Leaving Ur of the Chaldeans

“If … the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23).

“And … Abram … went forth … from Ur of the Chaldeans, to go into the land of Canaan … Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’” (Gen. 11:31; 12:1).

There is more meaning in this LEAVING UR OF THE CHALDEANS than most understand.  It is monumental in its scope and foundational for all subsequent revelation that God enlightens man with.  It has nothing less than the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ in it.  Breaking down some of its definitions, we get: 

“Ur” means “shine or flame,” and “Chaldeans” means “as it were demons” (rooted in a word meaning “to lay waste, to destroy”) or “magicians” or “astrologers.”  Essentially, God called Abram to leave the flame or shine (the natural light) of alluring magic and demonic deception derived from the stars (a secondary light) or the inner light of self (which is energized by Satan rather than God).  In other words, come out of the smoke-and-mirror-reality of natural familial ties; come out of the natural light that family, ethnicity and country give to a place where God enlarges vision, influence, and reality.  Come out of the natural connection to the supernatural connection; come out of the earthly to the heavenly. 

This is no less than the gospel according to Abram/Abraham and the pattern of the gospel according to Jesus Christ. 

In contrast to where God is taking us, our family, ethnicity and country reality is delusional.  That is why Jesus said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).  Assuredly, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

To leave the shining flame of one’s own fire is to be reignited and fueled by another source; natural light is darkness and delusion compared to spiritual light and reality. This is why Jesus said to the Pharisees, “If … the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

“Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant?  Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God.  But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze.  This is what you shall receive from my hand: you will lie down in torment” (Isaiah 50:10-11 NIV).

LEAVING UR OF THE CHALDEANS is leaving the light of one’s own fire; the gospel of Jesus Christ is leaving off one’s own natural light in order to follow the light of Christ.  I would suggest that Abraham—at least on some level—became the first Christian because “Abraham rejoiced to see My [Jesus’] day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

 

A Commentary on One Verse (Psalm 68:6)

“God makes a home for the lonely; He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,

Only the rebellious dwell in a parched [dry] land” (Psalm 68:6 NASB).

Many years ago I prophesied loudly from the back of the sanctuary a portion of this verse.  I declared boldly that “Only the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”  It seemed to crack across the ceiling like lightning and thunder.  I began to weep.  I have prophesied much through the years, but I can hardly remember a word more powerfully demonstrated.

Today (9/8/2019) my pastor preached a theme that spoke to this fragment of verse six.  At the end of his sermon I quoted this to him and our congregation (also from the back of the sanctuary).  At the time, I did not remember where it came from excepting that it was from one of the Psalms.  A brother near me looked it up and told me the verse.

This idea that God makes a home for the lonely and leads prisoners out of privation into prosperity is something I am currently experiencing.  I also know that my rebellion against some aspect of God’s leading was the cause of my spiritual dryness.  ONLY the rebellious dwells in dryness; this presently cursed earth (where we dwell in our present but temporary body of death) is spiritually vacant and dry, but also, like as Christ is depicted as “a root out of a dry ground,” so we too are bodily deprived and without spiritual comeliness in these vessels excepting that spring of living water which springs up into eternal life.  In other words, our context is dryness (in our earth-bound body), but our reality, spiritual saturation/wetness (as we also live in the heavenlies).  If we find ourselves dry—since ONLY the rebellious dwell there—we must have at least some measure of rebellion in our hearts.  Let us repent and get back to our first works and whatever else God requires of us.

I love Charles H. Spurgeon’s take on this verse; he wrote—in his classic “The Treasury of David”—the following:

“‘God setteth the solitary in families.’  The people had been sundered and scattered over Egypt; family ties had been disregarded, and affections crushed; but when the people escaped from Pharaoh they came together again, and all the fond associations of household life were restored.  This was a great joy.  ‘He bringeth out those which are bound with chains.’  The most oppressed in Egypt were chained and imprisoned, but the divine Emancipator brought them all forth into perfect liberty.  He who did this of old continues his gracious work.  The solitary heart, convinced of sin and made to pine alone, is admitted into the family of the First-born; the fettered spirit is set free, and its prison broken down, when sin is forgiven; and for all this, God is to be greatly extolled, for He hath done it, and magnified the glory of his grace.  ‘But the rebellious dwell in a dry land.’  If any find the rule of Jehovah to be irksome, it is because their rebellious spirits kick against his power.  Israel did not find the desert dry, for the smitten rock gave forth its streams; but even in Canaan itself men were consumed with famine, because they cast off their allegiance to their covenant God.  Even where God is revealed on the mercy-seat, some men persist in rebellion, and such need not wonder if they find no peace, no comfort, no joy, even where all these abound.  Justice is the rule of the Lord’s kingdom, and hence there is no provision for the unjust to indulge their evil lustings: a perfect earth, and even heaven itself, would be a dry land to those who can only drink of the waters of sin.  Of the most soul-satisfying of sacred ordinances these witless rebels cry, ‘What a weariness it is!’  and, under the most soul-sustaining ministry, they complain of ‘the foolishness of preaching.’  When a man has a rebellious heart, he must of necessity find all around him a dry land.”