Gooding, David: 5 - Othniel - Part 3

We are currently studying together the third chapter of the Book of Judges. You may care to find your place there, to put your thumb in the text, so to speak, because for our introductory reading this evening, we shall be reading some words from the epistle by James, the epistle by James and chapter four, from which we shall proceed to Judges chapter three. James chapter four. Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your pleasures that war in your members? You lust and have not, you kill and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. You have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasure. Ye adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God. For think you that the scripture speaketh in vain, that the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying, not he giveth more grace. Wherefore the scripture says, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Be subject therefore unto God, but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you. God give us hearts to listen to the exhortation of his word. When we broke off our study last Thursday evening, we were in the middle of a campaign against the Mesopotamians, or that is to say, we were reading about the Israelites and their war against the Mesopotamians, who had come up and overtaken Israel and brought them into captivity. We therefore try to reconnoiter this ancient enemy and find out what he was and what the ideology of the country he came from. We remembered in that connection that Mesopotamia was the country from which Abraham originally had come. Before he was converted, before he had had personal experience of God, he lived in Mesopotamia. But then the God of glory had appeared to him, and attracted by this magnificent vision of God and all those promises that God held out to him, Abraham left Mesopotamia and started on that pilgrimage that one day he believed would take him to his great inheritance, the city that hath the foundation, whose builder and maker is God. We noticed that at the time when Israel were in the land and fell back once more under the dominion of the Mesopotamians, Mesopotamia was ruled by a certain king, to whom someone or other had given the name of Cushan Rishateim, which means Cushan of double wickedness. We didn't stay to try and guess who gave him the name. He wasn't christened that name, surely. But, uh, we took it along with the rest of the evidence to suggest to ourselves what lessons we may learn from this experience of Israel. We too have an enemy parallel to theirs. We normally call him the world. We were asking ourselves last week what exactly the world means when we use it in this bad sense. We quite rightly say that once we were in the world, so to speak, referring to our unconverted days. In what sense world, and why is it bad? When, after all, it is God himself that in one sense made the world, how has that term, originally good and innocent, come to indicate something bad? Notice, first of all, that this world, even in its unfallen state, was always meant to be nothing more than temporary. One day, the Bible tells us it will disappear in that final conflagration. It becomes bad and a snare to us if we take what was intended as something temporary and live for it as though it were an eternal thing. Live for it as though it were the only thing. Live for it as though it were the sum, the goal of all our energies and aspirations. And so allow ourselves to forget that this world is temporary and meant simply to be the stepping stone to the eternal. And then we noticed also that just as Mesopotamia was under the domination of an exceedingly wicked king, Kusham of double wickedness, so the New Testament indicates that the world in its bad sense is likewise under a fearfully wicked prince, none other than him who he whom our Lord called the prince of this world, who with his devilish cunning has taken not merely bad things, but the good things, the lovely things of this delightful world that God has made, and used them as means to draw men's hearts from God, until he has man estranged from God. Till man is in a situation where he feel God, feels God is his enemy. Till he has created a world, a system of thought, a fashion of living, in which man wants to take his world for himself and keep it like some self-contained flat with God outside the door. Like those husbandsmen to whom the vineyard owner let out his vineyard, but who got it into their heads that they had a right to run the vineyard as though it was theirs. When the owner sent his son to collect the revenue, they maltreated him and cast him out and killed him, saying, let the inheritance be ours. Thus has Satan done, winning the hearts of men since Eve's day away from God, by the good things of life. And inducing man to sin has necessarily created a barrier between the creature and the creator, and made the creator seem to the creature as an enemy, as a threat, as an outsider, whom it is best to keep at a comfortable distance. The world, in that sense, has become an enemy of God. And therefore, James reminds us of the sol- solemn thing it is for anyone deliberately to constim- constitute himself a friend of that world. Whosoever will be, by deliberate intention, a friend of the world has constituted himself an enemy of God. Now here we must be very careful in our thinking. And certainly we must try to avoid that mistake that the Pharisees made. You will remember that the Pharisees had such an idea of men and women among whom they lived, and felt themselves so infinitely superior to many of their fellow men and women, that they even accused our