Haven And Earth

The Covenant With David Fulfilled in Christ...

The throne of Christ differed greatly from that of David. The purpose and scope of the reign of Christ are vividly set forth in Luke 1:32, 33, "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of his father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end." We observe here that the kingdom over which Christ reigns is timeless in duration and limitless in scope. It's world-wide, universal. It has no frontiers; it overleaps national boundaries and racial barriers. The angels who announced the Savior's birth said, "...of great joy which shall be to all people: for unto you is born this day...a Savior..." (Luke 2:10, 11).

The point to notice is that Jesus Christ came into the world as the Savior and He was to reign over a saved people. The prophecy of Isaiah quoted by Paul in Rom. 15:12 lends additional support to this statement. "There shall be a root of Jesse, and He that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles." This passage declares that Jesus rose from the grave to reign. The resurrection is vitally connected with the reign of Christ also in Acts 2:29, 30, 32. "He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ. This Jesus hath God raised up."

Turning to Psalm 45:6 we read, "Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever; the scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter." This Scripture together with 2 Sam. 7:14 is quoted in Heb. 1:5-8. Therein we learn that Christ is the Son referred to in the covenant made with David. It also shows us that it was His throne; that is, Christ's that was to be established forever. Heb. 1:8 says, "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne O God is forever and ever. The throne to which Jesus ascended after His resurrection is far greater than any earthly throne. From it, He exerts His sovereignty over all the universe, for He said, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18).

Jesus Christ is the King of the Jews who are of the faith of Abraham. He dosen't reign over fleshly descendants. He said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). Instead of setting up a grand earthly monarchy opposed to Rome or any succeeding earthly dominion, the Bible shows us that His Kingdom is the opposite to that of satan. He wields a scepter of righteousness, wereas Satan reigns in wickedness. In Rom 5:21 we read, "For as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." The reign of Christ is a reign of grace. It's the opposite of the reign of sin. We're translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son (Col. 1:13). Of this reign there's no end. It reaches over all the world wherever the gospel makes Christ known; it lasts for all time; Christ wields His scepter in righteousness and He reigns over the Israel of God, the children of the faith of Abraham, who's father of all who believe.

Is God's Will Our Will?

"This is the will of God, even your sanctification." (1 Thessalonians 4:3) It's not a question of whether God's willing to sanctify us; is it our will? Are we willing to let God do in us all that's been made possible by the Atonement? Are we willing to let Jesus be made sanctification to us, and to let the life of Jesus be manifested in our mortal flesh? Let's beware of saying---Oh, I'm longing to be sanctified. You are not, stop longing and make it a matter of transaction---"Nothing in my hands I bring." Let's receive Jesus Christ to be made sanctification to us in implicit faith, and the great marvel of the Atonement of Jesus will be made real in us. All that Jesus made possible is made ours by the free loving gift of God on the ground of what He performed, our attitude as a saved and sanctified soul is that of profound humble holiness (there's no such thing as proud holiness), a holiness based on agonizing repentance and a sense of unspeakable shame and degradation; and also on the amazing realization that the love of God commended itself to us in that while we cared nothing about Him, He completed everything for our salvation and sanctification (see Rom. 5:8. R.V.). No wonder Paul says nothing is "able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Sanctification makes us one with Jesus Christ, and in Him one with God, and it's done only through the superb Atonement of Christ. Let's never put the effect as the cause. The effect in us is obedience and service and prayer, and is the out come of speechless thanks and adoration for the marvellous sanctification wrought out in us because of the Atonement.

Building For Eternity

"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?"
(Luke 14:28)

Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He's counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary---the pivot upon which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men aren't going to laugh at Him at last and say---"This man began to build, and wasn't able to finish." The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He's going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If any man come to Me, and hate not...he cannot be My disciple." Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they're glorious.

All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we've built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we're trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises---His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.

Enter In With Thanksgiving

"I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy loving-kindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name."
(Psalm 138:2)

I live out in the country. Adjacent to our property, there's an old, old barn. Some might call it "picturesque," but with its rusty hinges eroded by time and its weathered leaning door, it's only a sad reminder of how temporary things of life really are.

