Let us corporately ask that the Lord will reach His full thought today. I wonder if two or three of you would just pray that God and each of us will find in the Lord God that full thing for today.
I am sure none of us want to leave without God really getting through to us. We would hate to see anyone leave. I do not want this to create an anxiousness about it, but rather a constant expectation that God is working and that He will get through to every heart with the word or the thing that is needed. So, let two or three pray to that end.
I forgot my watch. Sweetheart, would you give me a little signal at ten o’clock—I mean, eleven o’clock? That is my wife I am talking to. I can count on her doing it. Somebody else might get so involved they would forget, but I am sure she will. Praise the Lord.
We want to round out this theme of dedication this morning; that is, speak about dedication and the fullness of it. First, it was dedication defined. Second, dedication and its necessary enlightenment—intelligent dedication—our dedication being proved. Yesterday, dedication focused: the necessity of seeing that it is not just doing every good thing that comes along, but learning that God’s way is our relatedness in the Body.
This morning, we want to speak about dedication realized, or reaching unto the fullness of dedication. I believe it would be wrong to stop short.
One of the things that I thrill about in God’s Word and in God’s way is that God’s end—His ends—are in His beginnings. Is that a strange statement to you? It might even be better to say that God’s end is hidden in His beginning. It is there, but we very often cannot see it.
What is God’s end? We have been listening to it from night to night. It has been focusing and pointing to this. It is possible that someone has been slipping in these days, and we assume too much and take too much for granted when we think of that which God really delights in.
I do not believe that God can be contained in the heavens and the universe, even though He has created it all. I do not believe that God can be satisfied with the mere handiwork of creation to reveal and express Himself. But in the end, when things come into fullness, God is going to find the most lovely expression of Himself in a redeemed house—a redeemed household—living stones that have been shaped and put together, so that He has a glorious house for His habitation.
You read of this in a number of places in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit will have a glorious temple for His habitation and dwelling. I think the Father wants many sons just like His lovely Son, the Lord Jesus. If you had one son who was perfect, what would you want? The child says, “I’d like another one.”
Ah, yes, every father and every mother could not be satisfied with just one. This is why I believe my Father wants many sons, and He brings them to glory. He is going to conform every one of them to the Perfect One. Is that wonderful? He is conforming them to this lovely image.
When we get to God’s end—and you can express it in different ways—I like to look on to the New Jerusalem. We see a city. It is not just a place. If it were just a place, I could not get excited. But this place has become a people: redeemed lives, living stones.
I have been saying so often these last few months, wherever we go, that when you get a glance of what God is working toward, somehow it brings you to rest. You see that He is shaping and putting together living stones that will be a place for His dwelling, His habitation.
You get a glimpse of this and see that He cannot be satisfied with a mere pile of stones. This is what we have so often on Sunday: a whole congregation comes together, and they are a mere pile. You know what I mean?
It is quite a thing to get those stones built together so that they fit and find their place: a pile of stones as compared to a dwelling place. We have all changed piles a number of times. Every time we think we will find a better pile.
But one thing about a pile is that it always has a point that sticks you and rubs you. You see? It is a blessed thing to see that those sharp points begin to rub until they smooth down, and pretty soon you get fit into the place that God wants.
So cheer up. You are still changing piles. Someday you will make your last move, and you will find home. You will find what it is to be built together with some brothers and sisters. I am not just talking about a group now. I am talking in the largest sense about finding God’s people, in whom He is doing a building work.
When I look into the beginning, I find that God was speaking to Adam: “Adam, I want you to multiply, to increase, to subdue.” Adam really failed. The flood came along, and He started all over with another man. He gave him the same commission: “I want you to multiply, to increase, to subdue.” The same thing.
We see pretty much what happened even to Noah’s family. But out of it all, God begins again. This time He starts in Genesis 12, with a man by the name of Abraham, and the rest of the book is about this man and his family. The first twelve chapters have been pretty much failure, but from Genesis 12 on we begin a start, and we come to see that there is going to be a fulfillment through it.
There are some rather interesting things in the life of Abram, and I want us to get hold of this as we see how God’s end is hidden right back here in the beginning.
You remember Abram had been called out of the world, out of Chaldea. Abram stopped halfway in Haran while his father, Terah, died. Then Abram began to move on into the land. This is the first picture we get in Genesis 12:7:
And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land.