blessed Lord of being loose in his ways and lax in his living, and dubbed him a friend of publicans and sinners. Which actually our Lord took as a compliment. For he was, praise be to God, a friend of publicans and sinners, and loved men, and sought their company, and took his coffee, if that indeed was what they drank, and took his coffee with them, much to the disgust and annoyance of the Pharisees, who felt themselves too impossibly holy to go anywhere near the publican and the sinner. And when they saw our Lord sitting at a dinner party with the ex-tax gatherer Levi and many tax gatherers who were still tax gatherers sitting at the dinner party with him. They accused our Lord of being unholy and worldly and wicked. We must be careful not to fall into their frame of mind, must we not? Are still, as our Master was, in that sense to be a friend of publicans and sinners. But it is a different thing when we face the world, as the New Testament calls it now, in this specialized sense. That world system that Satan himself has founded and presides over, fashioning its thoughts and its ideals and its ambitions. That world that has no time for Christ, nor yet for God. If we would try to run with that world and seek its favor and be part of its system, says James, you thereby constitute yourself an enemy of God. And John, whose writings we were remembering last week, puts it this way, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Let us dwell a moment on that. What are you talking about, we asked John, when you say all that is in the world? Well, let me give you some examples, he said. The lust of the eye and the, the lust of the flesh and the, and the pride of life. That word, pride of life, doesn't mean that we shouldn't enjoy living or shouldn't enjoy and be grateful for all the lovely things that God gives us. But it's possible for us to adopt a worldly attitude even to the good things that we get, isn't it? Let me, uh, take a lesson from near at home. Education is a very good thing, isn't it? You're glad you're not savages who, when they got converted, couldn't even read, so they couldn't even read the Bible. Aren't you glad that you are highly educated as compared with some folks in this world, the whole lot of you? Has the inestimable boon of an education that's taught you to read and write so that you can read God's holy word for yourself. Let's be thankful for it. But if I were to be so stupid as to put on airs and graces because I imagined I had a better education than somebody else, though why I couldn't think, and began to parade, uh, some gift of mine that God gave me, an otherwise beggar, as to make me appear to be superior to somebody else. Oh, what a worldly attitude it is. It would show at once, wouldn't it, that my heart has got estranged from the father's heart. Imagine one child in a family parading himself before the other children, because mum has given him a lollipop for his birthday, as though that indicated that, uh, he was more important than all the other children in the family. But look at his lollipop. How grievously the child would have misread its parents, its father's heart. What stupid we are, aren't we? When we regard the many gifts that God has given us as though somehow they were ours, and brought me some superiority over somebody else. What have you got that you haven't received, says the inspired apostle, and if you've received it as a gracious gift that you never could have earned and didn't deserve anyway, who makes you to differ from somebody else then? But that is the world, isn't it? A world that doesn't know the Father's heart and doesn't dare trust him anyway, and therefore treats its goods and things and gifts as though somehow they were theirs and conferred upon them status and stature and, and room for pride and boasting. That's worldliness. And I can have that nasty spirit in my heart, can't I, even if I never went near a publican or a sinner. Love not the world, says John, neither the things that are in the world. Any man love the world in that sense, the love of the Father is not in him. And so we find it in in the New Testament, uh, uh, uh, in in the New Testament passages, that the matter of worldliness has largely to do with our hearts. Our hearts' attitude. It is not things that are worldly, is it? It's the attitude that men adopt to things that can be worldly. Perhaps you're not surprised then to to to, to notice, if we may now turn back to Judges chapter three, how it was that the Israelites came to be enslaved to the Mesopotamians. Let's look where this, all this trouble started. Chapter three and verse five. And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and... they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their own daughters to be their sons and served their own God. Started in the heart, didn't it? A matter of the heart. These lasses and lads lost their hearts. To folks who were not of the people of God. At least I hope it's that's, that's what it was. Hope it wasn't the business sense on the Mars part, you know, and she said, well, look what a big opportunity this would be if I could get my son, uh, married to one of the local grandee's daughters. Hope it wasn't that, because that would make it worse than ever, wouldn't it, what? Lost their hearts. And you know, i- i- if I had the necessary experience, I would turn aside here and preach an exceedingly practical sermon to my younger brethren and sisters. And the text would be the word of Holy Scripture, that they are free to marry, of course, but only in the Lord. But not having the ex- necessary experience and authority, I def- I I decline to preach the