God Sets the Time and the Place

The truth that I’m going to deal with in this next couple of days follows on naturally from the points we’ve just looked at.

The truth is, God sets the time and the place. We have to give absolute priority to God before all our own interests and activities. We may have our own program, we may have our own interests, we may have the things we’re excited about, the things we’re eager to get done. But if we want to hear God’s voice, we have to be prepared to let those things go, “to let go and relax,” as the psalmist says. We have to let God set the time and the place, and it may not be the time or the place of our choosing.

I want to give you three examples of men who met with God and heard His voice. The three men I’m going to speak about are Moses, Elijah, and Jeremiah. First, we’ll look at Moses as it’s described in Numbers 7:89. This describes how Moses went into the tabernacle that had been erected in the wilderness, and there he spoke with God, and God spoke with him. As I read this verse, always a kind of stillness comes over my soul. I think of that tabernacle there out in the blazing sunshine of the desert, surrounded by things that were barren, dusty, and then inside, the coolness, the shade, the quietness. And that always challenges me to get away from the heat and the dust and the busyness and the activity, to come into a quiet place where I can speak with God and God with me. This is what it says about Moses:

“When Moses entered the Tent of Meeting [the tabernacle] to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim over the atonement cover on the ark of the Testimony. And he [that’s the Lord] spoke with him [Moses].”

There was a place where God spoke with Moses. It was behind the second veil of the tabernacle, from the Holy of Holies, from the most sacred place. And that shows me how sacred it is to hear the voice of the Lord. It was from between the two cherubim. The cherubim speak again of worship and also of fellowship. And it was from over the atonement cover on the ark of the testimony, the place where the blood had been sprinkled. It spoke of covered and forgiven sin. So, how significant all those points are. It was a place of worship. It was a place of fellowship. It was a place where there was the eternal evidence of sin forgiven and covered. And bear in mind, uncovered and unforgiven sin will always keep us from hearing the voice of the Lord. And so that’s where Moses heard the voice of the Lord.

I think of something that Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 6:6, that you, when you pray, go into your inner room. Why into a inner room? Surely to get away from all distractions, to shut out all the sounds and the sights of the world, to be still before God. I believe every Christian should have some kind of inner room.

I remember a man who was a friend of mine who used to go into the closet, under the stairs, with the brooms and all those things, but that’s where he heard from God. It became a sacred place for him.