Category Archives: The Knowledge of God

God Is Honest

Posted on June 23, 2012 by Allan Halton

The other day in a time of prayer the Spirit of the Lord led me into a precious awareness of God.  Generally these days I find prayer very difficult, so I greatly appreciate times such as this. As I was making my petitions to God, reminding Him of prayers that have yet to be answered, I suddenly became aware of God—that is, of a certain quality of God.  I became aware of a God who is sincere.  Is faithful.  Is true.  He is honest.  There is no falseness in God.  None whatever.

You ask, didn’t I know this already?  Well… not like this.  Of course I could affirm that God is like this; I am familiar with many Bible verses about it.  But this experience was beyond that.  This was an awareness, a consciousness of God Himself.  I became aware of a God who is true.  He is honest.  It’s no use trying to embellish the word.  He is honest beyond words to describe.  So honest that it seems a sacrilege to even say He is honest.  As if there could be even a nano-possibility of His being otherwise.  The conscience recoils at having the suggestion brought up.

However, the writer of Hebrews does bring it up, saying that by two immutable things—God’s promise and His oath—it is “impossible for God to lie” (Heb. 6.18).  The apostle Paul also brings this up, writing to Titus that the promise of eternal life is given by a God “who cannot lie” (Titus 1.2).

Why would the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures find it necessary to say such a thing?  It’s because God knows our nature, that we have a deep-down problem in this area.  By nature we don’t trust God.  So, He who cannot lie comes out and assures us He will not lie.  He even condescends to confirm His promise with an oath.  “I not only promise I will do this; I swear by Myself that I’ll do it!”  He does so because He knows we have trouble believing the God who cannot lie.  It is perhaps the deepest and most revealing root of the nature of the human heart—that we humans doubt, mistrust… God.  Oh, what kind of creatures did we become when Adam disobeyed in the Garden?

It’s been a few days since this revelation in my time of prayer, and I am left considering what change has taken place in my heart as a result of it.  For, once again, just as that revelation of the God of peace a few weeks ago didn’t last very long, neither did this one.  What was the value of it then?  And why is God dealing with me this way?  Little glimpses of His glory.  But as with that revelation in the park I am aware that this too did something in me.  Well, three things, actually.

One, these experiences are creating in me a great cry to see Him.  Oh, to see Him!  And His beauty beyond compare!  We may know many things about God, but there is a seeing of God that is beholding the glory of the Lord—a glory that has a certain Divine Ingredient in it that changes us into the same image… as we present ourselves before Him with open (unveiled) face.

Secondly, and perhaps this is the same thing… it has created in me a cry for the kind of character that correlates to the revelation of God.  Do you know what I’m trying to say? It would be wonderful to have so powerful a revelation of God that we are totally and completely transformed all in an instant.  I long for that… and I anticipate we will yet come to experiences like that.  But meanwhile when we are granted only glimpses of His glory, let us cherish even this.  Let us submit to this.  For, is not this how character is formed?  Character—it’s the fruit of the Spirit, actually.  And fruit doesn’t appear instantly on a tree.  It grows.

And so in giving us glimpses of His glory, it is character God has in mind.  His intent is to try us, to prove us by the glimpses.  How will we respond?  Will we dismiss it as being too small for us?  Or will we sow to this revelation?  Nourish it, cherish it, water it, lift up our faces to the Sunshine continually… and grow?  Will we obey the heavenly vision, like Paul did?  On the Damascus road he in fact received a very powerful heavenly vision of the Christ.  But even with so powerful a revelation he realized he had to respond in obedience to that vision (Acts 26.19).  How much more you and I, then, in the little glimpses we are granted.  Let us not be disobedient to the heavenly vision; let us respond.

Thirdly, I am to take this revelation very personally.  It wasn’t just a generic revelation. (I wonder if any revelation ever is.)  God revealed Himself to me like this so that I can lay it to heart in my own life and circumstances.  He is honest, purely honest, He will not fail me, He will be faithful to me in things He has promised and which at times I have agonized over, as Habakkuk did.