sermon. Let them learn it direct from the Lord themselves, who'd let them learn it. It comes not from some killjoy, some straight-laced Puritan, but from God's Holy Spirit and the gracious Lord himself. We should be asking for trouble, shouldn't we? If we let our affections run away with us and joined ourselves as partners in life to people that are not converted. But you say you can't help your affections. The Christ who made them. He can grant you control over them, don't you think? Hmm. Hm. Where the trouble began, anyway. But now let us move as swiftly as we may to how was it over. They were delivered out of the hands of the Mesopotamians, largely through the captaincy and enthusiasm and fighting ability of one called Othniel, the son of Kenes, Caleb's younger brother. That is, he was nephew of Caleb. And so we are told the spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel, and he went out to war, and the Lord delivered Cushan-Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hand. And what tactics he used in the war, we are not told, save that he fought. And God gave him the victory. But it mightn't be out of place to ask where he learned to fight, might it? Where did this man suddenly come from? And why was it, uh, he that God chose to be the deliverer? Well, this know that this wasn't the first time he had fought. For chapter one has already told us that he had done fighting before. He had, in fact, served his apprenticeship very well in the art of fighting, particularly at Caleb's instigation. Caleb was going around, uh, southern Palestine, killing off giants in all directions at the remarkable age of eighty or more. Still vigorous, still enthusiastic. Caleb, you remember, the man they couldn't frighten. When the spies came back with their lugubrious tale of giants big as Mount Everest and themselves as grasshoppers. Ah, but you couldn't, you, you couldn't frighten Caleb with that kind of, that kind of story, he said, but, but, but my dear brethren, God promised to give us the land, and that settled it. What God had promised that he could do. And in went Caleb, and in went Joshua, those heavenly twins, and chased the giants uphill and down dale, and God did give them victory. And as I say, Caleb was still pursuing them at his ripe old age. When he spotted Hebron there up on its hill. And after that, a place now called, or at least called in the time of the writing of Judges, Debir. It had aforetime by the Canaanites been called Kiriath Sepher. And said Caleb, he that smites Kiriath Sepher, uh, Sepher and taketh it, to him will I give Axar, my daughter, to wife. And there's a man around by the name of Othniel, and he had one look at Caleb, or perhaps two, and another look at his daughter. Ah, go, he said, yes, yes, now that's it. Young man whose heart, doubtless, was enthused by that older man, Caleb. Oh, what a vigorous chap he was, always exploring new territory, always breaking new ground, always going in for what God had promised him. Oh, what an attraction he was, what a, what a source of emulation for the younger men of his day. Oh, my dear elder brethren, I hope God makes you such like that. Can we look at our hearts and say it is so, us older brethren? Or are we those that merely tell the young folks about what used to be in our granddad's day and how good it was then? Or do they get the impression, God help us, that we're still going on and still breaking new ground and is still positive in our outlook. So they get caught up in the infection of the enthusiasm of an older man that is still seeking God and going on with God. As it was with Caleb and Othell. And old off, uh, old uh, Caleb knew a thing or two, didn't they? Because in those days it wasn't quite like it is in Belfast in nineteen seventy five. Parents had a lot more say into who should marry their daughters than they do now. Very, very much in the gift of the father. And he held out his daughter as incentive. I wonder if you see a lesson there. We've just observed that the Israelites went wrong when they lost their hearts to the wrong kind of girls. They what? But God isn't asking Othniel to be negative and become a monk and shut himself up in a little cell. God who made the heart has enough to fill it. And if the answer, uh, uh, uh, the answer to, to, to the fault of marrying those Canaanite girls... is the attractiveness of, of having a Caleb's daughter around the place, chip off the old block, we hope. She was, wasn't his, we shall discover. To attract the heart of the younger men. Mm. There does seem to me to be a lesson there. We shall not conquer worldliness by mere negative attitudes. Question of whether we are worldly or not is, is, is a battle for the heart and its affections. The answer to the wrong things is to have something right, to love. May I talk to the young men and women just for a moment? Say, have you got any ambitions? Ambitions. What are you presently fighting for? What are you presently striving for? What is your goal in life? What is that motive, deep down motive that you're trying to achieve? Have you got one? Or are you just drifting? You know where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, and where your heart is, there your energies will follow, won't they? Oh God, grandchildren, ask him to do it, young folks. Ask him to set your heart alight. Positive love for God and the things of God. So that they cease to be just a duty that you have to do, and when you've done them, you pat yourself on the back for having been such a martyr. And they become an affair of the heart. And you can't get enough of them. And, uh, attracted by these things and his heart set on getting