Elijah's Spirit Of Obedience

Then take another scene in the life of Elijah, namely, his last journey in company with Elisha, the record of which we have in 2 Kings 2.

Elijah said to Elisha, "Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me as far as Bethel."

Elisha refused to remain and they went to Bethel.

Again Elijah said, "Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho."

Elisha again refused to be dismissed and they two went to Jericho.

Then the same acts are repeated in the last step.

Now in all that you have a further mark of Elijah's abandonment to the Lord's interests.

He comes before us in the terms of a servant of the Lord under orders: "the Lord hath sent me", "the Lord hath sent me", "the Lord hath sent me."

He is moving on steadily by a progressive, spiritual advance.

He is moving on by his abandonment to the Lord's will, the Lord's command, the Lord's orders as to a servant. 

The point is that as a result of his obedience and perfect response of heart to every repeated, consecutive, progressive command of the Lord he eventually reached heavenly fulness... 

"The Lord hath sent me" Well, he will take that part of the journey. 

The Lord has said nothing beyond that, but He has made it clear that for the present so-and-so is His will. 

When that is accomplished the Lord says again, Now the next step is so-and-so. 

Nothing is given beyond that, but when that step is taken then the Lord is able to reveal the next step, and once revealed, in the obedience of a true servant, it is immediately followed. 

Each step leads to something else.

Each step of obedience makes fuller revelation and deeper meaning possible. 

Each response to the Lord leads into a greater fullness of the Lord. 

Thus, in that way of instant obedience to the will of the Lord as it is revealed bit by bit, step by step, course by course, Elijah at last reaches the point where he is caught up by a whirlwind into heaven, he reaches heavenly fullness.

Do you want to know the way to heavenly fullness? 

That is the way.

It is abandonment to the Lord in unquestioning obedience, the Lord having His place.

If the Lord says He wants a thing, then He has a right to what He wants...

His rights are bound up with my giving Him that. 

If the Lord wants me here or there, wants me to do this or that, then the Lord has some interest in that... 

The Lord is going to secure something by it. 

It is not a question as to whether it is convenient for me to go to Jericho, or Bethel, or Gilgal today... 

Or how it serves my interests... 

But solely of the Lord's pleasure. 

If the Lord has something invested in that, the only consideration for me is that the Lord should have my obedience to get what He is after. 

That is jealousy for the Lord... 

And how that leads to ever growing fullness, to the heavenly fulness at last!

The Lord does not ask us to take the whole course in one bound. 

He graduates His requirements: today so much, tomorrow so much. 

But as He makes known His will we must remember that He is not doing it, in the first instance, for our good, but for His Own ends... 

To get His Own rights, and our good is always bound up with the Lord coming into His place. 

You may take any spiritual crisis in your life and, if you analyze it, you will prove that to be the principle. 

When you have come to a place with the Lord, where a crisis has been reached... 

And in that situation have pleaded with the Lord to do something... 

Asked the Lord, prayed to the Lord for something which would be for your good... 

Am not I right in saying that you have not found the Lord answering in the way you expected. 

His power has been restrained until you have come to the point where you have said, Nevertheless, not my will but Thine. 

If this cannot be for Thy glory, I am content, do not grant it; Thy glory is to govern this hour.

It is in that way that you have got a clear path through with the Lord.

But that principle is wrought into us.

It is not a pretense, it has to be a very real working law, by which all self interest is brought to death and the Lord becomes the sole object of our desire.

Then we get a clear way through.

Is that not true?

How often we have been held up on that very thing.

We have been praying with our own interests and ends in view, and the Lord has not come in on that ground at all.

He has waited until we have changed the position and come on to His ground.

So you see that Elijah right through his life embodies this principle of jealousy for the Lord's interests. 

~T. Austin Sparks

Principles For Dying To Selfishness

Humiliation is the very character of the Christian life, and we must appreciate every opportunity of walking in humility. 

Hence when reproaches, unkind treatment, poverty, loneliness, persecution, mental distresses, seeming failure in our work, disappointments, deep perplexities, or any disagreeable thing comes to us, we are to calmly face these things, as appropriate occasions for self-denial. 

We see the omnipotence of God rule over us in our circumstances. 

We can thereby in these humiliations more clearly manifest the character of Christ and walk in the will of God.

Another effectual principle for self-denial is to be exceedingly careful not to receive human honors or praise into our hearts. 

If we are worthy of having enemies, who will seek opportunities of humiliating us, we will also have some friends who will love and honor us. 

As a rule, the more bitter our enemies are, the stronger our friends will love us, and there will be times when we will be honored in spite of ourselves. 

