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Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. This is Seminary Sunday, and across the more than 10,000 congregations of our Presbyterian churches, Presbyterians are thinking about their seminaries.

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It's appropriate that I should be thinking of this because 25 years ago this month, I was graduated from seminary. My thoughts with regard to our seminaries this morning, however, go not so much to the schools as they do to the young men and women who are in training there.

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For I would like to address today what I call the problem of collapsing clergy. This last week I was talking with a Pittsburgh physician, and he was expressing to me his concern that many of those coming into the medical profession today lack dedication. He said they are more interested in pleasing themselves than they are in serving their

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patients. They do not seem to have a real call and a real commitment to the high service which medicine is. Just what this doctor said about young men and women preparing to be physicians, just

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what he said, I would say about many of the young men and women who are in training or in the early stages of ministry today. Let me hold before you five quick case studies. I shall mention them only briefly, though I assure you I am familiar with the details

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involved in each one of the cases. Take the case of Reverend Mr. A. He has recently quit the ministry because, he says, he has "the congregation expects too much of him." Take the case of Reverend Mr. B. He has entered into a relationship with a woman in the congregation

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who is not his wife. When asked why he has done this, he says it is the pressure of the pastorate. The marriage is being broken by divorce. Take the case of Reverend Mr. C. He is lost in a deep pit of alcohol and drug use and,

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when queried, rationalizes his state by saying that he was never properly appreciated as a pastor. Take the case of Reverend Mr. D. He has demitted the ministry because, he says, he has discovered that the grass is greener in other pastures.

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The green he is speaking of is the green of money. And then take the case of Reverend Mr. E. He has become involved in a perverted homosexual relationship and, when pressed as to why, replied, he was driven to it by the rigors of the ministry.

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Now the charges made by every one of these five men are many times quite accurate. Most congregations do expect too much of their ministers. Most congregations do press their ministers too much. Most congregations are not appreciative of what is done for them.

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The green is greater in other pastures than it is in the ministry, and the rigors of the pastorate can be exceedingly demanding. Every one of those charges is in many instances quite true. But none of these charges justify quitting the ministry.

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None of these charges justify turning one's back on ministry. Moses was terribly abused by the people he sought to lead. Jeremiah was ridiculed and belittled and imprisoned by those he sought to serve. Hosea was broken on the rack of a sacrificial love.

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Matthew gave up the greener pastures of tax collecting in order to follow Jesus. And Paul bore upon his body the marks of the cost of his service. But none of these men quit the call which was theirs. What I'm suggesting is this, that many of those who are dropping out of the ministry

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today or who are violating what the sacred calling is to be are doing so because they lack the prophetic essential. The prophetic essential is this, the call of God. These cases that I've cited concern men who are not called and who never were called.

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And that's the reason they crack and fall apart. Now in order to get a grip on what I'm saying, you must understand our Presbyterian concept of the call to the ministry. It is a four-fold call.

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In the first place, we believe that a person going into ministry must be called to be a Christian. This call belongs to all Christians, to be a servant of Jesus Christ, to have a piety of prayer, to believe with all one's heart that God's Word written is God's Word for

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today, to be given over to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and to hold as your profoundest hope the dream that all the world will accept Him as Savior and Lord. To be God's man or to be God's woman, which means that you will speak God's words after Him and those words are many times too worldly for those who are in the church and too spiritual

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for those who are outside of it. In other words, the first call for any servant of God is the simple call to be a Christian. I remember once in England seeing a man who had on his t-shirt "O" and "O." I asked him what that meant.

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He said it means "out and out for Jesus." A Christian is one who is out and out for a Savior and that must be the first part of anyone's call to the ministry. Now the second part of the ministerial call is what is described as the providential call.

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And this means that God must have given to the candidate the physical, the emotional, and the intellectual gifts which are necessary in order to carry out ministry. I shall never forget many years ago talking to a young boy who was very retarded. He told me how his great desire was to be a minister.

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When I talked with him, I was moved to tears by the depth of his feeling. This young man was out and out for Jesus, but he did not have the providential gifts that would enable him to be a minister. College, seminary, completely out of the question for him.

