Major Ian Thomas emphasizes the need to give Jesus a rightful place in our hearts rather than relegating Him to mere tradition or decoration, akin to hanging items on a wall. He illustrates how society has depersonalized Christ, treating Him as a seasonal figure rather than the living Savior who desires to dwell within us. Thomas urges believers to move beyond a sterile religion and embrace a vibrant relationship with Christ, who should be enthroned in our hearts. He challenges the audience to consider whether they have made room for God's presence in their lives, highlighting the importance of faith in action rather than mere belief. Ultimately, he calls for a transformation where our lives reflect the fullness of Christ, making us occupied territory for His glory.

Have you ever been embarrassed by the generosity of your friends? You know, you get a little package through the mail, and you and your wife, you know, if you've got one, can begin un-excitedly to unwrap it, the little package. And it's a little wooden dish from Switzerland, with a beautiful picture on it, you know, of the house. But it isn't big enough to put fruit on. It's just big enough for an ashtray, but you don't smoke. And so you look at each other and say, what are we going to do with this? I mean, we don't really want it, because we don't really need it. But it's too good to throw away. So after a little discussion, you decide to hang it on the wall. Another occasion, you get another little package, and this time it's a tea cloth from Thailand. Very pretty. Far too pretty to, you know, wipe dishes. It's too small for a tablecloth. So what are you going to do with it? So you have another discussion with your wife, and say, we don't really want it, because we don't really need it. But it's too good to throw away. So you decide to hang it on the wall. I'd love to visit your home and see what's hanging on your wall. Somebody who had a higher estimate of his skills than his painting ability, but who had enjoyed my book, sent me an ugly little picture purported to be the bush in the wilderness. It wasn't exactly beautiful, but it was kind. I didn't really want it, because I didn't really need it. But it was too good to throw away. So what do you think I did with it? Hung it on the wall. Somebody gave me a brass dinner gong. It made a hideous noise. I mean, it sent cold shivers down your back anytime you rang it. Didn't really want it, because I didn't really need it. But it was too good to throw away. Where do you think it hangs? A couple of weeks ago I was back in England in the study, which used to be mine. It's now my son's, who directs that center of our international headquarters. And when I went into the study again, there was that hideous little picture and that brass gong still hanging on the wall. I'd love to visit your home and see what's hanging on your wall. You didn't really need it. That's why you didn't want it. But it was too good to throw away. So you hung it on the wall. You know, that's what the world has done with Jesus Christ. He's been depersonalized. He's been reduced to a church calendar. And although 2,000 years ago men hung him on a cross, today we hang him on the wall. When's Christmas? Well, have a look. It's hanging on the wall. And you consult the church calendar. It isn't that men want that little baby boy that was born at Bethlehem. But Christmas is fun. You buy a Christmas tree and you decorate the house with tinsel and colored lights. And you get a few days off work and then you go and get drunk. So when's Easter? Well, it's hanging on the wall. Have a look at the church calendar. It isn't that people live in the power of his resurrection or recognize that having given himself for us, he's now giving himself to us, the one who conquered death and sin and hell and the devil himself. But it's fun for the kids, hunting for their colored eggs and a few bunny rabbits. And of course you get another few days off work. You see, we don't really need that little baby boy that was born in Bethlehem. We don't really want the one who rose again from the dead. So we hang him on the wall. When's Pentecost? Well, even if you consulted the church calendar, you probably wouldn't find out. Because the day when our risen Savior and the person of the Holy Ghost came for the first time to reinvade the redeemed humanity of forgiven sinners, the day the church was born, Pentecost, is largely ignored by the church and totally irrelevant to the world in which we live. So we hang him on the wall. But of course, Christmas, when that little baby boy was born, apart from the cross, would be meaningless. And the cross, where that little baby boy grown up into the perfection of true humanity died, that you and I might be forgiven, would be futile, apart from the resurrection. And the resurrection, of course, would be an exercise in futility, if it weren't for the fact that that risen Savior on the day of Pentecost came to take up residence within your humanity and mine, as those who have been reconciled to God and restored to life. As I mentioned to some folk on Sunday night, you see all down the centuries man has substituted religion for God, for Christianity for Christ, and you end up with a dead religion. You see, we need desperately to rediscover the Lord Jesus in the power and fullness