BEGINNINGS
T. N. Pye
Genesis 12: 7–9; 2 Samuel 17: 18, 19
I have in mind in referring to these scriptures to say something about beginnings. Our brother and sister have made a new start, a fresh beginning, they have entered upon a path they have not been on before. I think our beginnings are most important because beginnings always have endings in mind of course, but a right start is what we would have in mind. We have all made beginnings, every one of us, then maybe we need to make a fresh start, and that might be the point of our being together today. We want our brother and sister to have a good start, a good beginning; I think that would be the exercise of everybody here, and the number present, I think, would only indicate that.
The scriptures we have referred to refer to an altar and a well. I want to call attention to these two things, they are two things essential for good beginnings. Abram had been called and gone out; the chapter begins with that. Jehovah says to him, “Go out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, to the land that I will shew thee” (Genesis 12: 1), and Abram went out. His movement was, of course; to the place that God had said and immediately he arrives there it says that God spoke to him. It is a great thing to come to it that as we make a move under divine direction God comes in and He immediately confirms it. I think that as we make a start God would confirm us in the right direction. The result is that Abram answered to that and he answered to it in the building of an altar. Now I want to commend that to all of us and to our brother and sister.
because as we set up house the first thing, I think, is an altar, that is, approach to God. It is a great thing to begin in a household setting with an approach to God. Abram had answered to light and then he approaches God, it says that “he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him”. Now I think God would confirm our brother and sister in the step they have taken, but then He looks for an answer to that; a beginning means that there is an answer on our side to what God has done, and so He looks for a response; He looks for us to approach Him.
It is interesting, I think, that Peter calls attention to this in his letter when he speaks about the weaker vessel, he says, “that your prayers be not hindered”, 1 Peter 3: 7. I think that means that the altar is there—“that your prayers be not hindered”. I would commend that to our brother and sister and to all of us, that there is an answer to God in what He has done. He, after all, made the first move, and that is a great thing to keep in mind. Genesis, of course, is a book of beginnings, and you find that God makes the first move. When God makes a move He looks for an answer in us, and so He looks that our prayers—and I commend that to our brother and sister—be not hindered. It would be so for all of us because Paul would encourage us to pray without ceasing. That is a good beginning but it is a continuing one, do not let us give up. There is a tendency to slacken; when perhaps you do not get an answer to your prayer you slacken; keep at it, that your prayers be not hindered.
I referred to the scripture in Samuel because you have a well there. It is another essential I think, a good and essential beginning. This man, who is unnamed, had a well in his court. Think of building your establishment with a well in it. I think it has in mind that there is to be a resource from which you can draw. Now we need to begin like this; we tend, of course, because of the conditions that prevail, to be self-sufficient, but the believer has a resource in the Spirit outside the realm of the world and what is going on in the world; the believer has a resource in the Spirit. This man, you might say, was careful in building his house to have a well in the court. It becomes a great means of salvation in view of the testimony, which is another very encouraging thing, and in the setting up of houses I think this is something that ought to be in mind, because here are two youths, you know, who flee to this house and they come to the area of salvation. There is an area of preservation and an area of salvation because this man built his house round this principle.
Now I commend that to all of us, that there is room made for the Spirit; that is a vital thing.
You know we are not to be here just like other people; that is another tendency; the believer is to be here as different from everybody else, in a different order of things. You are in the same world and the same conditions, but you know you have a secret that others do not know. You see the thing was not known; a secret is not known; the secret lies in our links with the Spirit. I commend these things to our brother and sister and to all of us that we begin like this and we continue. “That your prayers be not hindered” involves a continuing line of things in all the ups and downs of life, and maybe you will find the need for it sometimes more than others. I commend that to our brother and sister and to all of us. Do not let us give up. Begin that way, continue that way, find the resource and the power that is available because God has been before us.
Word at the marriage of Mr. D. Taylor and Miss R. Pye, Kirkcaldy
22 March 1980