"The Rights of God" # 24

"God's Rights in His House (continued)

This takes us to Moses. He stands before us as a prophet. How zealous he was for the rights of God! God showed him His house on the mountain. But at the feet of the mountain, he erected an altar and sacrificed. By doing so he respected the rights of God. His altar is nothing else but the explanation that the way to God's mountain (and therefore to God's house) is via the Cross of Calvary. Lightening and thunder surrounded the mountain. It was so terrible, that even Moses trembled. Why? Because no one can come close to God to serve Him except he whom God has called. God takes care that the mountain is fenced off, that nothing may come close to Him, that access to Him is only through the power of the Blood.

We say all of this in view of the rights of God. There is a burden on our hearts to make clear that God's house is only really God's house if it is filled by Him alone. We see this in the tabernacle. Because of the veil it is separated from everything outside. Inside, however, everything speaks through the large altar of the rights of God, the right God has over all life, of His sole and exclusive right.

When, after Solomon, the worship of God began to waiver, when other gods were worshiped, prophetic service among the people increased. Why? We have said before that the prophets stood for God's rights in a special way. When therefore a prophet raised his voice in the old covenant, we know that something was not in order, that God was working to win back that which was lost, to save the spiritual from being covered up by formalism and tradition. This stepping in for God marks Elijah in a special way. When he says: "As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand," it means: The Lord and I are one; the Lord stands on my side because I stand on His side; your attitude towards me reflects your attitude towards the Lord. And all this happens in view of winning back the rights of God. Now Elijah was not an important personality. We judge him wrongly if we ascribe him a personality which he did not have. The Lord shows him to us when he was discouraged, sitting under the juniper tree:

"But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers" (I Kings 19:4).

And James firms this, by saying: "Elijah was a man of like nature with us" (Jams 5:17). But the Lord has chosen him. His calling has  to do with the rights of God. Because he stood on God's side, God stands with him. The Lord defends His honor in His prophet. He seeks to safeguard His rights in those that are His messengers.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 25)