But if we open our hearts to receive this honor and in our thoughts feed upon it as a social honey...or if we allow human praise to inflate our thoughts, it will instantly breed a human self-esteem, and this becomes a hot-bed of the self-righteous pride.

It requires great humiliation and divine reconciliation for evangelists, preachers, teachers, and singers, and writers, not to stumble and fall at this point.

In everything we are to seek nothing for our own selfish purposes, and seek rather the will of God in everything we think and do. 

This is to become a daily habit of our motives and intentions...

To distrust our fleshly impulses...

To look to the Scriptures for the most minute guidance in all things.

2Ti 3:16  All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Mark 8:34  And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

It is only when we are daily crucified to the carnal nature that we can bear our daily cross in the true spirit of our Master. 

It is by the denial or death of sinful selfishness that we enter the state of perfect obedience in which the daily trials and crosses can be borne in deep fellowship with Jesus. 

The very order of the words our Saviour uses, indicates principles for our daily experience....

Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Here we have:

First, an attitude of crucifixion of the carnal nature, the mortification of the flesh...

Then the enlightened soul bearing its daily sufferings and hindrances by faith...

Which brings it into a better sustained fellowship with Christ.

It is this daily cross which assists in our practical sanctification, according to our love of obedience for the glory of God.

~G. D. Watson

The Word Of Warning!

But there is the other aspect, and we must not leave it on one side in a desire not to touch on unpleasant things...we must be faithful. 

This statement occurs in the Word of God accompanied, as you notice, by a shadow on more than one occasion. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in turning away from the living God". 

Take heed! It is a word of warning.

Now notice the connection. 

If you look at the third chapter of the letter to the Hebrews you will see that the point in view was that full purpose of God which He had fixed for His people. 

The illustration was taken from the life of Israel in the wilderness in view of the land. 

God's purpose for Israel was their coming to the land, with all its fullness, all its riches and its wealth, and its blessing...

But through unbelief they fell short of the land and died in the wilderness. 

You see the designation "the living God" is used in that connection, which surely means, if it means anything at all, that the very fact that He is the living God signifies that His purpose and desire for His own is all that He can give - fullness! 

That is what is bound up with a living God. 

These other gods are always taking away, always robbing, always impoverishing. 

The gods of the heathen, the gods of the world are robber gods, they would rob you of everything. 

This living God is supremely characterized by His giving, and ever giving. 

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son... 

He who delivered him up for us all, shall he not also with him freely give us all things. 

The mark of the living God is beneficence, fullness of thought, and desire, and Purpose, and will for His own, to bring them in. 

To fall away from the living God means to fall away from all that He has purposed, designed and desired for us, and hence the word of warning.

But let us note this. 

The Word does not say, Take heed, brethren, lest you fall away from the blessing, lest you miss the good. 

The words used are "turning away from the living God". 

All our blessing is bound up with Himself. He is our blessing. 

In other words, to know Him as the living God is life eternal. 

This is life  eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou didst send.

To know Him as the living God is fullness of blessing. 

So the warning is lest we, through unbelief, turn away from the living God. 

It is the question as to God that arises in the heart, the question, the doubt as to God, that robs us. 

Then the blessing is gone, because in doubting God we rear a fence between Him and ourselves.

Ah, but there is a still more solemn word in this connection. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God". 

That is the second passage with a shadow upon it. 

Now let us be solemn and quite frank. 

You and I have not to deal with men in the final issue. 

We have not to reckon with people, with teaching, as such, with places, with any thing...

If you or I refuse truth, refuse light, withhold obedience, hide something from the Lord; if you and I are in any way unfaithful, it is with the living God that we have to do. 

It was a startling thing to Achan when his hidden, secret sin was tracked right down in that amazing way. 

Look at the hundreds of thousands in Israel, and one man among the hundreds of thousands does something which God had to uncover. 

That man sees an inquiry set up, and watches it being narrowed down from the multitude to the tribe, from the tribe to one of the families in the tribe, until his own personal tent is reached, and he, one man in hundreds of thousands, comes under the finger of God. 

Achan perhaps thought that he could default in the midst of so big a crowd and it would not be noticed, that he could deceive the elders of Israel and not be discovered. 

Achan had forgotten that it was the living God with whom he had to do. 

Such a thing becomes an occasion for that solemn warning, that we should be reminded that "it is an awful thing to fall into the hands of the living God".

You and I, if we are honest, need never fall into the hands of the living God in that way...

But the point is that anything and everything that is secret in our lives, which represents sin, disobedience, refusal of light, anything that is not of God, brings us into the hands of the living God...

It is with Him that we have to do sooner or later. 

