How can I know if I have received a call to ministry?

And I would again repeat, beloved friends, to you, a point I think of the very greatest moment, and specially for us to remember, and that is that not one of those whom the Lord calls ministerially here were idle men. I tried to show you that this is the ministerial call, not the personal call. The personal call of course must precede the ministerial call. Does that sound strange? Is there then such a thing as a call to the ministry? Assuredly there is. There is such a thing as being sent on the service of the Lord, "How shall they preach except they be sent?" Sometimes, I think, beloved friends, that is in danger of being a little forgotten. However genuine and however true a desire may be — and God fosters it, and may He foster it more in every heart— yet a true desire does not of necessity suppose a divine call. I quite admit that there would be, along with the divine call, a genuine and truly spiritually fostered desire, but there must be a distinct call, there must be a distinct mission.

It is a serious though a most happy thing to undertake direct service. … The mere fact of an inclination does not shew that we are called to it. I believe the surest sign is earnest love to souls, and intercourse through the need of the heart with Christ about it. … It is not the desire to speak, but for souls and the building up of saints which is the real moving spring of service.

The call to the ministry of the Gospel, or to the care of God's sheep, comes from the Lord Himself as truly today as when He called the apostles or raised up others to minister His Word in the early Church (See Eph. 4:11; Rom. 12:6-8; I Pet. 4:10). Even the true prophets of the Lord in the Old Testament were called of Him to their work. Of other prophets, who prophesied lies in His name, He said, "I sent them not, neither have I commanded them" (Jer. 14:14)-words which are certainly true of many false teachers and preachers today.

But every true servant of Christ will be fully conscious in his own soul of the divine call to service. The Holy Spirit works in the hearts of those whom the Lord would use as His ministers. His call is realized in their soul, and the heart is exercised and made willing to respond to the heavenly summons. Many examples of this divine calling are given in the Old and New Testaments, which the interested reader may profitably consider. (See Isa. 6; Jer. 1; Mark 1:16-20; 3:13, 14; Acts 9 and 22 as a few examples.)

Without such exercises- of heart, produced by the Holy Spirit, the realization of the divine calling, and some measure of gift for it, no Christian should venture forth into the public ministry of Christ. For it is not given to us to choose our place or service in the Body of Christ; this prerogative belongs to the Lord alone. Our place is to learn His will for each of us individually and to fill the place assigned us. If one goes forth to preach or teach and is not Called of God to this holy work, he will not be sustained of God in it and will break down sooner or later, or fail in accomplishing the Lord's work. Those whom the Lord calls He fits and qualifies for service, and without this divine fitting the ministry cannot be Performed aright.

The nature and extent of the call to public ministry greatly varies. The Lord of the Harvest will make it plain to every exercised servant whom He calls, just where, how, and to what extent he should serve. One may be called to labor locally, another to travel about in the homeland, and another to go to distant heathen lands. One may be called, after due preparation and training in God's school, to give all his time to the work of the Lord, while another may be called to continue in his daily vocation while preaching and teaching in his spare time.

All are not called to this service. The call, when it comes, will be inward and irresistible. It will assert itself more in the privacy of one’s heart than in public.

In the first place, Bezaleel received a divine call: "See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri." In like manner Paul speaks, "When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen," etc. It was impossible, therefore, for one or the other to doubt either as to the origin or the nature of his service. It is readily conceded that calls of this character were special and extraordinary; but, while admitting this to the full, it must be earnestly maintained that every servant now must be the subject of a divine call as distinct and as constraining as these pattern servants. True, it will be an inward one, and as such a secret between the Lord and the soul; but it will not, on this account, be any the less efficacious. It would be presumptuous in the extreme to embark upon any service without the overwhelming conviction that we had been called to it by the Lord. "I must go," said the only son of a rich merchant to his father, "and preach the gospel among the heathen." "My son," replied the father, "I cannot spare you; you are a comfort to me, and I want you at home. Stay, and I will sustain ten servants of the Lord to preach the gospel to the heathen." "Yes, father," said the son, "I would gladly remain if it were open to my choice; but the Lord has called me to go, so that I should not be free to abide at home if you were to send twenty in my stead."

That the Lord has evidently qualified him for the type of work he desires and that he has already manifested some diligence in such work. 4. That he shows convincing evidence that it is God who has called him. This involves a faith that does not look for support from men, nor ask for their commendation, but has a serious sense of dependence utterly upon God.

All this is simple enough. We can easily see where a man is divinely qualified for any department of ministry. It is not if a man say he has a gift, but if he in reality has it. A man may say he has a gift on the same principle as he may say he has faith, (James 2:14) and it may only be, after all, an empty conceit of his own ill-adjusted mind, which a spiritual assembly could not recognise for a moment. God deals in realities. A divinely-gifted evangelist is a reality; a teacher is a reality; a pastor is a reality; and such will be duly recognized, thankfully received, and counted worthy of all esteem and honour for their work's sake.

But as to the discernment of a ministerial gift for preaching or teaching, it is in general plain and simple. If a brother stand up to speak in the Christian assembly without a gift from God, he will soon and painfully find it out. If self-judging, he will learn much from his own conscience; but he may quite sufficiently soon hear from others that which will make him understand that he has not a gift in the judgment of his brethren. But where there is really a gift, is it not possible that prejudice may act, and this be refused? Certainly it may be so for a time. Perhaps the speaker thinks too highly of his gift; perhaps he mistakes the character of it, and the right scene and time for its exercise; perhaps he is too exclusively occupied with his line of things, and too urgent or anxious to assert his gift. All this may be, often is, and always creates difficulty. But the truth remains that what is of God approves itself in the long run. My own experience, as far as my limited range of observation and knowledge goes, inclines me to think that the children of God are prone to make too much rather than too little of gift. In the present state of the church there is but a feeble development of gift, and this is felt the more in proportion to spiritual intelligence and a true position. Do you wish to know your place fairly and fully? Look in confidence to God and search the word of His grace. Many things there are to hinder and to draw away: partly the effect of education, partly the difficulty of finding an honest livelihood, especially if a man has been a professional preacher. If he abandons (not preaching but) that profession as an unscriptural innovation, he for the most part loses everything, even his bread, unless he have private means of his own. Hence it is that the inducements for such an one to remain where he is are enormous; the difficulties of coming out at the word of the Lord are incalculable. The power of God alone can accomplish the change and sustain the soul in peace and praise, "steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."

But the Lord is very gracious, and He meets us in our feebleness and poverty. Moreover, society is so constituted that it is immensely difficult for one who is called to the work of the ministry to combine with that work any secular calling sufficient to maintain himself and his family, if he has one. If a man holds a situation, he must fulfil its duties. If he is in business for himself, he must attend to it, and maintain it in its integrity, else he will soon be gazetted. If, therefore, any one be called forth to work in the gospel field, it must be a very distinct matter indeed. The gift and the call must be unmistakable. He must know where he is, who has sent him, and what he has to do, else he will, sooner or later, make shipwreck. We have known, within the immediate circle of our own acquaintance, certain who threw up their honest secular callings, under the impression that they were called to give themselves to the work, and live by faith, as they expressed it (though surely it is a great mistake to confine the life of faith to such a very narrow range). What was the end? They actually lost their reason! and even when reason was restored, there was the entire abandonment of the Christian course. The simple fact is, there was neither gift nor call in the cases to which we refer and hence the giving up of the occupation was a grievous mistake.