Maybe it´s a Simple Thing

Maybe it´s a simple thing we have trouble with.

Israel in a desert place, and in a place of unbelief, asked

“Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” Ps.78:19

This is the cry of all earth’s desert places.

This is the cry of all life’s desert places.

He could then... but can He now?

He could there... but can He here?

God would have us know that He is Always and Forever God!

Place and Time and Circumstance make no difference to Him.

It is a simple and yet a profound thing to bring all our needs to Him because He is God

His Love has no limit.

His power has no limit.

He sees, and has compassion.

"The desert shall rejoice...and blossom as the rose." Is. 35:1

By a Prophet

Hosea 12:13 "By a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved."

Here we have a glimpse of the power that worked in Israel's deliverance and guidance - a glimpse, not just of a moment in history but of the Principle of God's working throughout all history…

All else that Moses was - his education - his years of preparation in the wilderness - his strength of character - was laid aside and was subservient to this one thing... he was a PROPHET!

His Vision was the Source and the Sustenance of his life throughout the times of deliverance and the journeying of Israel.

His Vision brought the Birth and Flowering of God's purpose for a nation in his generation.

His Vision brought the dawning of the Light and Glory of a New Era.

Without a prophet it never would have happened.

Without a prophet the darkness would have continued unbroken over Egypt.

Without a prophet the years of slavery and tears would have advanced without interruption.

Perhaps never in the course of the last centuries has there been a greater need of a prophet than there is today.

I’m not talking about the variety of “prophets” who so confidently walk amongst us.

I’m not talking about the ones who seem to be self-appointed and self-anointed to their task.

I’m talking about those who, in the desert, have lost their sense of self importance.

These in their emptiness have seen the flame of a bush ignited by God.

These are the ones who have heard a voice, not of earth, calling them to a task which will demand their life’s blood.

Who among us today, knows what is going on in the 'Egypt' around us?

Who among us today discerns the time of God in the midst of our confusion?

Who sees the connection between spiritual and natural worlds?

Who, beyond the limits of time, sees the unfolding of the plan of God for the next generation?

Who has heard God answer as they have asked, "What of the children?" "What of the future?"

Where is our Solution?...What is our Salvation?

      Like Moses -We need... To see Him

                                  We need... To hear Him.

                                          We need... To obey Him.

To see Him and to hear Him...this is our need.

But what will it take to come to the place of Vision?

  For Moses it took a cutting off from the comforts of Egypt.

  For Moses it took a cutting off from the fellowship and activities of his  brethren.

  For Moses it took a desert, a loneliness, and a total simplification of all

  that his life had involved in times past.

When all was blasted away and Moses was brought to the barren, wind-swept, sun-scorched, horizons of emptiness - then God came with his REVELATION and then Moses became the PROPHET for his people.

Maybe our deserts will not be physical... or maybe they will be, to a measure that we can't even imagine today!

However it be, there will be many, many similarities between our lives and Moses' if God is going to show himself.

The Cost will certainly be the losing of all that appeals to, and sustains, the life of natural man.

But the Payment of God is a Revelation which carries within it the Seeds of Life for ourselves and our people.

My father used to say, "We don't have revival because we are content to live without it."

So too our revelation of God depends directly upon the measure of our desire - the finding is still to those who seek "with all your heart."

God would have us understand, in this critical hour in which we live, that life is not about techniques or methods - A BURNING DESIRE WILL LIGHT ITS OWN WAY TO GOD.

In reality as in the life of Moses, it is not so much us finding God as it is God revealing Himself to us - while we are seeking Him He reveals Himself.

How important is it to us?

  To lay all else aside and search for God alone?

  To search the scriptures and let them speak for themselves?

  To come with a heart which says only, 'I come to do thy will?'

If there is one word from God for us in this hour, I believe it is this, 'Now is the time to seek God.'

Our Only Hope

There is an urgency  for us to find a fulness of God’s Reality in a world where everything is under attack.

We need, as the psalmist says, “to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

This is our only hope in the midst of all that surrounds us.

Paul said, “The life which I now live…”

So for each generation, for each individual,

     there is a life given,

           a life to be lived…

And for each one there is something which impulses that life…

Life stretches as a pathway before us, and we live in a time of difficulties.

Looking around the breadth of the world one sees that:

    Peace is taken from the earth.

         Every continent and every nation is affected.

              Civilization is Broken.

                   Man’s order of things has become lost.

                         The way of peace and progress has been abandoned, and                   

                          replaced on all levels with  reactions of emotion.

                               Dialog is forgotten, in homes and between nations.

                                     We are sinking.

The enemy must laugh as he sees us blown about by every theory untethered to reality, and by every impulse of our feelings.

The only path forward for the child of God in this time which is our lot to travel, is to find  a way in God Himself.

We must be able to say with the apostle, “the life which I Now live” I live by that impulse which is the gift of God.

Unless we find a way in God :

     we are at the mercy of all the evil winds which are wreaking havoc with the world around.

              We are, like Samson, without strength before the destroyer... and there can be no hope...our lives and our families unravel day by day, and lostness is our portion for today and tomorrow.

When I was a child growing up in the aftermath of the Second World War I used to hear the phrase,  “a lost world”

Many years have passed, but today instead of progress and a rebuilding of society, we are far more lost than we were then.

Time moves in tides and today the tide has left us with an angry society around, and a church which is weak because it has left the Center of its life.

Safety is not in a place, safety is in God; and we desperately need of God if we are to stand, and not be swept away by the tide.

God calls upon us to call upon Him -

It is a time to leave the trivial things which call us,

And to seek until we find beyond theory and study and tradition,

        and then to go in the strength of that encounter with the Living God,

             finding in Him our strength and sufficiency for the days that await us.