And there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.
I love this little principle, because I believe that the moment God appears to a life, and something of God’s worthiness begins to grip us, the most wonderful thing we can do is to want to give ourselves to this One who is worthy. This is what the altar represents.
The altar is the giving, or the dedicating, of myself unto the One who has appeared to me. I have to say this morning that every one of us has an altar of a kind. You are burning out and burning out for something that is important to you. Something has become the consuming thing of your life.
If you do not have that, it is conceivable that some folk do not have much of an altar. They are not given to much of anything. Oh, the emptiness, the futility, the meaninglessness of life.
We have a generation of young people that has come along. My generation grew up in poverty—I mean, in the Depression days. We gave ourselves to making sure we would have enough on the table, back in the thirties. People give themselves to something.
But the generation coming up today sits down to a full table. They do not know the Depression. They do not know want. They do not have much to give themselves to, so far as material things are concerned. Are you following me? I do not wonder that there is such futility.
Every man needs an altar. The tragedy is that it ought to be the right altar. Oh, to burn up your life, to dedicate yourself, to be consumed for something less—less.
I think right here, hidden in the very beginning of the life of Abram, God appears. I do not know what there was about it, but it caused him immediately to build an altar.
One of the tragedies of this day is that when people reach their affluence and sufficiency, they think, “Well, it is time to retire.” They go to pitch a tent someplace, hoping then they can find an altar.
Could I tell you something? My visits to Florida, Arizona, and California have taught me that the most miserable people in the world are those who pitch their tent without much of an altar. They go to a nice, lovely geographical climate, hoping to pitch their tent and live someplace with nothing big enough or consuming enough—no altar. It is a desperate thing: time on your hands.
Do not pitch your tent first. Do not hunt for a nice place to live. Do not look for a place. Find your altar. “Oh, Lord, what is it that is big enough? What is it that is worthy enough?” Find the altar first, and guess what? You will be satisfied in His hand. You will be satisfied with it.
The tragedy today is that too many folk are more concerned with their tent than they are with the altar. The Lord has spoken this to my heart with such assurance: when the altar is right, the tent just automatically follows.
What is this altar? Back in this early day, they did not have a sin offering. They did not have the Mosaic offerings that had been given. They basically had one offering: the whole burnt offering.
What does the whole burnt offering mean? It is the presentation of my whole being unto God, giving myself totally unto Him. That is the whole burnt offering. It was what Abram offered; it was what Job offered.
Somebody says, “Well, was there not sin?” The sin of all sin was, “I will go my own way and use my own life for myself.” So sin is dealt with in this presentation of the whole burnt offering: giving myself to God.
You are called, then, to find the right altar and pitch your tent right next to whatever it is. This is the primary thing. Where you live is governed by what your altar really is.
I think it is interesting to notice the next phrase: Abram pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. I love the way God has hidden some meanings in the Hebrew words.
What does Bethel mean in Hebrew? You know the word beth means house, and El means God. This is why I believe that God’s end is hidden right here. If Abram’s dedication, if Abraham’s whole life, is for any one thing, it is summed up right here.
As the sun starts out and makes its sweep toward the end, in the west, it is as though the finality of his life is to be represented by the house God wants. Are you with me now? Do you follow what I am trying to say? It is Bethel.
What else is important? Abraham is going to have a family, and they are going to compose and make up this Bethel—this house, this dwelling that God will find delight in. It is Bethel.
If Bethel means that, and if it is significant, what does Ai mean? Ai means a heap of ruins. I think it is interesting that God puts it in the east, because every morning when I wake up it is as though the Lord says, “Bethel means the house of God; Ai means a heap of ruins.”
It would be a wonderful warning to me every morning when I woke up and saw the heap of ruins: “Lord, let my dedication be right all day, so that by the time the western sun comes, I will be sure that it is Bethel.”
You can interpret it the way you want to, but it is interesting. I need to stop and say for a moment that there is a difference between interpretation and application.
How many of you have ever found somebody taking a verse of Scripture, and God helps apply it to their lives? That is an application. You sit back and say, “That sure is not the right interpretation.” God can be very loose in His application sometimes.
