Some Reasons for Loss
SOME REASONS FOR LOSS
SOME things give us great joy when we recover them. Recently, two of us visited Pakistan and we had about two days of meetings in Lahore, We travelled by night from Rawalpindi to Lahore and we arrived there about 9.30 a.m. whereas the meeting had been scheduled to begin at ¥ @clock. As soon as we came into the compound a crowd gathered around us. It was a great joy to be welcomed by those loving people. We were very busy being introduced to them one by one. We had come by taxi and after we had finished the introductions, we were taken to our respective rooms to have a bath and change, before we went to the meeting.
When we came to our room we found that one bag was missing, That bag contained the shaving kit and other things. I was not too bothered about the shaving kit, but I was anxious about the passports and visas that were m that bay, as we had to leave Lahore the next day. We could not find that bag anywhere, though everybody was searching throughout the compound. I thought anxiously, ‘How long shall we be detained in Pakistan? Without our passports how can we leave Pakistan? Perhaps we will have to apply for a fresh passport and stay on here for another three weeks!’
Then the thought came to me: 'Maybe the taxi driver has taken away our bag, though not intentionally.’ We had loaded some things in the back of the taxi and some in the front, and those who had been sitting at the back were so excited that perhaps they had forgotten to remove the bag. But what could we do now? We had forgotten to take the number of the taxi. Now taxi men are not very honest, so we thought of telephoning the police station. Yet I felt that none of these things would help us to recover the bag. So I said: ‘Lord, I don't mind staying longer in Pakistan, but Thy work will suffer a loss in India. We have announced holy convocation meetings at Hyderabad I
So I prayed: ‘Lord will you please bring back that bag yourself? If it is with the taxi driver, you please tell him to bring my bag back. We don't mind losing the other things, but we want our passports.’ After we had prayed thus, about a few minutes later, a man came into my room. 'Brother, brother,’ he said, 'we have found the bag.’ 'How did you find it?’ T asked. The taxi man had come back. He had driven far, but somehow he felt afraid and came back with the bag. You could see great joy on everybody's face. Everyone in the assembly was full of joy. We had recovered our loss and upon that recovery depended much of the work of God. The recovery of this bag helped us to return to India to be in time for the holy convocations at Hyderabad, otherwise they would still have been praying in Hyderabad for our return from Pakistan! What a joy we experienced when we recovered something so valuable.
There are two kinds of losses: personal loss and collective loss. The first loss ts what we incur: individually, and the second is what is incurred by the whole assembly. Now the Word of God says that we as believers are members of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every member of the body is very necessary and precious. Some are tiny members, some are large members. Some may be small members, but in the body they play a very important function. When one member suffers the whole body suffers. Your finger may have some injury; it may be a tiny boil or sore, but that makes you sleepless because the whole body suffers. Likewise when we live a life of loss and barrenness as believers, then the whole body, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, suffers. Our loss is a loss to the whole Church. Likewise our recovery will be joy and blessing to all.
Once our Lord fed a large multitude of five thousand with five loaves of barley bread. Naturally there were many fragments left on the ground. When the people I were filled, our Lord said to His disciples: 'Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost’ John 6:12). Why were these fragments gathered? They: were not gathered merely for the birds or the animals. They were gathered for a purpose.
He also said: ‘Your yea shall be yea, and your nay, nay.’ Sometimes when you visit a home they ask you: 'Would you hike to have a cup of tea?’ and suppose you say: Yes please,’ you see their faces change. The fact is, they have no milk in the house, nor sugar. Only for formality’s sake they suggested tea! They hoped you would say: No! but you said: Yes!
In the same way perhaps you also utter many idle words. You have forgotten that you have to give account for every crumb. The Lord does not like wastage. You have to give an account for every idle word that you speak (Matthew 12:36). Going by this standard, many of us have to confess that we have grieved the Lord several times.
Again we know that im the Lord Jesus Christ we have a great spiritual inheritance; it is a heavenly inheritance, and undefiled, which will never fade away. No man can fully comprehend it, It is so great that God’s Word says: 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love ‘Him.' ((1 Cor. 2:9). How true these words are! Again in God's Word we read in I Cor. 3:21-22, ‘All things are yours: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas or the world....' Yet we continue to live a life of defeat and failure, because we do not knew how to enjoy our heavenly inheritance. We see from the Bible that God planned to give man everything.
