Prayer is the Secret_ Leonard Ravenhill

THE HUSBANDMAN AND BUILDER

THE HUSBANDMAN AND BUILDER
Clifford Ogden

IN the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter three the latter part of verse 9, the Apostle Paul speaks of believers as being "God's husbandry; God's building". There is a dual metaphor here; what the purist might object to -- a mixed metaphor. Those who are able to study the original carefully tell us that the Apostle was not always correct in his syntax. He would begin a sentence and, carried away in spirit by the immensity of his subject, would fail to complete it. Well, thank God for his marvellous deviations!

Here we have a very helpful mixing of metaphors, not a unique instance with the Apostle. In the Ephesian and Colossian letters he has made use of this bringing together of two quite [10/11] distinct similes: Ephesians 3 verse 17 speaks of our being "rooted and grounded" (we root a tree and ground, or found, a building), and Colossians speaks of our being "rooted and built up in Him."

The Apostle Peter in his first letter makes use of the same double construction, slightly varying the allusion. He speaks of our being "living stones"; not stones separated by mortar, but stones integrated by a life that is not our own.

Let us consider the first part -- "Ye are God's husbandry" -- God's tilled field.

As a basis for our meditation, let us recall the content of the fifteenth chapter of John's Gospel -- "I am the true Vine, and my Father is the husbandman".

FRUIT, MORE FRUIT, MUCH FRUIT

The husbandman's sole occupation and objective is fruit. The wood of the vine, maybe alone among all trees, is useless for any other purpose than to bear fruit.

Three times in the chapter we have the reference to the fruit -- verse 2 "fruit"; verse 2 "more fruit"; verse 5 and again in verse 8 "much fruit".

To progress from "fruit" to "much fruit" demands the intervention of the Husbandman and His pruning knife, there is no other way. We should note that the heavenly Vinedresser does not spend His energy on fruitless branches, it is the branch that is already bearing fruit to which He directs His attention; the fruitless branch is discarded. "Every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it".

So let us take comfort. If we are in the hands of God; if we are suffering the discipline of God, or have suffered it in times past; if in some future day we are subjected to what Peter calls "the trial of our faith", let us remember that it is sons whom the Father chastens; and to be without chastening would be to bear the stigma of being bastards. The very fact that God has turned His hand upon us is the sign of His interest, and the earnest of the accomplishing of His purpose. He would have fruit and fruit in abundance.

"MY FATHER IS THE HUSBANDMAN"

Again, let us note that the heavenly husbandman is The Father: "My Father is the Husbandman". This is not some cold business concern, occupied only with profit, interested only in the proceeds, this is a family concern. The Father's interest is not in the procedure, but in the "afterward" -- the much fruit (Hebrews 12:10-11). So, when we are going through the mill, let us set our gaze where the Lord has His, on the "afterward" with its peaceable fruit of righteousness. Let us remember that He says that it is His Father with whom we have to do; and remember, too, that on the resurrection morning He gave us the assurance that He is not only His Father, but our Father.

If this be true, what will not this Husbandman lavish upon His vineyard, on this Vine upon which He has opened heaven and declared "This is my beloved Son in whom is my delight"? What loving care will be lavished upon this Vine and its branches. There is no limit to what the Father will do for us in our abiding in His Son.

Nevertheless, He is a Father, and no father is worthy of the name if he neglects his children in the matter of discipline -- child training. We live in an age when the word discipline is a dirty word. But the age is a sufficient commentary on the necessity of discipline.

"(I speak in foolishness)" 2 Corinthians 11:21

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INSPIRED PARENTHESES (17)

"(I speak in foolishness)" 2 Corinthians 11:21


IN considering these New Testament parentheses I have omitted some which did not appear to be very meaningful to us. Being about to pass over this aside of Paul's in the same way, I was checked from doing so by the appearance of a very similar parenthesis in verse 23 -- "(I speak as one beside himself)". The words used are not the same, but they have the same thrust of meaning. As repetitions in Scripture are always important and a divine method of emphasis, I took another look at the apostle's interjection.

HE makes no secret of the fact that he considers indulgence in boasting a crass folly amounting to feeble-mindedness. Everything he tells us about his standing and sufferings is perfectly true, and much of it we would not know of apart from these references, but still he would rather have avoided the subject altogether. He feels impelled to break his silence about personal affairs, but insists that it is a foolishness akin to madness which provokes such statements.

IN the book of Proverbs there are two adjacent verses which seem to be mutually contradictory: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him", and "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit" (Proverbs 26:4 & 5). Quite clearly the wise man gave these two balanced injunctions so that first of all we might be careful to avoid the contagion of other men's foolishness, but at the same time we must be ready to descend to a silly realm of reasoning if by doing so we can deal with the conceit of those who are wise in their own eyes.