Whoever built this old barn will not pass this way again. The things which were important to them are now only memories. The days of work and worry around that old barn are long past. Life doesn't wait, and in its passing, "things" are left to rust and decay.

God has given us the means to correct this mistake of human weakness if we'd only recognize it. He's given us His house and Christian brothers and sisters in which to gather with, who share the dream of eternity with us---a time for reminding one another of things which don't ever swing on rusty hinges nor erode with time. He's offered us a constant audience with Him in prayer---a moment-by-moment opportunity to leave the temporary for the eternal.

Let's always enter His house with "thanksgiving" and "praise", through the doors which open for us to things which "moth and rust" cannot corrupt.

The Cross In Prayer

"At that day ye shall ask in My name."
(John 16:26)

We're too much given to thinking of the Cross as something we have to get through; we get through it only in order to get into it. The Cross stands for one thing only for us - a complete and entire and absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ, and there's nothing in which this identification is realized more than in prayer.

"Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him." Then why ask? The idea of prayer is not in order to get answers from God; prayer is perfect and complete oneness with God. If we pray because we want answers, we'll get huffed with God. The answers come every time, but not always in the way we expect, and our spiritual huff shows a refusal to identify ourselves with Our Lord in prayer. We're not here to prove God answers prayer; we're here to be living monuments of God's grace.

"I say not that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you." Have we reached such an intimacy with God that the Lord Jesus Christ's life of prayer is the only explanation of our life of prayer? Has Our Lord's vicarious life become our vital life? "At that day" you will be so identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction.

When prayer seems to be unanswered, let's beware of trying to fix the blame on someone else. That's always a snare of Satan. We'll find there's a reason which is a deep instruction to us, not to anyone else.

Let's Be Determined To Serve

"The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."
(Matthew 20:28)

Paul's idea of service is the same as Our Lord's: "I am among you as He that serveth;" "ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." We have the idea that a man called to the ministry is called to be a different kind of being from other men. According to Jesus Christ, he's called to be the "door-mat" of other men; their spiritual leader, but never their superior. "I know how to be abased," says Paul. This"s Paul's idea of service---"I'll spend myself to the last ebb for you; you may give me praise or give me blame, it'll make no difference." So long as there's a human being who doesn't know Jesus Christ, I'm his debtor to serve him until he does. The mainspring of Paul's service is not love for men, but love for Jesus Christ. If we're devoted to the cause of humanity, we'll soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we'll often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men.

Paul's realization of how Jesus Christ had dealt with him is the secret of his determination to serve others. "I was before a perjurer, a blasphemer, an injurious person"---no matter how men may treat me, they'll never treat me with the spite and hatred with which I treated Jesus Christ. When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.

Jesus Loves Me This I Know

Many years ago, while watching a little TV on Sunday instead of going to church, I watched a Church in Georgia honoring one of its senior pastors who had been retired many years. He was 92 at that time and I wondered why the Church even bothered to ask the old gentleman to preach at that age. After a warm welcome, introduction of this speaker, and as the applause quieted down he rose from his high back chair and walked slowly, with great effort and a sliding gate to the podium. Without a note or written paper of any kind, he placed both hands on the pulpit to steady himself and then quietly and slowly he began to speak.

"When I was asked to come here today and talk to you, your pastor asked me to tell you what was the greatest lesson ever learned in my 50 odd years of Preaching. I thought about it for a few days and boiled it down to just one thing that made the most difference in my life and sustained me through all my trials. The one thing that I could always rely on when tears and heart break and pain and fear and sorrow paralyzed me...the only thing that would comfort was this song:

Jesus Loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
we are weak but He is strong.....
Yes, Jesus loves me...
The Bible tells me so."

When he finished, the church was quiet. You actually could hear his foot steps as he shuffled back to his chair. I don't believe I'll ever forget it. A pastor once stated, "I always noticed that it was the adults who chose the children's hymn 'Jesus Loves Me' (for the children of course) during a hymn sing, and it was the adults who sang the loudest because I could see they knew it was the best."

