September 2012
And Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, "Let us go up at once and possess it. For we are well able to overcome it." But the men that went up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we" (Num 13:30-31).
We read the account of the ten spies who brought a bad report that sprung from what the scripture calls an "evil heart of unbelief", and we cringe at the inheritance despised, and we naturally recoil from the darkened heart of rebellion to our God that these ten men represent to us. We believe in God's power to do miracles; to drive out the inhabitants and kill the giants. We believe in a God who parts seas, and not one among us would fail to contend that it's an easy thing for God to do the impossible, and allow a man to walk upon water. And yet, we as God's people in Christ Jesus continue to wander in the wilderness because of our insistence, even in the face of those who would testify to us of exceedingly great and precious promises obtained through Christ, that God cannot do what He sent His only begotten Son to do, and that is to save to the uttermost those who would come to God by Him - to save from sin and self.
We say, as with the detractors of this present age, "Because Jehovah was not able to bring this people into the land which He swore to them, therefore He has slain them in the wilderness" (Num 14:16). In other words, we declare God's ability to forgive sin or to cover sin, but not to eradicate it from the human heart. "You shall call his name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins". Yes, he can save from hell, but not from sin. He is our "sort-of-savior". He can part seas, arise from the dead, snatch souls from hell fire, yet one thing remains too strong for Him and that is the sin in my own heart. There are GIANTS in the land! "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we."
Without the preamble of the previous paragraph testifying to our unbelief that masquerades as pragmatism, most of us would say without a blush, "No one is perfect, no one will ever be prefect this side of heaven, and we can never be without sin this side of the grave." "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." This attitude betrays both our lack of knowledge of the scripture and of our Savior's power to save from sin, as well as our lack of a sense of need in our own hearts. We believe we can enter our Land of Promise as an outward inheritance, while inwardly giants occupy and rule, for we have deceived ourselves into a belief that the sin nature within is of little consequence.
Sin is of little consequence because we are content to wander in our wilderness, as long as we have bread and water. It's not till we see the Land of our inheritance and the giants that occupy, and we become convinced of our calling and responsibility to go in and obtain the inheritance through faith and patience, that we suddenly are confronted with where the true enemy of God dwells, and of the absolute necessity that he be rooted out and destroyed. The glory of the "Romans 8 experience" can never be ours until the cry of Romans 7 becomes ours yet again. "Oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Entire sanctification is our rightful inheritance, as well as the joy that was set before Him, and any notion that we can be all we were meant to be in the Earth, without being all we were meant to be internally, is a false notion. Our lack of a sense of need betrays our lack of vision.
The depth of the sense of one's own personal need will exactly determine the height to which one's faith will reach. Only the revelation of the all of sin within can convince the once doubtful seeker of the necessity, and therefore the possibility, of the all of God within. God's nature demands that He be, not simply some, nor much, but literally, all in all. To doubt the possibility, yeah, the necessity, of entire sanctification is to either doubt the power of Christ to save, or to have never seen the sinful tyranny of the old man from which we must be saved. So, as we look at the concept of "entire sanctification" from the depths of personal weakness, we see, not wistful fantasy drift high overhead as the clouds of a summer day, but rather, an absolute practical necessity. Its necessity becomes its possibility, and so, we reach in faith for what we cannot obtain by our own efforts.
"For this is the will of God, even your sanctification." "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely." "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." These scriptures mean as much or as little as you believe they mean. There's a principle in God, and it's this: If you can see it, you can have it, because if you have enough vision to begin to hope for something not yet seen, you can believe for it, and all things are possible to him who believes… all things (Rom 8:24-25, Eph. 1:18, Heb. 6:19, Mark 9:23). Just as in Canaan, so in us, overgrown godless flesh occupies where Christ alone is meant to dwell and establish His rule, express His life, and extend the true worship of Yahweh. He is meant to fill the land of the human personality, annexing every plot, filling every nook and cranny, and we are meant to be made partakers of the Land that is Christ Jesus, a land flowing with milk and honey - He in us, and we in Him. My beloved is mine and I am His. Yes, they are stronger than we, but that is irrelevant. "Let us go up at once and possess it. For we are well able to overcome it." We are well able, for it is not we, but He who works in us, and the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Heb 4:1 Therefore, a promise being left to enter into His rest, let us fear lest any of you should seem to come short of it.
Heb 4:2 For also we have had the gospel preached, as well as them. But the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
Heb 4:3 For we who have believed do enter into the rest, as He said, "I have sworn in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest;" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Heb 4:4 For He spoke in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested the seventh day from all His works."
Heb 4:5 And in this place again, "They shall not enter into My rest."
Heb 4:6 Since then it remains that some must enter into it, and since they to whom it was first preached did not enter in because of unbelief,
Heb 4:7 He again marks out a certain day, saying in David, "Today," (after so long a time). Even as it is said, "Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts."
Heb 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day.
Heb 4:9 So then there remains a rest to the people of God.
Heb 4:10 For he who has entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His.
Heb 4:11 Therefore let us labor to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of unbelief.