed. Something has happened within you.” Yes, it was all within me. There was nothing external. In the natural I didn’t see any cross. In the natural nothing happened. But in the spiritual, first of all, God revealed stuff that I’d buried for years. Stuff that seemed to be out of the reach of the natural man. The natural man didn’t know it existed. The natural man didn’t want to even believe it existed. The natural man had formed doctrines and theology to keep that thing buried deep down inside so it could never emerge. The natural man said, according to the word, it was dealt with at Calvary. But one day God burst through the natural man’s understanding and brought it into spiritual light and spiritual understanding and exposed it for what it was and brought it to the surface and dealt with it and brought healing and brought deliverance.

And then when He brought healing and brought deliverance, there was still a lot of work to do. And He led me to an island, miles and miles away from my own homeland. So I could be separated from everything that was familiar. The food that was familiar. The friendships that were familiar. Where I had to totally trust and rely on Him. He was the only one I knew. He was the only one that spoke my language. And there on the island of Bali, He starts speaking a spiritual language to me. And He brought me again to the cross. Everything begins at the cross and everything ends at the cross. And He brought me again to the cross. But this time, it wasn’t Jesus’ crucifixion. It was mine. Mine and His were to become one. Mine and His were to become a reality. Mine and His were to bring deliverance and healing and freedom. Mine and His was to deal with those wrong inner attitudes. Mine and His was to deal with that imprisonment that I built into my life so the scripture could be fulfilled. And what’s the end of the story? Well it says here that he shall lead you to the doorpost and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl. And then it says he shall serve him forever. Then it says he shall serve him forever.

I’ve made a commitment, brethren. I’ve made a commitment. I’ve asked the Lord that by making that statement that I love my master, I love my master, that I will never fall into that trap again of building a reputation or serving just out of my own natural needs or anything else, but that I might serve Him in love. And serving in love means that I’m available and I’m available to do whatever He calls me to do. No matter how menial, no matter how small, it’s got nothing to do with success. It’s got nothing to do with being seen by the brethren. I’m just called to serve Him. The important thing is not how much I serve Him. The important thing is not how greatly I serve Him. The important thing is that my heart is kept right before Him. The important thing is that my attitudes are right. The important thing is that I never build that prison again. The important thing is that He can hear me echoing day after day after day, “I love my Master. I love my Master.” I don’t want freedom of choice today. I yield my freedom of choice today to You. I yield my freedom of will to You today. I would choose to do this. I would choose to do that. But I would rather know what Your choice is. That I might walk in it and demonstrate and work out experientially the confession that I’ve made to You.

And I pray, Lord, a prayer that I learnt from Richard Baxter of Kidderminster, England. A man who suffered much. A man who was martyred for his faith. A man who was a chaplain in Cromwell’s army. A man whom the church almost destroyed. A man whom God poured out His Spirit on and there was revival. And it says in his biography that there wasn’t a house in the city of Kidderminster where you could walk past in the evening and couldn’t hear the family singing psalms. And this man used to pray over and over again, “Oh God, when the day comes that my spirit leaves my body and I enter into Your presence, may I know You so intimately and in such a manner in my body that when I leave my body I won’t even notice the transition.” I pray that that will be the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of grace in this camp. CFO is for experiential Christianity. That’s what it’s all about. CFO is where speaking leaders come to share what God has wrought in our lives. God’s worked out experientially. We can boast in these things only because Jesus has done these things. He’s had some reluctant learners and some reluctant students and I’ve been one of them. But I praise God for His long patience and His long suffering and the manner in which He’s prepared to work it out in our lives experientially.

And I want to commend these same workings of the Holy Spirit to you now. I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes and be very, very still. And I want you to respond to what the Holy Spirit has been saying to your heart. I want you to go to your rhythms. I want you to respond. And those things that are difficult to do, those are the things you need to respond to. Oh God, I can’t wriggle like that. But I’ll go and take in every activity. You will be amazed how this message will continue throughout the day.