My Utmost for His Highest for Saturday, 11 November 2017 "The Supreme Climb" by Oswald Chambers
Take now thy son… (GENESIS 22:2)
---
|
God’s command is— Take now, not presently. It is extraordinary how we debate! We know a thing is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it at once. To climb to the height God shows can never be done presently, it must be done now. The sacrifice is gone through in will before it is performed actually.
“And Abraham rose up early in the morning,…and went unto the place of which God had told him” (v. 3). The wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not confer with flesh and blood. Beware when you want to confer with flesh and blood, i.e., your own sympathies, your own insight, anything that is not based on your personal relationship to God. These are the things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.
Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. Always guard against self-chosen service for God; self-sacrifice may be a disease. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential order of God for you is a hard time of difficulty, go through with it, but never choose the scene of your martyrdom. God chose the crucible for Abraham, and Abraham made no demur; he went steadily through. If you are not living in touch with Him, it is easy to pass a crude verdict on God. You must go through the crucible before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because in the crucible you learn to know God better. God is working for His highest ends until His purpose and man’s purpose become one. (From My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition)
Bible in One Year: Jeremiah 50; Hebrews 8Jeremiah 50:1 This is the word which Adonai spoke concerning Bavel, concerning the land of the Kasdim, through Yirmeyahu the prophet:
2 “Declare it among the nations, proclaim it!
Hoist a banner, proclaim it, don’t hide it!
Say: ‘Bavel is captured.
Bel is shamed, M’rodakh disgraced,
her images shamed, her idols disgraced.’
3 For from the north a nation is marching against her
that will desolate her land.
No one will live there —
both humans and animals have fled and gone.
4 In those days, at that time,” says Adonai,
“the people of Isra’el will come,
together with the people of Y’hudah.
They will weep as they go their way,
seeking Adonai their God.
5 They will ask the way to Tziyon;
and, turning their faces toward it, will say,
‘Come, join yourselves to Adonai
by an everlasting covenant never to be forgotten.’
6 My people have been lost sheep.
My shepherds made them go astray,
turning them loose in the mountains.
As they wandered from mountain to hill,
they lost track of where their home is.
7 Everyone finding them ate them up.
Their enemies said, ‘We aren’t guilty;
for they sinned against Adonai,
the resting place of justice;
yes, against Adonai, their ancestors’ hope.’
8 Flee from Bavel! Leave the land of the Kasdim!
Be like male goats leading the flock;
9 for I will stir up and bring against Bavel
an alliance of great nations from the country to the north.
They will array themselves against her;
from there she will be captured.
Their arrows are like those of a death-dealing warrior;
none will return in vain.
10 The land of the Kasdim will be plundered;
all who plunder it will get enough,” says Adonai.
11 “Because you are glad, because you exult,
you plunderers of my heritage;
because you frisk like a calf in the grass
and neigh like stallions;
12 your mother will be utterly shamed,
she who bore you will be disgraced.
Here she is! — last among the nations,
a desert, parched and barren.
13 Because of the anger of Adonai,
no one will live there any more;
all of it will be desolate.
Everyone passing Bavel will whistle
in shock at all her plagues.
14 “Take your positions surrounding Bavel,
all you whose bows are strung;
shoot at her, spare no arrows;
because she sinned against Adonai.
15 From all sides raise the war cry against her!
Now she surrenders!
Her buttresses fall, her walls are thrown down,
for this is the vengeance of Adonai.
Avenge yourself on her!
As she has done, do to her!
16 Cut off the sower from Bavel
and the reaper with sickle at harvest-time.
For fear of the destroying sword
everyone returns to his own people,
each one flees to his own land.
17 “Isra’el is a stray lamb,
driven away by lions.
First to devour him was Ashur’s king;
and the last to break his bones
is this N’vukhadretzar king of Bavel.”
18 Therefore Adonai-Tzva’ot,
the God of Isra’el, says:
“I will punish the king of Bavel and his land
as I punished the king of Ashur.
19 I will bring Isra’el back to his pasture,
to graze on the Karmel and the Bashan,
on the hills of Efrayim and in Gil‘ad
until he has his fill.
20 In those days, at that time,” says Adonai,
“Isra’el’s guilt will be sought,
but there will be none,
and Y’hudah’s sins,
but they won’t be found;
for I will pardon the remnant I leave.
21 “Attack the land of Meratayim;
attack it and those living in P’kod.
Waste them, utterly destroy them;
do all I have ordered you,” says Adonai.
22 “The sound of battle is heard in the land,
with great destruction!
23 How the hammer of the whole earth
lies hacked apart and shattered!
What an object of horror among the nations
Bavel has become!
24 I set a trap and caught you,
Bavel, before you knew it.
You were discovered and seized,
because you challenged Adonai.
25 Adonai has opened his store of arms
and brought out the weapons of his wrath;
for Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot has work
to do in the land of the Kasdim.