That is the only way I can figure out the way the Holy Spirit uses some verses on some people. I am not advising it. I am just saying that the Lord, in His desperation, if we only know one or two verses, will use what we have. But He will get through to us. That is application; it is not necessarily interpretation.
This is application this morning. God has seemed to speak to my own heart, and His words seem to be, “Remember, remember: your life needs an altar. It must be the right altar.” And that altar represents a whole burnt offering.
Whether we get to the end of our life and find a heap of ruins, or whether we find a Bethel, I believe God’s end is His house, His dwelling.
You can go back even into Adam as he stood in the garden. You can find all the hidden elements there. Adam stood in the garden; you have the gold, the precious stones, Adam standing by a river, Adam standing by a tree. You have all the materials that are necessary.
But when you get to the end, you have all these materials built and put together. Where is the tree? Where is the river? Where are the precious stones? They are not just loose things. They are all built into a lovely city.
The tree is outside when you begin, but now the tree is within the city. The river was beside Adam when he started, but where is the river now? It is within the city.
I am getting off on an area, but I am just trying to say to us: God’s end, God’s end, I find so often hidden back in His beginning.
Is it not wonderful? Proverbs says that it is the glory of God to conceal a thing. The glory of God is to hide, so that you cannot find it until He is ready for you to find it. How many of you have found that to be true?
The Scriptures say they search, they search, do they search? But no one by searching finds out God. We only find when He applies a little eye salve and says, “I will let that poor searcher have a little peek.”
That verse says it is the glory of God to conceal, and the next part of the phrase says, “It is the honour of kings to search out a matter.” I like to translate it: it is honourable and kingly to search out.
God has put that quality within us that longs to search and find, and the searching is not wrong, because you seek for Him with all your heart. But you never find until God gets ready to unveil.
I have been asking this morning, since early, “Lord, how does this longing You put within our heart reach fullness? How did it really happen in Abraham?” I think God has given me four little principles to share with you. They may not be the ones you would select, but I would like to suggest them as to what God put Abram through in his living unto fullness.
The first little principle we find in the life of Abraham is found in 1 Corinthians 4:
Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
Our dedication is the same thing as the stewardship that has been committed to us. God appears unto Abram, and I believe the whole of God’s appearing commits something unto him. In turn, Abram builds an altar and commits himself to God.
In this twofold commitment, God commits His purpose, His vision—something of what He has—and we commit ourselves. Somebody says, “Well, how much do you think Abram really knew back there?” He knew enough.
Do you think you can count on God to show you enough? What is our big problem? We want to know too much. God is faithful. He will show us enough. He appeared and said, “Abram, I want you to walk with Me.”
Our stewardship requires just one thing. The first principle of reaching unto fullness is this little word: faithfulness. It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.
I think we interpret success as though we were to be honoured or understood. But everything in this portion seems to reveal what Paul really went through as a steward.
Paul says:
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
For I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but He that judgeth me is the Lord.
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
Paul says, “Put your little yardsticks away. You cannot possibly measure or evaluate. You do not know what God is doing and how He is doing it.” He says, “I am not even able to use my own little measuring stick to see how far along I am, how successful I am.” Nobody can understand.
But Paul seems to say, “I do not have to.” Why? Because I am only called to be faithful—trustworthy in what has been committed.
Somebody could use that for carelessness and say, “Well, it does not make any difference.” But Paul says, “I am conscious of nothing against myself; yet I am not by this acquitted. The One who examines me is the Lord.”
All the proving and uncovering of the motives of the heart—ours may not be a perfect work that is done, but it can be a blameless thing because of the motive.
I do believe, brothers and sisters, God wants us more and more to appreciate not so much what people do as why they do it.
I remember a little girl playing at her mother’s knee, about two and a half or three years of age. The mother had a sock she was sewing, with a ball inside it. In the midst of it, the mother became tired in the afternoon and it all fell into her lap.
The little girl, seeing her mommy asleep, said, “Mommy, you are tired. I help you.” She got the ball and got the sock. You know what happened, I am sure.
A few minutes later the mother looked up. The little girl said, “Mommy, see? It is all done. I did it for you.” What did that mother do?
I believe a true mother’s heart could only see one thing: the blamelessness of the little heart, the motive. She kissed her lovingly and said, “Mommy, thank you. Mommy appreciates it.” But she undid the rest.