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I was able, gently and lovingly, to lead him into another form of service, and he prospered in that until his tragic early death at the age of 29. But you see, before someone can enter into the ministry, they must have the physical strength to stand the demands upon your time which come with ministry.

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They must have the intellectual strength to be students all of their lives and never turn away from the books and the subjects that they must master. And they must be solid enough emotionally so that they can bear the slings and arrows of outraged parishioners or anyone else who chooses to attack them.

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The second part of the call is the providential call. Now the third part of the call is the one which particularly concerns me this morning, and this is the secret call of the Holy Spirit. Whenever a young woman or a young man comes before a presbytery to be taken under care,

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they're asked three questions. First, what is your experience of Christ? Second, what leads you to feel that you're called into the ministry? And third, what are your plans as well as you now understand them?

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Now that first question, what is your experience of Jesus Christ, simply asks about the first dimension of the call. How did you become his disciple? That second question, what leads you to feel called particularly to ministry, is a question

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which zeroes in on the secret call of the Holy Spirit. And so many times I've sat in presbytery and heard young women and young men get up and say that they feel called into the ministry because they got such and such a score on a vocational interest examination, or they were much touched by the model of ministry

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that they saw in some minister with whom they were associated at some time in their life, or they're going into the ministry simply on the counsel of their friends. Now all of these things are good things, but no one of these things, and not all of these things together, equal the secret call of the Holy Spirit of God.

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This last week I searched the scriptures and studied 22 different special calls given to people whom God was inviting to service as prophets. In every instance, his Holy Spirit was active and powerful and personal and spoke so that they heard.

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Let me put it another way. God is always courteous. He is never rude. That's contrary to his nature.

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And this means, for example, that when God chose Mary to be the vessel which brought his only begotten son into the world, he didn't let her discover this just by physical changes which began to happen in her body. Imagine the shock that would have come to the young girl who had never been with a man

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if she suddenly found herself pregnant. God would not allow a thing like that to happen. He came and told Mary what he was going to do before he did it. The annunciation came before the incarnation.

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Just so, God speaks to those whom he calls into ministry. He comes in divine initiative. He comes in sovereign communication. He comes in secret conversation.

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Now he comes to different people at different times. Alexander McLaren could not remember a day in which he did not feel specially called of God. Thomas Chalmers was three years old when he got the call.

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He used to set up his toys and preach to them. Some people are called later. Jeremy Taylor was a hairdresser before he became a minister. John Henry Jowett was a law clerk before he went into the ministry.

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Phillips Brooks was a school teacher before he went into the pulpit. Martin Lloyd Jones was a physician before he felt the call to be a prophet of God. Samuel was called when he was a very little boy. Isaiah was called when he was a young man.

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Moses was called in the maturity of manhood. The call comes at different times. And the call also comes in different ways. Sometimes it comes through very dramatic circumstances.

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One of my favorite examples of that concerns the great English Methodist preacher, Peter McKenzie. Peter McKenzie agreed to preach one day in a small country Methodist church. But when the day of the preaching came, he was so terrified that he actually went into

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the upstairs of his house and hid in the attic, hoping that no one would find him. And while he was hiding there on his knees in fear and trembling, he heard three men come into the house downstairs. They had been sent from the church to find him and escort him to the church to preach.

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And in desperation, McKenzie did what he never counseled anybody else to do and what I would not counsel anyone to do. He opened his Bible and just stuck in his finger for a verse. And this is what the Scriptures read.

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Now remember, his name was Peter McKenzie. While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Behold, three men seek thee. Arise, go down to them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them." Now that's a dramatic call.

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And sometimes they are that dramatic. Many times they come through what we might call congregational constraint. There was a time this very month, but many years ago, when John Ruff was speaking from the pulpit in St. Andrews, Scotland.

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And seated out in the congregation was John Knox. And many people felt in that congregation that John Knox should be in the ministry. And somehow that was communicated to Ruff in such a way that he suddenly, in the midst of his sermon, turned and addressed John Knox directly and he said, "Take upon you the public

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office of preaching. You must or you will be unable to avoid God's heavy displeasure." And Knox stood up in fear. He began to weep and he ran from the church, but later came back to serve as minister.