EVIDENTLY Paul felt that the occasion required him to follow the second piece of advice. To use his own phrase, he "speaks as a fool" in order to make evident the madness of this tendency to boast in men and their claims to distinction. As he has already said, there is great unwisdom in measuring ourselves by ourselves and comparing ourselves with ourselves (2 Corinthians 10:12). The only valid standard of measurement is the Lord Jesus Himself, and the moment we begin to compare ourselves with Him we have to blush at the enormity of our shortcomings.

THIS, then, seems to explain the apostle's motive in speaking so much of himself and his doings, He openly admits to the mad folly of it all, praying however that by it the foolish Corinthians will be shocked into turning from their silly infatuation with men and their imagined cleverness in glorying in man.

THERE is often the same strange tendency to make much of certain men among Christians of our day, and too often a consequent denigration of other faithful servants of God. We are appalled by the idea of the Corinthians' regarding Paul as a fool. From our objective viewpoint it merely proves their own utter folly. At the time, though, they felt themselves rather clever and had to be told that it is always wrong to glory in men. "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (10:17). That is true wisdom. All else, whether glorying in ourselves or in others, is crazy foolishness.

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NICODEMUS

SEPTEMBER 1st

NICODEMUS    Reading: John 3:1-5.

If the disciples were present at this nocturnal interview they must have marvelled that the Lord Jesus dealt so uncompromisingly with this leader whose support might have given them some standing in the religious world. He who had welcomed men like Matthew now sent Nicodemus away with the firm insistence that he could only be accepted on the basis of new birth. Nicodemus wanted to bring his own knowledge and religious experience to enrich the apostolic band, but the Lord Jesus could not accept such an offer. Another nameless ruler who wished to contribute his material wealth was similarly rejected (Mark 10:22). With Christ we either begin at zero or we do not begin at all. Until Nicodemus had learned this lesson there was no alternative but to go back into the night.

From 'Daily Thoughts' by Harry Foster. [83/84]

WHY GO ON PRAYING?

WHY GO ON PRAYING?
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"And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: and he looked toward Sodom ... and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Genesis 19:27-28.

ABRAHAM'S dawn visit to the hallowed spot overlooking the plains of Jordan must have brought a deep sense of disappointment to his heart. On the previous day he had met the Lord face to face on that very spot. He had been taken into the divine confidence and, with a fine mixture of bold faith and deep humility, he had pleaded for Sodom to be spared. He had been obliged to return to his tent at Mamre without any conclusive promise from the Lord, and may well have wondered if there had been any use in praying about such a matter. He was, however, a [97/98] man of great faith, so he made an early morning visit to the place of prayer to discover what answer had been given to his earnest pleadings.

All those who have suffered the pain of having no apparent answer to their prayers will realise with what disappointment and dismay he must have looked out across the plain only to be confronted with a dreadful spectacle of fiery destruction. We are not told how he felt -- some griefs are too tragic for words -- nor are we told how long he gazed in despair at the fury of that vast furnace. Did he go back to his tent feeling baffled and rejected? Did the tempter whisper words of unbelief, as he often does to us? Was this perhaps the beginning of that age-old question: 'Why go on praying'? We do not know.

"(For she was the sister of Ahaziah)" 2 Chronicles 22:11

OLD TESTAMENT PARENTHESES (17)
"(For she was the sister of Ahaziah)" 2 Chronicles 22:11

IN Bible Quizzes not many people would be able to identify Jehosheba or, as the Chronicler calls her, Jehoshabeath, yet she made a vital contribution to divine history, for it was she who saved and sheltered the one tiny living link in the Davidic dynasty which was left after the wicked Athaliah had murdered all the other descendants of King Ahaziah.

SHE was Ahaziah's sister, so we are told. That means that she was the aunt of the infant Joash. She was only an 'auntie', but I suggest that she was the most famous aunt in the Bible. Her husband, Jehoiada, was God's instrument for establishing little Joash on the throne and was a tremendous influence for good in the royal court so long as he lived. This was so much the case that he was given the unique experience for a commoner: "They buried him ... among the kings" (2 Chronicles 24:16).

JEHOIADA was the prominent figure and he got the limelight, but he could have done nothing if his wife had not first taken responsibility for safe-guarding her baby nephew by hiding him and his nurse in her own bedroom.

LATER he was smuggled into the house of the Lord. That was a master stroke. I wonder if it was her idea. The house of God was the one place which the ungodly Athaliah would not wish to enter. This move must have meant that Jehosheba's part was only a brief bridging operation which gave her no more part in the matter and little if any recognition. Perhaps this parenthesis, which only repeats the twice-given information that she was the daughter of King Jehoram in another way, may serve to ensure that she is remembered. Somehow aunts fail to find much place in the Scriptures.

TO me she stands as the prototype of all those godly aunts who play such an important part in the lives of their young nephews and nieces. During my lifetime I have often noted and appreciated the great value of an aunt's loving and prayerful concern. I would like to think that King Joash remembered how much he was indebted to this aunt of his, but I doubt it. Never mind! God saw! God had it written down in His inspired Word. And we do well to pay tribute to the woman who stood in the gap for God when the whole future of the Davidic throne was so direly threatened.

