Episode Transcript
Isaiah chapter five and the first part of verse 13.
Therefore, my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge. Therefore, my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge.
I was reading through Isaiah some time ago, and this seemed to just leap out at me from the pages. Therefore, my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge. Inherent within our being the very people of God, is freedom.
If you read in Deuteronomy and chapter seven and verse eight, this is what Moses said of the Lord, But because the Lord loveth you, and because he would keep the oath which he swear unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
The most wonderful thing about being a member of the people of God, the most wonderful thing about being one of the children of Israel, was that they were no longer in the house of bondage and no longer under the hand of a foreign despot, pharaoh, by the blood of the lamb.
Because they had feasted on the lamb, they had been freed from the house of bondage and brought out from under the hand of Pharaoh. That was the very thing inherent within their salvation, their deliverance.
Because God wanted to bring out a people that were freed from all foreign domination, from all foreign or alien influences. And he wanted to take them out of Egypt and take them into his own land and settle them there where they would be free. And those trumpets that sometimes we sing about in the hymns, those trumpets which are still blown today on great festivals once more in Israel. The rams, made of rams horn, are the sign of freedom. They are the great symbol of freedom.
But I am afraid to say that if we know our Old Testament, we know that the people of God, their history is often one of bondage. No sooner were they in the land than they were once again bound. Indeed, we don't even have to talk about their being in the land. When they were in the wilderness, Moses and Aaron soon found out that though they had come out of the sphere of bondage, the bondage was in them.
And they continually hearkened back to Egypt and their life in Egypt. And then when they got into the land, you remember, even after those wonderful days of Joshua, you had that terribly sad story of judges, bondage again and again, Midianites and other -ites that were continually getting domination over the people of God. And all the way through, the Old Testament is a story of one great battle as to whether the people of God were going to be free, really free, to serve the Lord. Whether they were going to be free from these other influences that were continually being brought to bear upon them by the surrounding nations. Captivity.
Now, you know, the most wonderful thing about the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ about our salvation is that we have been brought out of the house of bondage.
God, with his own outstretched hand, arm, has taken us out of the house of bondage. He has severed the links between us and Satan. He has taken us out from under the hand of a foreign authority, an alien authority. We read, for instance, in Colossians and chapter one and verse 13, who delivered us out of the power, or authority, of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the son of his love. We read in Ephesians chapter one and verse 21 and 22.
Well, we'll read from verse 20, which he wrought the exceeding greatness of his power, that’s verse 19, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named. Not only in this world but also in that which is to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
In other words, by the tremendous, the exceeding greatness of his power which he displayed in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, God has taken you and me and taken us out, delivered us from the authority of darkness, the power of darkness and put us in Christ, made him to be head over all things and placed everything in subjection under his feet and made us the body between the head and the feet.
We've been placed in him. And the one thing that that speaks of is this. We have been sanctified. Now, don't get afraid of that word sanctified, as if it's something sanctimonious, something sort of odd, queer, abnormal. All it means is this, that by the power of God he has severed the links between us and the world, between us and Satan, between us and self. He has set us apart. But how has he set us apart? Has he made a little sort of island of me and an island of you and so many little islands of holiness? No, he has put us in the holy one.
He has put us in Christ. He has taken us out of the house of bondage and placed us in the kingdom of the son of his love, in Christ.
And the very meaning of our salvation is that you and I have been freed. Now, the tragedy is surely the Old Testament story of Midianites and Ammonites and Edomites and Babylonians and Assyrians and Persians is very much your story and my story.
We no sooner find that the Lord has redeemed us and we've taken the blood of the Lamb, and what joy it was. And we've sat down and feasted upon Christ, that was an even greater joy. It was one thing to know the cancellation of our sins. It was one thing to know a cleansing from sin, but then to know something of what it is to feed on Christ so that he comes into us, he becomes our life. Few Christians even know that. They're all about the blood of the Lamb, perhaps, although sometimes I doubt even that.
