Humility

#1781

There is a striking analogy between the Israelites in the wilderness, on their journey to Canaan--and believers in the world, on their journey to Heaven. The history of the former, has been recorded mainly for the purpose of guiding and comforting the latter.

Dear brethren, we are now in the wilderness! This poor world is not our rest! We too have heard of a city of habitation, a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And many of us, I trust, have been separated from the world and united to that company ofpilgrims who have set their faces steadfastly to go up to the Jerusalem above.

God is our leader, as He was theirs. And as God is our leader, so our path through life is as really ordered and directed by Him, as was the way of the Israelites in the wilderness. True, we hear no audible voice from Heaven, directing our steps; but God leads us by His providence, shutting us up to a particular line of life, fixing the bounds of our habitation, determining our work, our connections, our success, by a variety of circumstances over which we feel that we have no control, and many of which are apparently trivial--but not one of them are by chanceor accidental. And as God is our leader, and as our path in life is prescribed and ordered by Him--so, if we belong to the number of His people, we may rest assured that He is leading us by the right way. 
 
Our experience, indeed, may often resemble that of the Israelites in the wilderness. God may seem to lead us in a circuitous and indirect way. We may be, we shall be, subjected totribulation. We must leave the world behind us, as the Israelites left the flesh pots of Egypt. We must encounter difficulties, and endure the assault of enemies, and sustain trials--such as will humble us and prove us, and show what is in our hearts. Our hearts, too, may be much discouraged because of the hardness of the way. It may seem a tedious, a dreary, a perplexing way--and, when faith is ready to fail, it may lead us to murmur against the Lord. 

There is an inheritance for us, as there was for them. Their inheritance in the land of Canaan--was but a type or shadow of the incorruptible, undefiled, unfading inheritance, reserved in Heaven for us. 

And seeing that God has opened up such a glorious prospect before us--oh! why should we doubt that He will lead us by the right way on our journey towards it. Why should we quarrel with any of His appointments here--if they are all designed to fit and prepare us for such a glorious destiny hereafter? 

Would we take the regulation of our life out of God's hands--and keep it in our own? 

Would we think it safer and better for us to be guided by our own will--rather than by His unerring wisdom and infinite love?

No, our safety is, that we are in God's hands! The Lord is our Shepherd, and we may rest assured, that however perplexing the path may be by which He conducts us--He will lead us like a flock through the wilderness; that while we are in it, goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life; and that in the end we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever!

"Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom!" There we shall be able to look back on all the way by which the Lord has led us in the wilderness--and we shall then see it to have been "the right way." And, in admiration and gratitude, we shall acknowledge with Moses, "In Your unfailing love You will lead the people You have redeemed. In Your strength You will guide them to Your holy dwelling!" Exodus 15:13

Just one of the great questions of my life, 85 years, which I plan to ask my blessed Lord when these sightless eyes bask in his glory.  Why life is so hard for those who believe and honor him? God rescued the three million Israelite slaves from bondage in Egypt into a wilderness journey to umbel them.  After slavery, Egyptian rule, one would think that they would have been umbel already.  Surely, they had rather to had been umbled in the "Promised Land" of milk and honey instead of the brier patch of that destitute wilderness of course God could have furnished millions of "fiery chariots" to deliver them from Egypt instead of showing them the passage way through the Red Sea.  Then, they had to conquer the seven civilizations occupying the Promised Land.  Never before in history has a walled city, Jericho, fallen just because people marched around it.  If any of your unbelieving friends question the authority or reality of God's word, there is just one 3 letter word to settle the matter, "Jew".  It is a matter of history.  Jericho, 16 miles from Jerusalem is still there.  This writer has been there, seen the archaeology.

