No Little People (repack) (Introduction by Udo Middelmann)

Francis A. Schaeffer

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781433576751
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

16 Encouraging Sermons on Human Weakness and God's Sufficiency by Francis Schaeffer

Most Christians take an honest look at themselves and conclude that their limited talents, energy, and knowledge mean that they don't amount to much. Some even ask, Can I really make a difference? Francis A. Schaeffer counters this claim with truth from the Bible, arguing that with God there is no such thing as little people.

No Little People contains sixteen sermons from Schaeffer that explore the weakness and significance of humanity in relationship to the infinite and personal God. The focus of this collection is the lasting truth of the Bible, the faithfulness of God, the sufficiency of the work of Christ, and the power of the Spirit. Readers will be encouraged by the value that God places on each person made in his image to accomplish his redemptive plan.

Chapter One

No Little People, No Little Places

As a Christian considers the possibility of being the Christian glorified (a topic I discuss in True Spirituality), often his reaction is, “I am so limited. Surely it does not matter much whether I am walking as a creature glorified or not.” Or, to put it in another way, “It is wonderful to be a Christian, but I am such a small person, so limited in talents—or energy or psychological strength or knowledge—that what I do is not really important.”

The Bible, however, has quite a different emphasis: with God there are no little people.

Moses’s Rod

One thing that has encouraged me, as I have wrestled with such questions in my own life, is the way God used Moses’s rod, a stick of wood. Many years ago, when I was a young pastor just out of seminary, this study of the use of Moses’s rod, which I called “God So Used a Stick of Wood,” was a crucial factor in giving me the courage to press on.

The story of Moses’s rod began when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, telling him to go and challenge Egypt, the greatest power of his day. Moses reacted, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11), and he raised several specific objections: “They will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod” (Exodus 4:1–2). God directed Moses’s attention to the simplest thing imaginable—the staff in his own hand, a shepherd’s rod, a stick of wood somewhere between three and six feet long.

Shepherds are notorious for hanging onto their staves as long as they can, just as some of us enjoy keeping walking sticks. Moses probably had carried this same staff for years. Since he had been a shepherd in the wilderness for forty years, it is entirely possible that this wood had been dead that long. Just a stick of wood—but when Moses obeyed God’s command to toss it to the ground, it became a serpent, and Moses himself fled from it. God next ordered him to take it by the tail and when he did so, it became a rod again. Then God told him to go and confront the power of Egypt and meet Pharaoh face-to-face with this rod in his hand.

Exodus 4:20 tells us the secret of all that followed: the rod of Moses had become the rod of God.

Standing in front of Pharaoh, Aaron cast down this rod and it became a serpent. As God spoke to Moses and as Aaron was the spokesman of Moses (Exodus 4:16), so it would seem that Aaron used the rod of Moses which had become the rod of God. The wizards of Egypt, performing real magic through the power of the Devil (not just a stage trick through sleight of hand), matched this. Here was demonic power. But the rod of God swallowed up the other rods. This was not merely a victory of Moses over Pharaoh, but of Moses’s God over Pharaoh’s god and the power of the Devil behind that god.

This rod appeared frequently in the ensuing events:

Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river’s brink against he come; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand. And thou shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness; and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear. Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. (Exodus 7:15–17)

The rod of God indeed was in Aaron’s hand (Exodus 7:17, 19–20), and the water was putrefied, an amazing use for a mere stick of wood. In the days that followed, Moses “stretched forth his rod” and successive plagues came upon the land. After the waters no longer were blood, after seven days, there came frogs, then lice, then thunder and hail and great balls of lightning running along the ground, and then locusts (Exodus 8:1–10:15). Watch the destruction of judgment which came from a dead stick of wood that had become the rod of God.

Pharaoh’s grip on the Hebrews was shaken loose, and he let the people go. But then he changed his mind and ordered his armies to pursue them. When the armies came upon them, the Hebrews were caught in a narrow place with mountains on one side of them and the sea on the other. And God said to Moses, “Lift thou up thy rod” (Exodus 14:16). What good is it to lift up a rod when one is caught in a cul-de-sac between mountains and a great body of water with the mightiest army in the world at his heels? Much good, if the rod is the rod of God. The waters divided, and the people passed through. Up to this point, the rod had been used for judgment and destruction, but now it was as much a rod of healing for the Jews as it had been a rod of judgment for the Egyptians. That which is in the hand of God can be used in either way.

