We are going to cover a lot of Scripture, and we are going to cover some Scripture quickly. So, do whatever works best for you. It might be best just to make a note of the Scriptures, and then you can look at them later. If you are highly skilled and fast, you can turn in your Bible as I read some of these. It might be better just to make a note, and you can look at them later.
The first Scripture is Zechariah 1:14.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: “I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion.”
We are going to talk a little bit in the course of my two times about the difference between Jerusalem and Zion. They are not exactly the same thing.
The second Scripture is the one that the young people really came up with. In fact, I think Renee presented this Scripture to us when they were having the planning meetings. Renee is not here tonight because she had a baby this morning.
This is Haggai 1:5-9.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider your ways.
You have sown much, but harvest little;
you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied;
you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk;
you put on clothes, but none is warm enough;
and he who earns earns wages to put into a purse with holes.”Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider your ways.
Go up to the mountains, bring wood, and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified,” says the Lord.“You look for much, but behold, it comes to little;
and when you bring it home, I blow it away. Why?” declares the Lord of hosts. “Because of My house, which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house.”
Moving to the New Testament, 1 Timothy 3:15:
But in case I am delayed, I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.
And 2 Timothy 2:2:
And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
Really, that is in a big way what we are doing. That is a big part of our burden for this conference: to entrust something that the Lord has given to us to faithful men and women who can carry and take this burden and teach others also.
The reason that we are going to look at a few more Scriptures is because this matter of a call to build—I believe that probably just about everyone in this room has received a call. Maybe not everyone in this room, but probably almost everyone in this room has actually received a call in spirit to build.
I know everyone in this room cares, has some zeal for the Lord, some burden for these things, some desire to know more of what is on the Lord’s heart, or else you would not be here. I do not think you would bother to come.
But a call to build, the call might be an event, but it actually becomes a process. This matter of getting a heart to build, getting a vision to build, coming into the fullness of building, really entering into building work—it becomes a process, not just an event.
One of the things that is so difficult in a conference like this, and one of the things that has been on our hearts as we pray, is that I know almost every single person here. There are hardly more than one or two people here that I do not recognize from having spoken at other conferences or spoken in your assembly.
One of the problems that we have, and that you guys have, is that most of you have heard just about everything. You have heard it so much that it becomes familiar, does it not? It just becomes familiar words that you have heard before. In some cases, some of the familiar words have lost their meaning.
I want to take just a minute to cover a couple of Scriptures here at the beginning. It is not going to be the focus of our time, but I want to read a couple of passages of Scripture that the Lord Jesus spoke. I want these to serve as a foundation, something to support everything that the Lord wants to show us while we are in this conference.
The Lord Jesus spoke—our dear, kind, faithful, sweet Lord spoke—a few very, very difficult things. I believe that many Christians hear these words that I am about to read and simply dismiss them as having nothing to do with us.
“I guess the Lord meant these words for somebody, but surely He did not mean them for me. I do not know who He was talking to. And also, the Lord did not really mean this. He was making a point to somebody, but not to us.”
I want to tell you right now, brothers and sisters, that the things I am about to read are critically important for what the Lord desires to do this weekend—that these words become fresh, maybe real for the first time.
The first one is from Matthew 10:37-38:
Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me;
and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
Then, in Luke 14:26-27, it gets even harder:
If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
Now, I know I have heard all the arguments. “Oh, the Lord did not really mean this.” Well, I wonder why He said it if He did not really mean it.
Are we supposed to love our parents? Oh, of course. Are we supposed to love each other? Of course we are. Why does He say, “Unless you hate, you cannot be My disciple”?
Actually, Timothy touched on it briefly. I am glad he did not go into any detail; I would have had to tell him to stop. He would have been saying my message. But when he mentioned Isaac, we will look at that a little bit later.
The point I want to make right here is this, brothers and sisters: I believe there are things in our own lives, in our hearts, and in our minds—strongholds. In some cases, they are good things. In some cases, they are things that the Lord has given to us that we simply have not given back to Him, things we have not dealt with.
