The Exact Measure of a Ministry’s Success

• Now this is the little illustration. I just used it very briefly the other day but I can amplify it a little and I hope that somehow this will make it clear to you. It’s like there are two different ways of making a journey from a certain starting point to a certain destination. One is a map, the other is a personal guide. Okay.
• The map is perfect. It tells you everything you need to know. The map is the law. And Paul says of the law of Moses, it was perfect. It was holy. It was good. Never does the Bible say there’s anything wrong with the law. The problem is not in the law. It’s in us. The other alternative is a personal guide. Who is the personal guide? That’s right.
• As many as are regularly led by the Holy Spirit are sons of God. Now, one of the causes of man’s fall and one of its effects is an innate desire to be independent of God which is born into every child of Adam. See, it was there in the initial temptation. Satan said, “If you eat of that tree, you’ll be like God.” What’s wrong with being like God? That’s not evil.
• What was the evil? The evil was trying to be like God, independent of God. And the root of all sin is not the desire to do evil. It’s the desire to be independent of God. And that’s the ultimate thing that God has to deal with in every one of us before we can become the kind of people that he wants us to be.
• And it takes a lot of dealings of God in the lives of most of us to bring us to the place where we’re willing to be simply and humbly dependent upon God. Okay. So, we have this young man. He’s a university graduate. He’s strong. He’s healthy. And uh he’s presented with the choice now. Do you want the map or do you want the guide? And he says, “I’ve got 2° healthy.
• I’ve got sense. I’ll take the map.” All right. Starts out, sun is shining, birds are singing, the road is very easy to follow. He says, “This is a piece of cake.” About 48 hours later, things have changed. He’s in the middle of a dense forest in the middle of the night on the edge of a precipice.
• It’s raining hard and he doesn’t know whether he’s facing north, south, east, or west. And at that moment, a gentle voice says, “Can I help you?” Oh, Holy Spirit, I need you. Well, give me your hand and I’ll get you out. So off they set out together and after a little while they’re on the plain straight road again and the sun is shining and uh so the young man says to the Holy Spirit, he said, “I’ve got a wonderful map here.