In the beginning, as we read in the first chapters of Genesis, God made Adam ruler over the whole earth.
Tf he had not sinned, he could have been king of the whole earth. When sin came, God's purpose was hindered, but God's love will never change. As God says in Jeremiah 31:3, 'l have loved thee with an everlasting love.’ We may change, but His love will never change. God's purpose cannot change.
We have seen in Genesis 12 how the God of glory appeared to Abraham. He offered him seven great I blessings for eternity, provided he would obey God.
He was asked to leave his kith and kin and country and go to a new place, where God had provided an inheritance for Abraham and his children.
Then we saw how ina subtle and wicked way the devil began to rob his people of their inheritance. Sometimes we do not know that we are being robbed. Once there was a missionary who was journeying in the third class. He was sleeping on one bench and he kept his suitcase on the opposite side. it had a very strong lock and it was also chained to the bench. He kept looking at the suitcase, but at last dropped off to sleep. When he woke up again he looked immediately to see if the suitcase was still there. The lock was still on it but when he pulled the case out, it was very light and empty!
‘How could the thief take away the things inside I without opening the lock?' he wondered; but when he turned to look at the other side of the suitcase, he found it had been slit with a knife and the things had been taken out. Though he had been watching the suitcase all the night, only in the morning he discovered his I "3 loss. Many believers are losing their joy, their peace and faith in the same way; but a day will come when, by hearing God's Word and by coming into God's light, they will see what a great loss they have incurred through their folly, and negligence and failures.
In the same way, through one failure a whole nation came under judgement, and God left them. They did not know how to approach God and they lived a life of shame and of darkness. But God did not change, nor did His love, and He planned that the nation should recover every loss. In these ways the Bible tells us of spiritual loss and also how to recover that loss. God's Word shows us that it is through Hebron and Zion that every spiritual loss can be fully recovered. For many years God was showing His people the meaning of these two things. It may also take us many years to understand this divine truth. But God is so long-suffering, He will not forsake us until we have recovered every loss. For this purpose of recovery God brought Abraham to Hebron.
God had appeared and said to Abraham so clearly, ‘Leave your land, your property and your kith and kin and go to a land which I will show you.' He obeyed God. But by one small mistake he brought heavy loss into hts life. This was a loss through wrong partnership.
When he was getting ready for his journey, his nephew Lot came to him and said, 'Uncle Abraham, where are you going?’ He replied, 'God appeared to me and told me to leave my kith and kin, my property and other things and to go to a new land.'
And Lot began to weep and said, 'My dear Uncle, you are more than a father to me, I have been all these years with you. O my dear Uncle, don't leave me here. I will do anything for you. I will be your son and do anything for you.' Abraham replied, 'My dear Lot, ]am very sorry, I cannot take you with me. God told me to leave behind all my kith and kin.’ And Lot said, ‘Please do not leave me, I am like a son to you. If you don't take me, I will surely die. I will commit suicide.’ So by his tears Abraham was deceived, and his heart melted. ‘1 I shall take him with me,' he thought, ‘anyway, he is I young and a very good lad. He will be useful to me. I will take him.’
But a time came many years later, when a messenger came running to Abraham saying, ‘Please hurry up! Hurry up! Your servants and Lot's servants are quarrelling and fighting with each other. Please come!’ So Abraham went and saw the men quarrelling, and; Abraham realized at last that God was right, and he confessed: 'I made a mistake, Lord.' So he called Lot and said, ‘Let there be no strife between you and me. You love me and I love you, but these wicked fellows I are bringing strife. We don't want to quarrel any more. You must make up your mind to leave me. If you go to I the right, I will go to the left; or if you go to the left, I I will go to the right.’
I So Lot looked around and he saw the fertile land; it was near Sodom. He thought to himself, 'Now I can! 3 get much more than I had with Abraham. See I can have so much good fertile land.’ He chose that land, it was indeed good land, but very near Sodom and Gomorrah.
At that time the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were living very shameful lives of indulgence in sin. But Lot thought, ' I am not going to live in Sodom, but only nearby. lam two miles away from the city.' That is how he argued, and it shows that Lot had no real interest in the things of God. He was a greedy man who grabbed an opportunity when he saw it, though in the beginning he had professed to Abraham: 'I want to follow God and be with you.'