Oh, more and more, dear Lord, get our eyes off what people do, and let us try to sense deep within why they are doing it. When we cannot even put the proper valuation on that, just say, “Well, Lord, I am glad You have not really called me to that either. I just leave that in Your hands.”
You get along with people a lot easier when you begin to think why they are doing what they are doing.
As we see the life of Abram, we see many things in which God is dealing with him. He is the father of the faithful. He is the one in whom God is working as He brings about this purpose, and He requires just one thing: a faithful walk.
I cannot find one place where Abram preached a sermon. I cannot find that he went to church once in his life. He did not do a lot of the things that we measure out as being spiritual. But he did one thing: he set his face and his heart. He accepted the promise God had given, and he began to walk with God.
I am not saying we should forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but I do not think we should let it become a substitute. There are people who get carried along in the crowd, in the current, week after week, who do not know a personal walk of faithfulness before the Lord.
It is required in stewards, or in our dedication, not that we be understood by everybody or successful in their eyes, but that we be trustworthy or faithful.
Paul writes:
For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
Abraham is not merely a teacher or an instructor. What does his name mean? I do not want to speak out of a bad spirit, but I get so weary today. Every place you turn, you hear people instructing others what to do.
You know what comes in my spirit? I keep saying, “Do not tell me anymore. Just live. I will follow you. Just show me.”
There are so many folk who say, “Well, it has not really worked for me, and I cannot produce it, but I am sure it will for you. Go ahead and try it.” That is an instructor.
Hear me this morning, beloved. Let us turn our eyes to some fathers and begin to cry out, “Oh God, what we need is not ten thousand more instructors.” Your heart cries out for somebody in whom there is being, and out of the being comes the reality.
Paul could say to them, “I am your father. I have begotten you. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.” He was not merely telling them what to do. He was saying, “Just follow along.”
That is quite a statement. It is the thing I have to honestly acknowledge before you this morning: “Lord, who is worthy to take the step? Who can go on and say, ‘Follow me’?”
I think it can only be as he said, “As I follow the Lord.” I follow the Lord.
Not only is faithfulness a principle throughout the life of Abram—faithful as a steward, not success, not being understood or appreciated, but trustworthy to the One to whom he has committed himself—I believe there is another quality of a steward that pleases God. It is asking largely.
It is found in the life of a man called Caleb. You know the story of Caleb. God committed to twelve men the task of going in to spy out the land. Ten of them came back with a majority report. They said the truth: it was a land flowing with milk and honey, but it was filled with giants and walled cities. They caused the hearts of the people to melt with fear.
Two of them came back—Joshua and Caleb—with a minority report. There is something I have always loved about Caleb. When he came to Moses, he said, “When I was looking around over in the land, I spotted a mountain.” Who wants a mountain?
Numbers 14:24 says:
But My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.
Something was committed to Caleb. He went in, he saw something, it appeared to him. I believe it is something of God’s working and fullness in our own lives: do not let us be satisfied with just getting in. He says, “Give me this mountain.”
How long did Caleb have to wait for the fulfillment of his mountain? Everybody says, “Forty years.” You listen carefully now. How long did Caleb wait for the fulfillment of his mountain?
Do you not like the spirit of one who reaches out and says, “Lord, give me this mountain”? He went to Moses, and Moses promised it to him. Then forty years later, when they got into the land and began to divide it among them, Caleb came to Joshua and said, “You remember that Moses promised me this mountain over here. Now I have come to claim my promise.”
You know the name of that mountain? It never meant much to me until one day the Lord reminded me: the mountain was called Hebron. The word Hebron means fellowship.
I guess for a long time I had a little pity for Caleb and Joshua. I kept saying, “Lord, that really was not fair. Those fellows brought back the right report. They were ready to go in. Why did You make them stay with this whole crowd that had to die in the wilderness? Lord, You did not treat them right.”
I have seen some individuals every now and then who seemingly have to wait to get their mountains. Then one day the Lord whispered and said, “Look, when people will follow Me faithfully, and when they will ask largely, I have another principle that operates.”
Suddenly I saw, in a moment, that Caleb had his mountain all forty years because he had the inward reality of it. Hebron means fellowship. Who wants an old pile of dirt when you can have Hebron—the reality?