Oh no, you have not even to reckon in the first or last place with those who are in authority over you in the Lord. 

The most blessed relief comes to such to recognize this, and it is a relief to us all to know it, that the responsibility in the final issue is with God, and that every one has to reckon with God. 

It is a terrible and yet a helpful thing, a thing which is a strength to us even when we give the Lord's message, to know that people have not to answer to us. 

They may take an attitude over that message toward the one who gives it, and say, Oh, that is only so-and-so's interpretation, it is only what he says! 

Well, you do not get away with it like that. 

If that should happen to be the truth of God, it is not with the preacher that you have to reckon, it is with the living God.

That brings a terrible responsibility upon us all. 

Let us remember that for all that the Lord gives us, it is to a living God that we have to answer. 

Oh, the Lord is looking right into our hearts, and He knows. 

It is impossible for us to deceive Him. 

It cannot be done. 

He knows our inward hearts. 

He knows our home and what is going on there.  

He knows us in our business life.  

He knows us in our relationships with one another, just what we are and what is make believe. 

Sooner or later we are going to come up against the Lord on every point of hypocrisy, deception, sin.

Now it entirely depends upon our attitude toward the Lord whether the fact that He with whom we have to do, is a living God, is one which brings us comfort, or whether it strikes terror into our hearts. 

This word must be said. 

The Lord knows who it is for. 

You and I are dealing with the living God. 

That is a blessed fact, but it is also an awful fact. 

So let us always remember that there is nothing secret, nothing hidden, nothing that we can cover from Him. 

We cannot take a false position.

There is a living God on the spot all the time, who sees right through it all...

And presently He will say: Now, let us have that mask off...

Let us have that attempt at self-deception put aside...

Let us face this thing out. I know all about it! 

I have known about it all along; you have never been able to cover it from Me for a moment! 

He is the living God. 

That word "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" is a terrible word for those who fight God...

And I think it is especially meant for such as oppose themselves to God.

Think of what is going on in this world today. 

I have been reading a book called "The War Against God". 

The whole history of long centuries of war against God is given, and it shows how that is developing today to such a tremendous extent that whole nations are making it their one object to throw God out of the world, to get rid of God, to have nothing of God in their national life. 

Well, that is one side of this thing, but we can say it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; not an imaginary God, not a traditional God, not the God of the religious systems, however hoary their history, but the living God. 

The fact is going to come back upon such. He holds the nations in His hand.

It might be that there is someone resisting God, fighting God, rebelling against God, who imagines - though perhaps it has never been put into words, into clear thinking - that he can get the better of God. 

Oh no, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God"; and that is where we are all to come sooner or later.

Can you rejoice that you are in the hands of the living God? 

There is no need to be afraid of that.

It may be the most blessed thing that ever can be enjoyed, to be in the hands of the living God. 

On the other hand, it may be the most terrible thing, a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

For the unbelieving and the unfaithful it is neither a welcome thing nor a blessed thing to know that the God with whom we have to do, and who has to do with us, is a living God. 

~T. Austin Sparks

The Responsibility Of Choice

Mark 10:21  Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

Mark 10:22  And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. 

Our Lord Jesus looked after the rich young ruler as he walked away, but He did not follow him or attempt to coerce him. 

The dignity of the young man's humanity forbade that his choices should be made for him by another. 

To remain a man he must make his own moral choices; and Christ knew this and permitted him to go his own chosen way. 

If his human choice took him at last to hell, at least he went there a man..

And it is better for the moral universe that he should do so than that he should be jockeyed to a heaven he did not choose, a soulless, will-less automation. 

God will take nine steps toward us, but He will not take the tenth. 

He will incline us to repent, but He cannot do our repenting for us. 

It is of the essence of repentance that it can only be done by the one who committed the act to be repented of. 

God can wait on the sinning man...

He can withhold judgment...

He can exercise long-suffering to the point where He appears "lax" in His judicial administration...

But He cannot force a man to repent. 

To do this would be to violate the man's freedom and void the gift God originally bestowed upon him. 

Where there is no freedom of choice there can be neither sin nor righteousness, because it is of the nature of both that they be voluntary. 

However good an act may be, it is not good if it is imposed from without. 

The act of imposition destroys the moral content of the act and renders it null and void.

~A. W. Tozer

Moving, isn't it...

Jesus loved the young man who sadly went away. 

That rich young ruler made his choice as we make ours. 

Others cannot choose for us or repent for us. 

We are personally responsible for our choices.

O God, so important are the choices before me. 

You have given me personal responsibility of choice. 

Thank You for the revelation of Your will to guide me and the presence of Your Spirit to enable me!