Those things create a veil, and they keep the Lord from being able to speak to us. So, part of our prayer and burden is that we will hear these words of the Lord, and they will not be familiar. They will be brand new and pierce our hearts.
Some of us need to do some business with the Lord that we have not done. Even if we did not have this conference, the preparation for it has been so good for me that it almost would not matter if the whole thing had been cancelled. The Lord has dealt with me so much over the past weeks as I meditated on these Scriptures, prayed about this, and dealt with these things.
So we really have the burden that this will not be just another conference. There is a room full of empowered people here. People in this room have been empowered by the Holy Spirit. There is nothing that the Lord asks of us that is impossible for us to do. Praise the Lord for that.
I have three words on my heart, three key words that are going to be like a chain through everything that I have to say:
Vision, discipline, and commitment. I realize it sounds a little bit like advertising for the Marines.
The Lord put three names on my heart, and we are going to look a little bit in my two times at these three people:
We are going to start off tonight considering this matter of spiritual journey, because everyone here is on a spiritual journey. Did you know that? Did you know that when you got born again, it was the end of one journey and the beginning of another journey?
It was the end, hopefully, of wandering aimlessly through life, but it was the beginning of being a pilgrim, being led by the Holy Spirit. Now you are on a different kind of journey, but you are very much on a journey.
We are going to look at Abraham’s journey. You do not have to turn there, but it is interesting that in Acts 7, when Stephen was giving his testimony to the religious leaders who were about to kill him, he said that the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he still lived in Mesopotamia, before he moved to Haran.
Now, I ask you a question. Do not anybody answer it, but here is the question: Why did they put that in the Bible? What difference does it make that the God of glory appeared to Abraham while he was living in Mesopotamia? Is that just in the Scripture to take up space, provide historical information, or give us a geography lesson?
By the way, there is nothing in the Bible that is just there to take up space. Everything is for instruction. Everything in the Old Testament happened just as it is recorded, but it has a deeper meaning than merely the geography or the events recorded.
Mesopotamia literally means the land, or place, between the rivers—the land above the rivers. The two rivers are two of the most important rivers in the Bible: the Tigris River and the Euphrates River.
I have read a couple of church fathers—and if you do not know who that is, it does not matter—who said that the Tigris River, which flows toward Assyria, represents in spiritual type the river of reason. Not everybody agrees, by the way, because Hebrew is a difficult language.
The Euphrates, more or less, means an abounding, rushing, flowing river. It is a chief river in the Old Testament. It produced irrigation, and people settled along that river. It became a type and a picture of tradition.
If that is correct—and I believe it is; you find out for yourself—I believe the meaning is that Abraham started off his journey living somewhere between reason and tradition.
Guess what? Everybody, as far as I can tell, starts off their Christian life camped out somewhere between reason and tradition. Maybe closer to reason, maybe closer to tradition, but everybody starts off camped out somewhere between those places.
Then what happens? The Lord speaks to us and says, “Now move on. Move on. I want to take you to higher ground, to a different place.” The journey takes us away from tradition, perhaps beyond reason. Then we have to move. If we settle down, we do not move; but if we move on, we move.
In Abraham’s journey, I want to touch on a couple of things quickly. God’s call and initiation always incorporate some form of separation.
By the way, the whole journey was initiated by the Lord, not by Abraham—just like your journey. Your salvation, your spiritual life, and the journey that you are on are all initiated by the Lord. None of us were looking for the Lord. He came and saved us, revealed Himself to us, called us onto this journey, and led us to go this way.
A little while into Abraham’s journey, the Lord told him to separate—to separate from his place and from some of his family. There is an element of separation if we are going to be pilgrims and the Lord’s disciples. It is a little bit different for each person, and it is up to the Holy Spirit to decide what it is we have to separate from.
The first place Abraham came to was Haran. It is a crossroads.
I cannot prove it, but I believe that all of us, all of you, either have had or will have two, maybe three crossroads in your life—but for sure, one or two. At those crossroads, the direction you go will have a great determination on the rest of your life. Not on your salvation, but it will affect practically the rest of your life.
