Beware of having an Evil Heart of Unbelief, Murmurings, and Languishing in the Land

It is God’s will and desire for us to enter into the enjoyment and possession of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land, but for us to possess Him, we must beware of having an evil heart of unbelief, murmurings, and languishing in the land. Amen!

This week we start a new morning revival, the Crystallization-study of Deuteronomy, and in particular this week we come to the topic of, The Intrinsic Significance of Deuteronomy – a Book Concerning Christ.

In Luke 24:44 the Lord Jesus told His disciples that all the things written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms are concerning Him, and they all had to be fulfilled. This shows that the entire Old Testament is a revelation of Christ, and that He is the center and the content.

In the New Testament, the first verse is Matt. 1:1 saying, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ; the last verse in Rev. 22:21 also mentions the name of Jesus. The first and last verse of the New Testament mention the Lord Jesus – He is the content and the subject of the entire New Testament.

Christ is the center and the content of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

As we come to the book of Deuteronomy, we need to be poor in spirit so that we may gain something new and fresh of the Lord as the kingdom of the heavens (Matt. 5:3). To be divinely happy is for us to exercise to be poor in spirit – empty, fully open to the Lord to receive something fresh of Him dispensed into us.

Furthermore, we need to be pure in heart (v. 8) so that we may see God; our only goal has to be Christ Himself, contacting Him, receiving Him, and being filled with Him.

There is a clear difference between hearing about God and seeing God; Job heard of God by the hearing of the ear, but when his eye has seen Him, he repented in dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6).

May we not only hear about God and His purpose, may we not only understand that God’s desire is for us to gain the all-inclusive Christ as the good land, but may we know God, see God, love God, and gain God!

May we be like little children receiving the kingdom of God, as the Lord said in Luke 18:17; may we not be filled with old concepts but be easily impressed with the Lord of God and receive His new thoughts.

It is a mercy of God for us come to Him in His word with an unoccupied heart, receiving the kingdom of God as a new thing. May we pray that we all would receive the new thoughts of the Triune God concerning Christ as the centrality and universality of God’s economy.

And when we come to the Lord’s word, our aim is not just to gain knowledge but to come to Him so that we may have life (John 5:39-40).

Whenever we come to the word of God, no matter what book, chapter, or verse, we need to come to the Lord so that we may receive Him as life. Amen!

The need for the Respeaking of the Word for the New Generation to be Perfected and Enter into the Land

Deuteronomy is a concluding word of the law and gives an all-inclusive conclusion of the Pentateuch – the first five books of the Bible, all of which were written by Moses.

After giving the law and the ordinances, Moses was burdened to re-speak them to the people of Israel; Deuteronomy means “second law” and thus signifies a re-speaking, a repeated speaking, of the divine law.

It was given especially to the second generation, who were perfected by God to enter into the good land.

The history of Israel is a type of the history of the church; we need to remember that, whatever is portrayed concerning Israel is a picture of us today, showing us where we are and what we are.

In nature, we are the same as the children of Israel, and when God exposed them of something, that thing is also in us.

We may have been a believer for many years and we may have been in the church life for a long time, reading the Bible and being in the ministry, but we should still not have any trust in ourselves, for we have a rebellious nature and a rebellious being.

We are a constitution of rebellion; therefore, we need the Lord’s mercy and grace. We all need to realize that we are the same in nature as the children of Israel, and we shouldn’t trust in ourselves; we shouldn’t have any kind of assurance that we’re able to stand and remain in the church life in ourselves and by ourselves.

The truth is that we may enjoy the Lord in the morning, but a few hours later we may rebel against Him; we don’t have the guarantee that we can remain faithful to the Lord, so we should constantly come back to Him and inhale Him, receiving Him as the word into our being.

In the book of Numbers we see at the end that, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, those who were qualified and ready to take possession of the good land were the younger ones.

The second generation didn’t pass through as much as the first generation did, but they received the benefit of what the first generation experienced.

It is probable that the old generation spoke to the younger generation about all that they experienced, enjoyed, and suffered, and this speaking was part of the raising up and preparing of the second generation; what the older ones experienced was effective in building up the younger ones.