I may be speaking to some this morning who are looking for a pile of dirt, and God says, “The principle is this: I will give you inward reality while you are waiting for outward fulfillment.”
Joshua 14:6-14 tells us that Caleb wholly followed the Lord his God. He says:
And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old.
As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.
Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day.
He had been living on what? Fellowship. This is why at eighty-five he still had strength. If you live on fellowship, inward reality, you can live on inward reality.
The Anakim were still there. All the problems were still there. But his first word was, “If the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out.” He had not lost his spirit.
Joshua gave unto Caleb Hebron for an inheritance. But Caleb had possessed the reality of it for forty years; he was just then receiving the outward evidence.
A number of years ago, while we were studying this, I thought, “Oh, Lord, how I would like to have this transferred on to some of my family, my son.” Did you ever want something that God had wrought in your heart—something real and precious—to be transferred on?
Somebody says, “You cannot.” I am not so sure. These things are not merely taught; they are caught.
Ever try to teach somebody and they do not get it? That is because we try to be an instructor. But you be a father, and these things get caught.
One day I was reading about Caleb’s daughter, and I thought, “Uh-oh.” Judges 1:14-15 says:
And it came to pass, when she came to him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she lighted from off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wilt thou?
And she said unto him, Give me a blessing: for Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water.
Where did she learn this “give me” business? Where did she learn to ask largely? I believe she caught it from her father. Cheer up, mother and father. She caught it.
Thank God, when we leave, I believe we can count on our heritage, our posterity, catching something of it. They will not get it merely by teaching, but they will catch it if it is in our spirit.
As you look at some lives and families, you have seen some who have wholly followed the Lord through every kind of situation and circumstance. The children who grow up in that kind of climate cannot help but catch devotion.
They know whether Dad is living for this or for something else. They know whether Mother is living just for a house, furnishings, and things. They know what is the holy occupation of a heart. They know our altar.
You do not tell them; they catch it. Caleb was of another spirit, and he had a heart that wholly followed the Lord.
I have this longing this morning in the midst of finishing up—but we cannot really be finished, because only God can do it—that the life which lives in dedication and the fullness of dedication will surely experience the reality inwardly long before the outwardness of it ever becomes manifest.
Others will catch, in our fellowship, the same thing.
There is one more thing I would like to say. I believe there is another principle you see in Abram. Not only faithfulness—I believe he kept his face and heart turned, and God kept enlarging him. I do not know how much inward reality he had, and yet it seems to me he kept seeing and was buoyed up, even though he did not outwardly possess. There was something of a substance in the promise that kept him going.
There is another principle in this stewardship and our real dedication. I call it an invitation to move from servant to friend.
You know the principle with Jesus. As long as an individual’s dedication and fulfilling of commands is just a matter of a servant-master relationship, the master says, “Go,” and all I have to do is hear and fulfill it. He says, “Do,” and all I have to do is hear and do. I do not have to think. Better if I do not, really. I just obey.
One day I see a loveliness in the relationship of God with Abraham. He stands over in Genesis 18 and says, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?”
Lot had gone into Sodom and Gomorrah, and God was going to judge and destroy it all. Yet I see in God’s own heart a real Father-heart. He says, “Should I hide this thing from Abraham that I am going to do?”
Would He hide it from the servant? I believe He would. But not from a friend. Not from a friend.
He invites Abraham into an intimate kind of sharing that you do with a friend, because it is with a friend that you share some of your purposes, some of your plans, some of what you are doing.
You just say to a servant, “Go get some water.” You share with a friend, and you say, “I need some water because I want to quench your thirst.” There is something of sharing your purpose, your mind, and your heart.
Genesis 18:17-19 says:
Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do;
Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him.
Abraham was going to have a family that would number the stars of the sky and the sand of the seashore. God was going to fulfill what He had promised Abraham.
I love this little principle: we move into an intimacy of sharing with Him, and He says, “Instead of just servants, I want to invite you into intimate participation in what I am doing.”
Jesus said in John 15:15:
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends.
If our dedication presses on in the faithfulness and trustworthiness that God wants, the more He commits, the more we love; and the more we desire, we say, “Lord, will You not let me do a little bit more? Commit another part. You have given me this field; how about half of this field over here?”
It is beginning to ask a little larger. But I can see the spirit of so many servants who would say, “I cannot keep this one. I need more help. Do I have to do that?” No, the dedication we are after is a different kind.