this city and the girl that went with it. He took the city and they renamed it. Do you notice that? They renamed the thing. From Kiryat Sefer, they renamed it Debir. Now, both of those are straightforward Hebrew words. Kiryat Sefer means city of the book. Kiryat Sefer. And Debir means simply an oracle, place where you hear words, that is the word of God. I cannot guarantee to you that I can explain why that ancient city got the name of Kiryat Sefer, city of the book. It could well be, however, could it not, that the Canaanites who lived in that area made this city the depository of their libraries. And all the knowledge and all the lore that they had collected over the years was stored up there in that city. City of the book. Just like we, in our more advanced day, with our more advanced buildings, have our great city libraries, which house all the n- the learning that we need in things practical and in things artistic. That city he took, and they turned it, its name, to Debir, oracle, voice of God. I should think if we want to overcome worldliness, we shall have to do a very similar thing, shall we? There never was a day when more books were printed. There never was a day when more young folks studied more books. To get el- almost anywhere in life these days, you've got to do quite a lot of studying, isn't it? Isn't it so? Whether it be gardener or chef or needleworker or accountant, uh, books, books, books, books, books. How exciting they are. I hope you find them exciting. Oh, I'm glad I don't have to do some things that aren't quite so exciting as others. The fascinating world it all is anyway. You say, well, I don't like books, I like to get out and do the practical stuff. Well, good for you, but guys like you do the practical stuff, and then somebody else writes it in the book for us, you know, who aren't quite so practical. But it is all exciting, isn't it? A fascinating world. Oh, I sometimes wish that I had three lives, don't you? So that the next life I might learn something about, uh, gardening in a big way, and the next life after that, astronomy maybe. To get el- almost anywhere in life these days, you've got to do quite a lot of studying, isn't it? Isn't it so? Whether it be gardener or chef or needle worker or accountant, uh, books, books, books, books, books. How exciting they are. I hope you find them exciting. Oh, I'm glad I don't have to do some things that aren't quite so exciting as others. It's a fascinating world it all is anyway. You say, well, I don't like books, I like to get out and do the practical stuff. Well, good for you, but guys like you do the practical stuff, and then somebody else writes it in the book for us, you know, who aren't quite so practical. But it is all exciting, isn't it? A fascinating world. God, I sometimes wish that I had three lives, don't you? So that the next life I might learn something about, uh, gardening in a big way, and the next life after that, astronomy maybe. I do know there's a danger there, isn't there? Danger that we have so much of our time spent on that kind of book. We get less and less and less time to hear the living word of God. I think back nearly a generation or two. The men in my father's day, who in their youth had to work from eight in the morning till eight at night, with far less opportunities for education than we now have, and yet who somehow, I don't know how they did it, studied God's word, and turned themselves into men who knew God and knew his word, and could preach it to the unconverted and explain it to the believers. Yet you don't have to travel far nowadays in the United Kingdom or anywhere you will in the world to hear the united cry of God's people everywhere, but where are the teachers? Yes, where are they? You'd have thought it would have been the other way around, wouldn't you? That now with all the increased opportunities for education, we should have produced handfuls of men and women that knew God's word very well. But it doesn't altogether seem to have worked that way, does it? And it's a very curious phenomenon that somehow, when it comes to daily living, our sixteen uh to eighteen-year-olds year olds at their schools are, are learning physics that would stand me on my head. And yet, when you get those same sixteen-year-olds in, in, in the context of spiritual things, people will tell you, now look, please keep it simple. Really? Well, how do they manage to do complicated physics at school? The spiritual things must be kept simple. Oh come. Yes, I understand it. That young folks haven't got the maturity of development, uh, to understand certain things that can only be understood by the ongoing experience of life. But oh, pray God, that while they're young, we shall inspire them like Caleb inspired Othniel, that in all his getting in a city of books, he should predominantly and above all else hear that living word of God that turns life into an oracle. I'm not saying, young chap, that you must give up your physics, nor you, sir, that you must give up your career in engineering in order to become a professional expounder of holy writ. But I would say this, that our attitude to our careers is vitally important. The physics you do sound, the electricity, and madam, the fire arrangements that you get up to. What opportunities? Therein to worship God, who made this world and bids me work in it, and thus daily come in contact with some part of his wonderful and interesting creation. Daily thank him for it as a gift that comes to me from the Father, to be enjoyed in the fear and in the company and in the fellowship with the Father. God forbid I should get caught up in a rat race that turns it