So God obtained a second generation ready to enter into the good land, with more than six hundred thousand men with a rich inheritance and a strong background; these were qualified to be formed into an army to fight for God’s kingdom.

The principle is the same with us today in the Lord’s recovery; what the older ones experienced is being passed on to the younger ones and will be very effective in building them up and preparing them to fight with God and for God.

The younger ones, however, should not think that the older generation “will retire” as they share their experience with them; rather, the younger ones are brought into function in the church life to serve alongside and in coordination with the older ones for the Lord to have a way.

May we be saved from being set, settled, or occupied, and may we be made young, new, fresh, and living with the Lord to be those who inhale Him in His word and are used by Him to do something new in this age!

Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to be prepared and formed by You into the army that You desire to fight for You and with You and bring in the kingdom of God on earth. Amen, Lord, prepare a new generation in the church life that is fresh, new, living, and young with You, those who are perfected by Your word and by the experiences of the older generation to enter in and take the land. Save us from becoming set, settled, and occupied. We open to You, Lord, we empty ourselves, and we want to be fresh and new and living with You for Your move on earth!

Beware of having an Evil Heart of Unbelief, Murmurings, and Languishing in the Land

When Moses was eighty years old, the law was given through him (Exo. 7:7); forty years later, however, after the first generation (with the exception of Caleb and Joshua) had died out, he spoke the law again to the children of Israel.

This time he spoke it to the second generation, the generation that was ready to enter into the good land and possess it (Deut. 2:14; 8:6-10).

If we are going to fully possess Christ as the good land, we need to learn from the history of Israel and beware of having an evil heart of unbelief, murmurings, and languishing in the land. We must beware of having an evil heart of unbelief (Deut. 1:25-26, 28, 35-39; 9:23; Heb. 3:12, 16-19; 4:2, 6; 11:1; cf. 2 Cor. 4:13; Gal. 3:2, 5; Rom. 10:17; Acts 6:5a; Num. 13:25-33; 14:4-10; 32:11-12; Josh. 14:6-12).

In Acts we see that Stephen was full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit; even the brothers who waited on tables were full of faith! Joshua and Caleb, who fully followed Jehovah, were full of faith; they did not have an evil heart of unbelief.

In ourselves we cannot enter into the good land, but God promised it to us, and He will do it in us! We can take Christ as our absoluteness, our burnt offering, and He in us will be absolute for God.

May we receive God’s word, believe it, and follow the Lord according to His word. May there be no one among us that has an evil heart of unbelief in falling away from the living God (Heb. 3:12).

May we keep our heart turned to the Lord and not let it turn away from Him; when our heart is turned to the Lord, the veil is taken away, and we behold Him with an unveiled face!

As we behold the Lord, He infuses all that He is into us to be our faith; He Himself becomes the faith by which we believe into Him. Oh, may we look away unto Jesus, the author and Perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2)!

The only way we can have faith is by looking to Him; He infuses us with Himself as our believing element to believe for us – He becomes the Author of our faith, and as we continue to listen to His word, He becomes the Perfecter of our faith.

May we not be like many of those in the people of Israel who, because they had a heart of unbelief, did not enter into the good land but rather they died in the wilderness (Heb. 3:16-19).

May the word we hear profit us as we mix it with our faith (Heb. 4:2); as the Lord speaks to us, may we mix this word with faith! Doubts are in our mind, but faith is in our spirit; our spirit is a spirit of faith (2 Cor. 4:13).

When we come to God’s word, we must exercise our spirit to receive the Word of God by means of all prayer. Faith is the substantiation of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb. 11:1); the only way we can substantiate the unseen God and His purpose is by exercising our spirit of faith to touch Him.

Moses was such a one; he persevered, as one seeing the unseen one (Heb. 11:27).

When we exercise our spirit to substantiate Christ, all our five senses are involved spiritually: we touch Christ, we see Christ, we hear Christ, we taste Christ, and we even smell Christ. Amen!

As we are under the hearing of faith, we receive the Spirit and are infused with Him (Gal. 3:2, 5); faith comes by hearing, and hearing is by the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17).

Amen, may we not be like the first generation of the people of Israel, who had an evil heart of unbelief as they heard the evil report from the ten spies; may we be like Joshua and Caleb who had faith in God and in His word, believing that He promised the land and He will do it, and the giants in the land are their food!