By the way, it is not tricky. There is nothing to be scared about. It is not guesswork. We do not go to that crossroads and say, “Wow, I wonder which way I should go?” We come to that crossroads, and the Lord speaks to our hearts. He tells us which way to go.
He will not speak to our intellect in a way that satisfies us by explaining everything: “Now, Lord, You show me exactly what to do.” He speaks to our heart. He gives us the opportunity to listen, hear Him, trust Him, and obey Him.
If we do, we will go the right way. If we reject His voice, then we will go the wrong way. He still loves us, and I believe we will still be saved, but those crossroads are a huge issue.
Some of you, I believe, are on the verge of your crossroads right now. In fact, I know that some of the people in this room are at a crossroads right now. This weekend, you are at a crossroads. Our prayer, burden, and hope is that you will hear the Lord’s voice, and that it will be a life-changing thing in the right way.
The next place Abraham came to was Shechem, which means shoulder. Shoulder represents strength. In your spiritual journey, you come to a place where you follow the Lord, and guess what? You gain strength. The Lord strengthens you for the journey.
He traveled on and came to Moreh, related to Mount Moriah. We are going to talk about that a little later. Mount Moriah is the place where Isaac was sacrificed. He was sacrificed, by the way, and we will go over that later.
Moriah, or Moreh as the Bible calls it, is the place where you learn knowledge, where knowledge is increased—especially self-knowledge. You can only really know yourself by following the Lord. You will never know yourself by studying yourself. If you follow the Lord, He will reveal you to yourself.
Finally, Abraham came to Bethel. We all know that speaks of the house of God. These are just a few of the places Abraham traveled that I made a note of.
Sometimes in his travels, he came back to the same place more than once. In your travels and in my travels, I have had to come back sometimes to the same place—not geographically, but spiritually—to the same circumstances more than once.
Why is that? Because the faithful Lord is not willing for me or you to finish the race halfway. The Lord is kind and good, and He does not let us get away with things. He brings us back sometimes over the same ground.
What kind of friend would you be if you let a bride go into a wedding with her wedding dress half on? Or if she had the flowers sticking out of her ears and did not know she was supposed to hold them? The Lord keeps arranging circumstances for us. Sometimes it means going back over the same ground.
He is kind. He gives us another chance to get things right. It is love and kindness. Some of us have made big mistakes in our lives, and the dear Lord gave us an opportunity to repent, learn something, and come back later over the same ground. This time, we were able to make it through. It is gracious when the Lord does this.
Very quickly, consider some attributes of a spiritual journey. In Genesis 12:4, Abraham departed. You have to depart. You have to start on your journey at some point.
In Genesis 12:5, he went forth, or set out. In Genesis 12:6, he passed through. In Genesis 12:8, he removed, or proceeded. You have to proceed. In Genesis 12:9, he journeyed on.
Hebrews 11:8 tells us:
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.
He went out not knowing where he was going, but he went out being led.
Abraham became, as far as I can tell, the first person to have ministry both to heaven and on the earth. Abraham became the first person to have relationship and ministry to heaven.
A lot of people have ministry. Not very many people have ministry to heaven. That is something some of us need to consider. A lot of people minister and do something for the Lord. Not many people know what it is to do something to the Lord, and there is a difference.
Abraham knew the difference. I believe that is the most important thing: the Lord wants something. He wants ministry to Himself more than He wants ministry for Himself. It has to do with heart relationship, with loving Him.
Lastly, Abraham obeyed and experienced all of those commands that we read from the Lord Jesus. When you read Abraham’s life, you realize that Abraham eventually overcame in every one of those areas. Everything. When you read his story, you see it. And we can too.
Hannah Hurnard wrote, “Vision is perfected by discipline in the school of affliction.” She wrote Hinds’ Feet on High Places. If you have not read it, you ought to. It is number one on my top-ten list.
It is interesting that such a sweet book, and a woman who wrote such a sweet book, would say that vision is perfected by discipline in the school of affliction. I believe she knew something about that, and it is true.