into mere career going, until it squeeze out from my life fellowship with God, and squeezes out from my life the time and opportunity to learn those deeper, more personal things about God that God teaches us through his word. For a life lived, at the kitchen sink doing the potatoes and cooking the Yorkshire, oh no, perhaps you don't do that, uh, cooking whatever it is you cook. And enjoying the tasks that God has given us in this weary world can itself be a means of bringing us nearer to Father, can't it? Leading us to worship him and admire him for the sheer wonder of his handiwork. But oh, how easily those same things turn and become mere worldliness, when we allow our heart's attitude to change towards it. So he fought, attracted by Caleb's personality and even more by his daughters. Heart and muscle and love and fight joined together to get more of the great inheritance that God offered them, and turn the city of books into an oracle. And finally, I said just now, didn't I, that Caleb's daughter was very much like her father. He was out for all he could get, and so was she. And, uh, being given this city down there in the south, what the Hebrews called and the Israelis still call the Negev, she looked around and she said, you know, this is all very nice, Othniel dear, all very nice. Of course, I'm sure it is. It's rather dry, isn't it? For it is down there, isn't it? Down there by Hebron and in those directions, it can be very dry, particularly if you're down more on the plains. In fact, if you haven't got a good supply of water somewhere near your estate, it'll be very dry indeed. Phew, she said, well, I tell you what, Austin old boy, when Papa comes along again, I think perhaps you might have a word in his ear. She seems to have been the moving spirit in that team, doesn't she? Mm. Actually, when the occasion arose, it would appear to me from the reading of the text that it was very much the Axa herself, uh, that put the question to Papa in her delightfully charming way. She says, Dad, you've given us this, uh, this oh beautiful, oh, it's lovely inheritance down here in the Negev, marvelous. A bit dry, isn't it? And now if it's much good if you don't give us some springs of water as well. But how are we going to get the radishes to grow in the garden if if we've got no water? Oh, I like a girl's honesty. Didn't pretend she was enjoying it when she wasn't. But that sort of practical turn of mind is not going to pretend things. Asked her father, and he didn't turn around to say, you ungrateful lass, you, I've given you this already. Now you'll never be satisfied. You're always asking for more. No, he, he recognized himself, didn't he? He was always asking for more. And so ought every believer, surely. Do be honest, aren't you? Oh, God has given us such a marvelous inheritance. Leviticus, for instance. Now, what do you really think about Leviticus? Do think before you reply, won't you? If you start to say, oh, I think it's marvelous, it's the inspired word of God, I go to the stake for it, then I shall ask you how many times you've read it recently. May as well be honest, very difficult. And as far as this particular bit of our inheritance goes, that is God-inspired word. It can be very dry. Oh, don't let's deceive ourselves, exceedingly dry. In fact, without the Holy Spirit's workings in our hearts and minds, the thing will remain double Dutch. Why is it that the unconverted man sees no interest in it. Well, you say that's easily understood. He hasn't God's Holy Spirit. Thing is double dutch to him. It is one of the lovely things that you may experience to watch a new convert beginning to discover God's word. It begins to mean things to him. That blessed person, God's Holy Spirit, is available to us for that very purpose, to make God's Holy Word not mere information, but, but moist with life and fertile and fruitful in our experience. But we shall have to ask. Oh yes, we don't have to ask for the Holy Spirit in the sense that God has given us his Holy Spirit. The moment we trusted Christ, did God give us his Holy Spirit, that living water? There is a sense in which we do have to ask, isn't there? Paul prayed it so soon as he heard that there were converts in Ephesus or elsewhere, he prayed for them. For the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, that the eyes of their heart be opened. That they might be strengthened in their hearts and their inner man by that same spirit. The realities of God's great inheritance, the glory of the riches of inhe- his inheritance in the saints might become a thing that they don't merely assent to with the mind, but enjoy with the heart. And Paul prayed and prayed assiduously, and so should we. Oh, if we are to overcome worldliness and enter into the joy of our inheritance, it must be our constant prayer. Like the man who came when his friend was in bed and hammered on the door for a loaf of bread and would not take no for an answer, but kept on hammering until the friend got up and gave what he wanted. So must we constantly pray. For the deepening of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds, bringing through God's word that illumination, that life that makes our inheritance genuinely a living thing. And that, my dear young folks, let me tell you, is a process. We shall never so much arrive that we no longer need to pray. But on the other hand, if you have been in those parts where Othniel and, uh, his wife live, you will know this, that even down in that semi-desert land, you may be traveling along the road in mid- in the midst of what seems to you to be utterly barren soil, when suddenly you come around the corner and there