Imperatives - Consecration — Devern Fromke

Knowing the Lord and the Imperatives That Follow

We have been speaking about the imperatives that issue out of knowing the Lord. We started the first evening, those of you who have joined us since, with a couple of verses in Ephesians, that you know so well, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

In other words, the more we get to know him, the more our heart is attuned to his own heart, to his mind, to his spirit. The very thing that throbs within him becomes the throbbing thing within us. It's inescapable.

You've been with an individual, maybe for a while, and after you have left his sense, you've caught something of their spirit, something of their mind, their burden. Oh, how wonderful that as we come to know him, there are certain imperative things that get hold of us.

Seeing From God's Standpoint

And I'm wanting to deal with another of those this morning as we get to look at him and know him. It is something that I believe is very, very necessary in the hour we are living in. It's very easy for us, as we said yesterday, to stand here in the outer court, or even to press in a little ways, and with all our reasoning, to figure out what's wrong.

We've all done it. We're so quick to figure out what's wrong. The only trouble is, after all our figuring, it's still wrong. We've not helped matters a bit. Just add it to the confusion. We said yesterday that this is why we are to stand with him in his own heart, his own standpoint, to see as he thinks, as he sees things.

And I tell you, it's a different place. He doesn't see what we see. And for that reason, he doesn't move as we move. I want to make a very drastic statement to get your attention this morning, but that seems to be the best way of the Lord.

I sometimes feel that one of the great problems with the folk who are wanting to build the church in various areas, wanting to consummate and realize this thing that we've come to get a hold of and to see, is that our consecration gets in the way.

You say, brother, that's terrible. But I repeat it. It's our consecration, our consecration that gets in the way. Having seen, we are motivated by certain things to try to get the job done. Well, we'll have to move away from that for a little bit and go back and get a hold of his consecration.

Look at him and see the difference. I have to take you this morning, first of all, back in the very heart of God, as I like to picture it, and consider from the very beginning that as you know him more intimately, you know him, you come to recognize that in him and his life and all that he is, there are certain qualities, certain principles, certain operating issues that are inescapable.

I dislike having to use diagrams, but here we go. You look in the heart of God, if you can. You look in the face of Jesus Christ. You get close to that which throbs in his heart. And you'll find something that way back in eternity has always been there because it's him.

It's who he is. The best way I know to explain it is to use another diagram or another symbol, so to speak. But I like to picture a cross in his heart. Our problem, you see, is that the cross we look at, these two sticks of wood that have been put together, is more of a historical thing with us.

And we have oftentimes imagined that because man did fall and because of the awful debacle of sin and the rebellion, therefore it was necessary for God to effect some stopgap remedy to take care of this awful situation lest it would all fall.

No, there has always been. There has always been in God. Looking way back, whether it's this direction or it's this direction, you look back and you'll find this quality, this something, the Lamb slain from or before the foundation of the world.

And even more than that, foreordained before the casting down of a world system. Now, the reason we have to get the roots of our consecration or his consecration is that we go back and see that this giving quality, this pouring out aspect, this something that has always existed in God, in the Godhead, it's the roots of his consecration and it has to be the roots of ours.

God was going to give not because man sinned and fell, not because he turned to go his own way. It's been in the program and the straight line working of God from the very beginning. He's been planning to give, not only himself, but just.

He's so loved that he has given. Now, I know that when we get down here into the scope of history and we find Adam here in the garden, standing as it were at a gateway of choice, would he go God's way?

Would Adam enter into this same working principle and give himself unto that which God was after to realize the thing he wanted? Well, we know Adam chose to go his own way. We have the awful fall. We have God reaching down in and through his Son to lift man by what we call the work of the cross.

The work of the cross makes possible man being lifted out of his fallen condition. Now, I like to think of two things in this we call the work of the cross. There is the blood by which I have forgiven it.

Then there is the delivering work in his death which cuts me loose from all that I am in Adam and makes available his own life. Delivered from all of this that I might receive his life. Now, the problem is that so often we confuse this work of the cross with what I like to call the more eternal principle which is the way in which God does everything.

