Away, Apart, Alone

One of the most valued books in my library is entitled Searchlights from the Word, by G. Campbell Morgan. In this book Mr. Morgan makes comments on a verse taken from each chapter of the Bible. I have made a list of passages upon which Mr. Morgan has commented where I was especially impressed by the comment. In looking for something for today’s meditation, I looked over this list and reviewed Mr. Morgan’s comments on Leviticus 9:23. Once again, I was struck by his profound insights. First, let’s read the passage.

Leviticus 9:23 And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the people.

Mr. Morgan commented on the fact that Moses and Aaron “went into the tabernacle,” the dwelling place of God, before they “came out, and blessed the people.” Here are his comments:

“The principle is abiding. The servants of God, whether prophets or priests, have no power to bless men save as they receive it in direct communion with God. Before we can go out and bless the people, we must go into the Place of Meeting with God. This is so self-evident that it seems hardly necessary to state it. Yet we are perpetually in danger of allowing our very eagerness to serve men, to interfere with our communion with God. To do so, is to fail disastrously. It is only as we serve in the Holy Place, in worship, in silence, in reception from God, that we are able to serve in the camp in work, in speech, in giving to men. Forgetfulness of this is the secret of much futility in Christian work, of much fussiness, of much feverishness. It is the souls who are strengthened, enlightened, quieted in the Tent of Meeting, that pass out to the places and ways of men, carrying blessings with them.”

To this I can but add a hearty “Amen.” We so very much need that quiet time with God apart from the hustle and bustle without if we are to be truly fitted to bless others. As we say in our modern slang, we need to “recharge our batteries.” And our batteries are recharged in communion with God. We experience this communion with God by means of prayer, worship, and reading and studying the Scriptures. In prayer we speak to God. We bring before Him our challenges and problems, and request solutions and help in dealing with them. In worship we praise God for Who He is and the good things that He has done. This puts our problems into perspective and reminds us that we deal with One so much greater than our problems. The reading and studying of the Scriptures are so vital to communion with God because it is through the Scriptures that God speaks to us and reveals Himself to us. Here is where we find the direction we need for meeting our challenges and dealing with our problems. Being thus fortified through communion with God we can go out and be a blessing to others by way of serving, helping, instructing, and being an example.

The importance of this is underscored by the fact that the one perfect man, the Man Christ Jesus, also found it necessary to come apart from the multitudes and His many duties to spend time in communion with God. This point emerges from the following passage:

Matthew 14:22 And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.

There are three words in the passage that describe what our Lord was doing. They are the three words that make up the title of this meditation: away, apart, alone. These three words express what we need to fit us for service to others. We need time away from the multitude. We need to come to a place apart to pray. And we need to be alone. It is in being alone with God, away from the crowd, and apart from everything else that we can experience the undistracted communion with God that fortifies and prepares us to go out and bless others. Without this communion, away, apart, and alone, we will wither, our service will lose its vigour and sweetness, and we will not be the blessing we could otherwise be. We may still be quite busy serving, but something vital will be missing.

As one called to minister to others, I know how important this being away, apart, and alone is. I would grow stagnant and ineffective without it. If the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect Man and Servant, needed to be away, apart, and alone, then how much more does a poor sinner such as I need it. So if you would bless others by your service, then let me encourage you to block out some time and space to get away to be apart and alone with God. Spend sometime in the tent of meeting with God before you go out to bless others. Might it be said of us as it was said of Peter and John of old:

Acts 4:13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.

Sickness for the Glory of God

This morning I was doing part of my daily Bible reading while sitting on “the porcelain chair.” I heard Greg Ohly call it by that name years ago while making a presentation for Longaberger baskets at John and Kathleen Yarsinsky’s. Somehow that has stayed with me over the years. Now I know some of my readers could do without such details. However, I do have a serious point to make with it and that is, that if you are busy and you really want to do your daily Bible reading, there are times and places to do it. You just have to be creative. Most of us have seen pictures of The Thinker, the famous French sculpture by Auguste Rodin. The Thinker is positioned just like someone sitting on “the porcelain chair.” I wonder if Monsieur Rodin had that in mind. You see, it is a great place to meditate. And a great place to do your daily Bible reading.

Now this is not a blog about maximizing time spent on “the porcelain chair.” It is about what I saw today, while doing my Bible reading there. I was reading John 11 and I was profoundly struck by something in verse 4. Let’s begin by reading the first four verses of John 11 leading up to our verse.

John 11:1  Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
2  (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
3  Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
4  When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

Lazarus was extremely sick. He was so sick that his sisters sent for the Lord Jesus in hopes that He would come and heal him. In fact, he was so sick that he died from it as the account goes on to relate. And yet, in the face of this great extremity of human tragedy, our Lord had this to say about Lazarus’ sickness: “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.”

