"Bring Us Not Over Jordan"

"Bring Us Not Over Jordan"

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, July 1927, Vol. 5-7.

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• Langua"Bring Us Not Over JordaLby T. Austin-First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, July 1927, Vol. 5-7.

"Wherefore, said they, if we have found grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan" (Numbers 32:5).

That is the request of two-and-a-half tribes, the tribes of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh. It takes you right to the heart of this extraordinary phase of Israel's history. It is quite impossible to study the whole subject of God's plan for Israel without seeing beyond a shadow of a doubt that God's purpose for Israel was that they should as a whole, in entirety go over Jordan and possess the land. That was His covenant with Abraham, confirmed to Isaac and Jacob. The whole programme of God for Israel lay inside of Canaan, over Jordan.

We have already seen in our previous studies in the book of Joshua and the letter to the Ephesians the spiritual significance of this history. Canaan, bounded by Jordan, clearly represents the life of fulness in Christ, and Jordan represents the Cross of Christ, as it invariably through the Bible marks that clear, distinct division between the old life, where self, the flesh, the world are still uncrucified and characterised by defeat; and the new life, where God Himself is supreme in the midst of His people, characterising their life by victory and enrichment.

Now, that being the historical event with its spiritual interpretation, we come up against this - that the two-and-a-half tribes decided not to go over Jordan into Canaan. "Bring us not over Jordan" is their request to Moses and the other leaders of the people. In effect they were saying, "We don't want absolute separation unto God. We don't want all that is involved in this aggressive programme. We are not prepared to risk all that is implied by going over into the land to subdue it for God. We are not prepared for that programme, that aggressive life, that life which you call fulness of life. We have found a certain satisfaction this side of Jordan, we have found here a good deal that is good, a great deal that satisfies us. We are quite content with the life we have this side of Jordan, without driving this distinct barrier of the Cross between. There are risks involved, possessions, children, etc.". So they would live their lives there and not risk the dangers and the sacrifice which seemed clearly to be involved in this aggressive programme.

What did it all amount to? Well, it amounted to this - they were prepared to go so far, but no further. They were prepared to be reckoned in with Israel, but they were not prepared to accept the entire programme. They had world desires, a limited salvation and experience. "Bring us not over." Moses used the words, "have not wholly followed the Lord." That is the point of the division; that is the mark which runs between the two-and-a-half tribes and the remainder; that is the line drawn between those who lived on the edge of the wilderness and those who had gone over Jordan, the question as to whether they would or would not wholly follow the Lord.

Now the meaning as regards the rest of Israel: the position was parallel with the position of a proceeding generation, when they rejected the report of Joshua and Caleb. Moses says, "This is rebellion against the purpose of God, a reservation in your acceptance of the divine programme. It is not only in yourselves, but see what it means to the rest. They will lose heart, they will say, 'Here is Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh having a good time without any fighting.'" If they had followed their example, Canaan would never have been conquered. Canaan would never have become the land by which the revelation of God would be given to the world. Moses saw the peril for all the people of God and all the purposes of God. "No man liveth unto himself and no man dieth unto himself." Bound up in your attitude to the revealed will of God is the life of another or many others.

Then there was a compromise made. It looks as if it was a perfectly satisfactory one, but you have got to read the story in the light of later history. "Well, we will leave our cattle, our flocks, our possessions, our wives and children here. We will arm ourselves and go over before Israel and help them, and help them into the land, and then we will go back again." You see the distinction between certain things. "We will help you, but we will not identify ourselves with you. We will recognise your programme, but we will not identify ourselves with it. Not that we would do it ourselves, but we will do it for you. Our hearts are not in this thing, we are not abandoned to it, but we are prepared to stand by, place our services at your disposal, but we are not with you." So they would do everything to help, but for the rest of their lives they were back there with their flocks and their children. Their heart was with their treasure, not in the real purpose of God.

There are plenty of people like that today, prepared to help in the work of God, associate themselves in the programme of the Kingdom. They come to God for their salvation, they have a share in the work, but they are not in it utterly, they are not in it because they cannot keep out of it. Their hearts are somewhere else, because their treasure is somewhere else. They are not prepared at all costs to risk all their possessions for the Kingdom. They cannot accept the Cross and all it demands, to live or to die, to sacrifice to the last degree, that the Cross may be vindicated utterly; they are not in it like that.

