Strange Ground

Exodus 3:5 (ESV)
Then he said, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

Why such respect and reverence for the ground? Because this floor had been treaded upon the bronze feet of the Savior, the Lord God. Whatever God touches is instantly purified and purged of evil. Moses touched the hallowed ground with his bare creaturely feet that he was born with. God wants us to come to him as we are, without anything between Him and us, but with all things God has made, namely Christ in us. He wants direct contact with us. God wants us to touch the holy and experience His holiness. And we can see God as holy through His Word.

I have been on strange ground since I was born of God. Since my new birth, it is hard to find a Christian brother or sister who shares a similar passion for God’s truth. God shows me things that are too sweet to hold in and I need others of a like-mind to express. God reveals to Me His plans, His purposes, His will, His character, His promises, and His character. It is all very sweet to my soul. I am in contact with the Creator but I desire to share this fire that is locked up in my bones. I am not claiming to have a special knowledge, but sometimes it seems that truth is revealed to me from on high. I walk on ground that has been covered for years by a watery and dangerous gospel, which is no gospel at all. But now the watery teachings of "contemporary" services have parted and like Moses (Exodus 14:29), and I walk on strange ground. This is the ground which kings have fallen upon, which Goliath had toppled upon with a sharp stone sunk within his forehead (1 Samuel 17:49). This is the ground on which the false Philistine idol Dagon fell upon (2 Samuel 12:16). This is the ground on which great drops of blood fell from the inflicted wounds of my Savior (Luke 22:44). This ground shows me the revelation of God Himself and His patient dealings with men like me. Despite all that this ground is, it is something that it shouldn’t be, defiled.

Scripture is not the sole determiner of truth anymore, it is experience, or it is a subjectivity that says, "my truth is what is good for me," or simply that there is no truth. This is post-modernism at its best. And it has creeped into the church and into Christian thought. We are afraid to speak of doctrine and theology. We are not allowed to get upon the spiritual mat with a believer and wrestle with truth until someone says, "uncle." We are afraid to divide or be unloving. But I strongly state that there is unity only in truth. We circle the wagons around the centrality of Christ in the Scriptures and we unify under the same doctrines. Experience is so spastic and so inconsistent that we cannot lock arms on the winds of experience. There is unity only in the truth. And Jesus is…the truth…(John 14:6).

I have met a select few who wish to throw their sandals aside and walk on the holiness of God’s Word and who wish to speak openly about doctrines of God and theology. We are harvesters. We should then plow this holy ground with bare-footed feet allowing the richness of the Word to squeeze between our brothers and sisters in Christ and in doing so, we will have contact with our God and with the body of Christ.

Let us not leave the doctrines of the Word to dry upon the ground like Gideon’s fleece (Judges 6:37). We must diligently seek God on this ground all night, like David, if we have to, as if our only son was dying (2 Samuel 12:16). The serpent is sliding across the surface and we must throw our rods down and swallow up the false teachings of the Deceiver (Exodus 4:3). If we neglect the sound teachings of Scripture and of the Christ filled men who have gone before us, we will be casts into a terrifying wilderness with scorpions and a thirsty ground like the Israelites who wandered, looking for that flinty Rock to draw water from (Deuteronomy 8:15). Let us revere God’s Word and teach sound doctrine and be taught. Let us sit down on the ground and receive the 7 loaves and fish to feed the soul. Let us all take the mustard seed and plant it into the ground to spring upward a glorious Christ-like life well grounded in the doctrines of Christ Jesus.