WINDOWS
W S Chellberg
Genesis 6: 22, 8: 6, 20
Joshua 2: 8-15
Daniel 6: 10
I would like to say something, dear brethren, about windows; not so much about the windows but about people who had windows. There are three of them in these Scriptures; Noah, Rahab, and Daniel. The idea of a window is outlook; generally, that is so in the Scriptures. There are a few other times they are mentioned, but basically it is in regard of outlook.
These three people I have read of had windows, and I would like to say something about their outlook. I am talking about our outlook - our life, that is, how we look forward. Are we taking into account our current place in the world? These persons’ place in the world was a very difficult place, as is our place at the current time. It always will be for the believer: “all indeed who desire to live piously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”, 2 Tim 3: 12. But these persons are interesting to us in that they had faith.
If we start with Noah, he is an interesting person, because he never questioned God. God says to him ‘build a boat’, and he did not question it. In fact, for nine-hundred and fifty years, I do not think he is said to say anything; the Spirit has not recorded any of his words for nine-hundred and fifty years. But he did it; that is what I want to emphasise. James says that “faith without works is dead”, chap 2: 26. Noah was a man of faith, great faith. And in chapter 6 it says, “so did he”; I think that is a wonderful sentence, and it should energise each one of us, old and young - when convicted of the truth, to do it. We must have a right view at the world around us. Noah no doubt did - it says he was a just man - God found him to be just. He was a righteous man, he is called a righteous man, and he moved forward as having a judgment of the world around him. He must have had a judgment of the world around him, and when God spoke to him to build a boat, an ark, for the saving of his family, he started building - he did it. And that is an important thing for all of us, for the young people here who perhaps are thinking of having a household sometime. Are you going to be like Noah and build a way for your family to be saved? That is what he did. He made a window as he was told. I think that it is an interesting thing, and I do not want to say much about it, but it is never said that Noah opened his window to look out and see what was happening, or to see which way his boat was going. He is a picture of a person who has faith and does not question God. Noah did not question God.
It is important to know that he built the first altar in Scripture. Another altar is possibly referred to earlier when God told Cain that a sin-offering lieth at the door. But this is the first of the altars mentioned as such and God smells a sweet odour. I would just like to entice the brethren to have that kind of outlook, the kind of outlook Noah had.
I read what Rahab said to the spies who were with her - her words are recorded. She said certain things, and in one sense her faith was extraordinary, because it was forty years earlier that God had opened up the Red Sea for Israel to come across. That was in one sense historical. Now, her faith had a certain roundness about it that is not mentioned in Noah. She had heard about what God was doing with His people. Have you heard what God is doing? She did, and she said, ‘That is the God for me, that is the God I want: whatever it takes, I want that God’. And thus she let them down through her window. She had a window and she had, no doubt, been looking out of that window and thinking about what had happened in Egypt, and what had happened at the Red Sea, and what had happened to the Amorites, to Sihon and Og. They were huge men; the size of Og’s bedstead was nine cubits, Deut 3: 11. She thought about all that and she said, ‘That is the God for me’. That is the outlook she had, that she wanted that God. Rahab was a Gentile and later on, there is another Gentile named Ruth, and she says, “thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried”, Ruth 1: 16, 17. These are persons who challenge us about what our outlook is at the present time. Is God going to continue the testimony? Is God going to continue the assembly? That is the question you need to answer.
And then I just wanted to say in closing a short word about Daniel. It is interesting that, when he knew that the law was signed by Darius, he went and prayed “as he did aforetime.” The law was that he must pray only to Darius, but he went and prayed as before. He went three times a day, and prayed, and prayed. I think this is a clue for us to consider in regard to our outlook. There are governments, and economics, and politics, and all this that is going on at the present time. You might say, ‘What is the point of it all, why should I be concerned?’. Well, I think this passage contains a good word for us - prayer. Daniel, too, was remembering something that he had heard many years ago. He was thinking: He was thinking about Jerusalem; he had God’s purposes in mind, and he was thinking about what God’s plan was. And that should be our outlook: what is God doing? What is He doing at the present time, what is He going to do? Where will each one of us be in the days to come?
Thank God for this weekend, and we desire that it might be fruitful in this place and in every place represented here, and that we find our part in the wonderful plan that God is moving forward. He is not giving up! The testimony will go through; the assembly will go through; there is no question about it - it will go through. If the testimony could go through the Red Sea, it will go through! As the people approached Jericho, and the government had sealed up the city; nevertheless, there was a window in the wall; there was something in that city that the king could not shut up, and that was Rahab’s window.
I wish to encourage us all to have our window open to what God is doing.
Indianapolis
26th November 2021