When we obey, then we are truly led. You want to be led by the Lord? You have to obey. There are a lot of times when there is not enough obedience in our spiritual walk.
The Scriptures we read earlier, the Lord Jesus said twice, “Unless you take up your cross.” I believe there is an issue in the assemblies, in our circle of influence. I do not know about your assembly, but generally speaking, if you take a truth from the Bible and only teach that truth to the detriment of other truth, then that truth loses power. It is not as healthy or fruitful.
The Lord Jesus finished His work on the cross. For our salvation, He does not say for us to take up His cross. He asks us to trust in it, believe in it, and receive it. But He asks you to take up your cross. See the difference? It is a big difference.
Now, you take up your cross, and if you do not, you cannot be His disciple. The question is, “Lord, what does it mean for me to take up my cross?” Do you really want to know?
If you really want to know what it means for you to take up your cross, I have a great suggestion: ask the Lord. Ask Him tonight. Ask Him this weekend. “What does it mean, Lord? What is on Your heart, Lord Jesus, for me taking up my cross?”
I believe He will reveal it to you. He will show you and make it real to you. This matter of taking up the cross is something missing in some of our lives. If we do take it up, our understanding will increase.
This is a personal journey. Everybody’s spiritual journey takes a slightly different course. The course the Lord has mapped out for you is a little different than the course for the person sitting next to you.
Oswald Chambers said something significant about taking up the cross. Basically, he said that taking up the cross would be much easier if he could pick his own cross and choose who was going to be there to witness it.
Of course, if you could choose who was going to see you suffer and feel especially sorry for you—the people who would pat you on the back and praise you for your suffering—then it would not be taking up the cross.
Taking up the cross is, by its nature, something personally orchestrated for you. It is mostly taken up in secret. Most of the time, other people do not know anything about it.
If you broadcast it, power is lost. But if you bear it in secret, power is gained. Consider that in the days to come, because the Lord has something personally for you. If you take it up, your vision will be increased. You will find out more than you ever dreamed possible—not just more information.
Vision is not information. There is vision to be had, and many of us in this room are called to have more vision. The Lord is doing that this weekend.
Have you guys ever seen that television show Lost? A couple of years ago, my wife and I watched the first two episodes. After the second episode, she said, “We are not watching this anymore.”
I said, “Why, honey?” She said, “Because these people really are lost.” She figured out right then that the whole show was lost. It was never going to go anywhere or arrive. It would just keep you hanging on.
My understanding is that it became absurd how they kept these people going. I do not know what is going on. I have not watched it in ages. But I think the show is rightly named: Lost.
Some people are just lost, wandering around. Normally, when we say “lost,” we are talking about unsaved people. But I believe there are saved people who are lost.
I think some of you are wandering through life. Some of you are saved, born again, and have the Holy Spirit, but you are wandering—not being led. You are wandering from circumstance to circumstance, from situation to situation, with no real focus.
I am not talking about career goals. But there is a life—I promise you, there is a life that you can have if you are led by the Lord Jesus. Deep in your heart, you long for it. All you have to do is agree to let Him do it.
Some of you are what I call saved wanderers. May that end quickly. May the Lord bring us into a life and show us what we need to see, so that we are not just wandering anymore. He has a purpose for every one of us. We do not want to go through life but never arrive.
By the way, we appear lost to the world. The world probably thinks we are crazy. We appear to be the ones wandering through life and not doing anything. We live a life that is so strange to the world—our career choices, where we live, everything we do. It does not make any sense to the world.
Of course it does not make sense to the world, because they are not engaged to the Holy Spirit. It is impossible for them to comprehend what we are doing. But actually, we are the ones who are connected. We are the ones who are being led through life. We are the ones who are not just lost, wandering through life.
F. B. Meyer said this in a message about Abraham:
The tent life of separation is sure to produce the altar of self-denial and of heavenly fellowship.
F. B. Meyer is a little hard to read sometimes, and I do not think he has any bestsellers out these days. He has been dead for quite a while. But over the course of my two messages, I will mention names such as Andrew Murray, Amy Carmichael, Madame Guyon, Watchman Nee, T. Austin-Sparks, and others.