A Message for Backsliders by C.H. Spurgeon

A Harp of Ten Strings (Luke 1:46-47) - C.H. Spurgeon Sermon

Be Reconciled to God

Be Reconciled to God

by T. Austin-Sparks

From a message given on October 7, 1962. Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.

Reading: 2 Cor. 5:17-21.

That part which says "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God", will engage our attention, I trust of heart as well as mind, in this little while.

If you analyse that statement, you will find that there are four things which are indicated by it, and that all those four things centre in and circle round one word, which is the word "reconciliation". Perhaps you noticed that in the chapter which was read earlier (the fifth chapter of the Letter to the Romans) that word occurred three times, and it occurs in other parts of the New Testament. Everything is gathered around this word "reconciliation".

The four things that are indicated by that word and what is said about it are these (and it is always helpful, I think, for people to know what we are going to talk about; very often we don't know what a preacher is getting at until he has got a long way on, and then sometimes we don't know what he has been trying to get at! So I want to dismiss any such uncertainty by telling you right away exactly what it is we are going to look at) and it is these four things. They are these:

The first thing is that the word "reconciliation" indicates a situation which must exist if reconciliation is necessary.

The second thing - and it is found in the whole statement as we read it - is the work which Jesus Christ came into this world to do. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself".

The third thing: a conception of Christian service - "We are ambassadors... of Christ".

And the fourth thing which comes out of the very tone of this utterance is the serious responsibility which is involved in knowing about this. The tone, as you will recognise, is this: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ" - ("as though God were entreating by us"). 'We beseech you... we entreat you'. It must, therefore, be something quite serious in the way of responsibility if such an attitude, and such a way of expressing it, is connected with the great word 'reconciliation'.

Well, let us briefly look at each one of these things.

Firstly, then, the situation which that word 'reconciliation' indicates and implies.

Everybody knows the meaning of that word, or, at least, a part of it. Break it in two, and everybody knows what it means to conciliate. Something has happened between two parties which has set them against one another and they are in that state of opposition and antagonism until someone enters into the breach to conciliate, to reconcile. But that little prefix 're' means that there was at one time a condition which did not necessitate conciliation. Everything was all right. But something has happened. There has come about a terrible breakdown, breach, and rupture, and now it is a matter of re-conciliation, doing something to bring back to a former condition.

Now, you know it is just upon that very fact and truth that the whole of the gospel of Jesus Christ rests. It is upon that that we can say the Bible rests: the fact of a condition existing which was not always there, but which has got to be removed and the former happy situation recovered, brought back again. Now, the Bible is very explicit about this, and human history bears it out, that the condition which exists between man and God now is one, in the first place, of man's alienation from God. Man's natural condition now is that of being an alien to God, a foreigner to God, belonging to another realm and race, a kind of being which is far from God and altogether contrary to God. But worse than that - rebellion against God. That is in the very constitution of man.

And you know that as soon as you get light from God, and more light from God, and still more light from God, the one thing that becomes more and more clear and definite in your consciousness is how the human heart is in rebellion against God. You don't recognise it until the Spirit of God begins to do something, or you may do something. There is plenty today of manifest, obvious rebellion against God in this world, and conscious and deliberate rebellion against God, as well as that far greater realm of natural rebellion of the human heart against God.

Now many of you may not feel like that, and may perhaps have some doubt as to the truth of what I am saying. But I will go this far and say that if you will put yourself into the hands of God and ask the Spirit of God to begin to work in your heart, one of the first things that you will discover is what a big work has got to be done to bring you into a state of absolute fellowship with God. You will discover that your heart is not as easily won over as perhaps you thought it would be. You will discover that there are depths in your nature of positive antagonism to God, distance from God, rebellion against God, that you never would have suspected. For the time being you are in darkness and blindness about this, and, of course, the great master of the human race, the devil himself, has carried out that master stroke of blinding all his subjects to their own condition where God is concerned. But when God begins to work, the first thing we discover is: 'Oh, there is far more in me to be got rid of and to be got over than I would have believed. The preachers were right when they said that God looks upon us as sinners!'

This word 'reconciliation' - 're-conciliation' - means that something has happened. There has been a breakdown and an alienation; there has come about a great change from the condition in which God at first made man, when He walked with him and talked with him, and had that blessed fellowship which is seen right at the beginning of the Bible between God and His first creation. It has all gone and man is not now a normal creature in that sense. No, we are all abnormal now by nature.