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear?  Even cry out unto Thee of violence and Thou wilt not save! (Hab. 1.2).

What, Habakkuk accusing God of not hearing?  It was God Himself who had put this burden upon Habakkuk.  And so He provisioned him to carry it.  He granted Habakkuk a living word, a revelation.  “The just shall live by faith.”  It was a revelation that sustained Habakkuk, that provisioned him to carry his burden aright.

And so step by step at every step I must sow to this revelation of God till trusting Him, believing Him, becomes something so interwoven into the fabric of my own nature that it becomes my very character.  It is character God has in mind—and He has it in mind for me.  Since He revealed Himself to me like this, His intent is to cause me to become completely trusting, believing.  That is the character that corresponds to this revelation of God.  If I know Him to be faithful, true, honest, it causes me cease from all my doubts and anxious care.  It causes me to cease from my own efforts to answer my prayers myself… the way Jacob did.  It becomes my character that I rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.  I cease from my own works and enter His Rest.  “For they which have believed do enter into rest…”  It becomes my very character that I believe Him, trust Him implicitly.  He is honest, He will do what He has said He will do.

How deeply we need these encounters in which the Spirit of God discloses God Himself to you and me in the things we are going through.  And we actually become conscious of God.  Seeing Him… it just undoes you.  And you discover that the truths we love, really, they have no existence apart from Himself.  They are only alive and vital in His Presence.  And so it creates such a longing.  Oh, how we need to and long to abide in You, Lord.

At the same time, oh, how deeply we also need to sow to these revelations in the tests of life.  God’s objective is not just revelation.  God’s objective is to create in us a character that corresponds to His own.

…I mentioned Jacob and his elaborate scheme to answer his own prayer (Gen. 32.10-21).  But then He saw the face of God.  Somehow he found himself in a wrestling match in a night season, and by the time the sun arose upon him he had been deeply changed.  He had seen God face to face; it meant the end of all his striving, all his conniving, all his scheming, all his Jacobing.  That had been his name, his nature, his character, the way he had lived and walked for years.  Now he saw God, and was crippled.  And changed.  It meant a ceasing from all his own works and schemings—symptoms of a deep mistrust, something hard wired in him—and entering into Rest.  It meant receiving a new name now, a new character—Israel, prince of God.  He had won a wrestling match in the night—won by being smitten and defeated, that is.  He walked differently now, leaning on God… trusting… depending… believing that the God who had promised him an inheritance would fulfill the promise he himself had been labouring so long and so hard to try to fulfill.

…Lord, touch us this same way.  Cause us to see Your Face… and so doing, bring us into the knowledge of God that passes knowledge, the knowing of God that carries us beyond the place where we are familiar with spiritual things yet somehow still unable to walk any differently, the old nature still very strong in us.  Cause us to see with the seeing that changes us, Lord Jesus Christ, the seeing of God that produces in us the character that corresponds to that revelation…

…Your very own beautiful character, Son of God.  You simply believed God Your Father.  You believed, without doubting.  You put Your trust in Him.  You rested in God without toiling anxiously or fabricating the salvation He purposed to reveal.  You were secure in Your Father’s love in which there could be no fear.  This… it was Your character.

Because You knew Your Father to be genuine.  True.  Faithful.  Honest.

We may not be there yet.  But Lord, we continue to look to you, and ask that you continue to reveal Yourself to us, and in us, till the character you are looking for is fully formed in us.

…Here’s a poem by an unknown author that echoes my heart in this.  I confess that I changed two words.  In the first verse I changed transient to glorious, and in the last verse I changed Till to Since.  A glimpse of the glory of God is surely not transient.  And it’s not necessary to wait till we die to lay our burden down and enter into rest.  It’s necessary only to believe.  It’s those who enter into the believing character of Christ who enter into rest.