There are people whose writings we ought to be familiar with. We ought to read some of their writings, and I want to tell you why.
A couple of months ago, there was an article in the Memphis newspaper, I think by a college professor. There was a term in that article called “the internalization of knowledge.”
The professor gave his students a book to read. He wanted them to read the book and tell the highlights and main points. I do not remember what book it was. When they came to class, everybody had exactly the same points.
The teacher asked, “Where did you get this information? Where did you get these points? Do you have any understanding about these things?” Of course, they had no understanding. They just had an outline of the main things in the book.
They said, “We got it off the internet.” He had not told them they could not, so they were not cheating in a sense. But he said, “That is not what I wanted you to do. I wanted you to read the books.”
They asked, “What for? We got the information instantly, and we did not have to spend all that time reading the book.” I can tell the schoolteacher here knows exactly what I am getting at.
The professor said the problem with this generation is that we get everything instantly, and we do not know what the internalization of knowledge is. When you read a book, you get to know the author. You begin to understand character development, the characters, plots, points, and the author’s personality in the book.
It becomes a whole different thing than merely getting the main points. You can get an outline of the Bible and a bunch of main points, but it is no substitute for reading it page by difficult page, word by word.
When you do that, something inside of you becomes life, not just information. There is a big difference between understanding and vision, and merely receiving information. This is something lacking among many young people these days.
We need to familiarize ourselves with some of these writers and read their work.
I wrote a note to myself: “The testimony of famous Christians: spiritual advancement via heart surgery, and continuing education in idolatry removal.”
I want to talk a little bit about idolatry, because most of us probably think that could not possibly have anything to do with us. I will not go into detail, but I can tell you that in the last couple of years, the Lord showed me something about idolatry. It got personal.
The Lord showed me something I would never have thought possible: that I could have an idol in my life. That is part of the problem. We are blind to them. We can sometimes see other people’s idols, but we are blind to our own until the Holy Spirit puts His finger on them.
When He does, then we have a choice to make. I give that brief testimony so that you will know that in the things I am talking about in this respect, I am an expert—unfortunately, or maybe fortunately.
Turn to Genesis 22, I think it is. Abraham is still on his journey.
Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
You know that he went on and did that. Down in Genesis 22:5:
Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”
Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.
Down in Genesis 22:8:
Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.
And Genesis 22:10-12:
Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
Just a couple of chapters before this, Lot, Abraham’s relative, was moved by personal fear, but not by godly fear. Abraham made his decision, and the angel of the Lord said, “Now I know that you fear God.”
Is that not an interesting choice of words? He did not say, “I see that you are obedient,” or, “You are a good guy,” or, “I love you so much.” He said, “I see that you fear God.”
Brothers and sisters, there is a right fear of God. It is a healthy thing, a wonderful thing, a clean thing, and a good thing. There is not enough of it.
I am not talking about being scared of Him. I am talking about holy fear and respect: that He is God and that He knows exactly what He is doing.
We should fear disobeying the Lord, distrusting the Lord, having a better idea than the Lord, and not trusting His ways. That has always been the problem. We think we have a better idea than the Lord. We think He does not quite have a handle on the situation. We think He does not quite know what He is doing.
Of course, this whole chapter started out with the Lord testing Abraham. I do not know if the Lord tests every Christian. I suspect that He does. But I am certain that for those who follow the Lord, He will test you.
He tests those He loves and those who love Him. That test results in increase: increase of vision and increase of power. The test is not for destruction; it is for good. It is for strengthening and building up.
The Lord will test you, and He does not explain it to you up front. He does not tell you beforehand how everything is going to work out. I know some of the theories about what Abraham thought or believed, but you cannot manipulate the Lord. You cannot play games with the Lord.
You cannot say, “Well, if I sort of go along with this, I know He will give me what I want.” If that were the case, it would not be a real test. You do not know how things are going to work out.
What you do know is that His judgments are good. His thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and His judgments are good. If we trust Him, we get the good; we get the right thing.