That is how so many men have gone away from God, and why so many men go abroad from India and other countries, to England, America, Australia or Europe. They go round proclaiming: 'We have been serving God in India all these years,’ but many of these men are scoundrels and rogues. They have gone with a motive of getting motor cars and money to build their own houses. Like Lot they have gone to a fertile land.
Because of Lot, God was not able to speak to Abraham clearly. God had been leading him from the very beginning, but at last He came to a stop. For, because of Lot, Abraham had lost the sense of God's presence.
If there was to be recovery, it could be accomplished only through separation.
God appeared to Abraham again, but only after Lot had separated from him. Please mark this fragment in the Bible, ‘After that Lot was separated from him’ (Genesis 13:14). When Lot had separated from Abraham then God appeared to the latter and said to him: ‘All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the I dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.’ God was now able to show Abraham what a great inheritance He was offering to him and to his seed forever.
The very same blessing is offered to every believer. Through some Lot in your life you may have become blind spiritually. 1t may be a worldly friend, an ungodly husband or an ungodly wife, or any other ungodly association. Through human sympathy you are suffering loss in your life. God is saying, 'Don't take Lot with you! ‘Don't take Lot with you!'
Some man's tears or some woman's tears may have made you disobey God. You have become blind spiritually and you cannot hear the voice of God, and; you are unable to enjoy God's presence anymore; you are unable to enjoy spiritual inheritance and your heavenly privileges. You want only childish things. You have no hunger or appetite for the things of God, because of some Lot having come into your life. You. must separate from that Lot immediately, or you will ' one day discover what a great loss you have suffered because of your disobedience to God. Separate from
a7 that Lot; and God will appear to you and will speak to you and pour His power into you.
We are told that when God appeared to Abraham he came and dwelt in Hebron (Gen. 13:18). There he was full of praise and worship; he talked with God, and built there an altar unto the Lord — all because he had separated himself from Lot.
What is the meaning of Hebron? Hebron means fellowship. We as sinners are banished from God's presence. No sinner can talk to God or hear His voice. You may see miracles, you may dream dreams, but you can never talk with God, unless your sins are forgiven. As sinners, God is very far from us; but when our sins are forgiven, then God ts very near. You can go into His presence at any time and talk with Him, not only to ask favours, but because you love to be in His presence.
You see a baby in its mother's arms all day. If you should question the baby: 'Dear baby, are you not tired of being in your mother's arms for so many hours? I have seen you in your mother's arms from morning until midday, for almost five hours! Tell me, little baby, are you not tired?’ The baby would surely say, 'No, I I am not tired. I feel so comfortable here.’ Would you think that was anything strange?
Perhaps after attending holy convocation meetings at Hyderabad, you feel like saying, 'We sit for hours in the meeting and I am so tired; my back begins to ache, my stomach gets so hungry. I want some food, and coffee. These people have no other business; they can stay in Hebron for many hours. But we are very important people; we are not simple folk, and for us it is a waste of time to be so long in Hebron. We know the message will not end until 2 o'clock and then they will serve food at 3 o'clock. Really it is a waste of time I to be here.’ If that ts what you are saying, you do not: know what fellowship is. You are blind. Because of some Lot in your life you are not able to enjoy true fellowship with God. When Abraham separated himself I from Lot, God became real to him, he could talk to God I as man to man and that is why he could leave his land I and cattle and other precious things for God's sake. God was real to him.
I When Lot was with him, God was silent. He might I have thought sometimes: 'What shall I do? There is constant strife and quarrelling between Lot's herdsmen and mine. What shall do?' But God would not answer him until Lot went away from him. Then God Himself I began to speak: ‘Abraham, look towards the north, south, east and west. Arise and walk in the land, in the length and breadth of it.! Now his eyes were I opened and he understood and began to talk with God clearly.
If anyone should question us, 'How do you know that God has forgiven your sins? You say again and again that God has forgiven your sins, but how can you prove it?) we would reply, ‘I don't know. But one thing I know, I am able to talk with God, and my Lord talks with me every day. I can be in God's presence at all times, and it gives me great joy to be in His presence.’
We have much more joy in talking with God than in talking with any man. We know Him and He knows us, and through this fellowship we can recover many losses.