Sacrificially, consecrating, giving, pouring out, sharing. The way in which he does it. I don't know of any better term to use than just to say the way of God's doing or the way of this working principle in his heart.

The way of the cross. Did you ever consider when Jesus walked among the disciples how often he used this term, take up your cross and go in the way I'm going. What did that mean to them? Now, remember where they are.

You forget that we're sitting on this side of the historical enactment of Calvary. What did it mean when he said take up your cross? Before he died on the cross, what was involved in that? I believe that that takes us back to the whole way in which God, the Son, was accomplishing the thing that God was after.

The way. The heart attitude. This operating principle that had laid hold, that was in the heart of God and now here he was expressing it. Total, utter giving. Well, we'll have to start where we are and then move to that.

The Finished Work of the Cross and the Believer's Consecration

This morning, as we have said through the days we've been together, this morning we must consider that there are certain things that accrue to our benefit through what he did on the cross. What did you and I receive because his blood was shed?

The basis of his blood brings us forgiveness. Who got the forgiveness? Who gets the forgiveness? Through the work that he accomplished on the cross, I have what? Forgiveness. Wonderful, isn't it? You can go on and name many of the things that accrue or that issue to us because of what he did on the cross.

He delivers us from the dominion of the power of sin and all that the old life represents. Everything that negatively needed to be dealt with and then opens up once again to us the tree of life. Adam had been shut out of the garden, not allowed to take of the tree of life by which this very life that he would have gotten a hold of would have been working in him and this life, strange as it may seem, has this quality of the killing work of the cross in it.

If you can understand that, the Lord's helped you. There's something in... Last year we spoke of the life, the law of life, the law of the spirit of life. We tried to take that rope apart and look individually at the strands of what was in that life.

We saw many things, many strands that was in that life. One of the strands that's in this life, coming to know him in his heart, to be in union with him in his life. To know that is to have that life working in us, but it will always produce a consecration, a way of the cross within us.

I used to be bothered tremendously for at least three or four years when I first began to consider the messages of Mrs. Penn Lewis, what we call the message of the cross and all that is involved. I used to be tremendously concerned because there is a reckoning on the cross that brings us to a finality so far as our old, our past and all that we are in Adam.

And whether we like it or not, we have to keep our tenses straight. He says we have been crucified. When I look to Calvary and I see what God sees as he looks at his son and he sees me wrapped up in his death, nailed to the cross, buried in the tomb, risen and ascended, I reckon on something of the finality of the work of the cross.

We get awfully fuzzy in certain circles and people are all the time talking about, well, I've got to die daily and I've got to, now we're getting down into the realm of the subjective and the experience.

But our reckoning, our position, the finality with which we speak is that we have looked to the cross and God says in his son that aspect of the work of the cross is finished. By faith I have forgiveness through his blood, deliverance from the dominion of the power and all that is involved.

The finished finality, I reckon. If I'm understanding, my testimony will be the same thing as the Apostle Paul's. Galatians 2 .20. I have been what? Now I have to reckon on that and its finality. You say, but Brother Framke, that's my big problem.

I sense the finality of what God sees and the basis of reckoning and all that it involves, but every morning I wake up and look in the mirror and there are wrinkles and a few other old proud traits. Every time the Spirit of God, now I notice, the Spirit of God unveils and quickens something to you, you rush back to your reckoning point and you say, Lord, that has been on the cross and it belongs in the tomb and I pull the shade on the mirror.

That doesn't mean that I begin to ignore and become blind. It's just that I take a hard attitude. I take a hard attitude that in Jesus Christ I what? Died. I what? Died. What tense is that? Past tense.

Paul says then in Galatians, I have been crucified. But then I read over when he wrote six years later in Philippians, the third chapter and he comes along like this and he says, can't go back and give you the background, but he comes to this statement that I may know him.

Now that's what we're getting at these days, that I may know him. Oh, I've met him, been identified with him on the cross, that I may know him, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering.

What's that next phrase? Being made conformable unto his death. Paul, you've always been a problem to me. Six years ago in Galatians you said, I have been crucified. When a man's dead, a man is what? Are there degrees of being dead?