Show me Thy face—one glorious gleam
Of loveliness divine,
And I shall never think or dream
Of other love save Thine.
All lesser light will darken quite,
All lower glories wane,
The beautiful of earth will scarce
Seem beautiful again.

Show me Thy face—my faith and love
Shall henceforth fixèd be,
And nothing here have power to move
My soul’s serenity.
My life shall seem a trance, a dream,
And all I feel and see,
Illusive, visionary—Thou
The one reality!

Show me Thy face, I shall forget
The weary days of yore,
The fretting ghosts of vain regret
Shall haunt my soul no more.
All doubts and fears for future years
In quiet trust subside,
And naught but blest content and calm
Within my breast abide.

Show me Thy face—the heaviest cross
Will then seem light to bear;
There will be gain in every loss,
And peace with every care.
With such light feet the years will fleet,
Life seem as brief as blest,
Since I have laid my burden down,
And entered into rest.

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Feed God First

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Allan Halton

Our Lord has accomplished something very special when He sees us beginning to consider His own interests first in all we go through, and in all we seek from Him.  When this becomes our first consideration—when in every problem, every situation, every need, every petition, our foremost concern is our Lord’s own interests—we have come into something very beautiful in His sight.

This is not to say that our problems and needs are not God’s own interests.  They are.  He cares for us deeply.  But His primary goal in all the things we are going through is that we have fellowship with Him in the midst of it all—that we come to know Him, and be conformed to the image of His Son.

It was the Father’s interests that were His own interests.

Take the story of the widow of Zarephath in the time of her great need.  When she met Elijah she was out with her son gathering sticks for the fire so she could bake her last bit of flour, and then die, she told him.  Don’t be afraid, yes, do that, Elijah responded.  “But make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and thy son” (1 Ki. 17.13).  Kind of selfish of him, wasn’t it, taking a poor widow’s last meal?  But this was a man who stood before God.  God’s interests had become his own, God’s hunger His own.  And he wanted this woman to know that regardless how desperate her need was, she would come out the loser if she too did not make God’s need her own– her priority.

But when she did this, behold how wonderfully God met her need!

The same with you and me.  God is not being selfish when in the midst of our great anguish and deep need He says, “Feed Me first.”  It is our own great advantage He has in mind–that is, bringing us to the place where His advantage has become our own.

Yes, we seek Him for His help in all our dire circumstances and deep needs.  But getting Him to answer our need is not the first in importance.  First comes fellowship with Him, and getting knowing Him and His own heart’s longing.  First comes worshipping Him—which means giving Him our all on the altar of burnt sacrifice to satisfy His own great longing for you and me.

Otherwise God may become to us no more than a dispenser of help for our troubles, one who answers our prayers… but we still haven’t come to know Him, to walk with Him, and become like Him.

We may have a deep wound that some circumstance has brought into our life.  But to have been wounded with the wound of longing for God… this is a precious gift that can only be healed in finding Him in the midst of what we are going through.  It causes our first prayer in all things to be, Lord, I want to, I must… know You in this thing!  This is my first and great desire above and beyond Your answering my prayers and meeting my needs.  I must know You!  Bring me through the secret door in this situation, which, going through, I discover myself face to face with You in my great distress, and come to know You in a deeper way.  And in this way I become a kind of firstfruits that satisfies Your own deep hunger… for fellowship with one who is just like You.  For, the firstfruits are always Your own to enjoy first– and then when Your own hunger is satisfied others enjoy the bounty.

So… are you and I in the midst of a trial that is very difficult for us?  Let us be crying out like Job, then.  He cried out in the midst of his great trial, “Oh, that I knew where I might find HIM” (Job 23.3).  We must find GOD in our trial—as Job did.  So often our prayer is, “Deliver me from the trial, Lord!”  Job cried that too in his anguish.  But God answered Him in a way that was higher than Job could comprehend at the moment.  God’s objective was that Job come to know Him—actually see Him.