The problem is that so many times it does not make sense to us, because He does not explain it to our intellect, and we lean on our own understanding. That hurts our relationship with the Lord and keeps us from receiving all the vision He wants to give us.
Twice in the verses we read, it says that they walked on together. When you trust the Lord and entrust yourself to the Lord, you are taking precious things to a higher place, to a better place.
That raises a question: those things we love the most, whether they are people, things, or whatever it is—in our secret heart, do we protect those things from the Lord, or do we entrust those things to the Lord?
Sometimes we want to protect children, loved ones, or some personal thing so much that we do not really entrust it to the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, it is a good thing to ask ourselves: “Is there anything in my secret heart—anything—I am holding back from the Lord?” None of this has anything to do with salvation. It has to do with the Lord getting something that He desires for Himself.
I often talk to people about the story of the million-dollar job. Every young person in Memphis has heard this before.
I can tell you in absolute honesty: if I got a job offer tomorrow to move to San Diego—a very nice place, with good surf, where the sun always shines and the sky is not cloudy—and it paid a million dollars a year, I would not have to think about it.
Suppose it was a job where I did not actually have to do anything. They just said, “Sonny, we want you to pose for the picture in Surfer magazine and stand out here on the beach once every six months. We will give you a million dollars a year, a condo, a car, and free medical care.”
Do you know how long I would have to think about that job? Zero seconds.
Because the Lord has already told me where I am supposed to be. I am not a slave of the assembly in Memphis. It is not, “Oh, Sonny, you are so committed to the assembly in Memphis.” No, I am not.
“Oh, you are just so wonderful, so committed.” I do not know if I am or not. But I do have some fear of the Lord, and I know one thing: I am a slave of the Lord Jesus, and He did not tell me I could move to San Diego.
Brothers and sisters, here is a question I would like everybody to ask himself: Are you a slave of the Lord Jesus? Are you His bondslave?
Do you know what that word bondslave means—doulos in Greek? It is a slave who has no personal rights.
Have we given up all our personal rights to the Lord Jesus? I do not know how to answer that question. I do not even know how to answer it about myself. I cannot see into my own heart.
But I know that I want to be a slave to the Lord Jesus. Therefore, I am not calling my own shots. I do not get to make my own decisions in life. I do not get to live where I want. I do not get to do what I want.
By the way, I have no regrets.
We are on this earth for such a short time. Sometimes we think that everything is so important. When this short, brief life is over, how important will those things have been?
When I stand before the Lord Jesus in glory at the judgment seat of Christ—only saved people will be there, by the way—all the things I thought were so important in this life will be so unimportant.
Every once in a while, I go back and look at my high-school yearbook from my senior year. I went to military school my last couple of years in high school—kind of a place for problem people. Not everybody there was a problem person, but most of us were.
You had valedictorian, salutatorian, smartest, most athletic, and all kinds of awards and things. Blah, blah, blah. Some of those guys have died since then. I know some of the people we thought would be the most successful had lives that turned out to be tragic.
The things that were so important in high school are so unimportant now. I graduated from high school in 1965. Some of the gals who were the homecoming queens back then, I meet them now and think, “I cannot believe this is the same person. What in the world happened?”
I am being silly, but we think things are so important, do we not? They are not important at all. In fact, they are nothing. But there are some things that are really important, and we despise those things. The only things that are eternally important, we often do not recognize.
I do not want anybody to feel condemned. My burden is that we would recognize the things we are supposed to recognize, so that we can allow the Lord to make the changes in our lives that He wants to make, so that He can get something for Himself.
Those of you who go on this spiritual journey will experience, if you follow the Lord, a certain amount of loneliness. I am not going to stand up here and tell you that if you follow the Lord and give your whole heart to Him, it will all be wonderful and you can have your best life now.
I have never read that book, by the way. I do not know the author. I have seen him on television, and I am never going to read the book. I have a problem with the title.
It seems fundamentally wrong to me, and I am not being ugly; I am just being honest. According to my understanding of things, I am supposed to lose my life now and get the best later. It seems backwards to me.