How could our Lord make such a statement in the face of the fact that Lazarus died? Well, as the narrative continues we learn that our Lord used this as an occasion to show Himself as “the resurrection, and the life.” Our Lord knew in advance what He would do. He was in perfect control of the situation. In fact, when Lararus’ sisters sent for Him, Jesus did not rush to the scene but “abode two days still in the same place where he was” (John 11:6). Does it ever seem to you that the Lord is taking His sweet time when you call for His help in an emergency? Well, He is and He has good reason for doing so. Our Lord Jesus was so in control of this situation, He could even say this when He knew Lazarus had died:

John 11:14  Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
15  And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.

Just look at the juxtaposition of those two statements: “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad.” GLAD??? Glad when Lazarus’ family and friends are in such grief? No, He was not glad that they were sad. He was rather glad for the opportunity that this tragedy provided for the display of His saving power and for the strengthening of the faith of His disciples.

As the narrative goes on to relate, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead by His life-giving voice and gained such renown for Himself, that the chief priests and Pharisees gathered a council and decided to have Him put to death. It was the decision of this council that led to the death of Christ on the cross of Calvary for the redemption of His people. Indeed, Lazarus' sickness was “for the glory of God” in the most far-reaching sense of the word. God’s children will be with Him in glory because Jesus died on the cross because the Pharisees consulted to have Him put to death because He raised Lazarus from the dead because Lazarus had died because he had been sick! Of course, behind all of this was “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), without which Jesus Christ would not have been delivered up to die for the salvation of God’s elect.

Now the point that I want to stress to my readers is that sometimes we are faced with experiences of extreme tragedy, things that are beyond our ability to fix. We tend to see these things like a “sickness unto death.” But the Lord sees it quite differently. He sees that this is not “a sickness unto death,” but, rather, it is a sickness “for the glory of God.” How many times God has glorified Himself in bringing about deliverance when our resources have been completely exhausted and we have despaired of ever seeing a way out? Whenever such deliverance occurs, we stand on the other side of it in awe and praise God realizing that it was He that saved us and not we ourselves. Well, you see, that was the reason God brought us that that extremity in the first place. It was for His glory. He wants us to know His power and to trust Him wholly. Our extremities of weakness and want are God’s opportunities to display His power. We have a limit. He has no limit.

Jeremiah 32:17  Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:

So whatever extremity of tragedy you may find yourself in today, know that you are never beyond the power of God to save.

Hebrews 7:25  Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we bear the hope that not even the extremity of death is the end for us as our Lord put it so well:

John 11:25  Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
26  And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

On Knowing the Author

As I have mentioned before, I receive a daily meditation from a pastor friend of mine named Larry Lilly. Pastor Lilly recently wrote an article entitled “Catcher in the Rye and Speaking with THE Author.” In the article he cited the following words of Holden Caulfield, one of the characters in J.D. Salinger’s book, Catcher in the Rye:

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."

Pastor Lilly then went on to write: “It is not unusual for avid readers to have a desire to speak with authors whose work they have read.” I can certainly attest to that. I enjoy reading novels in German. My favourite German author is Heinz Konsalik. I freely admit that more than once I have dreamed of meeting Mr. Konsalik, engaging him in conversation, and even becoming his friend. Mr. Konsalik is deceased now. So I have missed that opportunity, not that is was ever very likely.

Thinking of this I was reminded of something a lady said that used to attend a church, where my mother was a member. This lady was reading her Bible in a waiting room. Seeing this, someone made a comment to her to the effect that the Bible was difficult to understand. Here was the lady’s response to that comment: “It helps to know the Author.” What a profound statement!

As Bible readers and believers, we have the privilege of knowing the Author as a personal Friend and talking to Him on a regular basis in prayer. When we read the Bible, we should read it as being in the personal presence of the Author and we should receive its teaching as being for us.

Romans 15:4  For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

In the Bible, God is teaching us. If there is something in the Scriptures that we don’t understand, we have but to ask Him or “call him up,” as Holden Caulfield put it. God is one Friend we have that really knows how to listen. If we ask and wait expecting the answer, He will give us the understanding we need in due time as the following passages lead us to expect.

Psalms 119:73  Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.

Psalms 119:125  I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies.

Psalms 119:169  Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD: give me understanding according to thy word.

Proverbs 2:6  For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.

James 1:5  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

One of the most exciting things I experience in my life as a Christian is reading a passage I have read many times and seeing something I have never seen before. It is then that God is giving me the understanding that I seek. At such a time I am personally interfacing with the Author, Who just happens to be my very best Friend. Oh, the blessing of knowing the Author!