He has the same thing in mind for you and me.  That is His objective in what we are going through—that we find Him.  God Himself, that is.  The implication is becoming one with Him… as Elijah was.  ”Make me a little cake first,” he had said.  It was God’s request, really. 

…And look how God answered Job after He had first brought him to know Him—know him oh so wonderfully—like never before.

“Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is full of tender pity, and compassionate” (James 5.11).

I think of David in the midst of all his trials and afflictions—how he swore unto the LORD that his first priority would be to make a habitation for his God (Ps. 132.1-5).  See how God responded?  Once He has that habitation for Himself He says, “I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread.  I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy.”

God is not unmindful of our needs and great longings.  Far from it.  But our God is a God of great love, and great wisdom.  His love for us is, oh, so deep.  When what we long for seems so far away, is nowhere in sight, there is something near He is working to help us discover—something very special He has in mind for us to find right there in the midst of our trial and unanswered prayer—Himself.  This is His own great longing.  And this is why we find ourselves in this kind of trial—and needing to endure, like Job, and be patient.  Our God loves us deeply, and wants the very best for us.  The very best.  He wants us to find Him in our trial.  Once this happens, and patience has had its perfect work, like the widow of Zarephath we will find our desires and prayers answered far more fully than we were ever able to formulate.

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The Lampstand—The Corporate Testimony Of Jesus Christ (Pt. 4)

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Allan Halton

Last time we talked of individuals who had the testimony of Jesus Christ.  John on Patmos had this testimony.  The messenger who was showing John the things he wrote about in the Revelation had this testimony—so powerful a testimony of Jesus Christ that John was tempted to worship him.  He thought the man was Jesus Himself.

This is a very tremendous thing—individual men coming into the testimony of Jesus Christ.  But as great as it is, it doesn’t hold a candle to what God has in mind.  We admire great saints, but God is not satisfied with just one person here and there coming into this tremendous testimony.  His desire is that this testimony be revealed in something called the church, where all the members—every man and woman and boy and girl—are shining forth this pure testimony together as one Man.

Remember that in the Old Testament it was the tabernacle that was called the “tabernacle of the testimony.”  The tabernacle in the wilderness had a testimony—had something to reveal about God, something to say about God.  But the tabernacle was just a “figure” foreshadowing Christ—the corporate Christ, that is—Christ in union with His bride, His body.  Some very good teachings are available on this, showing how every aspect of the tabernacle speaks of Christ and His church.  The bread on the table of showbread, for example.  This speaks of the body of Christ.  Paul said, “For we, being many, are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10.17).

And the lampstand in the tabernacle.  John saw the Son of man walking in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.  And he said these seven lampstands were “the seven churches” (Rev. 1.20).  A single lampstand, then, represents the local church, which is to have the light and testimony of Jesus Christ shining in it.  (See also Rev. 11.3,4, Zech. Ch. 4.)

To some extent—certainly not in full measure, but to some extent—the church in Corinth had this testimony.  It was a lampstand in which the Testimony of Jesus Christ was shining.  As we read 1 Corinthians we discover the wick in the lamp needed trimming, but nevertheless the Corinthian church was a genuine lampstand shining forth the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Earlier we quoted the passage in which Paul said he had come to the Corinthians with “the testimony of God.”  How did Paul come to them with this testimony?  It was not the Torah Paul came to Corinth with.  It was “Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” that Paul testified of.  And the result of his testimony was that the testimony of Jesus Christ was reproduced in the Corinthian church.

I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
That in everything ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor. 1.4-9).

This is quite the thing.  The Corinthian church had the “testimony of Christ” confirmed in their midst—a living word expressed corporately, as well as the manifestation of the Spirit, the shining forth of Christ in the gifts of the Spirit—also a corporate expression.  It’s quite something, isn’t it, that this church that is given the reputation for being such a carnal church had a testimony like that.  “The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you…” Paul said.  That is awesome to read!  In other words, people coming into the Corinthian assembly became aware of Christ.