I think a lot of people, including a lot of Christians, are getting their best life now. I am not talking about the book. I think a lot of people are choosing to save their life now, and they lose—and the Lord Jesus loses—because the Lord wants something for Himself.
If we follow the Lord, there is, in my own experience, an element of loneliness. I am a happily married person, married to my best friend. By every measure, I have a great marriage.
But even with my wife and me, there is a place that we reserve in our hearts just for the Lord. We both know, as bonded as we are together, that there is a place in our hearts that belongs to Him. We reserve that place and keep it just for Him.
Dwelling is a lonely thing sometimes, and the Lord uses that loneliness to bring you into a deeper place.
When I really started to follow the Lord, I was in California. The Lord got hold of me. I was probably already saved when I was twelve years old, but as I got older, my spiritual life got worse and worse and worse—nonexistent.
The Lord got hold of me when I was in my early twenties. I had just gotten out of the Navy and was hitchhiking around the country. Just like Abraham, the Lord revealed Himself to me. He came and got me where I was and spoke to me.
My parents lived in Atlanta, and I was in San Francisco. I called them and said, “Hey, I want to be a Christian, and I want to come home.” I was not sure what that meant, and they were not sure what it meant, but they knew it was better than what I was doing. They wired me money so I could get home.
Two weeks later, I found myself down in Florida at a Bible college. I found an apartment at the beach. It used to be a fire station—a little building that someone had bought and converted into upstairs and downstairs apartments. I rented the upstairs.
It was perfect: clean, nice, and I could see the Gulf. I could see the bay out the back. It was ideal. Bible college was pleasant to me. Everybody was nice. A lot of the students were foreigners, but it was just the sweetest time.
Living in Florida was pleasant and beautiful. Everything was perfect. I had the GI Bill, so I did not even have to work. I did a little anyway, but it was a very pleasant place to live.
But I can still remember feeling something. I was saved. I felt so cleansed. I felt so clear. It was so wonderful to know that I was a Christian, that my past and my sins were washed away. I was cleansed. I was starting a new life in a new place. I was so happy.
I had no problem witnessing to people. I would just walk up to people on the beach, telling them because I wanted everybody to have this. But there was one interesting thing that I still remember: I had a slight feeling of, “I do not belong.”
Here I was in this beautiful place. Everything was great, but I had the slightest sense that I was not a citizen. I did not feel like I was really part of the place. I felt like I was passing through.
As the years went by and I followed the Lord, my understanding increased. I began to realize that I am a pilgrim, and I am just passing through. I know many of you have the same thing.
We do not belong in this world. We are here temporarily, just passing through. We are pilgrims.
Brothers and sisters, are you a pilgrim? Do you see yourself as a pilgrim? Pilgrims live in tents. Tent dwellers. The tent life is flimsy. Tents in the Old Testament were made out of animal skins. They were dark and flimsy, not very stable.
Pilgrims are dependent on the Lord. Are we dependent on the Lord, or are we dependent only on our own ability to do everything? We are just passing through. It is a wonderful thing.
When you really understand that you have been called to be a pilgrim, it is the most freeing and pleasant thing.
I want to say one thing about this matter of loneliness, and then we will conclude. I wonder how you deal with loneliness.
I can make a few suggestions. I think most people deal with even the slightest shadow or tinge of loneliness by turning on the television immediately. I think many people reach for the cell phone.
Apparently every woman in East Memphis who lives between my house and the grocery store cannot be lonely in the car for more than ten seconds without turning on the cell phone. And a lot of men too. I just happen to notice the women.
I wonder how many of us can go for one night without turning on the computer, talking on the cell phone, or turning on the television.
We fast every once in a while. We skip meals in order to give that time to the Lord, because He commanded us to. Every once in a while, we go without food. But do we ever go without the cell phone, the computer, and the television? We are so anything but lonely.
I want to encourage you, especially those of you who might be lonely: it is not a bad thing. If you allow Him to, the Lord will use it. He will use it for your benefit and for your relationship with Him.
Part of the work the Lord is doing on this journey in your life and mine is that He is training us. He is training you how to comfort Him.