But to feast on Christ so that he is our nature, we become partakers of the divine nature, we become partakers of eternal life so that he becomes fullness to us. The resources of God, it’s what this table speaks to us of, eating his flesh, drinking his blood, receiving of him. We’ve got there, perhaps by the grace of God, we've gone over, we've seen the sea, as it were, split in two and we've gone over and we've known something of divine guidance even in our little circumstances. A pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. The Lord leading us. Isn't it wonderful when you can say, well, the Lord has led me. He really has led me. There have been failings, there have been murmurings. There have been times when I've really made mistakes and gone wrong. But the Lord has been with me and guided me and upheld me. It's been marvellous and wonderful. I give the praise and the glory to him. Well, yes, of course. But then before long, we begin to find that there are enemies.
We have possessed this and we’ve possessed that. We've gone over and taken part of the land. And then we begin to discover that there are enemies in the land and that those enemies are out to take us, to bring us back under domination. So that although actually because we are born of God, we are children of God, yet we come under foreign domination. We come under alien domination. In fact, the enemy has a vested interest in us and he can influence us. He can manipulate us. He can put us into such a compromised position that whilst we're singing hymns and reading the word and praying and even trying to praise the Lord, yet we know very well that the enemy can manipulate us.
Now what has happened, that Old Testament story is unfortunately so very true of us. I'll just look at a few scriptures. Take, for instance, let’s see if it's a New Testament story. Galatians, chapter four, verse eight, Howbeit at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them that by nature are no gods. But now that ye have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, where unto ye desire to be in bondage again? How can the apostle Paul be so speaking?
We all agree with the first bit, howbeit, at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage. But he's speaking of Christians who've been delivered, who are turning back, who are turning back, desiring to be in bondage again. And in this matter, their bondage was all a matter of tradition, all a matter of false teaching. They just wanted to go back to something.
You've got it again. Chapter five, verse one. For freedom did Christ set us free. How simply put that is. The object of Christ's work in us is that we should be free. For freedom did Christ set us free. Stand fast, therefore, and listen, be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Yoke, now, we often speak of a foreign yoke. The yoke is a thing, you know, on the neck. Of course, in our city life, we see very little of it now, but by the yoke you can guide a beast, you can guide the oxen, or whatever it is. It's a yoke. Be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.
So there's a possibility of going back to bondage. Again if you turn to Romans, chapter eight and verse 15. For ye receive not the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye receive the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father! Ye receive not the spirit of bondage again unto fear. Now, how is it then, whether in the Old Testament or now, that so many of us who are children of God get so easily into bondage?
How is it that in my life, I get into bondage? How is it that the enemy can come in and somehow compromise and then manipulate? How is it in your life, how is it in church life that having started with the Lord and going right forward with him, then somehow the enemy seems to get in and starts to manipulate and compromise things so that everything comes into bondage?
Here it is: therefore, my people have gone into captivity for lack of knowledge. For lack of knowledge. What kind of knowledge? Well, the Lord Jesus put it very, very simply when he said in John eight and verse 32, we’ll read verse 31 and 32. Jesus therefore said to those Jews that had believed him, if ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
And then verse 36, If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Therefore, my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of doctrine? No, not just knowledge of doctrine, but knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. It's the moment that he, as truth, dawns upon us that bondage disappears.
Now, surely all of you have had the experience. There are some here who've been health visitors. There are others, I'm quite sure, who have, in their professional life or in other ways, come into contact with this. All of us in some form or another have come into contact with this. If any of you have traveled in the world, you will have seen this kind of thing. You will see whole sections of human society in bondage to methods and dirt, unhygienic ways and so on, through lack of knowledge. Through lack of knowledge.
We don't know any better. And because of that, because father did it and grandfather did it, and great-grandfather did it and great-great-grandfather did it, we go on doing it until somehow the truth of some better way finally dawns upon an unenlightened mind.
And for the first time, a person wakes up to the possibility of something better. That can be said of every sphere of life. Think of our sort of economy and many other things. It’s the same thing. We all get into ruts, don't want to change in any way. Truth. The truth as it is in Jesus, Jesus’ truth is the liberating factor.
Once suddenly we see something more of him, in him, by the Holy Spirit, we are liberated. Bondage just disappears. It absolutely disappears. If ye abide in my word, then are ye my disciples, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Oh, if we only knew the truth.