of his resurrection, get him off the wall and get him back to where he belongs, enthroned in the hearts of men, as the King back in his kingdom, the Creator back within the creature, whose presence as God within the man is indispensable to his humanity. We need to replace religion with God. We need to replace Christianity with Christ. We need to replace ritual with reality. We need to replace religious philosophy with facts, man-made theological concepts with the Christ of the Bible. Discard our man-made theological tomes and rediscover Jesus. Not man-made theology, but a Christ-centered theocracy. Not a dead creed, but a living Christ. Not mere dogma, but deity, enthroned within the hearts of forgiven sinners, God in the man, Christ in action. I wonder where Christ is in your life. Could well be that he's still hanging on a cross. It could well be that you've hung him on the wall. The only place he deserves to be is enthroned within your heart. So I'd like to ask you a very simple question. Isn't there a place for God's feet in your heart? You might think that's a rather strange question. Found in the 60th chapter of the book of Isaiah, Isaiah, if you need interpretation. In the 60th chapter and the 13th verse, fascinating verse, in the latter part of that verse God says, and in the sentence before, to beautify the place of my sanctuary. I'll make the place of my feet glorious, to beautify the place of my sanctuary. The New Testament tells us that God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. He said, don't you know that your body is the temple of the living God? Then when first God created him was intended to be God's divine habitation. The presence of the creator within the creature whose presence is indispensable to his function. God says, I'll make the place of my sanctuary beautiful, glorious, to beautify the place of my habitation. I wonder what it means, you know, to have your feet in God, God's feet in your heart. Never read the Bible in a hurry. Always the divine significance about everything that God has to say. So long as you allow the Holy Spirit, who authored the book, to enlighten your understanding, and through the book explain what he meant by what he said. So in order to discover what it means to have a place in your heart for God's feet, we need to do a little research. And we'll begin this morning. We won't have time, of course, to complete our investigation. But at least we can lay some further foundations. For your faith and mine in the Lord Jesus that finally began to lay last night. So turn to the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 11. Deuteronomy in chapter 11, and it's very vital that you bring your Bibles with you, and most of you have. I can hear the rustle of the pages, and that's always encouraging. And in the 10th verse of the 11th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, and very fascinating, Moses is talking to that people whom by God's command he had led out of Egypt to bring them into the land of Canaan. God's command to Moses was bring them out and bring them in. Well most of us recognize that he only did half a job. He brought them out, but he never got them in. He did half a job because he only preached half a message. And so God had to get somebody else to do the rest. Joshua. It isn't that Moses was not aware of a place called Canaan, the land of promise, the marvelous provision that God had long since made for his redeemed people. It isn't that he didn't know about it. He preached for 40 years about it. But there's nothing quite so pathetic as a man preaching about an experience that he himself has never had. And this is one of those occasions when what he said was absolutely true, but it was sterile, because it left him and his people dumped in the desert, where finally after 40 years God had to bury them, because that's where they chose to live. Including Moses. Sad, isn't it? One of the saddest stories in the Bible, because Moses was a giant of a man. But this is what he had to say to them here in the 11th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. Verse 10. The land where thou goest to possess it is not as the land of Egypt from whence you came out. And then he describes the quality of life they lived in the land they'd left behind. Egypt. It is not as the land of Egypt from whence you came out where thou sowed thy seed and watered it with your foot. Luther when he translated that passage called it a cabbage patch. He said the land you're going to isn't like the land you came from. There he said you planted your seed and you watered it with your foot. In other words you pumped it up. In that arid desert where you could look as far as I could see and see nothing. If there was anything colorful it was only because having planted your seed you pumped it up by the sweat of your brow. Now the land you're going to isn't like that. You don't sweat it out there, you don't pump it up. The land he says in verse 11 whether you go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys. It's a land that drinketh water of the rain of heaven. It's a land where you don't pump it up, God sends it down. And not only that it's a land which the Lord thy God careth for. He's the husband man. He takes care of the harvest. It's a land which the Lord thy God careth for and the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Not in fits and starts, not up and down, but 24 hours a day, 365 days in the year. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year God's eyes are upon it. So it's a land of infinite variety, hills and valleys, restful productivity, because you don't pump it up God sends the rain down, and divine consistency from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. You don't have to keep hopping from one convention to another, read this book or that book, listen to this man or somebody else. It has its origin in God himself. A land of hills and valleys, infinite variety. Not the boring treasury of being religious, but living daily in the power that flows from his divine indwelling, a fruitfulness that bears and remains to reproduce. Marvellous. Hills and valleys. See some people always like to live in the valley because the hills to them are threatening, demands greater effort when you're already tired. But if there weren't any hills there wouldn't be any valleys, and unconquered hills only cast a shadow. They limit your horizon, they obscure the future, because they obscure the view, and they leave you guessing about tomorrow. And so you live in the fear of the unknown. But if you get to the top, and climb your hills, then you get an entirely new perspective on life. You can look back and see where you came from, and why it was necessary that that should have happened. And you can look ahead and know where you're going. That's the normal Christian life. Infinite variety. Restful productivity. Refreshed constantly by the rain that God sends down. And a divine consistency, as consistent as God himself, who's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Well this is what Moses talked about in the wilderness. It wouldn't have been too bad if he had taken them there, but he just preached about it. Got them out, but never got them in. Beautiful picture, and it was all accurate. Everything he said was true. And there were those who later were to enjoy the good of all that he described. But it took two men with another heart, a different disposition toward God. The Bible calls it a perfect heart, not a perfect man. For God would look in vain for a perfect man, save him to the face of his own dear son, of whom alone, of all mankind, since Adam fell, he could say this, this is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. Good, very good. Jesus. So God isn't looking for a perfect man, otherwise none of us would qualify. He's simply looking for a perfect heart, which is a disposition, it's an attitude that recognizes in true repentance that you cannot, and only God can. And because you can't and he can, you let him do it. If you can't and he can, there's only one smart thing to do, let him. That's a perfect heart. And we're told, you see, that Joshua and Caleb were men of another heart. Different disposition, they had a different attitude towards God. They acted on the proposition that the God who got them out was the same mighty God who could get them in, and they let him do it, and did. But everything that Moses had to say about all that was theirs in prospect was absolutely true. But you can believe the truth and it won't make one iota of difference to the way you live, because a belief doesn't do any good, a belief doesn't do any harm. It's faith, which is quite different from belief. When the Bible uses the word believe or believing, it means faith, which is what you believe in action, acting on the assumption that it's true and letting God prove it. See, belief doesn't do any good, belief doesn't do any harm. I have a very sincere belief that if I drank a glass of cyanide, it would kill me. Do you believe that? Then we're all believers. The funny thing is that although we're all believers, we're still alive. Why? Because a belief doesn't do any harm. I believe that if I jumped off the top of the Empire State Building in the city of New York, it would kill me. Jumping wouldn't kill me, it's when you land that's what does the jamming. You know there was a firm that invented a parachute that opened on impact. Never failed, but nobody survived, so it went bankrupt. You see, you can believe and never act upon what you believe and never translate belief into faith. Two quite different entities. Faith lets God do it, and when you do, he does. That's the difference between man-made dedication and that disposition toward God that puts God into business. You see, man-made committal, man-made dedication says, I can and I will, and you can't and you don't. When you've discovered the power of his resurrection, you say, I can't, but he can and he does and he will. Moses said this in the 18th verse of that 11th chapter, therefore shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul. Trouble is they laid them up and so did he, never acted upon what they stored, so it was never fleshed out, they never arrived. Thou shall write them upon the doorposts of thine house and upon thy gates, verse 20, and that's all they did. They hung it on the wall, that your days may be multiplied in the days of your children, verse 21, in the land which the Lord swear unto your fathers to give them. Can't earn it, you can't deserve it, you can only receive what God's prepared to give. Not pumping it up, but God's sending it