RESPONSE FOR GOD

K. N. Pye

Exodus 4: 22, 23; Joshua 24: 14, 15; John 4: 10, 13, 14, 20–30

I was exercised to speak about response for God. In the first section we read we see what was God’s objective from the very beginning, “Let my son go, that he may serve me”. God’s desire was to have man for himself and we see in Joshua the responsibility on our side what committal that may mean from us. Then how it works out in the woman in John 4, who was drawn to Jesus and was able to attract others to come to know the One who is the Christ. God, in the beginning, said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1: 26), with the intent that He would have man for Himself. It speaks of Jehovah Elohim walking in the garden in the cool of the day, desiring to have man for Himself. I think God’s desire is that He will be served. What part am I going to have in it?

It speaks of Noah that he walked with God. It speaks of Enoch that he walked with God and he was not because God took him. What joy God had in having a man for His delight and pleasure. These are all types, but there is One who gave Him great delight, One whose occupation was entirely to serve God. Everything that Jesus did was to serve God; it tells us in Psalm 1: 2, “But his delight is in Jehovah’s law, and in his law doth he meditate day and night”. What joy God had in Him who said, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” (Luke 2: 49); One that was solely occupied by serving God. The whole bent of His life, everything He did was to serve God. What joy God had in that. I challenge each one of us, I feel challenged myself, How am I serving God?

The children of Israel, in the chapters following where we read in Exodus, were under hardship and they wanted to leave. Maybe God uses circumstances to make us want to leave the environment we are in. How occupied are we with the things of the world? Egypt would represent that. They wanted to leave but it was not easy for them, the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. He did not want to let them go. The world claims a grip on you so that you cannot serve God; that is what the world would do, hold on to you, to restrict your service for God.

The young ones know that, small things perhaps they may be, but the world would just try and hold you back. You go through all these plagues that God brought upon the Egyptians and you will find eventually Pharaoh said, Just let the men go and worship God. The world would seek to hold something back, to keep you away from serving God, but God has spoken, “let my son go that he may serve me”.

God says one last plague and then Pharaoh will let you go, the passover, involved that death had to come in. They had plagues of gnats, they had plagues of locusts, they could not even see, it was so dark, because there were so many locusts. We can hardly even conceive what that was like. Another of the plagues that God passed the Egyptians through was to put boils on their skin. How severe that was, but that did not stop Pharaoh holding on; it was not until death came in that Pharaoh let the children, of Israel go. In order for the children of Israel to be excluded from the death that came over the whole land of Egypt, the lamb had to die. Oh, the perfect lamb, a yearling lamb, a lamb without blemish, a type of the One that is as a tree planted by brooks of water, One that meditated on God’s law day and night. What delight God had in Christ, but He had to die so that we can enter in to serve God.

How easy it is for us just to accept things but how necessary it is for us to accept God at His word—“Let my son go that he may serve me”. Am I occupied in that? Am I occupied in God’s service? The children of Israel had hardly left Egypt, when they wanted to go back.

Maybe we get a touch at meetings like this, we get a touch in our hearts and say, I am going to go forward and be for God. Would that we could keep refreshed in that, in our hearts. Would that we can look back on the experiences we have enjoyed, when we knew something of the fulness of God’s thoughts, would that we could be occupied in that so that we can continue on and not long to go back, not long to be in the area where it is a little bit easier perhaps, not so much pressure. They had no water, no food; you say, How terrible that is.

Would that we would be exercised as those that are feeding on the Man who has given God delight. It involves committal on our part. We find where we read in Joshua, God tells the children of Israel all the history. Sometimes we need to go back over our history, not just our own history but the history of the testimony.

If you look at the beginning of this chapter it goes all the way back to Abraham leaving the land, “Your fathers dwelt of old on the other side of the river”, Joshua 24: 2. God shows how things operated all the way through until they got into the land, right to their current experiences that they had known. I wonder if we really appreciate that soul history is cumulative in us, so we should not be afraid of experiences that we go through. I feel sometimes we go through exercises, and we are very concerned at the moment, but there is great gain to those that are exercised by them. We have to be exercised by the discipline we go through to get gain, and, if we are exercised by it our knowledge of God accumulates.