Well, we'll all know someday. No. Now, this that Paul is talking about in Philippians, when there is a deeper entering in to know, I do not believe that he is dealing with what we call right here the work that has been accomplished for me on the cross.

I died in him. Paul, where are you when you're speaking in Philippians 3? He's saying, I'm on the way toward realizing the thing that has gripped my heart, and the more I know him, the more I want to share or have operating within me all that this way of the cross means.

The roots of his consecration, the Lord giving himself, were back here in eternity in the Father's heart. As the Father had given, I believe he'd been so one with the Father that the Son could do nothing other than that which the Father had.

He gave, the Son gave. Brother, sister, it's a dangerous thing to know him and get too close. You'll start giving too. You see? That I may know him in the power of his resurrection. Now, this death, or this working of death, or this that we're speaking of here in the full knowing of him, is very wonderful.

You see, in this sphere right here where we appropriate the work of the cross in its finality, in its finished aspect, that it might bring forgiveness and deliverance and all that takes place, once we have been resurrected and we come to this life position, then it is that we have something to consecrate.

Anything previously that you want to consecrate to him, and this is where we get our consecration so mixed up. We want to give him something. He just says, Oh, you poor dear God. I have to leave that down in the grave with you.

The only thing that can be consecrated is the new life, that which has come out of the grave and stands on resurrection ground, and this new life that is given to him, alive to him, it'll only work in one way.

The thing that I so thrill as the Lord takes me on is to realize that there are qualities, there are aspects of the law, of the spirit of life, of that which was in him and now is working in us, it'll only work one way.

A cherry tree will not grow peaches. This new life that's working within me will not be able to reach out to grass to get. My consecration then has its roots in the very same as his own roots. And it's in this way now that we begin to make a distinction between that which really happened on the cross from which we do benefit, forgiveness, deliverance and so forth.

Death Working in Us for Jesus' Sake

But notice now when it comes to moving along to the realizing of what God wants, one little phrase that always comes out. Turn to 2nd Corinthians, if you will, please. 2nd Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 7.

But we have this treasure, this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. And as he's moving along in the fulfilling of the thing that God is after, he says we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed.

We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. Now here's a dead man who's resurrected and listen to what he's saying. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

For we which live are always delivered unto death for our own victory and blessedness. Modern version. We are delivered unto death for our forgiveness, our victory, our prospect in which there's a consecration in which we're moving along this line.

We don't get a thing out of it. The work of the cross that he did, I appropriate and I have that which comes to me. But when I move in this fare, it is for who? Better read it. Some of you don't have your Bible with you.

The death of Jesus. We're delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then, death worketh in us so that we might be overcomers. So then, death worketh in us for all, as we said the first night, all things do work together for even death for my good.

No, that's not real death. There comes a time when he says that we become alive unto God and the cry of our heart is Lord, what do you get out of it? For Jesus' sake. You see what we're trying to say?

Now strangely, I hate to say it but our consecration has been pretty largely laid in this little sphere. If I'm more consecrated, my work will grow. And I'll be a good example. If I live sacrificially, then others will.

And the offerings will be bigger. Of course, it's for the work of the Lord. I wonder how much so-called consecration has its roots no further, no deeper than the head and hand under the table. What we hope to get is return.

Well, just in case we're over pushing one verse, turn back to the glorious, victorious eighth chapter of Romans. And I want you to see the privilege that's ours. Romans chapter 8, beginning with verse 35.

You know how many folks are trying to get into Romans 8 where this law of life works. Verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long.

Where would you put this? Remember now, only his dying, only his death has any aspect of being satisfying to God. It's vicarious, it's substitutionary, it performs that which is necessary. And ours is to always reckon on a co-death, a union of death with him.

But here he is saying we are killed all the day long. You see the difference between that which has finality in it and that which has brother frowns. Do you mean that's all that you have to offer? Well, I'm not offering anything, but that's what the Lord is calling us to.