26 Attack her from every direction!
Open her stores of grain!
Pile her up like heaps of grain;
destroy her completely; leave nothing!
27 Kill all her bulls!
let them go down to be slaughtered!
Woe to them! for their day has come,
the time for them to be punished.”
28 Hear the sound of the fugitives,
of those escaping from Bavel,
coming to proclaim in Tziyon
the vengeance of Adonai our God,
vengeance over his temple.
29 “Call up archers against Bavel,
all whose bows are strung.
Besiege her from every side,
let no one escape.
Repay her for her deeds;
as she has done, do to her.
For she insulted Adonai,
the Holy One of Isra’el.
30 This is why her young men will fall
in her open places,
why all her warriors will be silenced
on that day,” says Adonai.
31 “I am against you, arrogant [nation],”
says Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot.
“For your day has come,
the time for you to be punished.
32 The arrogant [nation] will stumble and fall,
and no one will lift him up again.
I will set his cities on fire,
and it will devour everything around him.”
33 Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot:
“The people of Isra’el are oppressed,
and so are the people of Y’hudah.
Those who took them captive hold them fast;
they refuse to let them go.
34 But their redeemer is strong;
Adonai-Tzva’ot is his name.
He will thoroughly plead their cause,
so that he can give rest to the land
but unrest to those who live in Bavel.
35 Adonai says,
“A sword hangs over the Kasdim,
and over those who live in Bavel,
over her leaders and over her sages.
36 A sword hangs over the lying diviners;
they will become fools.
A sword hangs over her warriors;
they will be disgraced.
37 A sword hangs over their horses,
also over their chariots,
also over the foreigners within her;
they will become like women.
A sword hangs over her treasures;
they will be robbed.
38 A drought hangs over her waters;
they will be dried up.
For this is a land of idols;
they go mad over these horrors of theirs.
39 “Therefore wildcats and jackals will live there,
and ostriches will settle there.
It will never again be peopled,
it will be uninhabited age after age;
40 as when God overthrew S’dom,
‘Amora and their neighboring towns,” says Adonai.
“No one will settle there any more,
no human being will live there again.
41 “Look! A people is coming from the north;
a great nation and many kings
are being stirred up from the ends of the earth.
42 They are armed with bow and spear;
they are cruel, without compassion;
their sound is like the roaring sea,
as they ride forth on horses.
Their men take their battle positions
against you, daughter of Bavel.
43 The king of Bavel has heard news of them;
his hands droop, helpless.
Anguish seizes hold of him
and pain, like a woman in labor.
44 “It will be like a lion coming up from the thickets
of the Yarden against a strong settlement;
in an instant I will chase him away
and appoint over it whomever I choose.
For who is like me? Who can call me to account?
What shepherd can stand up to me?”
45 So hear the plan of Adonai
that he has devised against Bavel,
and his goals that he will accomplish
against the land of the Kasdim:
the least of the flock will drag them away;
their own pasture will be in shock at them.
46 At the sound of Bavel’s capture the earth quakes;
their cry is heard throughout the nations.
Hebrews 8:1 Here is the whole point of what we have been saying: we do have just such a cohen gadol as has been described. And he does sit at the right hand of HaG’dulah in heaven.[Hebrews 8:1 Psalm 110:1] 2 There he serves in the Holy Place, that is, in the true Tent of Meeting, the one erected not by human beings but by Adonai.
3 For every cohen gadol is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so this cohen gadol too has to have something he can offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he wouldn’t be a cohen at all, since there already are cohanim offering the gifts required by the Torah. 5 But what they are serving is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly original; for when Moshe was about to erect the Tent, God warned him, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern you were shown on the mountain.”[Hebrews 8:5 Exodus 25:40]
6 But now the work Yeshua has been given to do is far superior to theirs, just as the covenant he mediates is better. For this covenant has been given as Torah on the basis of better promises. 7 Indeed, if the first covenant had not given ground for faultfinding, there would have been no need for a second one. 8 For God does find fault with the people when he says,
“‘See! The days are coming,’ says Adonai,
‘when I will establish
over the house of Isra’el and over the house of Y’hudah
a new covenant.
9 “‘It will not be like the covenant
which I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by their hand
and led them forth out of the land of Egypt;
because they, for their part,
did not remain faithful to my covenant;
so I, for my part,
stopped concerning myself with them,’
says Adonai.
10 “‘For this is the covenant which I will make
with the house of Isra’el after those days,’
says Adonai:
‘I will put my Torah in their minds
and write it on their hearts;
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 “‘None of them will teach his fellow-citizen
or his brother, saying, “Know Adonai!”
For all will know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,
12 because I will be merciful toward their wickednesses
and remember their sins no more.’”[Hebrews 8:12 Jeremiah 31:30–33(31–34)]
13 By using the term, “new,” he has made the first covenant “old”; and something being made old, something in the process of aging, is on its way to vanishing altogether.
