Joe: Hi everyone thank you all for joining us for part 2 of our discussion from
"Deep Calls Unto Deep," from Chapter 3 in Volume 2 of the "Basic Elements of the Christian Life."
Tony, in the last chapter we talked about how this comes from Psalms 42 verse 7
and even how this point is related to our Christian life. But the book goes on to discuss
two specific examples from the Bible. Can we begin today by discussing the first example (from Isaiah) with Hezekiah?
Tony: Hezekiah being a negative example
points to his being superficial and hasty in taking care of his possessions before God. And we're
not talking about physical possessions, we're talking about spiritual possessions. The contrasting
example is with Paul who was greatly used by the Lord and all of us today are beneficiaries
of his service. Something has endured through the ages because he was one who understood
the principle of taking care of the hidden life.
Joe: Okay, so as you mentioned there's these two examples: there's the example of Hezekiah
which is kind of a negative example and a warning for us but then we also have the Apostle
Paul as a positive example. Would you tell us more about Paul and his experience that is a positive example for us?
Tony: Well, Paul was one who had very deep
experience of the Lord and we know this particularly in chapter 12 of Second Corinthians, where he shares
with the believers in Corinth an experience that he had 14 years earlier and it is believed
that he never mentioned this before and it was somewhat stunning to realize that Paul
had kept within him such a transcendent experience of Christ, actually very deep, very spiritual
and you need to read those chapters. He never mentioned them for 14 years and even when
he did mention them, he mentioned them in a very, very brief way. This shows that he
highly valued personal experiences with the Lord and that he didn't just open them up
and display them in a superficial way. Contrasting Hezekiah had obtained much before God, much
wealth, much possessions, but because he displayed them in an undiscerning way to the visitors
from Babylon, a hundred years later the kingdom was lost in a captivity.
So I think you can see there is a great contrast between two people of God and how they handled their possessions before God.
Joe: Yeah, that chapter really helps us to
see that the Apostle Paul had this experience but he didn't reveal it in a careless or loose way.
But he very much was before the Lord about when to speak this experience and
other experiences and even how much of those experiences to speak. What we see from this,
is that it allowed him to have a hidden life with the Lord which caused him to have deep
roots in his Christian life. So for everyone who's viewing and who's listening today,
how can we look at this positive example, the Apostle Paul, and how can we kind of apply
it and experience it in our Christian life? Tony: Well, simply we need to realize that
the Christian life is a hidden life, primarily. It is not necessarily an outward life of doing
works, it's not a life of making displays to others but it's a hidden life before God.
The vast majority of our Christian experience is personal, is hidden and it establishes
a deep root system, that we derive from our whole Christian life. It sustains us, it meets
our need, and at the same time those who touch or are in contact with the person who is in
the depths will realize that this person has something of life, something of Christ.
And even though, he may not say much, he may not talk much, yet there's something being ministered to others.
And this is a strong warning to us that if we don't develop a hidden life,
if we don't care for our spiritual relationship with God as treasures and as possessions to
be guarded then we may just be a superficial Christian saying things, talking about experiences,
all the while we've lost our fellowship with the Lord. This is not the testimony of
the Apostle Paul and Watchman Nee's concern is that we would fall into this trap of a superficial Christian life.
Joe: It's really good to see that in our
Christian life we need to have this hidden life with the Lord and not expose all of our
experiences with Him, and every experience that we have with the Lord. But really we
have to be guarded in our experiences and allow the Lord to grow deep in us. And even
to guard these experiences and not to just talk about them in any time and in any place
but to even ask the Lord, "Lord what should I speak? How should I speak this?" and things like this.
So, this is just a very good principle for us to learn for our Christian life,
so that we can be those who have a deep root system with the Lord. I think we both agree,
for those who are watching, we'd really encourage you to order this book and especially
read this chapter so that you can see this matter more clearly related to "deep calls unto deep."