For thy sake, for his sake, we are what? Killed all the day long. And you'd think that a man who was announcing that would drop his chin and be in abysmal despair. But from that springboard he starts the glory song.

That's right. We sing it in young people's work. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I'm persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

Now, I don't want us to just become technical in our testimony, but it is quite discerning when you hear someone speak. I mean, you can sense pretty well how clear they really are. I know that there is the sense in which the Lord is always putting the mirror before us and we recognize new aspects, new things that we come to take a stand with and hate, just like he hates us.

But I always hold my reckoning solid. Back there, I died in him. And that belongs in the tomb. The finality of it. And any daily dying is the new man, the glorious privilege of giving himself, even as the Lord.

That is sharing, filling up the cup of his suffering. Getting so close in his own heart, in his own burden, in his own concern. So close that we do the same. Who for the joy that was set before him literally reached out and grabbed the cross and said, it's the way by which it shall be accomplished.

Did he die for his sin? No. His has been the way of the cross all the way through. What is your cross? What is your cross? It seems to me that any individual who has seen, been gripped and laid hold of by that which God has called him to, in the giving of himself to the fulfilling of that, the cross becomes operating.

That unique, this is the problem you see, that distinct, that special thing that God is going to fulfill and realize through you, which others, your closest, may not understand. It will work across. May seem like your wife or your husband or children or relatives or close friends.

They are merely the outward aspect by which all this misunderstanding accumulates. But if your faith is set to give. I've, we've shared this in a book. Some of you have read it at least seven or eight years ago.

Christ's Giving for the Church

I always felt like maybe it was on pretty thin ice until I picked up Watchman Nee's book, The Glorious Church. And I had a glorious time one night when I read just one little paragraph in which he said that in the death of Christ there are two aspects.

He went back to say that in Romans it says Christ died for our sins. That's an aspect of the death work that's for our sins. But it thrilled me when I read he said, it was just an echo and a confirmation.

There was an aspect in his death that was not for sin or redemptive. He so loved that he gave himself for the what? The church. And I hope we see this. The church that God has asked and has never been down in this little while.

The only issue been in his mind, been in his heart, but it only has its beginning on the resurrection side. And he gave himself in this way. He gave himself for the realizing of that. Lord, make that real.

You see, we stand in this and the redemptive scope of things has been so overshadowing. And don't let anyone think I'm minimizing the centrality of the cross in his redemptive work. But there's a scope of consecration has its roots in the heart of God.

But the scope of his consecration and his giving is unto something more than just getting you out of the grave. Getting you to heaven. Getting you into victory. The scope of his giving he gave himself for what?

Now, this would be a drastic statement and I don't ask for a scripture in verse. But you see, he was going to do this if man never sinned. Why do we let sin in the fall become our touchstone and our governing point?

Why don't we start in the heart of God and his purpose and what he has planned to do and see the whole scope. Yet, isn't it wonderful that when this awful debacle of the fall and sin and the need for redemption came it didn't have to suddenly start a crash program.

We got so many crash programs going on in our country. The church is just doesn't know how to become relevant. All of these wild people running around and we're trying to become relevant to meet them.

The only thing, you see, is that we've never caught a glimpse of God's way. What did he do? What did he do when man sinned? And there came this need. I believe he just opened up his breast and said, look what's been here all the time.

The capacity, the power, the source, the root, the consecration, it's been there all the time. And out of his bosom stepped the one who was going to demonstrate, unveil. And this became operative in his life.

He came to give himself and it found its extremity even in giving himself. Did he take up his cross? Why do we take up our cross? Now here's our tragedy in our consecration. Got a little book from a friend of mine the other day, dear brother.

I'll read a paragraph to you, thrilled me. He says, too many Christians today are seeking to live for the Lord on the basis of the principle of love. Their thinking is, he loved me and gave himself for me.

Therefore, the least I can do is to love him and give myself for him. It sounds good. Such a motive is good and high and altruistic and I'd like to add, purely human. Our love is far too weak and vacillating for such a tremendous undertaking.

Self will see to that. For me to will, you know the rest, I will be consecrated. I, oh Lord, you died for me and you gave yourself and all that I see. How can I do less? I will give myself. I will consecrate.