---
“And Abraham rose up early in the morning,…and went unto the place of which God had told him” (v. 3). The wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not confer with flesh and blood. Beware when you want to confer with flesh and blood, i.e., your own sympathies, your own insight, anything that is not based on your personal relationship to God. These are the things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.
Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. Always guard against self-chosen service for God; self-sacrifice may be a disease. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential order of God for you is a hard time of difficulty, go through with it, but never choose the scene of your martyrdom. God chose the crucible for Abraham, and Abraham made no demur; he went steadily through. If you are not living in touch with Him, it is easy to pass a crude verdict on God. You must go through the crucible before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because in the crucible you learn to know God better. God is working for His highest ends until His purpose and man’s purpose become one. (From My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition)
Bible in One Year: Jeremiah 50; Hebrews 8Jeremiah 50:1 This is the word which Adonai spoke concerning Bavel, concerning the land of the Kasdim, through Yirmeyahu the prophet:
2 “Declare it among the nations, proclaim it!
Hoist a banner, proclaim it, don’t hide it!
Say: ‘Bavel is captured.
Bel is shamed, M’rodakh disgraced,
her images shamed, her idols disgraced.’
3 For from the north a nation is marching against her
that will desolate her land.
No one will live there —
both humans and animals have fled and gone.
4 In those days, at that time,” says Adonai,
“the people of Isra’el will come,
together with the people of Y’hudah.
They will weep as they go their way,
seeking Adonai their God.
5 They will ask the way to Tziyon;
and, turning their faces toward it, will say,
‘Come, join yourselves to Adonai
by an everlasting covenant never to be forgotten.’
6 My people have been lost sheep.
My shepherds made them go astray,
turning them loose in the mountains.
As they wandered from mountain to hill,
they lost track of where their home is.
7 Everyone finding them ate them up.
Their enemies said, ‘We aren’t guilty;
for they sinned against Adonai,
the resting place of justice;
yes, against Adonai, their ancestors’ hope.’
8 Flee from Bavel! Leave the land of the Kasdim!
Be like male goats leading the flock;
9 for I will stir up and bring against Bavel
an alliance of great nations from the country to the north.
They will array themselves against her;
from there she will be captured.
Their arrows are like those of a death-dealing warrior;
none will return in vain.
10 The land of the Kasdim will be plundered;
all who plunder it will get enough,” says Adonai.
11 “Because you are glad, because you exult,
you plunderers of my heritage;
because you frisk like a calf in the grass
and neigh like stallions;
12 your mother will be utterly shamed,
she who bore you will be disgraced.
Here she is! — last among the nations,
a desert, parched and barren.
13 Because of the anger of Adonai,
no one will live there any more;
all of it will be desolate.
Everyone passing Bavel will whistle
in shock at all her plagues.
14 “Take your positions surrounding Bavel,
all you whose bows are strung;
shoot at her, spare no arrows;
because she sinned against Adonai.
15 From all sides raise the war cry against her!
Now she surrenders!
Her buttresses fall, her walls are thrown down,
for this is the vengeance of Adonai.
Avenge yourself on her!
As she has done, do to her!
16 Cut off the sower from Bavel
and the reaper with sickle at harvest-time.
For fear of the destroying sword
everyone returns to his own people,
each one flees to his own land.
17 “Isra’el is a stray lamb,
driven away by lions.
First to devour him was Ashur’s king;
and the last to break his bones
is this N’vukhadretzar king of Bavel.”
18 Therefore Adonai-Tzva’ot,
the God of Isra’el, says:
“I will punish the king of Bavel and his land
as I punished the king of Ashur.
19 I will bring Isra’el back to his pasture,
to graze on the Karmel and the Bashan,
on the hills of Efrayim and in Gil‘ad
until he has his fill.
20 In those days, at that time,” says Adonai,
“Isra’el’s guilt will be sought,
but there will be none,
and Y’hudah’s sins,
but they won’t be found;
for I will pardon the remnant I leave.
21 “Attack the land of Meratayim;
attack it and those living in P’kod.
Waste them, utterly destroy them;
do all I have ordered you,” says Adonai.
22 “The sound of battle is heard in the land,
with great destruction!
23 How the hammer of the whole earth
lies hacked apart and shattered!
What an object of horror among the nations
Bavel has become!
24 I set a trap and caught you,
Bavel, before you knew it.
You were discovered and seized,
because you challenged Adonai.
25 Adonai has opened his store of arms
and brought out the weapons of his wrath;
for Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot has work
to do in the land of the Kasdim.
26 Attack her from every direction!
Open her stores of grain!
Pile her up like heaps of grain;
destroy her completely; leave nothing!
27 Kill all her bulls!
let them go down to be slaughtered!
