Eleven books, and two more on order, and he could give you the argument of every one of them in about four minutes each.
The question is a real one. It is not a manufactured problem and it is not trivial, and there are serious people on both sides of it who have thought about it for longer than he has been alive.
He has been reading about it for four years.
Here is what he noticed in the spring, and it arrived while he was writing a delivery address, which is where things like that seem to arrive.
His position has not moved in four years.
Not once. He worked out where he stood in about the fourth month, from the text, carefully, and he has read eleven books since, and every one of them has been interesting and several have been excellent and not one of them has moved him an inch.
What the eleven books have done is postpone.
There is a thing that follows from where he stands. It is not enormous and it is not public. It involves a conversation, and a change to how he does one thing, and a small amount of money that is nobody's business, and it has been obvious since about the fifth month.
He has not done it. He has read about it.
And every time the question of doing it has come near, there has been a book on the way, and a man cannot reasonably act while he is still reading, and there has been a book on the way for four years without a single gap.
The word is very nigh unto thee, that thou mayest do it
Sit down at the desk with the stack in front of you, because there is a passage in Deuteronomy that anticipates exactly this and ends its sentence on a verb.
Moses is telling them the commandment is not hidden, and not far off. It is not in heaven, so that somebody would have to go up and fetch it. It is not beyond the sea, so that somebody would have to cross over and bring it back.
But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.Deuteronomy 30:14
Very nigh. In thy mouth. In thy heart.
Three statements of proximity, one after another, and then the clause the whole sentence is built to arrive at: that thou mayest do it.
The word is not near so that you can consider it. It is near so that it can be done, and the nearness and the doing are joined in one line.
Hear this at your own desk. You are not under informed, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture puts the word in your mouth and in your heart and names the doing as the purpose of the nearness, and the Holy Spirit is the one who settled your position in the fourth month and has not moved it in four years.
Now let me be careful, because you are a careful man and a loose argument would rightly annoy you.
Nothing here is against the reading. The reading is good, the written word honors it, and the Holy Spirit has been in every hour of it. Eleven books on a serious question is not vanity, and a man who acts on a hasty conclusion is not a better man than one who checks, and you have watched people do that and it does harm.
The finding is not that reading is bad. The finding is yours and it is four years old: nothing has moved.
That is data. You are a man who respects data. Four years, eleven books, zero movement, and two more on order that will almost certainly produce the same result, because the position was settled from the text in the fourth month and everything since has been confirmation of a thing already held.
Hear this too, and let it stand where the delivery address is. You are not being reckless by acting, and Scripture is what says so. What is written says the word is not far off and joins the nearness to the doing in one clause, and the Spirit of God has never once required a further book before a settled understanding could be obeyed.
And now the thing about the queue, because that is the mechanism and it is elegant and it is why four years went.
There has never been a gap. A book has been on the way the entire time, and a man cannot reasonably act while he is still reading, and so the reasonable position has never once been unoccupied.
That is not an accident of scheduling. Nobody planned it. But it has functioned perfectly, and the only way to test it is to notice what happens in you at the thought of not ordering the next one.
So this week you do the thing.
Not the whole of it, if the whole of it is large. The first concrete part: the conversation, or the change to how you do the one thing, and it can be done inside a week, and the written word calls that the doing, and the Holy Spirit has held its shape in you since the fifth month.
And do it before the next book arrives, because that is the only version of this that tests anything, and because the written word joins the nearness to the doing and the Holy Spirit has not been waiting on a delivery. If you wait until it comes and read it and then act, you will never know whether you acted or whether you were finally released, and a man like you will want to know.
Then read the two books. Nobody is asking you to cancel them, and they might be good, and you will enjoy them.
The written word puts the word very nigh, in your mouth and in your heart, and joins the nearness directly to the doing, and the Holy Spirit has held your position steady for four years without one adjustment, so nothing about acting was ever waiting on more information.
Four years, eleven books, zero movement. You have had the finding since the spring. This week you get to act on it.
Declare this over yourself
Say these at the desk with the stack unopened. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit has held this position steady for four years according to the written word, so the standing you speak from was never built out of how much you have read. Whether the next two books confirm it or unsettle it, the outcome is His to decide, and it is never a measure of a man who checks carefully.
- One more book, you are not diligence and you are not going to be the last one. Scripture says the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it, and the nearness and the doing are joined in one clause.
- Queue that has never once had a gap in it in four years, get off this desk, in the name of Jesus. The written word says the commandment is not hidden and not far off, and the Spirit of God has never required a further volume before a settled understanding could be obeyed.
- Lord, You put the word in my mouth and in my heart so that it could be done, and Your Spirit settled this in the fourth month and has not moved it since, exactly as it is written. I am doing the first concrete part this week, before the next book arrives.
Deuteronomy 30:14
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