Into the Heart of God # 12

Oneness with God in the Heavenly Nature of Everything (continued)

On the journey something came to Abraham's mind. He looked at his wife, Sarah, and he said to her: 'Sarah, you know, you are a very beautiful woman, and when you get down into Egypt Pharaoh may take notice of you. You know, Sarah, you are not only my wife; you are also my sister, so if any questions arise about you when we are in Egypt, you just say that you are my sister.'

Now there are two things in that connection. Abraham was prepared to compromise his own wife to save his own life, and he was not only going down geographically, he was descending from the high level of principle to the low level of policy. When we sacrifice people for policy, we do not get out of our difficulties: we make them worse. Let me say to the young men and women, as to everybody, it is never a safe thing to compromise on people. If God has called you to Himself, He has called you on to heavenly ground, and that ground is the ground of heavenly principles. The peril of many a young man or young woman is to compromise with this world in order to gain some advantage, and to compromise is always a half-truth. It is what we call "a white lie." It was quite true that Sarah was Abraham's sister, but that was only half the truth. So Abraham resorted to a half-truth to gain some advantage, as he thought. We shall be tested sooner or later on this thing - as to whether we will compromise in order to gain some advantage in this world.

You can read what happened. God plagued Pharaoh because of what he did over Sarah, and Pharaoh said to Abraham: 'What is this you have done? You have told me a lie.' Abraham brought dishonor upon the name of the Lord before the world because of compromise. Pharaoh sent Abraham away and he had to take that long journey back to the place where he had built his altar. The altar always represents the Cross, and the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ always represents no compromise with this world. There is no place for a lie in the Cross of the Lord Jesus! Let us learn this lesson! To arrive at last in the heart of God we have to stand very strongly, even if we die for it, on the truth. We will come back to that again presently.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 13)