What was the evidence that the testimony of Christ the Anointed One was confirmed (established, made firm) in the Corinthian church?  It was that, as a result of the Spirit of Christ in their midst they were enriched “in all utterance, and in all knowledge.”  They had spiritual knowledge, and not only that, they could give it forth; there was a vital “discourse” taking place in their assembly—the sharing together of the things of Christ with one another.  And they came behind “in no gift.”  Paul brings these more fully into view in Chapter Twelve.  Diverse manifestations of the Spirit were abundant in the Corinthian assembly, and functioning together produced “the testimony of Christ.”  With a word, a psalm, a doctrine, a tongue, an interpretation, a prophecy, a revelation, a healing… each one of the Corinthians in differing ways and differing measures participated in the Testimony of Christ.  All were involved in this (1 Cor. 14.26).

There’s a lot of emphasis on the ministry these days.  There are a lot of great pastors around.  Because of the Internet there are a lot of great messages available.  But it’s painful how little of the corporate testimony there is—of this “one loaf, one body,” of this lampstand wherein the Oil of the Holy Spirit is aflame and light shines forth, light shines forth in the lampstand—in a church, I mean, every single member being vitally involved in the shining testimony.  You hear of anointed preaching.  But where is the corporate anointing that enables all in the body of Christ to function vitally?  As it is, the saints are pretty much used to leaving it all up to “the ministry,” and the ministry for the most part are content to leave it that way.  But this kind of church order is short of the glory of God.  We must seek the corporate testimony for Christ’s sake—for the glory of His Name.  It’s only as this corporate testimony comes into being that the communities around us will see the glory of the Lord.

“By one Spirit are ye baptized into one body,” said Paul.  I anticipate, then, that the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire—it is my conviction that this is yet ahead for us, though I know we have seen a measure of it in the past—is going to cause great shakings throughout the ten thousand denominations of Christendom.  God is going to bring into being local churches that function as one anointed body in which every member is vital—not just the pastor behind the pulpit.

And these local lampstands are going to be one in the Spirit with all other lampstands.  This thing called denominational Christianity is going to go up in smoke as a result of this powerful baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.

And this baptism is going to cause great shakings in the “come-out-of-her” groups as well.  For, there is as much a sense of oldness about the come-outer groups and home fellowships these days as there is about the denominational system.  (I am encouraged by this; something new is at the door.)  In fact I would say there are many out there in the denominational system who, walking in the light they have, are walking a closer walk with Jesus than some of the “come-outers.”

Come-outers like to remind people that the true meaning of ekklesia is the called out assembly.  And they are the called-out ones, they insist.  But so was the Corinthian church a called-out assembly.  Just how far had they come out?  They were still in many ways carnal, Paul said, and walked as men. Because of it their lamp sent up a dirty, sooty flame.  There were divisions in their midst.  There was immorality.  And though they had been given abundant knowledge, they ended up priding themselves in the knowledge they had.  They thought they knew a lot.  Paul had to humble them on this account.  I think it is something like ten times in his first letter to the Corinthians that Paul—obviously deliberately—provoked them with the words, “Know ye not…?”  “Know ye not…?”  “Know ye not…?”

It isn’t knowledge that is the light that must shine in the lampstand, Paul said.  It is love that is light.

And so the great High Priest through His servant Paul had to trim the wick of this lampstand in order that the Testimony of Christ continue to shine brightly in Corinth.

The lampstand—a church—is a corporate witness.  Yes, each of us is to have a testimony which is the Testimony of Jesus Christ.  But the fullness of the Testimony of Jesus Christ is the corporate testimony.  Jesus prayed in His high-priestly prayer, “I have made known unto them Thy Name, and will make it known, that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in THEM, and I in THEM.”  Them, He says.  I in them.  It is a corporate thing.  If Jesus is in you as well as in me, how can there be any discord or division between us?  Or between churches?