down. That your days may be multiplied the days of your children in the land which the Lord swear unto your fathers to give them. Everything he says is true, exactly what God said. He pledged his name, his honor and his glory that he had give them this land, and Moses never got them there. Because he'd reduced the truth to a formula, upon which none of them were prepared to act as though God meant what he said. He goes on to say, verse 21, in that land that God alone can give is as the days of heaven upon the earth. That's the normal Christian life. I'm not waiting to get to heaven, I'm enjoying heaven, on the way to heaven. That's the normal Christian life. Heaven, you see, is a destination, it's a place. But that doesn't excite me too much, it's going to be beautiful. I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. Gloriously true, and I'm quite excited about looking around when I get there, but I'm going to wait till I get there before I enjoy the good of what God had in mind when he sent his son into this world. Heaven, on the way to heaven. A quality of life to be enjoyed right now, in the here and now, not in the then and there. In the fifth chapter of his first epistle of the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul says, God hasn't appointed us to judgment, he's appointed us to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. But just in case we have an emaciated, inadequate concept of what it means to be saved, he goes on to explain what salvation involves. Most of us think it's getting out of hell and getting into heaven, which is purely irrelevant, really. Glorious, but it's just an added bonus, going to heaven. Because the Lord Jesus came not to get us out of hell and into heaven, he came to this earth to get him and the Father and the Holy Spirit and the Godhead out of heaven into you and me, who are his sanctuary, the place of his habitation, so that he can make the place of his feet glorious and restore man to function, whom he created in his own perfect image and likeness, so that when God looked at man whom he'd made in his absolute image, he could say, good, very good. And if God made man his own perfect image and his absolute unblemished likeness, and God looked at him and said, good, who do you think God saw when he looked at man himself? Himself. If God created man his own perfect image and his absolute likeness and God looked at him totally satisfied with the end product and said, good, very good, he looked at himself. That's the end product of true evangelism, not a change of destination, a change of character, so that in the day when we're finally evangelized, 1 John chapter 3, not knowing what we will be when finally we leave this body and we're present with the Lord, one thing says, John, we do know that when we see him as he is, we will be like him. And we will be restored from created likeness to recreated likeness on the basis of a redemptive act, a regenerative purpose and a marvelous consummation. And when we see him as he is and we are like him and he looks at us, who do you think he'll see? What God first saw when he made man his own image, himself. That's when the Lord Jesus will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. Whom he did foreknow in the foreknowledge of a God who knows the end from the beginning, who lives in the timeless present tense, whom he did foreknow, then he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his dear son, so that when the Lord Jesus could look at us, then he'd see himself as God looking at man in Adam, saw himself then. That's salvation, restoration to image, function, fulfilling the function for which God made you and me, to advertise deity, bring God out into the open where God could be seen. So Paul says, God hasn't appointed us to judgment, he's appointed us to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, and lest we have an inadequate understanding of what it means to be saved, who died for us? Next verse, verse 10. 1 Thessalonians 5, 10. Who died for us. That's the redemptive act. But that isn't the gospel. That's the threshold of the gospel, that's where it begins, that's the door through which you go. For there's a way back to God from the dark paths of sin, there's a door that is open, and you may go in at Calvary's cross is where you begin when you come as a sinner to Jesus. That's true. He died for us. But that isn't salvation. That verse 10 of the fifth chapter, first epistle of Thessalonians goes on to say, who died for us? That. To this end, for this purpose, this is what God had in mind. That. We might live together with him. God has not appointed us to judgment, he's appointed us to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep in the body or out of it, here on earth or there in heaven, now or then, here or there, totally irrelevant. That we might live together with him. 24 hours a day on earth, heaven on the way to heaven, sharing his life, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in whom we are complete, and in whom a person, not in an experience but some body, God has given to us every single spiritual blessing. You can't have more. In the true Christian life, there's no such thing as Jesus and, and Jesus plus. That's the blasphemy of his glorious adequacy. He is the one in whom alone we are complete, in