Woe to them! for their day has come,
the time for them to be punished.”
28 Hear the sound of the fugitives,
of those escaping from Bavel,
coming to proclaim in Tziyon
the vengeance of Adonai our God,
vengeance over his temple.
29 “Call up archers against Bavel,
all whose bows are strung.
Besiege her from every side,
let no one escape.
Repay her for her deeds;
as she has done, do to her.
For she insulted Adonai,
the Holy One of Isra’el.
30 This is why her young men will fall
in her open places,
why all her warriors will be silenced
on that day,” says Adonai.
31 “I am against you, arrogant [nation],”
says Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot.
“For your day has come,
the time for you to be punished.
32 The arrogant [nation] will stumble and fall,
and no one will lift him up again.
I will set his cities on fire,
and it will devour everything around him.”
33 Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot:
“The people of Isra’el are oppressed,
and so are the people of Y’hudah.
Those who took them captive hold them fast;
they refuse to let them go.
34 But their redeemer is strong;
Adonai-Tzva’ot is his name.
He will thoroughly plead their cause,
so that he can give rest to the land
but unrest to those who live in Bavel.
35 Adonai says,
“A sword hangs over the Kasdim,
and over those who live in Bavel,
over her leaders and over her sages.
36 A sword hangs over the lying diviners;
they will become fools.
A sword hangs over her warriors;
they will be disgraced.
37 A sword hangs over their horses,
also over their chariots,
also over the foreigners within her;
they will become like women.
A sword hangs over her treasures;
they will be robbed.
38 A drought hangs over her waters;
they will be dried up.
For this is a land of idols;
they go mad over these horrors of theirs.
39 “Therefore wildcats and jackals will live there,
and ostriches will settle there.
It will never again be peopled,
it will be uninhabited age after age;
40 as when God overthrew S’dom,
‘Amora and their neighboring towns,” says Adonai.
“No one will settle there any more,
no human being will live there again.
41 “Look! A people is coming from the north;
a great nation and many kings
are being stirred up from the ends of the earth.
42 They are armed with bow and spear;
they are cruel, without compassion;
their sound is like the roaring sea,
as they ride forth on horses.
Their men take their battle positions
against you, daughter of Bavel.
43 The king of Bavel has heard news of them;
his hands droop, helpless.
Anguish seizes hold of him
and pain, like a woman in labor.
44 “It will be like a lion coming up from the thickets
of the Yarden against a strong settlement;
in an instant I will chase him away
and appoint over it whomever I choose.
For who is like me? Who can call me to account?
What shepherd can stand up to me?”
45 So hear the plan of Adonai
that he has devised against Bavel,
and his goals that he will accomplish
against the land of the Kasdim:
the least of the flock will drag them away;
their own pasture will be in shock at them.
46 At the sound of Bavel’s capture the earth quakes;
their cry is heard throughout the nations.
Hebrews 8:1 Here is the whole point of what we have been saying: we do have just such a cohen gadol as has been described. And he does sit at the right hand of HaG’dulah in heaven.[Hebrews 8:1 Psalm 110:1] 2 There he serves in the Holy Place, that is, in the true Tent of Meeting, the one erected not by human beings but by Adonai.
3 For every cohen gadol is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so this cohen gadol too has to have something he can offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he wouldn’t be a cohen at all, since there already are cohanim offering the gifts required by the Torah. 5 But what they are serving is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly original; for when Moshe was about to erect the Tent, God warned him, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern you were shown on the mountain.”[Hebrews 8:5 Exodus 25:40]
6 But now the work Yeshua has been given to do is far superior to theirs, just as the covenant he mediates is better. For this covenant has been given as Torah on the basis of better promises. 7 Indeed, if the first covenant had not given ground for faultfinding, there would have been no need for a second one. 8 For God does find fault with the people when he says,
“‘See! The days are coming,’ says Adonai,
‘when I will establish
over the house of Isra’el and over the house of Y’hudah
a new covenant.
9 “‘It will not be like the covenant
which I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by their hand
and led them forth out of the land of Egypt;
because they, for their part,
did not remain faithful to my covenant;
so I, for my part,
stopped concerning myself with them,’
says Adonai.
10 “‘For this is the covenant which I will make
with the house of Isra’el after those days,’
says Adonai:
‘I will put my Torah in their minds
and write it on their hearts;
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 “‘None of them will teach his fellow-citizen
or his brother, saying, “Know Adonai!”
For all will know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,
12 because I will be merciful toward their wickednesses
and remember their sins no more.’”[Hebrews 8:12 Jeremiah 31:30–33(31–34)]
13 By using the term, “new,” he has made the first covenant “old”; and something being made old, something in the process of aging, is on its way to vanishing altogether.
---
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. (from My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L)
Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. (from My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L)
---
|
No comments:
Post a Comment