I know there has been much emphasis on “the baptism,” and the gifts of the Spirit over the past century or so—more specifically since the 1948 revival at North Battleford, Saskatchewan, from which the Charismatic movement got its beginnings.  They got that name from the charismata—the gifts of the Spirit.  It wasn’t really God’s plan, but it seems He permitted men to take the charismata back into their denominations instead of coming out of the denominations and by one Spirit being baptized into one body.  Of course they realize they must have unity—the Bible calls for unity among Christians.  But they are determined they will have unity their own way—they will have “the baptism” and maintain their denominations in the process.  It is frightening disobedience to the Spirit of Christ.  Deception—great deception—is inevitable.  We are seeing it already.

And so let us be very watchful not to get drawn into it.

But let us be filled with anticipation also.  Yes, deception abounds.  The beautiful realm of the gifts of the Spirit has become contaminated.  The lights that once burned brightly have faded and yellowed.  Charismatic is almost a dirty word these days.  But there is more ahead of us than behind us.  There is yet a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire ahead for us.  I believe we are yet going to see manifestations of the Spirit, manifestations of Christ, that will utterly—and literally—floor us, and cause us to weep… and cry for joy.  People will fall on their faces and worship God.

And I believe we are going to see a wondrous unity come forth as God baptizes us by one Spirit into one body.  We have known so much of division.  We have mourned and wept over it all.  Who of us has not anguished with Christ over the divided condition of the body of Christ?  But His word still stands.  “By one Spirit are ye baptized into one body.”  The fire of this baptism must, then—and will—consume all that is discordant with the Lord Jesus Christ.  A corporate testimony of Jesus Christ is going to come forth.

Beloved, we must be encouraged in this dark hour to know that our Lord Jesus Christ is not finished yet.  He who walketh among the seven golden lampstands will not rest till His pure testimony is shining forth in every place.  And Jesus Christ Himself is seen in the churches!

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What’s In Your Scope? (Part 1)

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Allan Halton

We have hunter types in the family, and come hunting season be sure of it.   They are out there scoping for game.  They get out the spotting scope and the binoculars and are off to the hills looking for their prey.

They did pretty well this year.  They got game in their binoculars, and then in the scopes of their rifles… and we have moose and elk in the deep freeze now.

I used to scope for game myself in earlier days, and one thing I know about looking through a scope.  When you are looking through a scope you are pretty much oblivious to all else around you.

Now, I realize it’s usually not good practice to pin modern English definitions to Greek words in the Bible merely because the Greek is the word from which the English is derived.  For example, our English word despot—a cruel dictator—is derived from the Greek despotees.  But this does not mean the people who used Greek in Bible days had a despot in mind when they used the word.  They meant one who has absolute power, and in fact the word is used of our Lord in a number of places.

However, here is a case where I think it works to export the English meaning back into the Greek.

“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
For our light affliction (or, tribulation), which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
While we look not on the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen: for the things that are seen are temporal: but the things that are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4.16-16).

The Greek word for look here is skopeo, from which we get our English scope.  The Greek word meant to consider, to heed carefully, to mark.  We see the noun form in, “I press toward the mark.”  There was something Paul kept his eye on, you might say kept in his scope.

And Paul says we are to keep in our “scope” things that otherwise cannot be seen—eternal things.  We must be living our lives more or less oblivious to what is seen—trials and troubles, temporal things, our light affliction which is but for a moment—and keep scoped in on what cannot be seen apart from the eye of faith.

You mean when the troubles of life are right in our face we are to have our eyes fixed on things that cannot be seen?  That is a very amazing thing when you think about it.  You mean, here is a person who lives their life on the basis of something that cannot be seen—something in an entirely different realm, a different dimension?  Their life is governed by something unseen, something eternal?   They go by that?

Yes, it is truly amazing.  And so, Christian, let us consider this.  There is all kinds of Game roaming the everlasting hills of God—some of it very Big Game indeed.  But mere knowledge that the Game is out there will not do us much good.  We must keep that in our scope!  We must keep our spiritual faculties fixed on spiritual reality, on unseen things—on Jesus Christ who is Lord, not sin, not circumstance.  We must look not on the things that are seen, temporal things—but on unseen things, eternal things, eternal realities.

