The Valley Where God Is
The following is taken from a talk given by L. M. Judd at the Ridgewood Pentecostal Church, Brooklyn, NY.
I was wakened one morning by the voice of God, and this is what I heard Him say to me, "There is a valley where God is." Wonderful words! I have never forgotten them and often think of them: "There is a valley where God is."
What are you mainly aspiring to in your life? I trust it is sainthood. We should all be desiring to be saints of the Most High. And this I can tell you, that, of all the saints of all the ages, there has been one thing which they possessed in common, one thing which each one of them had.
If you were going to be a lawyer, you would have to have certain books and certain knowledge. All lawyers do. The same is true of artists or scientists. There is something in common for them all, and something in common for saints, and we should all be aspiring to sainthood. But the one thing every saint has had and ever will have is humility. Every real saint of God has found his way down into the valley where God is. Would you like to go down there? I'm sure it's a very nice place, and I suppose you won't be there a very great while until you hear voices calling out, "It is no more I, but Jesus. No more I, but Jesus." But there has to be the humility.
Everyone who fulfills in humility has the rest of the living God. One of the great commands of the wonderful Bible is, "Rest in the Lord." Doubtless you feel at rest here in this place, but when you get in between the sheets tonight, maybe you will be thinking about tomorrow and how the boss told you this or that and the other, and how you can't do certain things, how you wish, and so on. Or it may be tomorrow, when you are on your way, and the bus is twenty minutes late, that you won't be in rest.
But think, receive it, believe it: all those who are fulfilled in humility, they have the rest of God, they are in rest. "To go or stay is equal joy" to those who have humility. To be or not to be is equally desirable for those who have found their way down into the valley where God is. Oh, it will be wonderful when we make up our minds that we will go down into that valley, away down low where they are singing, "It is no more I, but Jesus."
It may be you have not thought as much as you should about humility. Maybe you've kind of enjoyed being up high and having people look up to you as having the best diamond setting, or something. And certainly, nobody ever gets lonesome way up there because almost everybody else is there, too! But there is a valley where God is. Let's go down. Let's go down into the valley. Let's go away down, away down low.
And do I know for certain that it would give you rest, and "to go or stay were equal joy"? Jesus himself says, "If you're heavy laden, and if you're weary, come to Me, and I will give you rest." Of course, that is initial rest and very wonderful, but there is so much more. He said, "You take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest unto your soul."
One of the great saints wrote something like this, that Jesus didn't open a school for anything else - He was so vitally interested in humility. But He opened a school for people who would be willing to have humility, and then He taught them in that school.
Every once in a while, we hear someone say, "If I just had rest, if I just had rest!" Well, come down into the valley where God is, and then you'll find that rest. Learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly in heart, and then shall you enter into the rest of God. I suppose that everyone here knows that this is a restful spirit.
I've been in Chicago and in New York, and there's so much going and so much doing and so much noise and so many brilliant neon signs, and this is no rest. But we can have rest if we will have humility, if we will come down into the valley where God is. And that then is His call, that we should come down into the valley.
There is a book that teaches about the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know about Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. But we must also be yielded to let the Holy Spirit manifest Jesus Himself to us and then be completely surrendered so that it doesn't matter what people think of us, or what they say about us, or what privileges the people of earth may give us. The only thing that makes any difference is just surrendering completely to the Lord Jesus Christ, to let Him do just exactly as He pleases with us.
There is a seriousness about the Christian life which maybe you haven't considered, maybe you haven't thought much about. It's nice to come to meeting, and we should come. And it's nice to sing in the choir , and we should do that. It's nice to teach a Sunday school class, and we should do that. But there is a serious thing we need to consider and which will take us down into the valley where God is - consecration unto death. Wouldn't you like to be way down there, way down in the valley where God is, God Himself? Wouldn't you like to be down there with Him?