You may not like that. But we are abnormal because the normal, from God's standpoint, is of a kind of man that is in perfect oneness with Himself, in fellowship with Him, with nothing whatever between and no need of any conciliation. It is all right. That is the normal with God, what God meant. The abnormal is all that is different from that and contrary to that. What God meant as the normal for human life was perfect fellowship between Himself and His creation. And who will say that that is the normal experience of people today? It takes a mighty thing, as we shall see, to bring that about, to reconciliate.

When man disobeyed God and sin entered in, and that fellowship was broken, do you know what the first mark of it was? Man went and hid himself from God. He was afraid to meet God. He did not want to meet God. The presence of God was a terrible thing to him, an unpleasant thought: "Oh, something has happened here. It was not like that before." And it says: "The man and his wife hid themselves'' (Genesis 3:8). God had to search for the man and cry "Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9). He hid himself. And that is a mark of something having gone wrong when it is not pleasant to dwell in the presence of God and be where God is. Man is like that.

Now, Jesus Christ came into this world, and one of the great things that came to light by His being here was this very fact of the abnormal state in human life. It was illustrated by the works that He did. He chose His occasions, His means of revealing this. Here is a poor fellow who had been lying on his back on his mat for thirty-eight years, unable to move or do anything for himself. Jesus sought that man out in that position and made it perfectly clear that this was not God's idea for man. This was abnormal where God was concerned. And Jesus healed him and put him on his feet. And that is the normal.

And then Jesus went on from one case to another. A man born blind. The attitude of Jesus is: 'This is not normal where God is concerned. This is abnormal.' He gave the man his sight. And you can pick out these many things that Jesus did all the way through, and in doing them He is saying: 'Human life is altogether other than that which God meant'.

But mark you, what Jesus did in the physical realm with lameness, blindness, fever and manifold sicknesses and infirmities, He was only doing as an acted parable. He was saying, and He said it quite definitely on one occasion: "This is only a pointer to something else. What you see in the physical is only a parable or a type of man's spiritual condition. Spiritually man is lame, infirm, impotent. Spiritually man is blind. Spiritually man is suffering from all kinds of maladies, and this is not God's thought for man. This is 'abnormal'." He brought this to light and all is traced back to this: "Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf." Sin is behind all this abnormal state, this alienation, this rebellion, this that makes reconciliation necessary.

If we are quick to perceive blemishes and faults in others

(J.R. Miller, "Daily Bible Readings in the Life of Christ" 1890)

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(You will find it helpful to listen to the audio above, as you read the text below.)

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye—
 and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" Matthew 7:3

It is strange how oblivious we can be of our own faults and blemishes, and how clearly we can see those of other people! One old writer says: "Men are rather more apt to use a magnifying glass to behold the faults of others, than a mirror to behold their own." A man can see a little speck of dust in his neighbor's eye, while utterly unaware of the great plank in his own eye! He observes the most minute fault in his brother, while unconscious of his own far greater faults!

We would say that a plank in a man's eye would so blind him—that he could not see the speck in another's eye. As our Lord represents it, however—the man with the plank is the very one who sees the speck and thinks himself competent to remove it!

So it is in morals. No man is so sharp at seeing a fault in another, as he who has the same or a similar fault of his own!
A vain man—is the first to detect the indications of vanity in another.
A bad-tempered person—is most apt to be censorious toward a neighbor who displays bad temper.
One with a sharp uncontrolled tongue—has the least patience with another whose speech is full of poisoned arrows.
A selfish man—discovers even specks of selfishness in others.
Rude people—are the very first to be hurt and offended by the rudeness of a neighbor.

So it is always. If we are quick to perceive blemishes and faults in others—the probability is, that we have far greater blemishes and faults in ourselves! This truth ought to make us exceedingly careful in our judgments, and exceedingly modest in our expressions of censure—for we really are telling the world our own faults! It is wiser, as well as more in accordance with the spirit of Christ—for us to find lovely things in others, and to be silent regarding their faults!

Something to ponder

 Something to ponder

Charles Spurgeon, "Use the hammer of diligence, and let the knee of prayer be exercised—and there is not a stony doctrine in Scripture which is useful for you to understand, which will not fly into shivers under the exercise of prayer and faith. Prayer is the sacred lever which forces open the iron chest of divine mystery, that we may get the treasure hidden within!"

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Driving Out The Canaanites and Their Iron Chariots (Joshua 17:18) - C.H. Spurgeon Sermon