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Friday, October 3, 2014

Into the Heart of God # 5

Oneness With God In a Crisis Regarding the Natural Man (continued)

This was the first delay in the progress of this spiritual pilgrimage. They came to Haran, and there they stayed until Terah died. Terah, it says, was a very old man, and "the old man" does take a long time to die! But it was not until Terah was the main factor in this spiritual  hold-up, but even when the crisis of Terah was passed, there was still something clinging to Abraham. It was this man Lot, who was a perfect nuisance all his life: this something of the old life which continues to cling and is always threatening to hold up spiritual  progress. The whole history of Lot reveals that which can limit the purpose of God. Lot ought never to have been there, and his presence is always a menace to the spiritual life. That will create the necessity for another crisis, for the last thing that belongs to that old natural life has to be cut off. Lot will have to go.

What is this man Lot? Well, you remember the crisis between Abraham and Lot, when their herdsmen quarreled among themselves and Abraham, who represents the spirit of grace, said to Lot: "Let thee be no strife between your herdsmen and mine. Lift up your eyes and see the whole land. It lies before you. You choose what you would like and I will have what is left. If you go one way I will go the other." So Lot lifted up his eyes and surveyed the whole country, and seeing the well-watered land around the great cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, he said: "I choose that."

So Lot moved his tent in the direction of the city of Sodom. He pitched it for a time outside the city, and then the attractions of that city drew him inside. He yielded to the call of the city of Sodom. Not satisfied with getting outside, and then getting inside, he had to become an important person in the city, and so we eventually find him sitting in the gate of the city, the gate being the place where all the important people met to discuss the affairs of the city. So Lot is at last an important official, and it was not long before trouble began. Certain kings made a raid with their armies upon the cities of the Plain, and Lot, with his whole family and all that he had, was carried away captive, and it was Abraham who had to go and rescue him. Then Lot went back into the city and became so much a part of it that when the angels came down to declare that Sodom and Gomorrah were going to be destroyed by fire, he was so reluctant to leave that the angels had to take him by the hand and pull him out.

Well, we are all ready to condemn Lot. We think that he was a poor sort, and not much good. But really he is only a type of the natural life in all of us! Anyone who really knows himself or herself knows that there is something like that in their natures. It takes the very mercy and power of God to get us separated from ourselves. Yes, this self-life is a terribly strong thing and will always gravitate in the opposite direction to the spirit. It will always work to keep us back from going on with God, and there has to be a very real crisis in this matter. That crisis came in the life of Abraham when Lot was separated from him. On the very same day that Lot decided to leave Abraham, and Abraham was separated from Lot, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said: "Lift up not thine eyes," and He showed him all the universe and said: "I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth" (Genesis 13:14-18). That is only another way of saying: 'Now we can go right on to the fullness of My purpose.'

The great crisis of separation between what is of the spirit and what is of the flesh has taken place, and that is the great crisis of the sixth chapter of the Letter to the Romans. You must remember that that chapter was written to Christians, not to people who were still back in Ur of the Chaldees, that is, to people who were still in the world. It was to people who had taken the first great step in decision for the Lord but had evidently not recognized all that that step involved. The Apostle Paul is not saying: 'You must be baptized as a testimony of the fact that you have come right out for the Lord,' but: 'We were crucified with Christ. We were buried with Him in baptism.' That is what is meant when we were baptized. Our old man was crucified with Christ - but we have brought out Terah and Lot and all the rest with us. We have not recognized all that it meant when God said: "Get thee out!" There has to be this new crisis in our lives when we not only say farewell to the world, but we say farewell to ourselves: "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I" (Galatians 2:20).

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 6)

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