We receive the Holy Spirit, the Comforter—the One who comforts us, ministers to us, blesses us, fills us, and trains us. Part of what He is training us for is to comfort the Lord.
This building that we are called to build—to have a part in building—you understand that this goes through the whole Bible like a chain. It is not merely an architectural thing. It is a heart matter. It is a romantic thing, a spiritually romantic thing.
The Bible starts with the Lord getting a person: Abraham. Out of that, He gets a family. Out of that, He gets a nation. Out of that, He gets a house. As you go through the Bible, you see that house becoming a city.
In Revelation 21:2, John says:
I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
A city becomes a bride—a bride for Christ. What is the whole story of Rebekah and Isaac about? It is about Rebekah being prepared to be a bride.
So this building work is really heart work. It is relationship work. We are being trained not just to do some work, but to comfort and minister to the Lord.
In Genesis 24, we come back to Isaac again. His mother, Sarah, had died. A little before this, Rebekah was being prepared to be a bride. She was prepared in secret.
The Bible does not tell us exactly how she was prepared, although the Holy Spirit, if you read between the lines, tells you a lot about how she was prepared. She was prepared to be a bride for Isaac, even though she had not met him. It is a beautiful story.
Isaac was lonely. Down in Genesis 24:63:
Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening.
Evening is a lonely time. My dad died this past year. He was a wonderful person. He and my mom had been married sixty-some-odd years.
My mom often told me in those first couple of months—and even now; he died last February—that the time most difficult for her is the evening, right about the time the sun is going down. That is when she becomes lonely.
There is something about the setting sun. There is something about that time. It is a lonely time sometimes.
Isaac went out into the field to meditate. By the way, to meditate does not merely mean to think. It might be part of it, but meditating has the connotation in the original language of seeking comfort.
He went out into the field to be alone, to seek comfort—seek comfort alone before the Lord. What happened? He was there, seeking fellowship with the Lord and seeking to be comforted by the Lord, and he saw camels coming.
On one of those camels was Rebekah. He loved her immediately. In the last verse, it says that he took her into his mother’s tent.
Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
The Lord is training you and me to comfort Him. When you read the writings of so-called famous Christians—Margaret Barber and Amy Carmichael come to mind—these women lived, by all normal standards, lonely lives.
They were away from the places where they grew up, in foreign lands, without husbands and without children. They lived lonely lives. But when you read the songs, poetry, and letters they wrote, you know these were women who knew the Lord Jesus in a deep and unusual way.
It makes me long to know the Lord in the same way. Loneliness, and everything else, will become a friend if you give it to the Lord.
Let us not be in any hurry just to comfort ourselves. Let us allow the Lord to train us so that we can comfort Him.
This was Abraham’s journey. Along the way, he received vision and understanding concerning building work. It is a heart matter.
For you and me, this matter really has to do with giving our whole heart to the Lord. I do not know if I have given my whole heart to the Lord, much less whether or not you have. But I know that the Lord is calling us right now to do that very thing.
So let us do it, so that we might comfort the Lord and that He might have something for Himself. He is training us. Just do not faint.
Andrew Murray said:
Take time. Give God time to reveal Himself to you. Give yourself time to be silent and quiet before Him, waiting to receive through the Spirit the assurance of His presence with you and His power working in you.
I think Andrew Murray knew what he was talking about. May the Lord work some of these things into us.
Brothers and sisters, may the Lord increase our vision. Some of us need increased vision. Some of us need renewed vision. Some of us need original vision.
As our brother said in the introduction, you cannot live off your parents’ vision. You cannot live off your friend’s vision. You cannot live off mine.
Kit and I, if the Lord tarries, will be eighty in less than eighteen years. The last eighteen years went by like that. The next eighteen years are going to go by quicker.
I am not being morbid here. People say to me all the time, “Sonny, you will not be around much longer.” I have vision. I do not know much about myself, but I know I have vision, and I have given my life to it.
The question is: Will you have vision? It is available. I am not better than you are. You are better than I am. You can have it, and you can have it this weekend.
May the Lord give us vision, and may He get something for Himself in the process. Praise the Lord.