December 1975
THE PIONEERS
God’s call to His Elect to accept the Training Programme
One trusts in Scripture, another in Creed;
one stands for Dogma, another for freedom;
some go to This Church, some go to That;
all tread their Known Path with Security and Poise.
Where then, says the Lord, are the Pioneers?
Where is that Noble Band which fears not the Unknown when I call?
Consider Abraham, the chosen Father of Nations.
I asked him to leave his Town,
leave his Family and Friends.
Many even now speak of the Adventures of Abraham.
But who can accept that Abraham was my example of a Pioneer?
Where is the man who is willing,
at my word of command,
to pull up his roots and march into the unknown?
Where is the one who is ready to quit his own Church,
to the utter amazement of all, should I ask it of him?
Where is the one who is prepared to walk an individual path of obedience to me,
when all the rest work together?
Where are the Pioneers who are man enough for these things?
Those who are ready to embrace misunderstandings
from those they love most dearly;
those who can hardly state with clarity the reasons for their change,
save the Whisper that will not let them rest until they are up and away.
To stand apart from this world is a straightforward thing indeed
for a child of mine,
but to desert that which has been the source of spiritual uplift,
teaching, inspiration and fellowship, can never be easy.
Consider Moses my Friend;
the one to whom I spoke at the burning bush.
He was willing to relinquish his place in Midian
after forty years of quiet learning,
and go back into dreaded Egypt at my word of command.
He was my man, prepared for the hour of my work.
And who will dare to trust me in like manner today?
To know that I will uphold him in the place he dreads the most?
To go back, to face the fears that haunt the mind from past experience?
Where are you?
Come and kneel before me, for I have need of you.
I will look upon this as obedience to my word,
obedience to a vision as yet unrevealed.
My forty days of testing will more than suffice for what I have in store.
Consider Job my trusty servant, my stalwart man of faith,
upon whom I unleashed calamity upon calamity,
like a rising tide of trouble,
without a word of explanation to carry him through his hour of pain.
His best and trusted friends then turned against him and goaded him,
as heedless children worrying the caged animal.
Where is the man who is ready for this?
Where is the man whom I can trust even if I bring him near to death;
whom I can trust in poverty, perplexity, persecution and pain,
yea, even to the point of despair?
And yet he will not fail me!
And so I will not fail him!
Indeed I will lift him up and honour him in the day of realisation,
in the presence of all those who caused him pain.
Consider my Son.
Do not seek to elevate His divine nature to the detriment of His true humanity.
Like Abraham, Moses, and Job, He was my Pioneering Example.
His early years were spent with family, neighbours and friends.
His work was the discipline of the commonplace,
His daily routine quite normal.
But He heard my voice, and learned Who He was,
and why He was here,
and what He was to do.
At thirty years of age He went forth to act in faith and obedience
to the revelation received.
Who is ready for such things?
Who is ready to walk by faith and to follow my Son’s example?
To know the fellowship of His sufferings and reject his own?
To taste conformity with His death, and be released from his own?
To him will I grant the prize of the high calling,
that he may share the nature of His resurrection,
to live on the higher plane where man can walk with God.
Is this impossible?
Yes, were it not for my invitation,
for my revelation,
for my examples,
for my great Pioneers.
Therefore consider, says the Lord
for I have need of such as these in this my day.