We must keep these in our scope. There is a kind of seeing that means what you see is on your table—you know what I mean.  You are able to live and walk by this heavenly reality.  It is effective in your life in everything you face.

I say this as a challenge to us all.  Let us be so scoped in on what cannot be seen that we walk in the reality of what cannot be seen.  There is a call in this very difficult hour for strong perception as to heavenly realities—the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ and His heavenly kingdom—a perception that enables us to live according to THAT, and not according to what is seen.  It is a perception that enables us to live by what is unseen.  It is the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus our Lord—His triumph over sin, and death, His victory over all evil.  It is to walk in the Light in the midst of darkness, such that the Light and reality of what Christ accomplished at Calvary—His victory over the world, the flesh, and the Devil—is as real in us as at Calvary.

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New Covenant Knowledge

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Allan Halton

As you can see by the last few blog entries, I carry a burden.  I know it is the burden of the Spirit of God. And over the course of the years it has become my own burden as well.  I want to see our daily Christian walk and experience corresponding to our great store of Christian knowledge.  To put that another way, it’s a burden to see a kind of knowledge that is indistinguishable from our experience.  This is the kind of knowledge the apostles had in mind when they talked of the knowledge of God (Col 1.9, 2 Pt. 1.8, 1 Jn. 4.7).

 It is one thing to know and be familiar with a lot of teaching of the word, quite another to be pregnant with that word, so that a living Seed is growing in us.

 I read something in T. Austin-Sparks recently, which I’ll quote.

 “We are in times when the build-up of Christian truth, teaching, and knowledge is immense; and yet the corresponding reality in life is by no means equal in measure.  There is a margin, a gap, between what is known and what is lived….

 “…One thing that you and I have come to or will come to is this: a dread of knowledge that does not lead to something more of Him.  I never in my life have shrank from speaking as I do today, lest it might resolve itself into words only, and so little that corresponds to it.  I do not say that it is all in vain, I do not believe that it is, but it is a wholesome fear to accumulate a kind of knowledge that does not lead to something.  And the one and only thing to which spiritual knowledge should lead is Christ-likeness.

 “Now then, what a knowledge we have of things concerning the Christian life and the purpose of God, and how greatly we fall short in that expression, the personal expression of Christ.  Is it not true that there is a gap between our knowledge and our life so often?”  (T. Austin-Sparks, God’s Supreme Interest In Man)

Then, again, I read the following from The Vision and The Appointment by George H. Warnock.  It’s under a section called, “For we know in part, and prophesy in part.”

 “This should disarm any of us who think we know a lot.  If we truly recognized that our knowledge is very limited, and falls short of real clarity and mature understanding, we would be less likely to argue about deep mysteries, thinking we have greater knowledge than our brother.  Even if we do, it is still just in part, just in small measure.

 “‘And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know’ (I Cor. 8:2).

 “…We know nothing yet, as we ought to know.  ‘But if any man love God, the same is known of Him’ (vs. 3).  He is not really saying that we need more knowledge.  He is saying, rather, that what we know falls short of the picture as it really is.  We need a greater understanding and clarity of the knowledge we now have.  But until we come to the fullness of Love, our knowledge of spiritual things will remain very, very minimal.  God has designed it that way, or pride would destroy us.

 “…But in what way does Love give us knowledge that ‘we ought to know?’  We will only discover that, as we come more and more into those realms of God’s abounding Love…

 “…With our natural mind not yet fully renewed by His Spirit, and with spiritual gifts that only function in part, we must acknowledge that many mysteries will remain beyond our understanding until ‘that which is perfect is come.’  And let us not think we must wait for Heaven to come to that.  Jesus came down to earth to manifest Perfect Love in this world of sin and pain and misery, for this is where it is needed.  And when He went away He made provision by His indwelling Spirit, for His people to walk as He walked when He was here.”  (end of quote)

 …Words from two watchmen whose ministries have meant a lot to me over the years.  T. Austin-Sparks warns we have a lot of knowledge these days, but there is a margin, a gap, between what is known and what is lived.  Add to that what George Warnock says, quoting as he does from the apostle Paul: actually, in all we know, thus far we know so very little.  We know “in part.”