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Sometimes the mood of a congregation with regard to some one person is so powerful and overwhelming that they feel constrained to lay hands upon him and extend that call. Sometimes the call comes through what we might call prophetic intimation. There are people who seem to be gifted at discerning those whom the Lord has called

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into ministry. Anna and Simeon in the temple, for example, when the baby Jesus was brought to them, even though he was an infant, they knew immediately that this was the one for whom they had been waiting.

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Or one thinks of Dwight L. Moody, who was preaching in England one day, and he saw a youngster sitting on a carriage wheel. And he felt led in the middle of his sermon to turn to that youngster and say to him, "Someday this young man is going to be a great evangelist for the Lord."

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And that youngster grew up to be Gypsy Smith, the famed evangelist. Sometimes it comes by prophetic perception. But most often the secret call of the Holy Spirit comes through a kind of inner impression. For Mary, it was a visit by an angel.

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For Jeremiah, it was the blossoming of an almond rod. For Moses, it was a burning bush. For Isaiah, it was a theophany in the midst of public worship. But it was something that laid hands on the heart, something that captured the soul, something

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that compelled obedience, something that wouldn't let go. Now, there are signs that inevitably accompany this inner impression, this secret call which comes from the heart. I think those signs are three in number.

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First of all, one finds one's thoughts moving from sensual concerns to spiritual concerns. One begins to focus more and more on the soul and the things of the soul. Second, there is a movement from selfish concerns to social concerns. The great passion of the life is no longer what you can do for you, but the great passion

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is what you can do for others. And finally, there is a change from the things of time to the things of eternity. The littleness of time is revealed as what it truly is, small and deep. And the greatness of eternity so captures the sphere if it once is lifted up.

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The evidence of the inner impression is a kind of moving of the center of gravity in your life away from the earth to heaven. Now listen to me, those of you who are especially thinking about whether you are being called of God into the ministry.

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Remember that being in the ministry does not separate you from evil. It puts no wall between you and any temptation known to any other man. So while you are subject to all of the things that hurt others, you are also to stand up and preach in the midst of a world where those things are in abundance, the Word of God.

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And you are to live that Word. And to do that, you must have the flags of the Spirit of God flying in your soul. You must have the trumpets of heaven blowing in your heart. You must have the energies of the Omnipotent moving through you.

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You must be caught up in the rushing torrent of God so totally and so utterly that you cannot say no. If you lack this, you will not stand. And there is a fourth dimension to the call, fourth fold.

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And that is when a congregation invites a young person or the person responding to the call to serve. You know, we don't ordain somebody just because they completed seminary. They must have completed seminary, yes, but then, having passed all their trials for ordination

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and completed all of their work, they must be called by a company of God's people to be in ministry there. And only when that call comes, that final seal of approval, does the church ordain. Now, I would hold before you this morning the example of Amos as a kind of case study

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of what I'm talking about. Syria had ruled Israel for a long time and then Assyria brought Syria down. And Israel knew a little time of freedom and respite. And Israel began to prosper.

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But with prosperity came the smog of greed and gluttony, hypocrisy, all of those things which defame a land. And these things were typified by Amaziah, who was the high priest. He was a professional prophet.

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He was in the ministry for what he could get out of it. And God sends the prophet Amos to speak to Amaziah. And the first thing Amaziah says to him is, "Get out of here. Go back to Judah where you belong.

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This is my corner. I work this side of the street." And Amos responds, "I am not a prophet and I am not a prophet's son. I'm a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees.

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But the Lord took me from following the flock and the Lord said to me, 'Go prophesy to my people Israel.'" Now when Amos said, "I am not a prophet or a prophet's son," he was really saying, "I'm not a seminary graduate.

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I don't have professional training. I have a rather mundane task. I'm a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. But the Lord took me," and that word "took" literally means "seized me."

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And the Lord said to me, "Go." And that word is a word of emphatic command. So what Amos is saying to Amaziah is this, "Look, I'm not a religious professional as you are, but I'm under orders.

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I've been seized by God. Not by men, but by God." I always think of Paul's call in terms of this. You remember what Paul wrote to the Galatians?