“Master, there is another field over here.” And you ask. Guess what might happen when you begin to ask?
I keep saying to folk, it is one thing to have the call, the sense of dedication. It is another thing to have the sending.
When He gives you the commitment, He gives you the dedication; and then, in the sending, you go out. So many folk say, “Well, praise God, I am called. I know I am His. I know He has committed something. I am waiting to be sent.”
One day the Lord said, “The sending will come if you understand what happened with Isaiah.” He got so close to the Lord that he overheard the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”
And Isaiah said, “Lord, here am I; send me.” That is when we come to share something of the longing, the burden, and the passion of His own heart.
“Lord, here is a neighbour. Would You send somebody? Here is a problem, Lord.” I do not rush out to do it. I have to hear Your word.
“There is a mountain over there, Lord. Would You give me that?” He says, “Go.” He is being sent, not merely called. There is this principle in stewardship: getting closer and closer to His own heart, until we begin to ask, and we are asking more largely.
All the while, our life is one of beholding. It is fellowship with Him. We have the reality.
How many of you believe that you can enjoy somebody else’s house as much as they do because, all the time they are building it, you are enjoying the process too? You are so close to them, you follow through their suffering, their enjoyment, and their heartache. You fellowship; you almost feel like you moved in with them. You are one with them.
This is the privilege. In this stewardship and this reaching unto the full thing, I believe we can count more and more that God does not want to hide. He moves us into what it means to be a friend with Him.
Abraham was a father, and He wants us to be fathers.
I was reading that little phrase we read earlier: “In stewards, a man is to be found faithful.” The Lord simply said, “Do not put the two words on. A man is to be.” To be.
“Lord, I want to do.” “No, I want you to be.”
It is required in a steward that a man be. All of God’s fulfillment through Abram rested in being, being, being; and God did the doing. He found in him faithfulness.
In closing, I was interested this morning as I awakened. It seemed like the Holy Spirit whispered to me: Hebrews says Abraham looked for a city.
Because that is so far toward the front of the chapter, I never got it connected with the closing part, which says, “Ye are come unto the city.” I said, “Lord, am I really? I have been looking with Abraham.”
Hebrews 11:10 says:
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Poor Abraham could only, by faith, look. But now we read in Hebrews 12:22:
But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.
Lest we think that the thing we have come to is outward, read back in Hebrews 12:18:
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched.
Abraham looked, but we are come. Come to what? There is a spiritual reality. You have come to another mountain—one that cannot physically be touched.
I have to leave it there. I see we got into something I cannot finish, but the Lord can interpret it. If He will make this real, I believe that in spite of the fact that we come to a mountain that can be touched, and it thunders at us with black clouds and brings fear, we need not draw back.
Israel said, “Moses, we do not like the way God talks. You go up and talk to God.” But we are not come to that kind of mountain. We are not come to that end. We are come to a reality that is in God Himself.
Well then, enjoy this morning’s sharing.
Lord, what we cannot translate into meaning, Thou wilt have to. But we pray that in this little lesson this morning, Thou wilt help us to see that we are stewards. The mysteries of God have been committed. Every one of us has been delegated a place.
Help us to accept our delegation, what has been committed to us. Help us to represent Thee as Caleb did. Oh Lord, that we will have another spirit, and a heart that has been proved, that will wholly follow You.
Lord, if we murmured during our wilderness wandering because we had to stay back when others were going their own way, and it seemed like we could not enter into enjoyment because we could not get anybody else to see, take the murmuring away.
Do not let us tempt You in the hour of our proving. Let us prove You. Prove that You can give us our mountain right now. You can give right now the Hebron, the reality of Yourself.
Then, beholding, it is in living in Your own heart that we can enjoy anything and everything that is Yours. Hallelujah.
And Lord, more and more, I believe, with every one of us who claim an increasing fullness of stewardship and dedication, You will invite us in. You are not wanting to hide; You are wanting to share. Teach us what it is, even as You said through John, that as fathers we might come to know Him Who is from the beginning.
Our father-heart shared to a Father-heart: all the longing of Your heart, dear Father—Him Who is from the beginning. Thank You. Make it real now.
We will give You the praise and the honour and the glory, for we ask it in Jesus’ lovely name. Amen.