whom we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly things. To enjoy a life superlatively more abundant, to reign in life more than conquest, and enjoy a peace that passes understanding, joy unspeakable and full of glory. But all that's found not in a creed, but in Christ. Not in dogma, but in deity. Not in theology, but in theocracy. With the king enthroned in your heart and mine, with his feet in your heart. Heaven on the way to heaven. Just turn over the page to the next chapter there in the twelfth of Deuteronomy. These are the statutes and judgments which you should observe to do in the land. Moses is still talking about that purpose that God had in mind when he redeemed them. Out of Egypt, always a picture of the unregenerate, the lost, the unsaved, the unforgiven. Where they were sold into slavery as by a man by nature, as a fallen heir of a fallen Adam is sold unto sin. What God had in mind, you see, in bringing them out was to bring them in to enjoy that plenitude of God's provision. And they missed it. These are the statutes, said Moses, and everything he said was true. These are the judgments which you shall observe to do in the land. Which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it. When? Well, if you think Canaan is heaven, it's one day when you're dead and buried. Uh-uh. The land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it all the days that you live upon the earth. That's where Canaan is to be enjoyed. In most of your hymns you see Jordan represents physical death until one day you get up on the other shore, you see, and you've arrived. That's a travesty of the truth. Jordan isn't dead. Jordan was the pathway to life. On earth, all the days that you live upon the earth, verse 7 there, you shall eat to the Lord your God, you should eat before the Lord your God. You will rejoice in all that you put your hand unto. Life will become an adventure. It won't be a drudgery. You don't slug it out. In that land you'll eat before the Lord your God and the plenitude that he's provided. A land flowing with the milk and honey, the gold, ripening corn, pomegranates, and the grapes of Eshcol. So that you can sit around in groups and eat the grapes and pits of each other, and live it up in the land. You shall rejoice in all that you put your hand unto, not only you, but you and your households. Wherein the Lord thy God has blessed you. Your children will be as excited about living there as you are. You moms and dads, have you reared a bunch of kids that are excited about the Lord Jesus as you are? Or do you have to drag them to church instead of sharing his life? Every moment of every day knowing that no situation can ever arise at any time under any circumstance to which he is their creator, redeemer, living within them could ever be less than big enough. So that every day is the adventurers sharing his life on earth on the way to heaven. Heaven on earth. Every day as big as God. Well that was the prospect and everything that Moses said was true. But he never got them there. He could have bought a guitar and sung and you know said it to music and sung it and conducted the choir. That's where we put so much of our truth. We've turned it into entertainment. Christ has become a rock band instead of the king in his kingdom. What went wrong? Well said Moses in verse 8, you shall not do after all the things that we do here. What were they doing and where? Well in the wilderness. Backside of the desert. And they were busy doing. That's what a carnal Christian does. He lives in the backside of the desert and he's filling his life with doing. But says Moses we're not going to do there what we do here. What were they doing where they then where? Every man whatsoever is right. And you say what's wrong with doing right? Shouldn't every man do what's right? Of course. In whose eyes? In the eyes of the church? In the eyes of some individual with a charisma so that he can capture the imagination of human beings or some bull? Every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. That's what they were doing in the wilderness. That's what Christians do. Born again, redeemed sinners on the way to heaven, living in the wilderness, do what is right in their own eyes. And they don't do it insincerely. Many of them do it with great dedication. Thinking themselves to be the servants of God as Saul of Tarsus once did when he persecuted the early church. He said I thought I was serving God. He was doing what was right. In his own eyes against the back right of a sterile dead religion. Created by men who claim the right to revise the Bible, reinterpret Moses. Jesus said if you'd believe Moses whom you constantly cite and quote, in whose name you do this, that and the other. If you'd believed him, you'd have believed me. He wrote of me. But the moment theologians claim the right to reinterpret the Bible and make it say what they think it ought to have said, in that moment of time you can be sure that one day they'll do what they then did. They'll crucify the Son of God. Every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. Of these then who crucified the Lord Jesus said he said you're filled with evangelistic fervor. You compass heaven and earth to make one proselyte of your religion and having done so you make them twofold more the child of