When I see so many, without trying to be critical in a cheap way, when you see so much of Christendom with all its bondage to tradition, its empty forms, you realise it’s — therefore my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge.
They don't know the Lord. They don't know the Lord. So we're living on the past, always talking about the revival in such and such a year or the movement in such and such a year. We're not contemporary. We're not absolutely up to date. We're not walking with the Lord now in the movings of the Spirit in our own day. To know the Lord. To know the Lord.
I was very struck in that passage in Isaiah by the verses that immediately precede that in chapter five. Listen to it, last part of verse twelve. But they regard not the work of the Lord, neither have they considered the operation of his hands. Therefore, my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge. That's the secret. If we could only see what the Lord Jesus has finished, if we could only see what the promise of the Father is that he has obtained. If we could only see the operation of his hands and his work.
I have no doubt at all that it is absolutely true to say that everything has been already obtained for us. There is not one single thing required for the Christian life that was not obtained for us 2000 years ago on Calvary in the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ plumbed the very depths of hell to win for us every single thing necessary for living the Christian life. Every single thing for turning a sinner into a saint. Every single thing. Far more than the individual. Every single thing needed and required to produce the church of God, to produce the body of the Lord Jesus, to bring out a new man out of his wounded side, from his flesh, from his bone, everything required, everything necessary for obtaining such a bride for Christ has already been won through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Never put it in the future. It's all in the past.
There is nothing more true than this, that every single thing has been achieved and won, that either you need or I need, or we all need for the fulfilment of God's purpose. God is not foolish. He doesn't sort of say, now then, everyone, I want this and I want that, and sort of paint beautiful pictures up there of an ideal church and say, now then, that's what I want, knowing full well that not one of us can get anywhere near it.
When God sits before us, he's a realist. When God sets before us an objective, he knows full well that he has already won for us through the blood of the Lamb, through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, he has won for us everything necessary for the achieving of that objective. And he knows that the door through is faith. This is that which overcometh the world, even our faith.
We can either say, oh, a lovely ideal, but of course we're human beings, an invisible church, an invisible body. Or we can say, this is what we are, this is what the Lord has said, and the Lord will do it and he will do it in us. That's faith. So as Ron has said, to affirm and affirm and affirm, thou art the Christ.
But it's more than even that. Peter had to discover that it was more than even saying, thou art the Christ. He'd got to come to the place where the apostle Paul had come. It pleased God to reveal his Son in me. We have to affirm in the end that God, by the Spirit can do something in us in spite of what we are. And are we not all very difficult people? You don't have to answer.
We are difficult people. Those who think they are the least difficult are in fact the most. They are. Because they are not even aware of being difficult. We are such difficult people. Not just difficult to one another, my goodness me, we’re like a united nations when it comes to that, but I mean to the Lord. We're so unyielding. We're so unbelieving. Now here it is. They regard not the work of the Lord, neither of the operation of his hands. If only we would sit down before God and regard the work of the Lord. If we would only come to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm blind. I don't understand exactly what you did. I'm converted. I'm saved. But I haven't seen what you've done in your cross. Show it to me. If we would only take time to regard the work of the Lord instead of all the time blaming it so often on one another. Oh, you’ll never get anywhere in that group or while so-and-so is there, there’s no hope.
That's not the point. You just go away and regard the work of the Lord. Let the Lord do it in you. Let him do it in me. The Lord's been used to difficult people for 6000 years. They're all difficult. Even those, his closest friends like Abraham. Terribly difficult.
The Lord's well able to put up with difficult people. He has his ways because he loves us so much. He has his ways of just going round us and somehow just doing it when he knows there's a heart for him.
They regard not the work of the Lord. Neither the operation of his hands. Neither have they considered the operation of his hands. Oh, if we would take time in your quiet time, so called. If you just sit down instead of making it such a busy time. You just sit down and say, Lord, I'm going to take five minutes each day. I'm going to sit before you. I'm going to say, Lord, I just don't understand this work of your hands. You've saved me. I thank you for that. Now begin to show me, Lord, open my eyes. Persevere. The Lord will keep you waiting because you've kept him waiting.