What is the result? God means much more to us. It increases our faith. In our experiences with God, be they individual or collective, the exercises we go through in our localities, they add up to a greater knowledge of God.

Joshua knew something of that as he went through the wilderness and he could recall his experiences with God. He knew what it was to search out the land and then go through the wilderness with the land in his heart. The grapes and the pomegranates they carried through the wilderness were out of the land. We have to go through the wilderness but what do we carry? We have the Supper at the beginning of the week then we go through the wilderness.

Do we carry something with us to see us through? We should feed on Christ, the Man who served God in perfection. Oh the fulness of everything that God secured in Christ, the joy He had in that blessed Man in the pathway that He walked here. The gospels tell of the pathway of Jesus here. How can we follow in that pathway? Not just by knowing about it—we have to follow in that pathway as we know Him where He is today, a risen Man, a Man seated at the right hand of God. I think Joshua had a sense of that, typically he had a sense of One who was the Saviour. He had a sense of One who was able to save, so he goes on to say, “And now fear Jehovah and serve him”. Joshua had come to something for himself. He goes over the whole history.

I would encourage the young ones to go over the history of the testimony. Why are you here?

Because your parents brought you? Well, that is good, but you have to be on your own exercise too. You need to find out why, not to challenge it, but to understand why you are here. ‘Recovery and Maintenance of the Truth’ is a good book for the young ones to read so they can see how things progressed. Then you can justify why you are here by scripture, the word of God. The word of God is the answer to everything. You may say, Well, I am not a good reader. Maybe you just need to read a little bit at a time, but read.

Would that our histories and our committals were like Joshua’s here. He does not stop part way, he says, “fear Jehovah, and serve him in perfectness and in truth”. Things have to be done away with, put away the gods, put them away. He leaves the responsibility up to you and to me. Each one of us has our own responsibility—“choose you this day whom ye will serve”. We cannot serve God and Mammon. We can only serve one God so we have to choose. You say, Well, maybe I can do a little bit of both. The children like that, they like to keep their options open. There are no options here, “choose you this day whom ye will serve”. You cannot have both, we have to choose. Joshua lays that out to the children of Israel, he says, “And if it seem evil unto you to serve Jehovah, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods whom your fathers that were on the other side of the river served, or the gods of the Amorite, in whose land ye dwell”. Well, you have a choice there, but you have to choose. Do not delay.

Then Joshua makes a statement for himself, he says, “but as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah”. Would that we could make this committal to the exclusion of everything else, because, if we are going to serve God, we cannot serve anyone else. The other gods have to be put away, and Joshua had come to that. As we look at the history of this chapter, all the children of Israel came to that too. How fine it is to find that there are persons willing to put away all the other gods and to choose the God that has seen them through. I think it comes back to our experience with God, our soul history growing and growing and growing so that we can say, I am going to choose Jehovah, there is none else. What did the disciples say when the Lord said to them, “Will ye also go away?”? Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”, John 6: 68. There is no one else, nowhere else to go. Would that we would arrive at that and take this committal freshly and whole-heartedly and hold on to it, because that is how God is going to have the answer He is looking for.

I read of the woman in John 4 who we may think is the most unlikely person to be in contact with Christ. You may say, That applies to me, I am nothing. Why would God choose me sovereignly? This woman could say, Jews have no intercourse with Samaritans, why are you asking me? This woman was looking for something, she went to draw water, but the Lord says, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”. I wonder if we make enough room for the Spirit of God. I feel tested but the Spirit of God is with us and in us. Oftentimes maybe we rely on other things, but we have to come to it, as the Lord says, “It is the Spirit which quickens, the flesh profits nothing”, John 6: 63. What do we know about that quickening power? Do we displace ourselves completely to make room for the Spirit of God? The Lord knew our need to have the Spirit with us and in us so He said, “I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever”, John 14: 16. What privileged days we are in when the Spirit is available with us and in us as we make room for Him. Sometimes we may rely on other things, what God has given us naturally perhaps, but that is dangerous. We must rely on the Spirit of God.