What Is Faith?

Remember that faith is not a noble quality found only in superior men.

It is not a virtue attainable by a limited few. 

It is not the ability to persuade ourselves that black is white or that something we desire will come to pass if we only wish hard enough. 

Faith is simply the bringing of our minds into accord with the truth. 

It is adjusting our expectations to the promises of God in complete assurance that the God of the whole earth cannot lie. 

A man looks at a mountain and affirms, "That is a mountain." 

There is no particular virtue in the affirmation. 

It is simply accepting the fact that stands before him and bringing his belief into accord with the fact. 

The man does not create the mountain by believing, nor could he annihilate it by denying. 

And so with the truth of God. 

The believing man accepts a promise of God as a fact as solid as a mountain and vastly more enduring. 

God's Word is true whether we believe it or not. 

Human unbelief cannot alter the character of God. 

Faith is subjective, but it is sound only when it corresponds with objective reality. 

The man's faith in the mountain is valid only because the mountain is there; otherwise it would be mere imagination and would need to be sharply corrected to rescue the man from harmful delusion. 

So God is what He is in Himself. 

He does not become what we believe. 

"I AM That I AM." 

We are on safe ground only when we know what kind of God He is and adjust our entire being to the holy concept.

~A. W. Tozer

Walk In The Spirit And Ye Shall Not...

                                             
Now, this law of the Spirit is the principle of the walk of the Christian. 

 

The walk of the Christian is supposed to be a walk in sanctification; there must be a sanctified walk. 

 

That is what it means to walk in the Spirit. 

 

The definite statement is: "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16)."

 

Are you struggling, striving, fighting, not to fulfil the flesh? 

 

That is negative; you will get nowhere along that line. 

 

The way not to is to do something positive. The positive is the answer to the negative. "Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not...". 

 

It is a great principle of deliverance. God's way is always a positive way. 

 

We are occupied so much with the negative, striving and wrestling not to do this, to stop this and that. 

 

And we do not find that we get very far in that, do we? 

 

The provision of the Lord is: "Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not...".

What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? 

 

Well, it means to consort with the Spirit. You say, what does that mean? 

 

It is best understood by recognizing what we do. 

 

We, by nature, consort with the flesh: we are all the time consorting with ourselves - our poor miserable selves; occupied with ourselves, talking about ourselves, praying about ourselves; keeping ourselves, our miserable selves always in front of us. 

 

When we are so continually occupied with what we are in ourselves, that is consorting with ourselves, is it not? 

 

How far do we get that way? Nowhere at all! We make no progress at all by consorting with ourselves.

 

And I am afraid there are some Christians who consort with the devil. 

 

It is not always easy to distinguish between ourselves and the devil, but you know he is always talking to us through ourselves. 

 

If there is something that is wrong with us, he lets us know it. 

 

If there is something that troubles us, he adds to the trouble, he accentuates. 

 

Give him a little bit of his own ground, that he himself created for himself - for he created that ground of the old fallen Adam for himself and for his own purposes, to work out his own designs...

 

Give him a little bit of that which he has made for himself, and see what he will do with it. 

 

He will make everything of it, and it will not be long before people who do that will find that they are in terrible bondage to the devil through their own selves - their own make-up and faults and weaknesses and sinfulness. 

 

And that is consorting with the devil. 

 

He comes and accuses, and you listen; he makes a suggestion, and you take it on - you almost enter into a discussion with him. 

 

You consort with him, or you consort with yourself: and that is walking after the flesh.

 

Don't consort with the flesh, don't consort with the devil, have no truck with them at all! 

 

Consort with the Spirit! The Spirit is the One who has come alongside: the very meaning of His Name, 'Advocate' or 'Comforter' (Gk. parakletes) is One who is called alongside. 

 

Consort with the One alongside. 

 

Have your communion with the Spirit. 

 

Challenge yourself, and challenge the enemy, on this: Is this really of the Spirit, does this correspond to the Word of God, is this true according to the gospel of grace?

 

If the answer is: No, of course it is not! then repudiate it! 

 

That is consorting with the Spirit, always moving on the ground of grace, the Spirit of grace.

 

That is a very simple beginning, but it indicates that the Holy Spirit is positive. 

 

All that other is negative: it is pulling back, it is draining, dragging; it is all a big 'No'. 

 

The Spirit never comes on that ground; He is against anything like that. 

 

As in the first creation He moved against the void, so in the new creation He has nothing to do with, and no interest in, vacuums, voids, or anything that is negative. 

 

Take positive ground, and you will find the Holy Spirit is with you. 

 

Forsake your negative ground in your spiritual life.

 

~T. Austin Sparks~