is a beautiful array of flowers. There's somebody's water heater, and the transformation is incredible. Ansa asked for the upper and the nether spring. We need God's Holy Spirit, yes, we need the risen Lord himself, do we not? Here is his re- recipe for overcoming the world. Any man love me, he will keep my commandment, and I will love him. And my father will love him, and we will come and make our abode with him. I will not leave you orphans. I come to you. I will manifest myself to you. Says Judas, not Iscariot. Half a minute, Lord, he said, uh, that bit. What did you mean by that? I will, I will manifest myself to you. He said, how will you do it? I mean, how will it happen that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Oh well, said Christ, it's this way, you see, that if you love me, Judas, and you keep my commandment, my Father will love you, and we, the Father and I, come and make our abode with you. Before he went to heaven, at his ascension, our Lord spent forty days, did he not? Still here on earth, preparing his people for the time when bodily he should no longer be with them, but should have ascended. And he spent his time preparing their minds for this thing, what he meant when he said, I will manifest myself to you. So it came about that Mary Magdalene was at the tomb, and the stone was gone, and the tomb was empty. And she called John and Peter, and they came, and with their learned minds they saw the evidence and investigated it and drew all sorts of marvelous conclusions for the evidence in a manner that only male apostles could. And having drawn all the evidence and all its conclusions from the facts, close here, napkin there, stone rolled away. They went home. They'd seen all there was to see, had they? Mary stood, looking at the same facts. Ah, but there was something more to see. And presently she saw, and it was the Lord. Two folks were on the road to Emmaus, weren't they? And they had thought, and they had talked, and they had discussed, and they had argued, until a stranger came near and began to expound Holy Writ. And they were familiar pass- passages. What was there new in them? By that day, there was a new dimension. For the Lord manifested Manifested himself himself to too. them. four or five disciples, now apostles, were up in Galilee, and they had gone fishing. And they fished, and they fished, and they fished. When suddenly, at the, uh, suggestion of a stranger on the shore, they let down their net, and suddenly it enclosed a great multitude of fish. And presently John nudged Peter. Peter, he said, you know, that must be the Lord. So it was, for he had manifested himself to them. It wasn't every day of the week it happened. Not every day they took up their Bibles to study them. Not every time they went to fishing. Not every time they stood by an open grave. But as they could bear it, and from time to time, and in different form, it happened. The Lord manifested himself to you. Whether perhaps about some traumatic experience in life. Or was it perhaps that you went to fishing, trying to get a job and found it very difficult, and made it a matter of prayer? And the answer came in a way that's in the heart of hearts you feel must have been the Lord arranging. Or was it fishing in that other sense that you went for the first time to put your back and soul into a gospel effort, and God began to work, and folks were saved, and you had the experience of actually talking to an unconverted person, and you felt the Lord's presence. Or was it in your regular reading of scripture, there came a moment that you couldn't explain to others, and yet in your spirit, you felt it was not just information. The Lord appeared. Oh, Oh come. come, we shall need upper and lower strength to transform our rich inheritance into the fruitful thing that God intended it to be. Let's seek him, shall we not? Let's pray that by his grace he may prepare our hearts, and as we are able, thus manifest himself as in love with the risen Lord, we may find in that love that he himself inspires in our hearts, and worthy though our hearts be, the strength to serve him and the strength to overcome the world. Now we pray. Now, Lord, as we turn from our studies of these ancient Israelitic times, and from our thinking of those early days when thou didst walk upon the seashore with thine apostles, we sense, Lord, that our problems basically are the same as theirs. We do praise thee for our redemption. We do praise thee for bringing us into our inheritance, giving us already here an earnest of that inheritance. We honestly can say to thee that the lines have fallen unto us in goodly places. We have a goodly heritage. Lord Jesus, our hearts cannot be satisfied until we see thee, and awaking in thy likeness, then satisfied. The very earnest of thy spirit within our hearts leads us to pray and constantly pray. Oh, blessed Lord, hear the prayer from each of our hearts now this evening again. Deepen thy work within us, we beseech thee. Strengthen our hearts by thy spirit, that we may have strength along with all saints to understand and grasp the height and length and depth and breadth. Know the love of God that passeth understanding. Blessed Lord, who has promised to reveal thyself to us. Look upon us still, we beseech thee. And as we can bear it, favor us with thy visits and manifest thyself. We ask not for signs and wonders or ecstatic vision. We ask for that drawing near of thyself, that touching of our spirit, so that we know it is the Lord. Thus help us in our day to rise up strong, to be those who overcome the world and who stand fast and having done all, stand. We ask it for thy name's sake.