And the soul stands to get a new shot in the arm every meeting, more enthusiasm, more dedication, more love, and struggle a little harder to be consecrated. There is only one true and adequate motivating power for living or for consecration in the Christian life and that is the very life of the Lord Jesus.

Ministered within by the spirit of life himself. This is not a motivation of love but the empowerment of life. Did I lose you along the way? We've just been saying and I want to repeat it again. You see, our problem is that we can, we can try to motivate people.

We can try to get a hold of them and show them the whole thing and then we enter into consecration. I call it our consecration. It's the motivation. You ought to love the Lord. Oh, nobody's been more guilty than I have of looking over a crowd of young people and using the stories that pull at the heartstrings and saying, look, look, you, how can you do less than give yourself to him?

How can you do less? You can touch the soul. The only problem is, you see, we have to do this every Sunday. That's right. We have to redo it every Sunday. Why? Because we've touched this around. The roots of it, the roots of it are not in our union with him.

We said yesterday that life flows out of, life flows out of what? Life. And love itself has its source. All right, well, maybe we can prove that. Now we get close to what we're real after. Remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus?

The Rich Young Ruler and the Impossibility of Self-Consecration

Good master, what shall I do? Jesus turns right in, very close quarters, to this man who has come, and he says, Sell all that you have and give to the poor. My, we've had trouble with that. You want to be perfect?

Sell all that you have and give to the poor. You know what we've done with it? What I've done with it? Watered it down? Tried to put it in different contexts? If thou wilt have a perfect heart attitude toward me, sell all that you have and give to the poor.

Now the point of tragedy is this. The rich young ruler went away sorrowful, very sorrowful. Why? Why? Why did he go away sorrowful? Because it was impossible for him to do it. And I've got real good news for you.

The Lord is, I believe, working in the lives of people. And if there's a missing note in Christendom today, plush America, materialistic, soft, easy, security concerned, America. It's right at this point.

He expects nothing less than a sell all, give, consecration. I know your heart because I know mine. You say, Brother Verne, look what that'll do all over. Brother Verne, those are two hard words to follow carefully.

The glorious liberating secret comes right at this point. They came to Jesus. Lord, do you really mean that to follow you? Do you really mean it demands selling all? No watering it down. You know what he says?

With men, these things are impossible. But with God, all things are possible. I've touched a cord in your heart right now. I can see it on your face. Brother Framke, do you mean the building, the thing that God, you mean the consecration that God asks is just that?

I'm afraid it is. The problem is that we face these impossibles. We always go away sorrowful. Why? Because we're depending, we're relying, we're turned in on. The liberating secret is at this point. This is what he wanted the rich young ruler to do.

Just to fall down broken sick. Lord, I don't love you that much. I can't do that. I just will be honest, Lord. I used to preach this like a house of fire before I owned the thing. But we have to get a hold of it.

The impossibility. And in that impossibility, the complete honesty and the brokenness that cries out, Lord, I can't. But I give you permission. You start working. Because I want nothing less. Cheer up, brother.

It's going to get a lot worse. You know what I mean by that, don't you? I mean a lot better. The liberating secret. You see, what this says in our whole approach, consecration, whatever it is, we have always arrived at a point where we see the impossible and we go away sorrowful.

Because it's impossible. Some of you come to me and say, Brother Frankie, you say you have a hope that God is going to, that God is going to. And I say, yes. I have to face that direction. If I don't face that direction, I'm facing the other.

You say, but Brother Vern, you don't know our situation. You don't know the impossibilities of it. You don't. You know what I have to say? Glory. It's got to get worse. It isn't impossible yet. It isn't impossible yet.

You see, here we sit. We want to see the church. We want to see God bring something to birth. But we sit out here in our natural reasoning trying to figure out. We discovered that when the brothers, eight or ten, would gather together to talk about our problems, two hours later, we had ten instead of five problems.

The surest way to get things more impossible is to talk a little bit more. You still have just a sliver of a hope, but you can. Some folk are going to go away from this conference and say, I believe I got a hold of it.