hell than you are themselves. That's Jesus. It wasn't altogether polite, but it was true. You shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. For you are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you. You're still doing in the wilderness because you won't take what God has done. So you haven't come into rest. That's not inactivity, but that's where you continue to sow good seed. But that it might germinate and grow you don't pump it up, God sends it down. A land of infinite variety, restful productivity, divine consistency. Because when in the land you sow that seed, Christ himself, God takes care of the harvest. And you and I have very little to do with it. When in one of the early signs of carnality in the early church, the cult of personality, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Peter. The cult of personality that is riddling the church of Jesus Christ today on earth. Men building their own empire around their own prowess and performance. Paul said, who's Apollos? Who's Peter? Who's Paul? One waters, another has sown. But it's God who gives the increase. So neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth anything. And if a man isn't anything, how much is he? Nothing. Because it's God who gives the increase. That's the secret you see of divine consistency. When you recognize that all you can do is plant. Somebody else may come and water, but God causes the good seed that has found good soil to germinate, grow, flourish, blossom, and reproduce. And there's only one to be congratulated. And it's neither you nor me. Jesus, who is our life. You are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you. You haven't entered into the good of that for which I have redeemed you out of Egypt. You're dumped in the desert. And all that you believe is terror. Just flip back the page in this last moment, 11th chapter. Everything, tragically enough, everything that Moses said was true. Absolutely right. Except that he never got them there. The Lord will drive out all those nations from before you, he said in verse 23 of the 11th chapter. And you will possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. The nature of your victory over them will defy any human explanation. It will demand a divine intervention. And verse 24, every place where on the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. In other words, when the day comes, when you're prepared to put your feet where your faith is, you'll inherit the land. And that's what it means, you see, for God to have a place in your heart for his feet. What it meant for them to have their feet in the land, occupied territory, entering into their possessions, inheriting what God had made available. And when you and I give to God a place in our hearts for his feet, it means that he at last enters into his inheritance. And your humanity and mine created to be flooded with the life of God himself becomes occupied territory. And that's why the Lord Jesus came. He was sent by the Father to find a place in your heart and mind for God's feet. In the 10th chapter of the second epistle to the Hebrews, this is spelled out, and this is where we're going to quit, and this is where we're going to pick up the story tonight. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 10. It became him, in other words, it was incumbent upon the Father God, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. Why did the Lord Jesus send his son to be made perfect through suffering? And you might wonder how he who was perfect could be made perfect. We won't discuss that now, but it's important. But when the Father God in heaven sent his son into this world, made perfect through suffering, it was to bring many sons to glory, to restore man to his true humanity, to make boys, girls, and men and women redeemed in the blood he shed upon the cross, indwelt in all the fullness and power of his resurrection life, by the gift to them of God the Holy Spirit, to find in their hearts a place for God's feet, occupied territory, where he once more can enter into his full inheritance. His inheritance in us. Don't hear too much about that today. All we hear about is our inheritance in health, wealth, prosperity. Name it and claim it. Just shout at God loud enough, he'll give you everything you want. Well, that's true that he did that in the wilderness. He gave them flesh to eat, and it rotted in their teeth, and gave them leanness of soul. That's all you hear about today. Our inheritance in him. Get out of God what you can. God didn't create us to get out of him what we could. God created us that he might in us have what is his. His inheritance in the saints, to make his people glorious, with those whose hearts offered to him a place for God's feet. Has God got a place in your heart for his feet? As you sit right now, claiming to be a Christian, are you his inheritance? Yes. Are you occupied territory? That you can say to me to be alive, to me to live, is Christ. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Please don't get me wrong. Not I. Christ lives in me. I've given him his inheritance in the saints. Conquered him, and occupied territory. That's the beginning of being the Christian you say you've become. That isn't a crisis. It isn't just an act of faith. It's that attitude of faith that God calls.