Here's a new senior version...for us who have white hair or no hair at all... over middle age (or even those almost there) and all you others...

Jesus loves me, this I know,
Though my hair is white as snow
Though my sight is growing dim,
Still He bids me trust in Him.

(CHORUS)
YES, JESUS LOVES ME... YES, JESUS LOVES ME...
YES, JESUS LOVES ME FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.

Though my steps are oh, so slow,
With my hand in His I'll go
On through life, let come what may,
He'll be there to lead the way.

(CHORUS)
When the nights are dark and long,
In my heart He puts a song.
Telling me in words so clear,
"Have no fear, for I am near."

(CHORUS)
When my work on earth is done,
And life's victories have been won.
He will take me home above,
Then I'll understand His love.

(CHORUS)
I love Jesus, does He know?
Have I ever told Him so?
Jesus loves to hear me say,
That I love Him every day.

Hold Your Head High

Standing for what you believe in regardless of the odds against you, and the pressure that tears at your resistance . . . is Courage.

Stopping at nothing and doing what's in your heart that you know is right . . . is Determination.

Doing more than is expected, to make another's life a little more bearable, without uttering a single complaint . . . is Compassion.

Helping a friend in need, no matter the time or effort, to the best of your ability . . . is Loyalty.

Holding your head high And being the best you know you can be when life seems to fall apart at your feet, Facing each difficulty with the confidence that time will bring you better tomorrows, And never giving up . . . is Confidence.

Hold your head high and make your life better every day!
(Author Known to God)

Let's Not Suffer For Nothing

"...according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing."
(1 Peter 4:19)

To choose to suffer means that there's something wrong; to choose God's Will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God's will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. No saint dare interfere with the discipline of suffering in another saint.

The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. The people who do us good are never those who sympathize with us, they always hinder, because sympathy enervates. No one understands a saint but the saint who's nearest to the Savior. If we accept the sympathy of a saint, the reflex feeling is---Well, God's dealing hardly with me. That's why Jesus said self-pity was of the devil (see Matt. 16:23). Be merciful to God's reputation. It's easy to blacken God's character because God never answers back, He never vindicates Himself. Let's beware of the thought that Jesus needed sympathy in His earthly life; He refused sympathy from man because He knew far too wisely that no one on earth understood what He was after. He took sympathy from His Father only, and from the angels in heaven. (Cf. Luke 15:10.)

Notice God's unutterable waste of saints, according to the judgment of the world. God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say---God intends me to be here because I'm so useful. Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they'll glorify Him, and we're no judges at all...of where that is.

We Need Both Grace And Peace

Grace to help in our times of need; Peace to keep our heart and mind. The one as the blue vault of Heaven above us, with its smile of sun, and breath of air, and reviving rain; the other as the blue depths of the ocean, tranquil and calm. But neither of these blessed gifts can be ours till we've come to recognise God as our Father. If we're doubtful about that, we'll not dare to exercise the child's privilege of claiming what we want from the Father's stores; and we'll miss the unspeakable rest which breathes through the heart of the child, as it nestles to the father's side. Let's open our heart to the Spirit of Adoption...that He may flutter, dove-like, into its depths; and, in the cry Abba, bear witness with our spirit that we're a child of God, and if a child, then a participator in his Grace and Peace.

