- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
‘The Secret Place.’
By J.C.Metcalfe.
“The divine life within us comes from God and is entirely dependent upon Him. As I need every moment fresh air to breathe, so it is only in direct living communication with God that my soul can be strong.” Andrew Murray.
It possibly sounds trite to say that the man who will be used by God in His service must learn to walk alone with God and must master thoroughly the lesson of the “secret place”. It may be one of those sayings with which we are familiar as abstract truth but have never grasped in practical significance.
I want to look at three passages from the book of Exodus, starting with Exodus 24 v12-18. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to Me on the mountain and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commandments . . . And Moses set out with Joshua . . . He said to the elders, ‘Wait here’ . . .When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it.”
The glory of the Lord rested on mount Sinai and the cloud covered it six days, and on the seventh day God called to Moses out of the cloud. The sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire. Moses was summoned to ascend into the awful majesty of the mountain to receive the law direct from the mouth of God. The people of Israel were forbidden to approach and Hebrews 12 v18-21 gives us a peculiarly vivid picture of the scene, “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast . . . the sight was so terrifying that Moses said, ‘I am trembling with fear’.”
Into the glory of this devouring fire Joshua went with Moses, and was unscathed. For forty days and forty nights he remained alone in the mountain and heard the law of God given to Moses there. This was an essential part of his training. The reason given in Hebrews for the people’s terror was that they could not endure what was commanded. Their hearts were not able to accept the dread revelation of a holy law. They could not be freed from the sinful folly of their own ways and were unprepared for the stark demand of complete obedience to God alone. God’s chosen leader must however tread this path. He must, as a Saxon historian once expressed it, learn the secret, ‘Let God be a home to thee and be thou a home of God’. Only such complete harmony and oneness with God Himself can make a Christian worker who can effectually preach the gospel with authority and compelling power, and can become a true under shepherd. The more Joshua heard and saw of God, the more he became prepared to rest on Him and Him alone. John Wesley once cried out for a hundred preachers, who feared nothing but sin and loved nothing but God, and declared that with such he could move the world.
In the mount, Joshua also heard from God’s own lips the unfolding of His detailed plan by means of which sinful men and women might approach Him. The furniture of the tabernacle, the manner of the priesthood and the keeping of the sabbaths, were all displayed before His wondering vision. He came down from this sanctuary experience with the positive assurance not only of the burning holiness but of the marvellous grace of God. This assurance had been gained at first hand. Never forget that second-hand knowledge here is of no value, and yet how many there are who are doing “Christian work” who have nothing else to offer. John Milton, the poet, saw this clearly and once wrote, “If a man believe things only because his pastor says so . . . though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.”
I wonder if this time spent by Joshua in the mountain has its New Testament counterpart in Paul’s time in Arabia? Paul’s testimony is clear that, “The Gospel I preached is not something that man made up . . . I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1 v11-12). In the same way, Joshua, as he saw the completed tabernacle, would be able to say, ‘I have seen this already! I learned the details from the lips of God Himself’. He could speak with authority, because he knew. Is not this often the contrast that we find in ministry? Have you never listened to a preacher, who has said all the right things and said them earnestly, but you have realized that there has been something lacking? There has been sound doctrine lacking power. There has been oratory lacking the Spirit. There has been knowledge of the kind that is loveless. God’s unction only rests upon truth which He Himself has revealed. He is a jealous God and undertakes the equipment and training of His servants right from the beginning. Without the ability to penetrate the darkness, to face the fires of His holiness and to bow utterly to His will, there can be no call to ministry. The silence of learning in the mount always precedes useful public labours.
Now turn to chapter 32 v15-18. “Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, ‘There is the sound of war in the camp.’ Moses replied, ‘It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear’.” Moses and Joshua, descending the mountain carrying the two tablets of the law written by the finger of God, suddenly became conscious of the tumult and shouting beneath them. There is a lovely human touch here which sheds light on the character of Joshua. ‘There is the sound of war in the camp’. The soldier is at once on the alert, the natural instinct of the fighting man comes immediately to the fore. What a good thing it is for us that God takes up and uses ordinary men and women. I think one of the best pieces of advice I ever had, as a young Christian, was that of an elderly Christian lady who once said to me, ‘My dear, never become super-spiritual’. What wise counsel that was! God never robs us of our individuality. What a queer mixture the early band of disciples were! Each was coloured by their natural disposition and upbringing and each had to learn a life of obedience to his new Master. Peter still retained his very distinct individuality but step by step he learned the glorious secret of a life that is pleasing to God. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2 v24). In the same way Joshua was the soldier still, even after all that he had learned of God’s holiness and yet of His approachability by means of the way provided for sinners.