We go back and sit down and talk it over. Try once again to implement and to put it into effect. Won't work. It's impossible. This thing that God is bringing to birth is out of real depth, and there just hasn't been sufficient of that yet.

It's totally, it's totally in a realm where lives have come in an embracing of, bless the Lord, I haven't expected anything else. I tell you, you can't be disappointed when you don't have expectations of anything else.

It's quite a wonderful thing, just to lose your expectations. Anything that you can do or hope to do. Brothers, sisters, when I speak with a great sense of the sword cutting back this way, if there's any building work or any accomplishing work, anything that God is going to do, it will be when we have come to embrace that same thing that was in the heart of the Lord Jesus.

He gave himself, not for a cause, or not for evasion, but for that which was going to be a part of himself. He gave himself for the church. Now that's the scope of his consecration. And we're invited to share in it.

Don't get too close to him. Don't get to know him too much, or this thing rubs off. The recklessness of, praise the Lord, I begin to consecrate, to have all things. Oh, I better skip that phrase. I bet, Lord, it's impossible.

A perfect heart. He doesn't ask or expect the perfection of our, but I believe that there's a perfect heart of consecration that we're working toward. I know that's a bad word in church circles today, but if I don't face that direction, and I keep saying, you can't be perfect, you can't hope for it, look at all the people who cried out about sinless perfection.

First thing I know, I turn my back on that, and which direction am I facing? I'm going to magnify the impossibility. It's a matter of which direction I face. You say, well, Brother Byrne, you're the last one who will ever have a perfect heart attitude.

I know it, but I'm still facing that direction. God is able, praise the Lord. There came a day when God had brought Israel out of Egypt. Here they were, camped at the foot of Sinai. He had said that he wanted the whole nation to be a kingdom of peace.

He wanted the whole company of people to be this unto him, to enter into this life of living unto, giving, being the means by which God could speak to the nations of the world. But while Moses was up on the mount, the people came to Aaron, you know, and said, Aaron, we don't know about this man Moses.

He's gotten us into something. He's led us out here. And they prevailed, and Aaron went soft, and they made the golden calf and worshipped, began to eat and to drink and make merry and play. They enjoyed getting out of Egypt, but they had no further business.

You know that Moses comes down from the mount. He meets Joshua at the foot of the mount, and they head toward the camp, and he has a discerning ear. Joshua says, oh my, some people there are singing and shouting.

But Moses says, it's not the voice of those who, it doesn't sound like those who've just come back from winning a battle. And it, let me listen, it isn't the sound of those who have been defeated. There isn't the sound of victory.

There isn't the sound of defeat. It's just the sound of a lot of people enjoying sitting down to feast and to drink and to eat. Their idolatry, substituted and turned the whole thing. But his sensitive ear says, just the people settling down to enjoy what they have.

And it was that day that God spoke in the midst of the congregation through Moses. And he stood at the gate of the camp, and he said, who is on the Lord's side, come over and stand by me. Picture of a consecration.

All of them could have been, should have been. But that day, you remember, it was the Levites that came over and stood by the Lord. Brothers, sisters, God would have in every local fellowship all be praised under him.

He would. He would have all of them enjoy this privilege. But there are those who have their idols. And as we heard earlier this morning, it seems to be a pattern all the way through. He called out the Levites.

Do you know there came a time when even the Levites lost the full aspect of their consecration. And they had idols in their hearts. And he separated out from the Levites the sons of Zadok. He said, they will minister unto me.

I hate to think of it. But I know that all of history teaches it. And all through the New Testament we see the very same historical thing taking place. There are those whose consecration is most like getting out, enjoying what I have received.

They have never quite been caught by his consecration. The roots of which are in God's own heart. And the scope of which brings them the total giving of themselves for the things that he wants. This gets awfully close.

The Idolatry of Religious Work and Professional Ministry

As I look back at what has been a couple years of wonderful teaching in Indianapolis and I can only see the number one failure. I've been too busy and too preoccupied with things for the Lord that did not have the sharpness things that he is after.