It Was Thus That Jesus Lived

Ephesians 1:3)
There was no lack of either Grace or Peace in his human life, because He dwelt ever in the bosom of the Father. He spake no word, and wrought no deed of mercy, that was not derived from his Father. He refused to make one stone into bread, because so sure that his Father could not forget Him, but knew just what was needed for the body which He had provided for Him. The often upturned eye witnessed to the attitude of his spirit. There was never a film of separation or cloud of misunderstanding, for the Father never left Him alone for a single instant; not even when He cried, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me." How could He, when Jesus did always those things which pleased Him? "Even so, Father," was the whisper with which He met all the incidents of his life, whether cloud or sun. Let's learn to live thus towards the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There must always be an impassable gulf between his relationship to the Father and ours. But, withal, there are points of contact. He waits to reveal to us the Father, according to his own words (Mat_11:27). He longs to reproduce in us, by the Holy Ghost, his own spirit of Sonship, and to bring us to know his Father as our Father, his God as ours. There's no joy, which more satisfies his soul for its travail, than that his own should come so to know the name and character of his Father, and so to abide in it, as that the love with which the Father loved Him, may be in them as a warm and blessed experience. When this purpose is accomplished in us, our Marahs will be turned to Elims; and we shall be full of peace, since our Father has mixed our cups, appointed our paths, set our lifetasks, and whispers to our secret hearts that He is well pleased with us in Jesus.

The Lost Sheep

Jesus made a revealing comment regarding his mission: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Most people, reading that, assume that "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" simply referred to the Jews---all of them. Well, did it?

What about Jesus' words in John 10:26 to unbelieving Jews? He said, "But ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep ...." Note carefully what Jesus didn't say. He didn't say that they weren't his sheep because they didn't believe. It was the other way around. Their unbelief only demonstrated the fact that they weren't his sheep.

In Matthew 10, Jesus instructed his disciples as he prepared to send them out to minister. In verses 5 and 6, he began by saying, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

In verse 16, he warned them, "Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." At least some of the Jews were "wolves"! It should be obvious that "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" didn't include all Jews.

Understanding the truth concerning "his sheep" makes a great difference in our understanding of the things of God. Sheep are sheep. Goats are goats. Wolves are wolves. Goats don't become sheep, nor sheep, goats. They're different spiritual kinds. Although they're often difficult to distinguish, time and circumstance make the different kinds manifest.

A "lost" sheep is still a sheep. The "finding" and "saving" of a lost sheep is a matter of time and the outworking of God's sovereign plan. The gospel doesn't gather goats and magically make sheep out of them.

Consider Jesus' parable in Luke 15:3-7. He spoke of a man who had 100 sheep, lost one, left the 99 and went after the lost one. The rescue of the lost sheep by the shepherd is compared with a sinner who repents.

One key is this: the man had 100 sheep. Jesus didn't say that he had 99 and wanted one more, so he went out hunting for a wandering sheep to add to his flock so he'd have 100. That, however, is how a lot of people see this story. They think of all sinners as lost sheep.

The lost sheep in this story, although he was lost and wandering, already belonged to the shepherd! He didn't know it but the shepherd did! He didn't seek the shepherd---the shepherd sought him. After finding him the shepherd referred to him as "my sheep which was lost" (verse 6).

Think about it! This is glorious truth! It is a picture not only of Christ's mission while on earth, but also of his ministry by the anointing down through the church age. Those who are truly converted to Christ were sheep long before they heard the gospel. In fact, God knew them before the foundation of the world! 2 Timothy 1:9-10. Ephesians 1:3-4. I Peter 1:2. Romans 8:28-29. Acts 15:18

Chastening

"Despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him."
(Hebrews 12:5)

It's very easy to quench the Spirit; we do it by despising the chastening of the Lord, by fainting when we're rebuked by Him. If we've only a shallow experience of sanctification, we mistake the shadow for the reality, and when the Spirit of God begins to check, we say---oh, that must be the devil.

Never quench the Spirit, and let's not despise Him when He says to us---"Don't be blind on this point any more; you're not where you thought you were. Up to now, I haven't been able to reveal it to you, but I'm revealing it now." When the Lord chastens us like that, let's let Him have His way. Let Him relate us rightly to God.

"Nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him." We get into sulks with God and say---"Oh, well, I can't help it; I did pray and things didn't turn out right, and I'm gonna give it all up." Think what would happen if we talked like this in any other domain of life!

Are we prepared to let God grip us by His power and do a work in us that's worthy of Himself? Sanctification's not our idea of what we want God to do for us; sanctification's God's idea of what He wants to do for us, and He has to get us into the attitude of mind and spirit where at any cost we'll let Him sanctify is wholly.

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