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Paul, an apostle, "Not by men, neither by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, possessed by God." Now that is the mark of authentic call. The prophetic essential is to know that you are chosen and to know that you are sent.

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Such ones do not collapse. For they may get depressed. They may be defeated. There are times when they become mightily discouraged and filled with despair, but they

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do not quit for the simple reason that they cannot quit. So what does this mean to a congregation of God's people like this one? It means first that we pray for those who are in the ministry or who are thinking of going into the ministry.

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That we pray for them for the task is a hard one. It is not an easy thing to be seized by God. The Scriptures teach that those who minister are liable to double judgment. They are responsible not only for themselves, but also responsible for those to whom they

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minister. That's a heavy burden. We must pray for the prophets. Secondly, we must watch.

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John Galbraith, who is the secretary of our Council on Theological Education, said about a year ago, "The reason we have so many turkeys coming out of seminary is because we're sending so many turkeys into seminary." We've got to watch our young people.

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We've got to move amongst them. We've got to be seeking out those in whom the Spirit of God is moving to help them understand. We have got to provide for them in every way that we can. We need to have people who make it a burden of their prayer life every day to pray for

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the young women and men of this church, to help them know, to know positively and beyond the shadow of a doubt if they are called. We are moving when we move amongst our young, among prophets unawares. And finally, we must support the youth, the young adult ministries, the camping program

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of our church in every way that we can. I got in touch with some of the people in our camping program, and I asked them to give me a list of the names of the young women and men who had gone into the ministry out of the camping experience.

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They said they didn't have a complete list, but they would give me an incomplete one, the best that they could do, and there were 53 names on the list. And this last week, I called some of those people. And there is before me this morning a young man who went to the camp every summer for

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a number of summers, and every summer he got converted. And every summer he would stand up at the campfire at the end of camp and tell that he was converted. And two weeks later, it would all be gone.

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But he kept coming back year after year, and one year there was a speaker there named Walker. And this man laid upon this young man's heart the invitation not only to give his sins to Christ, but to give his whole life to Christ. And this word ignited the spirit of that young man.

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It ignited him so much that when it came time for the campfire, he didn't speak. He didn't want it to be like it had ever been before. So he stayed in the background, in the shadows where no one would see him. And then he went home, and he waited for it to pass away.

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But it didn't pass away. And finally, after four weeks, he sat down and he wrote a letter to God. And in that letter, he offered himself. And God has taken up that offer.

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And that young man has completed college and seminary, and now he is in graduate school, and he is one of the most brilliant young men I have ever known in all of my life. And what God has in store for him in ministry, I cannot begin to imagine. And that ought to rejoice your hearts, because that happened at your camp on those green

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hills in the Ligonier Valley that you have helped to put there, and to maintain there, and to be ministering there. I like green hills. I get bored stiff in Nebraska or Iowa.

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But more than hills, I like mountains. I like the Bremer Buell when it's wearing a necklace of skiers. I love the Monta Rosa, which is so beautiful but so deadly. The Jungfrau with the purity of its snows.

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Mount Rainier when it's spangled with sun. Mount Washington with the old man of the mountains. Just this last spring, I read the book Annapurna, about two men who made it to the top of the second highest mountain in the world, over 26,000 feet, Annapurna.

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And I was interested to notice what they felt when they got to the top. It was not just a sense of victory at having made it. Not just the surmounting of a challenge. Not just a splendid view.

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Instead, they wrote that they felt a great nearness to God. I cannot climb mountains, but I know what it is to scale the peaks of the prophets. I know what it is to be called by God into His service. I know what it is to be called higher and higher to the air so thin that sometimes you

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cannot breathe. And what I long for, for anyone in this fellowship or anyone listening to me over the air, anyone who is thinking about the ministry, anyone who feels the beginning of the call, what I long for is for you to scale and scramble and climb and claw your way to the highest

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peak of service you can know, till there's nothing between you and God but a thousand hope and ten thousand dreams of service. I want you to go higher and higher into the sun, always and forever by the Spirit of God, into the sun.

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Let us pray. O God, move in mighty power in the souls and the hearts of any who are seeking to know Thy will. Bless the sons and daughters of the prophets, for we pray it in Jesus' name.

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Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]