Later, the rod of judgment also became a rod of supply. In Rephidim the people desperately needed water.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. (Exodus 17:5–6)

It must have been an amazing sight to stand before a great rock (not a small pebble, but a face of rock such as we see here in Switzerland in the mountains) and to see a rod struck against it, and then to watch torrents of life-giving water flow out to satisfy thousands upon thousands of people and their livestock. The giver of judgment became the giver of life. It was not magic. There was nothing in the rod itself. The rod of Moses had simply become the rod of God. We too are not only to speak a word of judgment to our lost world, but are also to be a source of life.

The rod also brought military victory as it was held up. It was more powerful than the swords of either the Jews or their enemy (Exodus 17:9). In a much later incident the people revolted against Moses, and a test was established to see whom God had indeed chosen. The rod was placed before God and it budded (Numbers 17:8). Incidentally, we find out what kind of tree it had come from so long ago because it now brought forth almond blossoms.

The final use of the rod occurred when the wilderness wandering was almost over. Moses’s sister Miriam had already died. Forty years had passed since the people had left Egypt; so now the rod may have been almost eighty years old. The people again needed water, and though they were now in a different place, the desert of Zin, they were still murmuring against God. So God told Moses,

Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth its water . . . so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he commanded him. (Numbers 20:8–9)

Moses took the rod (which verse 9 with Numbers 17:10 shows was the same one which had been kept with the ark since it had budded), and he struck the rock twice. He should have done what God had told him and only spoken with the rod in his hand, but that is another study. In spite of this, however, “water came out abundantly” (Numbers 20:11).

Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of wood. “God so used a stick of wood” can be a banner cry for each of us. Though we are limited and weak in talent, physical energy, and psychological strength, we are not less than a stick of wood. But as the rod of Moses had to become the rod of God, so that which is me must become the me of God. Then I can become useful in God’s hands. The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God. There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people. The problem for each of us is applying this truth to ourselves: Is Francis Schaeffer the Francis Schaeffer of God?

No Little Places

But if a Christian is consecrated, does this mean he will be in a big place instead of a little place? The answer, the next step, is very important: as there are no little people in God’s sight, so there are no little places. To be wholly committed to God in the place where God wants him—this is the creature glorified. In my writing and lecturing I put much emphasis on God’s being the infinite reference point which integrates the intellectual problems of life. He is to be this, but He must be the reference point not only in our thinking, but in our living. This means being what He wants me to be, where He wants me to be.

Nowhere more than in America are Christians caught in the twentieth-century syndrome of size. Size will show success. If I am consecrated, there will necessarily be large quantities of people, dollars, etc. This is not so. Not only does God not say that size and spiritual power go together, but He even reverses this (especially in the teaching of Jesus) and tells us to be deliberately careful not to choose a place too big for us. We all tend to emphasize big works and big places, but all such emphasis is of the flesh. To think in such terms is simply to hearken back to the old, unconverted, egoist, self-centered Me. This attitude, taken from the world, is more dangerous to the Christian than fleshly amusement or practice. It is the flesh.

People in the world naturally want to boss others. Imagine a boy beginning work with a firm. He has a lowly place and is ordered around by everyone: Do this! Do that! Every dirty job is his. He is the last man on the totem pole, merely one of Rabbit’s friends-and-relations, in Christopher Robin’s terms. So one day when the boss is out, he enters the boss’s office, looks around carefully to see that no one is there, and then sits down in the boss’s big chair. “Someday,” he says, “I’ll say ‘run’ and they’ll run.” This is man. And let us say with tears that a person does not automatically abandon this mentality when he becomes a Christian. In every one of us there remains a seed of wanting to be boss, of wanting to be in control and have the word of power over our fellows.

But the Word of God teaches us that we are to have a very different mentality:

But Jesus called them [His disciples] to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles [lord it] over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to gi...