Paul says to the Corinthians, “the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens”, 2 Corinthians 3: 6. Knowledge is a good thing to have, but knowledge is not everything. I am not saying we should not read, we should read the Scriptures and the ministry, but they need to be read in the power of the Spirit. I trust we would be exercised to make more room for the Spirit, so that the service of God is enriched, because the Spirit speaks what He hears and the Spirit is come from heaven. He comes from heaven and what He speaks to us of is what He hears, what He hears in heaven, One who is telling us all that is going on in heaven. What better source, to know more about Jesus, a Man in heaven, than the Spirit of God who has come from heaven and is with us and in us. It is available—ask of Him. This woman had to ask, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw”. I feel we need to make more room for the Spirit of God, in our everyday lives, individually as we read the Scriptures and the ministry. Then as we come together, the Spirit being free in each one of us, it would result collectively in room being made for God’s voice to be heard, for the word of God to come out in all its power and greatness, leading to our being enriched. So there is growth in our hearts of the work of Christ, and when we come up to the service of God there is a fuller answer to satisfy the heart of God as a result of experience through the wilderness setting, as relying on the Spirit and following in the footsteps of Christ.

The Lord says to this woman, “Every one who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever”. How fine it is to make room for the Spirit. Never thirst for ever, there is no need to go back to the well to draw, you have a constant living fountain of water springing up into eternal life. It is available for each one of us but the test is, How much room do I make? This woman came to something, she said, “Sir, I see that thou art a prophet”, but the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, leads her on so that the service of God might be enriched. He says, “the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth”. How the Lord would lead us on into the service of God, where there is that answer that satisfies the heart of God—“Let my son go that he may serve me”. God is looking for that response, and this is how it is found in the present dispensation, how it is found today, and will be through eternity, “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”, Ephesians 3: 21. How fine it is that we can have our part in that and enter into what is for God’s enjoyment.

The psalmist says, “Let everything that hath breath praise Jah”, Psalm 150: 6. How much there is that is available in response for God if we make room for the Spirit. It cannot be done in the flesh, it is done as a result of affection for Christ, appreciation of the One in whom goodness was, the One who secured everything for God. What a wave-offering before God, an offering of a sweet odour, that is the offering that pleases the heart of God, One who gave His all, One that is perfect in His humanity, perfect in every way. He is the One that needs to become our object; we need to have an attraction to and affection for Him. The Lord said to Peter, “Simon, son of Jonas, art thou attached to me?”, John 21: 17. Peter was concerned about that, and I think we need to be concerned about that too. The Lord is not here corporeally any longer but attachment to Him is necessary in the present day. How much do we love Him? I think the Spirit would help us in appreciation of Christ and our love for Him.

So much so that we can be found as true worshippers, those that worship in spirit and truth. So the Father is seeking such as His worshippers. Are we in the gain of making room for Christ in our affections? This woman left her water-pot, she did not need it any more. That is just an earthly thing, maybe not a worldly thing, but just an earthly thing, a water-pot; she did not need that any more, she was done with that, she had this well of water springing up within herself.

Sometimes we have to be done with things on this earth too, but what did she do? Did she say, I am just going to follow Jesus everywhere, I am going to follow this Man because He is a prophet? No, she goes back to the men of the city and says, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done—is not he the Christ?” She came to a full appreciation and realisation of the One who was here for the glory of God, and she brings others into it. The men say later in the chapter, “It is no longer on account of thy saying that we believe, for we have heard him ourselves” (John 4: 42). They came and saw for themselves. How fine that is for us to be able to bring others into the service of God so that it can be enriched as a result of a greater appreciation of the One who has done everything for God, the Christ, the anointed Man. How God loves to make much of Him, the One who has been anointed with the oil of gladness above His companions.

We need to make room for Him in our affections, and in the power of the Spirit to be found among those who are wholeheartedly available for God, in whom He secures the answer He is looking for—“Let my son go that he may serve me”. Let us make these committals, and look back on our soul experience, to know the God that has brought us through. Then let us be found as those that are in the power of the Spirit, under the leadership and direction of Christ, occupied in serving God. May it be so for His name’s sake.

Address at Vancouver
17 August 2002

Edited and Published by J. Strachan, 59 Frederick Street, Dundee, DD3 9DE, Scotland Printed by Crystal Stationery, 22 Western Road, Billericay, Essex CM12 9DZ, (T) (01277) 650661