LESSON 3
SECOND ANCHOR
"To lead them on the way.” (Exodus
13:21)
1. The second truth and second anchor is “to
lead them on the way.”
2. He was leading the children of
3. If we find our self in a certain place and we
have been obedient to the best of our knowledge we can have confidence that God
has led us there. If we belong to the
Lord we are under His care. “For as
many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:14)
4. The leading of God dos not always necessitate
the consciousness of it. It is better to
get our anchor from the Word of God than from our consciousness or feelings.
5. When we are brought by God to a place which
does not seem to our consciousness or reasoning to be the plan of God, we will need
the God has –been-leading-you anchor.
It is the sure Word of God; “He leadeth me,” (Psalm 23:2)
His divine arrangement may not look like His leading, but when the
second anchor becomes ours, the winds of doubt can blow their fiercest without
adversely affecting us.
6. We must not attempt to lead ourselves. He is leading. We must not attempt to go in a direction
which we have chosen. Do not of your own
prerogative (choice) decide that this is the way in which I am going to
go. If God us the prerogative to choose
that’s okay, but we must not take the prerogative our self.
7. We may find our self in a situation where we
must make a choice without any awareness of God’s leading. If we have been
walking in His will and the righteousness of God the choice we make will be the
leading of God for us without us being cognizant of it. Our habitual walk in righteousness will
simply continue; thus our choices will be the proper one.
8. The children of Isreal followed the
cloud. It was not the way which they
chose. It was the way in which God
chose. If we can follow the leading of
God we put our self in a great advantage.
If, at the same time, we can be truly convinced in our heart that we
indeed are in truth and are following the leading of God, we put our self in a
greater advantage. This assurance will
hold us firmly in dreadful storms.
9. Instead of being dashed upon the rocks we are
safely going through the storm. God has led us and is still leading us. Know it!
Believe it! “For He who has
mercy on them will lead them, even by the springs of water He will guide
them.” (Isaiah 49:10b) God said it.
It is His word. It is
certain.
10. When we come to know the Lord as our personal
Savior, we come to the One Who is to be our Shepherd. He carries the lambs in His arms. He faithfully shepherds the sheep. The leading of God is not only for the one
who has a long experience in walking with Him.
Oh no, God’s leading is arranged for us at the beginning of our coming
into relationship with Him.
11. First He has led us out of death into
life. Certainly from that point we can
trust Him to continue lading us in His own path, along His own ways for our
betterment and our well-being. He led us
out from death even before we knew Him.
Certainly He can lead us as His child.
12. Having such an abundance of appropriate
passage in the Word of God we certainly should know that God is leading us.
When the leading seems so strange that we do not believe it to be His, we still
have His word to assure us. Jeremiah has
shared his experience with us, “He (God) hath led me, and brought me into
darkness, but not into the light,”
(Lamentations 3:2)
12. When we come into difficult areas, let us
look back to the fact that we did not move into it on our prerogative (if that
is the case). God led us there. This
difficult leading seems to be an unreasonable leading of God. It is not unreasonable, it is proper. We will be aware of it when we open our eyes
and see nothing but darkness. It is not
necessary that we understand our present plight of darkness is appropriate.
13. It is only necessary that we understand God
has led us there. We may wonder how we
got there, our trusted friends will tell us we have sinned. No we arrived there
by following the leading of God. How do
we think the children of Israel got into the wilderness? They did not want to go to the wilderness
they wanted to go to the land that flowed with milk and honey. They followed God’s leading.
14. The Israelites followed the cloud. The cloud led them, not to the land which
flows with milk honey, but to the wilderness.
Now if we can understand, in our inner man, God has led us this way we
will have the anchor we need. We do not
have to understand why. If we know that
God cares for us, then we can trust Him to lead us and we can trust His
leading.
15. We can also believe that we are brought along
the paths of His choosing. We can
believe that God is still there with us, leading us in spite of the
circumstances.
16. When this truth of God’s leading grips us to
a sufficient degree and intensity, then, regardless if the situation or storm
our anchor holds. We are secure held by
truth. It comes to us not to slay that
which He wants kept alive, but to bring His qualities into our lives and
preserve them there. Truth has come to
us for the purpose of holding us securely in its certainty. Truth comes to us to bring us into
restrictions and limitations so that we can operate freely in God. Regardless where we find our self as the
result of the leading of God we can be
function and flow free from circumstances and situations.
17. “Yea though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of dead, I will fear no evil.”
(Psalm 23:3) In the valley of
the shadow of death we have certain anchors
which hold us fast. Even there we
can have certain pillars of faith, certain truths. Truth will hold us steady as we go through a
most trying and most difficult place.