 And so… this burden.  Oh, to see our participation with one another in the body of Christ becoming nothing less than a ministration of Christ Himself, a ministration of the Spirit, of the New Covenant.  There is a kind of knowledge — New Covenant knowledge — in which there is no gap between what is known and what is experienced, what is walked in.

 The encouraging thing is… well, two encouraging things.

 One: we have confidence that the mediator of the New Covenant will not lay His burden down till He has fulfilled it in the lives of His people.

       “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts… and all shall KNOW ME, from the least to the greatest” (Heb. 8.11).

 And, two: because of His faithfulness, we have confidence that we will see the day when we are able with joy to lay our burden down.

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They That Handle The Law Knew Me Not

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Allan Halton

Last time, we quoted that verse from Hosea, “My people are destroyed for lack of the knowledge…” But we didn’t finish the verse. Let’s do that now, and notice what Hosea said about the priesthood of his day – those that God had made the custodians of His knowledge.

“My people are destroyed for lack of (the) knowledge. Because thou hast rejected (the) knowledge, I also will reject thee that thou shalt be no priest to Me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children” (Hosea 4.6).

Malachi said similar words in his day.

“For the priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth” (Malachi 2.7).

That was a reminder of what God had called His priesthood to back in the days of Moses:

“They shall teach Jacob Thy judgments, and Israel Thy law” (Deuteronomy 33.10).

This is what the priesthood was supposed to be all about – teaching the people the law of God in such a way as to cause them to know Him. Yet by the days of Hosea and Malachi, the priests had forgotten God’s law, with the result that the people were utterly cut off from Him.

But if God was grieved that His priesthood of old had forgotten His law of the old covenant… what can He be feeling today? If there has ever been a forgotten covenant, it is the New Covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The New Covenant is not just a matter of forever setting before the people more sermons, more teachings, more Bible knowledge, more understanding of what the Bible says. The New Covenant is a ministration of the Spirit such that the Law of God is written upon the hearts and minds of His people… with what result?

“And they shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them…” (Jeremiah 31.34).

God complained to Jeremiah:

“The priests say not, Where is the LORD? And they that handle the law knew Me not” (Jer. 2.8).

This is, to me, a very provoking and very challenging verse; I dwell on it often. You mean, they handled the law, they were very familiar with the law, yet did not know the God who gave the law? What about me, then? I know my Bible well – certainly not as some do by any stretch, but quite well. I am familiar with the word of God, and its teachings, and from one point of view (a low one) it could be said that I have a substantial knowledge: I am one of those of whom it could be said, “He handles the law.”

But then I read John’s testimony:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of Life…” (1 Jn. 1.1).

And I am undone. How can I settle for any lesser Testimony? I must know this One… as John knew Him! I cannot settle for any lesser Testimony. And I need not settle for a lesser Testimony. For God has made provision for me to have the same Testimony. The Spirit of Truth has been sent from the Throne of God with a commission, and He cannot return till He has accomplished it — to make me familiar with the Word of Life Himself – and cause me to hear Him, to see Him, to gaze continually upon Him, to handle Him with my hands… and know Him!

That is the New Covenant!

How deeply I want to be part of this kind of New Covenant ministry. And how deeply this kind of ministry is needed in this hour! The need is so great. And so whatever we feel we may have attained to thus far in our Christian walk, let us all, in this late hour, open our hearts to a deeper ministration of the Spirit of Christ. Let us anticipate this. I believe our Lord Jesus Christ is preparing to release a new ministration of the Spirit that will bring into being “able ministers of a New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit…”

…And as a result of it, the “children” shall hear Him, and see Him, and come to know Him!

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