And he may try you on this, but in the end, he'll show you the work of his hands and you will be overwhelmed. We shall probably have a little more difficulty with you then. For a while you'll run round in circles about it. Oh, what you've seen, it's so wonderful. They're all blind here. None of them have seen what I've seen. I'm living on the mountaintop. It's just filled me. It's enraptured my soul.
Of course, you'll quieten down after a while, and then you'll have to see something more in the work of the Lord. Because, you see, really, in a way, we can't divorce the work of the Lord from the Lord himself. Having worked for us, our salvation, he gives himself to us as salvation. He has obtained the promise of the Father. You see, bondage and the Holy Spirit are enemies. Let me say it again. Bondage and the Holy Spirit are enemies.
It is the Holy Spirit who brings the truth, as it is in Jesus, to us. The Spirit of truth who leads us into all the truth. If we would yield ourselves to his gracious ministry and let him lead us into the things of Christ, let us see the resources of Christ, not just personal, but corporate.
Well, I must end, but I'd like to end by reading to you a few verses from the apostle Paul in Colossians and chapter three. I'm sorry. Philippians, Philippians and chapter three and verse nine and ten.
Here is the apostle Paul in prison. He has written some of the greatest letters in the New Testament already. And now he's telling us that he counts everything that's behind him as loss. And that's very hard for some of us to understand.
If I could talk with the apostle Paul this morning, I would say to him, is it really possible for you to say that all that that you've had so far is loss? But, you see, I think he would say to me, Lance, it is a question of what you have seen. If you have seen little, you will be satisfied with little. If you have seen more, you will only be satisfied with more. If you have seen infinity, you will only be satisfied with infinity.
That's why the apostle Paul could be caught up to the third heaven and hear things that's not even lawful for a man to utter. He's never given them to us, much as we would all like to know.
That's why he could have experiences so deep. That's why, by inspiration, he could write the letter to the Ephesians, that some dwell in so much and so tremendous. That's why he could write even the letter to the church at Corinth and include that tremendous chapter 13, or that chapter twelve, or that chapter 15, and yet here, when he sits down, listen to him. You would think he was a baby Christian who didn't know a thing.
Verse eight. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord (there’s the word again, knowledge) of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ. But, Paul, you've already got Christ.
Now here it is. I said that everything's been obtained for us 2000 years ago. Yes, but it is just as true that everything has to be possessed. It is just as true that everything has to be possessed by faith that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. But that's justification. Oh, yes, the apostle Paul said, there's much more in justification than you realise. It's not just kindergarten. It's tremendous.
My pressing on is to do partly with my justification. There are depths there. There are fullnesses there that I have not yet found. And I think this is true, for the older we get, the more conscious we are of our sinfulness and the more we're forced back to what the Lord Jesus did on the cross. And then the righteousness which is from God, by faith that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings becoming conformed unto his death, if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Not that I've already obtained, or am already made perfect, but I press on, if so, be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold. But one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, (and the secret) that I may know him, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
Therefore, have my people gone into captivity for lack of knowledge. Could I put your name in there? Could I put my name in there and say, therefore, Lance Lambert has gone into captivity for lack of knowledge? Knowledge of what? No, knowledge of whom? Christ. Could I say that of you? Could the Lord say that of you?
Therefore you have gone into captivity for lack of knowledge. Or maybe the Lord could say it of us as a people. Bondage. There's no place for bondage when people rise up by faith and take what is theirs in him. May the Lord open our eyes so that we see, begin to see just what he has done and what he has obtained for us. And that gracious Holy Spirit will make real to each one of us these things of the Lord Jesus.
And now, Lord, thou knowest where in every one of our lives and we have to confess it before thee. Thou knowest where there is bondage. Bondage that ought not to be. Bondage which is just the opposite to what thou hast done for us. Now, Lord, thou knowest where it is. Areas of darkness. Areas of bondage.
We pray, beloved Lord, that by thy Holy Spirit thou would cause the light to shine into our hearts and bring us to the place where we're ready to sit down before thee and to regard the work of thy hands to consider the operation of thy hands.
Lord, do hear us. And may we discover the truth as it is in Jesus to be liberating in every way. We ask it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