First we have fellowship with the Father and with the Son, and then with one another (I John 1:3). Unless we have true fellowship with God, we can never have true fellowship with other believers. These two go together.
When travelling in the train, you may ask your fellow traveller not to smoke tobacco and the man: refrains from smoking. But the moment the train stops at the station, he finds his way out to smoke. If his cigarette or beedi or matches are finished he will go to someone and borrow, because he cannot be without it for long. His interest lies in that. It is the same way with drunkards; wherever they go, the first question they ask is: 'Where can we get a drink?' They are only interested in that. I
Among those who go to Hebron for the holy convocation, there are some who are more interested in purchasing saris to take back to their homes. But when you become God's true people, you have much I
more joy having fellowship with believers, than in spending time on other things. Some say the holy convocation is very good because we have such nice rasam, good uppamavu, and strong coffee. It all I depends upon what you are interested in. There are I those who are interested in true fellowship. Have you I enjoyed talking to God? Can you sit for a long time in I
89 I God's presence? Have you enjoyed having fellowship with God's people, true fellowship in God's house? It is through such true fellowship with God and His people that you can recover many losses.
The carly believers were steadfast in fellowship {Acts 2:42). They continued steadfastly together. They were not anxious for land or for buildings or for fame f or for name, but for true fellowship with one another. Those who are willing to have true Christian fellowship will become stronger and stronger spiritually, even though the enemy may attack them more and more. Learn to enjoy your privileges in God's house through fellowship with one another.
Abraham knew how to worship God when God appeared to him; he was ready to speak to Him (Gen. 18:22), He even ran to meet Him. One day God appeared to Lot also (Gen. 19:1), but note this difference.
; Abraham ran to meet God, his joy was so great; whereas Lot just went forward and bowed down (Gen. 19:1-3). Abraham's joy was so great, he invited his angel guests,; saying, ‘Come inside and wash your feet and I will I prepare some food for you.' He ran and called his wife, I Sarah, and said to her, 'Hurry up, Sarah, hurry up and get things ready!’ He had a fatted calf killed and prepared I a nice feast for them with great joy.
As for Lot, he said to the same guests: ‘Please come I inside; but they refused to come. Several times he pressed them to come in, but when at last they came inside, there is no mention of Lot's wife or daughters being called to prepare the feast. Why was that so? They were worldly people. {f Lot had gone to his wife and said, 'My dear wife, hurry and prepare food for these guests,’ what do you think she would have replied? Perhaps she would have said: "You cook it yourself. I have not married you lo cook for you. You can cook for yourself. It would be the same with his daughters! If he went to his daughters and said: 'Dear daughters, please help me to prepare food for these guests,’ what do you think they would reply? Perhaps they would have said: 'Our faces are full of powder and our finger-nails are painted, so we cannot come. You can cook yourself.’ In the end Lot had ta prepare the meal himself. What a difference!
You see Abraham knew God. With much joy he went to speak to the Lord and was willing to sacrifice everything for God's sake, As for Lot, first he pitched his tent near Sodom (Genesis 13:12). Then in chapter 14:12 he went to dwell in Sodom. Finally in chapter 19:1 we find he was a leading man of the city sitting at the gate. Lot had become an elder in Sodom. Thus he had lost all his rights and privileges with God and he had become blind spiritually, all for the sake of worldly wealth and a worldly name.
As tor Hebron, the first thing it speaks of is fellowship, firstly, of fellowship with God and, secondly, of fellowship with fellow-believers. Friendship with Lot will not bring you into this fellowship; you have to break up your worldly friendships and relationships, and then God will give you His own friendship for eternity.
The second thing Hebron speaks of is faith. The spies went into the land of Canaan and they saw giants there and they were very frightened. But in Joshua 14:11-13 we read of a man called Caleb. He came to Joshua and said, ‘You give me Hebron. Even though there are many giants there I can conquer them. I have proved God for many years. Even now I trust Him and J know that by His help I can fight the giants. Please give me Hebron. So Joshua gave him Hebron, and because of his faith, Caleb was able to drive out all the giants.
So Hebron speaks of faith. Do not be scared of the giants, but be prepared to fight against them. You may see many giants and many hindrances and obstacles, but through your living faith you can conquer every giant obstacle and hindrance.
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Chapter 9