Isa 43:10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

The Blessed Provision Of The New Covenant

                                                                             
After God’s Spirit left King Saul, his halfhearted obedience had opened him up to Satan’s influence. Soon an evil spirit troubled Saul and he ended up seeking counsel from a witch
(see 1 Samuel 28).

Perhaps as you read the account of Saul’s life, you wonder, “But Saul tried his best and he didn’t do that bad of a job. Why was God so severe with him?”

God is telling us through this passage that He means what He says! He is saying, “I’m showing you how I feel about your obedience to Me. I want all your heart, all your love—not just a halfhearted obedience!”

If the Lord’s message to Saul had been foggy or unclear, we would be justified in saying He should have made an allowance. But His direction to Saul was clear and there was no doubting what He commanded. 


Likewise today, we have no doubt about what God has spoken to us. We know what His commandments are, because He has revealed them to us by His word and by His Spirit within our
hearts.

You may answer, “But what God did to Saul happened under the Old Covenant, under the Law. We live in a day of grace now. Surely the Lord won’t be as severe with us when we disobey as He was with Saul.”

Here is God’s word on the matter under the New Covenant, a covenant of grace:

[God] will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:6-11).

Let me spell out the difference for you between Saul in the Old Testament and all believers under the New Covenant: Whenever a person truly has a desire to obey God’s commands—when that person loves and respects God’s Word—the Holy Ghost supplies him with all power and ability to fulfill those commands. That is the blessed provision of the New Covenant.


~David Wilkerson~

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

What GOD Is Waiting To Hear!

A human being can go for weeks without eating, but only a few days without water. When Israel came to Rephidim, there was no water in sight (Exodus 17). Before long, children were crying and families were growing faint from thirst. It was a critical situation.

Moses understood the ways of the Lord and he knew just what was happening with Israel. He realized that God was letting His people be stretched beyond measure. Why? Because He wanted them to cast themselves completely into His care. He longed to see them rise up in faith and say, “God is able!” 


Scripture then tells us, “[Moses] called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” (Exodus 17:7).

The words “Massah” and “Meribah” both mean the same thing: “a place of trial and testing.” Moses ran through the camp crying, “This is Massah—a test, a trial! It isn’t the end. God hasn’t forsaken us, so keep holding on! 


The Lord is looking for faith, wanting to know what’s in our
hearts. He knows how to meet our need—He only wants us to trust Him!”

Tragically, Israel did not trust the Lord, so God instructed Moses to pick up his rod, go to Horeb, and strike a certain rock there. When Moses hit the rock, water came gushing out to meet Israel’s thirst. The Lord proved once again He was with His people in spite of their unbelief.

How did Israel tempt the Lord in this episode? Was it in their anger toward Moses? Was it in their murmuring? Or was it in their idolatrous fornication? None of these things was the real issue. Here is how Israel tempted God: “They tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?”

God had that water in storage all along. He could have supplied it to Israel at the first pangs of their thirst but He waited. His heart yearned for His special, chosen people to recognize His love for them and cast themselves into His faithful arms. But once again, they failed!

So, God tried them yet again, this time by allowing them to hunger. Moses later said, “The Lord thy God . . . humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger . . .to prove thee”

(Deuteronomy 8:2-3).

Here was another test of faith. Would Israel hold their empty stomachs and wait for God to send them bread? Would they encourage one another toward faith? All God wanted was to hear, “God, You opened the Red Sea for us and sweetened the
bitter waters of Marah. We trust You to feed us. Live or die, we are Yours!”

That is all God was waiting to hear!


~David Wilkerson~

Friday, December 20, 2013

When GOD Is Silent

Are you a child of God who is experiencing a crushing sorrow, a bitter disappointment, or a heartbreaking blow from a totally unexpected place?

Are you longing to hear your Master’s voice calling you, saying, Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid (Matt. 14:27)? Yet only silence, the unknown, and misery confront you—“Jesus did not answer a word.”
 

God’s tender heart must often ache listening to our sad, complaining cries. Our weak, impatient hearts cry out because we fail to see through our tear-blinded, shortsighted eyes that it is for our own sakes that He does not answer at all or that He answers in a way we believe is less than the best.