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God's Call to the Life Above

God's Call to the Life Above  by T. Austin-Sparks "They that trust in the Lord Are as mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, So the Lord is round about his people, From this time forth and for evermore." Psalm 125:1-2 Psalms 120 to 134 form a little volume of their own, called the Psalms or Songs of Ascent. They tell of the climb up out of the deep, dark valley on to the sunny heights, which is where the Lord always desires His people to be. Psalm 84 speaks of passing through the valley of weeping, but in that connection we ought to underline the two words "passing through", for this valley is never meant to be the dwelling place of the people of God but only a passage through which they pass. Zion, the mountain home, is where God wants His people to abide. It is surely instructive to note that the Lord established periodic ascents as an ordinance in Israel; all their males had to go up to Jerusalem three times in every year. God meant these going-up ordinances to be governmental in nature; that is, the people of Israel were not to be governed by the plains or valleys, but to be a people of the mountains. They might have to spend time, perhaps much time, down below but their normal life was continually interrupted by the command to go up. Their life, their real life, was up in the high places. If we could have joined their caravans as three times a year they made ready and got on the march, leaving the valleys and the plains and going on the upward way to Jerusalem, we would have found that these journeys had a tremendous influence on the life of the people. These songs, for instance, became songs for all time; they were provided for the ascents of those particular occasions, but they were not reserved for the three times a year, becoming the perpetual songs of Israel in which we ourselves find much of abiding value. This is because the Lord's mind for His people is that they should not abide in the deep and shadowy places, though from time to time they may have to pass through the valleys, but that they should be a people of the heights, with their lives governed by that which is above and not by what is below. I have been very much impressed with the large place which mountains had in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, as may be verified in Matthew's Gospel, which begins in chapter 5 with the Mount of Instruction and finishes in chapter 28 with the Mount of Commission. It can be noted that all through the Gospel the peak events were associated with mountains, as though these found an answer, a response, in the very heart and nature of our Lord. Is it not true that Jesus came down and passed through this valley of weeping in order to meet us and lift us up out of it? His whole life, in every aspect and activity of praying, teaching and working, was a life on a rising plane, a lifting, returning move to heaven which would take back with Him as many others as possible. There was nothing in the low level of this world's ways to give Him any pleasure, so it is not surprising that He loved the mountain heights. The very nature and spirit of the Lord Jesus was a complete contradiction of the natural course of human movement which is steadily slipping lower and lower. The Lord Jesus is in direct contrast to this; the whole effect and influence of His presence anywhere being to lift upwards. He only came by way of this valley of tears to lift us up out of it.

Psalm 131 GIVING UP

ON THE WAY UP (12)
Psalm 131    GIVING UP

A further sign of the growing maturity of the pilgrim is his humility. The use of the word "weaned" may seem to contradict this, but as it is placed in the context of his claim not to be haughty or to have lofty eyes, it will repay further consideration.

I have used the title "Giving up". My dictionary explanation of what it means to be weaned is "to be reconciled to the want of anything"; so the psalmist has learned to do without.

WHAT is more he has learned not to complain about it, but has quietened both his lips and his soul. The song is sung to the Lord alone. It is not an essay in self-congratulation but a simple assurance to the Lord of his state of heart as he journeys on his upward way.

THERE had been a period in his life when he could rightly expect to be carried and cared for, only needing to squall out in infantile and demanding protest in order to be petted and comforted. The Christian life can begin like that and alas, sometimes it can go on far too long in the same way. Those concerned expect every discomfort to be attended to and every prayer answered at their first appeal.

THE pilgrim discloses that a rather abrupt moment had occurred in his life, the soothing nourishment no longer being provided and the embracing arms giving place to an invitation to sit at the family table for his meals. From then on it was no use his crying out for milk or demanding that his mother should do everything for him; he had to reach out his own hands and learn to appropriate and masticate his food. All of which surely has a spiritual counterpart for every believer who is on the upward way. His joy in the Lord is not less but more. Like the weaned child keeping very close to the mother whom he has learned to look to, he simply continues the love relationship in a more understanding and responsible way.

BEING but recently weaned, he has not yet entered that adolescent period when everything is questioned: "Neither do I exercise myself in things too wonderful for me". It is a picture of happy contentment, this pilgrim with no complaints and no problems. He will go far on his journey.

NOW had this been fictional poetry, I imagine that this would have been very early on in the series of Songs of Ascents. It rather suggests an early stage of life and hints at immaturity. Interestingly enough it was David himself who composed this psalm. Far from describing immaturity, it sings of a most blessed and desirable condition of heart and soul. The one who is content to recognise his own littleness and ignorance in divine things and yet who chooses discipline and responsibility in his life of fellowship with the Lord is what a very true Israelite should be, and should go on being right into eternity. "From this time forth and for evermore".

WEANING or giving up does not in itself sound attractive, but in this case it seems to indicate a faith which is not always demanding and enquiring but content just to be stilled and quietened in the near presence of the Lord. Discipline and responsibility are to be the features of the man who is on the way up.