God is boss, then as now, just demands our trust.  I have often wondered why there has been so little "fun" in my life, just hard work, hard times.  Why there was so little fun or relaxation in my hard working, tax paying, God fearing parent's lives, my grandparent's lives, so much of the world is having a good time...easy street...we love to read about the lifestyles of the rich and famous BUT, life here is so short.  Do you notice that everyday, when you reach my age, seems like Friday?  Eternity is forever, never ending blessings/colors/music/comfort beyond compare.  When will we learn that we do not think like God thinks, that we have no knowledge of what he has prepared for those who love him.  The way is broad for those on the way to hell where they will forever celebrate in heat and darkness, helplessness the lives they thought were so important here on earth.  Those who have claimed the narrow way like those of whom the earth was not worthy (Hebrews 11:38).  Know the difference.  

Intersections

This writer has been around the world eight times, traveled through every continent, almost every country. One interested in political geography knows that there are no two land masses exactly the same. This tortured earth is full of hills and valleys, but one thing you can be sure, all roads of communication have intersections, so cartography, delivery of mail, is more or less assured. Studying political geography, like oceanography, tells you about the growth of civilizations. Cities were built at bends and rivers, strategic bays. At every intersection of roads leading from these cities, and even in the cities themselves, places of commerce, stores, schoolhouses, church houses. Until recently, countries' which Christianity had reached, few intersections where you did not find a steeple. I found in the forty-eight Muslim countries, instead of church steeples, mosque minarets. In Europe, once a center of Christian activity in western civilization, churches and cathedrals, everywhere. In the past twenty years, thirty thousand mosques constructed, England, more mosques than churches. Capitalism of the west has paid for these mosques “via” oil rich empires of the middle east. Muslims attempt to build a mosque near a church, always higher than the church. If the church steeple goes up twelve stories, the mosque will extend thirteen in height.

Life is lived at intersections, physically, psychologically, and spiritually. Our greatest decisions are made at the intersections of life. God has never forgotten any promise He made you about any area of your life. He is always there, at the intersection before you get there, a pre-appointed time for Him to reach out to you

The teaching and preaching of Christianity is so simple... sin's ruin and Christ’s redemption, the fact that He has an all-seeing eye, an all-powerful hand. The modernists, agnostic pastors, church leaders, Christian colleges, have been so anxious to compromise with the world, to lead the Christian church straight to Sodom, that the simplicity of the gospel has been lost.

2Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

3Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

(Jeremiah 18:2-3).

There is so much to learn at the potter's house. The potter is in charge of the clay. (Romans 9:21) The potter is boss, just as God is boss in our lives. With his hands, he shapes the clay on the wheel. The potter determines everything. The speed of the process, never takes his eyes off the wheel. The potter does not allow the clay to talk back.

God does not warn us when He tests us. In history, the Bible, we are looking backward. The three million children of Israel, from slavery in Egypt, from testing in the desert, did not know why they were marching around Jericho, God did not give them the dignity of telling them why. Through Joshua they were told to march and keep their mouths shut but, as in crossing the red sea on dry land, the Jordan river on dry land, being fed fifteen tons of bread from heaven each day, they knew to trust, the Sovereignty of God, that He can do what He wants to do. Others, others than the blind, can learn to walk by faith not sight.

The black comedian, Bill Cosby, has done a marvelous, humorous sketch of Noah and God. God, telling Noah to build a ship the size of the Queen Mary in a land where it had never rained.

Perhaps the greatest truth from the absolutes and trusts of the potter's house, the price of Christ, His atonement. The field where broken pottery was thrown was paid for by the silver which church officials had given Judas for betrayal. Jesus Christ always receives the broken at the intersection, what better way to spend these 20 pieces of silver.

We sometimes wonder, from week to week, just how the world can get any crazier. Has God taken His eyes off the wheel? The world's most quoted writer, G.K. Chesterton, said, “What is wrong with the world?, I am. I am what is wrong with the world.” My favorite female singer of all time, Patsy Cline, sang it right:

If I could see the world
Thru the eyes of a child
What a wonderful world this would be
There'd be no trouble and no strife
Just a big happy life

With a bluebird in every tree

If I could see the world through the eyes of a child

• Patsy Cline