Chris Hill continues his short series exploring our relationship with our Father

 (2) SELF – ISOLATING WITH GOD

 Time out with God is always an opportunity for obedience. We should expect that. Discipleship means we become more and more like Jesus. He is our Master: we are His apprentices. We do precisely what He tells us to do and in the very same He does it! It is what defines our Christianity.

Our Lord spent many hours self-isolating in the secret place with His Father. Take Luke 5:16, for instance: it is a clear example of His strategy during the years of His earthly ministry. Luke tells us, “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Why? Because it was His joy and delight … and because it was necessary! Our Lord Jesus is Man as well as God and, in His manhood, He needed everything we need. Consequently, because disciples are apprentices, they do what Jesus does … and for the same reasons. Our worship gives clarity on what Father wants and provides wisdom and power for obeying Him to the letter.

Christ gave His apprentices some canny advice when He instructed them, “When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)

Our Lord knew what He was talking about from personal experience. He only ever did what the Father told Him to do and only ever said that the Father told Him to say. That degree of spiritual sensitivity requires the closest fellowship with Father. It is the same way for us.

Our Lord Jesus sometimes spent whole nights in prayer in the secret place. Matthew 14:13 speaks of self-isolation being His immediate response to hearing of the death of John the Baptist. Sandwiched between the Feeding of the Five Thousand and the miracle of Walking on the Water, we read, “… He went up on a mountainside  to pray” (Matthew 14:23). In Luke 6:12 we are told, “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and He spent the night praying to God.” This was the night before He chose the Twelve Apostles: an absolutely momentous decision. There is no question that time spent alone with His Father was fundamental to His life while on the earth.

Self-isolation may seem like an inconvenience at the time but for the believer it can be a vital means of maintaining our close walk with God, providing us with assurance of our security in Jesus.

Self-isolation may seem like an inconvenience at the time but for the believer it can be a vital means of maintaining our close walk with God, providing us with assurance of our security in Jesus.

When we search the Scriptures, we find many examples of servants of God who experienced this tremendous truth. Noah is a good example.

In Genesis 7:1 we are presented with variant readings of the text. According to the New International Version (NIV), once the ark had been completed and the deluge was imminent, the Lord God instructed Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family”. But the Hebrew can equally mean, “Come to Me, in the ark”, and that translation was followed by William Tyndale and by the translators of the Authorised Version, the Revised Version and the New King James Version. The fact that our Sovereign is omnipresent means that both translations are valid! Hallelujah!

We can conclude that during the terrible cataclysm we know as the Flood, the Lord was in the ark with Noah as well as outside throughout the deluge! Noah was shut in with God and God was shut in with him! God had Noah right where He wanted him!

 Bear in mind also that in the detailed plans for the construction of the ark (Genesis 6:14-16), no provision was made by the Lord for any steering mechanism. The ark was in fact a huge shoe-box-shaped container. It was not a boat: it was a vast container to provide shelter and protection for the precious humans and animals inside it. So we might ask, “Who was steering the gigantic vesselthrough the appalling, plunging waters of the Flood?” The answer is, God was! The Lord was in the ark with Noah!

After the waters subsided, the Lord spoke again to Noah and said, “Come to Me, out of the ark!” (Genesis 8:15). The Lord was everywhere present. God was with Noah before the Flood, during the Flood and after the Flood. Noah could not get away from God and neither can we! Because we are His people, He is with us through the darkest hour and nothing can prevent that. Certainly not the Corona Virus!

We can and should draw tremendous comfort from our Lord Jesus and His awesome words, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

The Lord was with Noah and his family in what might be called their “Valley of the Shadow” and He will not desert us in our time of need.

“Blessed assurance: Jesus is mine!

O what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of Salvation: purchase of God:

Born of His Spirit: washed in the blood.”

Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)

 

Here’s an idea – let’s spend five minutes in complete SILENCE in a quiet place by ourselves, allowing the Lord to reassure us of His presence and protection in all circumstances.

 

Chris Hill has been a preacher for sixty years. He was a Minister in the Church of England but then resigned to minister more widely. Chris was for a time Principal of the Christian Life College in London and Teaching Director at Pilgrims Hall and Mulberry House in Essex. Chris and Lindy live in Oxfordshire. For 40 years, Chris led Bible Tours of Israel. His Books and recordings are popular with folks devoted to God’s Word.