Joshua now learned two great lessons at the foot of the mountain. He was taught that unsparing judgment would be poured out on the sin of idolatry, the changing of “the glory of the un-corruptible God into an image made like to . . . four-footed beasts”. He must have trembled to see the sons of Levi wielding the drawn sword of vengeance and to witness the plague which followed. But at the same time this budding leader was given a glimpse of substitutionary intercession and its blessed results, as he heard the prayer of Moses, “now, please forgive their sin - but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written”. He was learning the price that must be paid for a commission as a leader. We know all too little of such a spirit today.
I have often heard ministers grumbling about their Church officers, and have heard preachers say that their hearers have become ‘gospel hardened’ and do not appreciate the value of their ministry. They little realize how revealing such an attitude is, and cannot understand that they must learn the basic lesson of all true leadership. We serve Him who is despised and rejected of men, who died for His enemies, and His spirit dwells within us. Paul, following in this royal succession, writes “It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena . . . We are fools for Christ . . . we are weak . . . we are dishonoured . . . we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world” (1 Corinthians 4 v9-13). The path to the leader’s office is through the deeps of self-denial just as certainly as the road to the Crown is the way of the Cross. Mary Slessor, learning this lesson, once wrote, ‘All is dark except above. Calvary stands safe and sure’. W.M.Clow glimpsed it when he said, ‘The symbol of the Christian Church is not a burning bush, nor a dove, nor an open book, nor a halo round a submissive head, nor a crown of splendid honour, it is a Cross’. Yes, the Saviour’s Cross is ours and we must die daily if we are to manifest His glory in this world.
We are now ready to read the first eleven verses of chapter 33. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Leave this place, you and the people . . . But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.’ . . When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no-one put on any ornaments. . . Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the ‘tent of meeting’. . . And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrance of their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. . . The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua, son of Nun, did not leave the tent.”
Joshua’s schooling is taking effect. What a contrast these verses give us. The heads of the families of Israel, standing each “in the entrance to their tents”, watching Moses go outside the camp to the “tent of meeting”, so named because it was open for all, and this young man, not only went with Moses to meet God there but stayed on to be alone with God when Moses himself returned to the camp.
We find the same thought recurring again in 2 Kings 2, when the sons of the prophets were able to say to Elisha, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?” (v5), but had neither part nor lot with Elijah and his assistant, whether in the intimate walk together through Jordan or in the wondrous gift of the “double portion”, the eldest son’s portion, of the Spirit. There are many, who know the bare bones of the truth and who view Calvary, as the Israelites did the tent of meeting, at a distance. They can tell you sound doctrine about the Cross but have no part or lot in the reality of its mighty accomplishments. Leaders are not made out of such material. They seem to know the doctrine and terminology of what they please to call “the deeper life”, but they are always looking for help from men or complaining of the attitude of others towards them. There is no rest and no ability to help others because there is no knowledge of a life lived alone with God. We shall find that much hinges on this personal walk alone with God, both of success and failure, because Joshua did fail at times and so do the very best of Christian workers. We are not told what transpired during Joshua’s time spent alone in the tent of meeting. That is none of our business. But a mark was left on the life of this young man that made him the strong, God-reliant leader he ultimately became. There are always periods in our Christian experience about which we cannot, indeed must not speak to others. Paul, when driven through opposition to glorying in God’s dealings with him, reaches a realm where he finds his lips are closed. “I knew a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. . . He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell” (2 Cor. 12 v2-4). I am disturbed when I hear people talk glibly about their supposed deep spiritual experiences. If such experiences are genuine we shall not need to talk about them, the results of them will be seen in our lives. As the hymn-writer has it, “. . . you will bear the shining image of the Master in your face.”
No! Joshua never tells what transpired during those wonderful hours alone, but we have only to watch the growth of strength, which is deep rooted in his knowledge of God, to see how essential these times were and to realize that we shall have to pass that way as well if we are to be trained to be workers together with God !
In a day when so strong an emphasis is laid on the development of natural gifts, we need to understand very clearly that when God chooses people for His service He Himself undertakes the inner preparation of heart and life. So much teaching is developed on these lines, ‘Now that you believe that Jesus died for you it is up to you to serve Him faithfully in return. You must give your gifts to Him’. He does not want your gifts as such, He wants you. What He said to His disciples is true of everyone who is called into His service today, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask” (John 15 v16). This pronouncement was made in the quietness of the upper room where His own were gathered in His presence. In the same way it is in the stillness of the secret place that we hear His call, come under the power of His ordination and are taught that our trust must be placed in Him and in Him alone. Only then shall we have a message which bubbles up from the spring of a deep heart experience of His grace!
Only then shall we speak of our Saviour in those glowing terms that move the hearts of men, and preach our greatest sermons by our simple, loving confidence in Him even in times and places of the greatest stress and strain.
From ‘Learning to Serve’.