Amen, all the problems, difficulties, and trials we go through are our bread – they are an opportunity for us to experience and enjoy Christ!

If we are going to fully possess Christ as the good land, we must beware of murmurings (discontented and secret mutterings, grumblings, and complaining) – see 1 Cor. 10:5-6, 10-11; Deut. 1:27; Num. 14:1-4; Psa. 106:25; Phil. 2:14.

Just as the children of Israel murmured, so we do today; but may we be those who do all things without murmurings and reasonings so that we may be blameless and guileless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom we shine as luminaries in the world, holding forth the word of life!

Murmurings are very serious in the eyes of God; the children of Israel murmured in their tents – they had secret murmurings, grumblings and complaining…whenever there’s a complaint in us, we need to repent to the Lord.

We may have difficulties, trials, illnesses, and others may mistreat us, but we should be on guard against complaining.

Murmuring is an expression of the flesh, which is the totality of man’s fallen being.

The history of the children of Israel is an example to us, so that we may not murmur as they murmured and thus perished. Oh Lord Jesus, save us from any murmurings – both small and big, both grumblings and rebellion against God’s authority!

If we are going to fully possess Christ as the good land, we must beware of languishing in the land; the word languish implies the loss of spiritual freshness and the blunting of original impressions, produced by force of custom, or long residence in the same spot — Deut. 4:25; Rev. 3:15-22; Deut. 34:7.

We need to beware languishing in the land; this means that we are in the church life, but we lost our spiritual freshness because we remained in the same place (not just physically but also spiritually) for many years.

How can we be fresh with the Lord? We need to be in His presence so that we may have a time of refreshing.

May we be saved from losing the sharpness, our incisive perception of Christ. May we learn to blend with the saints and keep short accounts with Him, and may we stay in His presence!

There’s a great danger to think we’re rich, we have need of nothing, and we know all things; this is the attitude of the church in Laodicea, and the Lord counseled it to buy from Him the processed Triune God.

May we come to the Lord and pay the price to enjoy and possess God the Father, Christ the Son, and the anointing Spirit, so that we may really see God’s economy in a living and vital way!

Most of the second generation had not been present to hear the giving of the Ten Commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances at Mount Sinai; therefore, God burdened Moses to re-speak, to rehearse, the law; this respeaking was a renewed training given to the new generation of the children of Israel after their long wandering, to prepare them to enter into the good land promised by God and inherit it as their possession (see Exo. 3:8; Col. 1:12; 2:6-7).

Lord Jesus, we want to fully possess the all-inclusive Christ as the good land! You promised us this wonderful One as our inheritance, and we believe that You will do it in us! Amen, Lord, save us from having an evil heart of unbelief. May we remain under the hearing of faith and look away unto Jesus so that we may be infused with You as our faith! Lord, save us from murmurings and from any discontented and secret mutterings, grumblings, and complaining. May we turn all our complaints into prayer, and may we beware of murmuring so that we may not perish. Dear Lord Jesus, save us from languishing in the land – save us from losing our spiritual freshness and the blunting of our original impressions. May we not be lukewarm but pay the price to gain the processed Triune God again and again in our experience!

Read this article in the Romanian language / citiți acest articol și în limba română la următorul link, Să ne ferim să avem o inimă rea de necredință, cârtiri și stagnarea în țară.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The All-inclusive Christ, ” ch. 13, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 1, on the topic of, The Intrinsic Significance of Deuteronomy — a Book concerning Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Will you be an overcomer? / Never lukewarm be, / Ne’er content with what you’ve gotten, / More you need to see. (Hymns #894)
  – Those on my heart, I give / To Him who will perfect, / Ground, and establish, / For these are His elect. / Faithful is He who calls / Who also will complete / The good work in them all, / Nothing unfinished leave. (Song on, In Him Who’s Able)
  – Every moment, every member, / Girded, waiting Thy command; / Underneath the yoke to labor / Or be laid aside as planned. / When restricted in pursuing, / No disquiet will beset; / Underneath Thy faithful dealing / Not a murmur or regret. (Hymns #403)