In fact, the silences of Jesus are as eloquent as His words and may be a sign not of His disapproval but of His approval and His way of providing a deeper blessing for you.
 

Why are you downcast, O my soul? . . . I will yet praise him
(Ps. 43:5).Yes, praise Him even for His silence.


Let me relate a beautiful old story of how one Christian dreamed she saw three other women in prayer.
 

When they knelt the Master drew near to them. As He approached the first of the three, He bent over her with tenderness and grace. He smiled with radiant love and spoke to her in tones of pure, sweet music.

Upon leaving her, He came to the next but only placed His hand upon her bowed head and gave her one look of loving approval. 

He passed the third woman almost abruptly, without stopping for a word or a glance.
 

The woman having the dream said to herself,“How greatly
He must love the first woman. The second gained His approval but did not experience the special demonstrations of love He gave the first. But the third woman must have grieved Him deeply, for He gave her no word at all, nor even a passing look.”
 

She wondered what the third woman must have done to have been treated so differently. 

As she tried to account for the actions of her Lord, He Himself came and stood beside her. He said to her,“O woman! How wrongly you have interpreted Me! The first kneeling woman needs the full measure of My tenderness and care to keep her feet on My narrow way. She needs My love, thoughts,and help every moment of the day, for without them she would stumble into failure.

The second woman has stronger faith and deeper love than the first, and I can count on her to trust Me no matter how things may go or whatever people may do.

Yet the third woman,whom I seemed not to notice, and even to neglect, has faith and love of the purest quality. I am training her through quick and drastic ways for the highest and holiest service. “She knows Me so intimately, and trusts Me so completely, that she no longer depends on My voice, loving glances, or other outward signs to know of My approval. She is not dismayed or discouraged by any circumstances I arrange for her to encounter. She trusts Me when common sense, reason, and even every subtle instinct of the natural heart would rebel, knowing that I am preparing her for eternity, and realizing that the understanding of what I do will come later.

My love is silent because I love beyond the power of words to express it and beyond the understanding of the human heart.

Also, it is silent for your sakes—that you may learn to love and
trust Me with pure, Spirit-taught, spontaneous responses.


I desire for your response to My love to be without the prompting of anything external.”
 

He “will do wonders never before done” (Ex. 34:10) if you
will learn the mystery of His silence and praise Him every time
He withdraws His gifts from you.Through this you will better
know and love the Giver. 


~Selected~

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Distinguishing Love


Sardis - what is the upshot of things in Sardis? Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.  

You look at the message to the church at Sardis and try to put it all into one word. What is the word that sums it up? Well, you have to say it is indefiniteness.

So we can say again, in the light of the whole standard, that first love, ultimate love, the love of Christ, the love which He is seeking, is a distinguishing love that marks you out as clearly defined for the Lord and all that is of the Lord.

Distinguished,different,outstanding, defined,unmistakable by the love that characterizes and governs. 

The thing that distinguishes from all else is this great love, and this great love brings about a distinctiveness of life.

You cannot be indefinite if you are mastered by this kind of love. 

First love does not care one little bit what people think or say.

Oh, everybody is saying this and that about the lover in the grip of first love. They may be using all sorts of language - He is a fool, he is mad! - it does not matter.

This love is making them clear-cut - one object, one design, one thought, one intent. 

They are people marked by one thing and not two. There is no doubt about it.

We have our humorous ways of speaking of people who are in that state. He is in love, you cannot get away from it, everything goes by the board! There is one thing and one thing only in that life. That is, of course, how it ought to be. 

You young people, never have any relationships in the beginning that are not like that. First love is like that, and the Lord says, "I want you where you were at the beginning."  

Or shall we say, I want you where I have ever been. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; I am like that from first to last.

I want you back there in a distinguishing love.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

More Than Conquerors

Rom 8:37  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us

The gospel and the gift of God are structured so wonderfully
that the very enemies and forces that are marshaled to fight against us actually help pave our way to the very gates of heaven and into the presence of God.


Those forces can be used in the same way an eagle uses the fierce winds of a storm to soar to the sky. At first he sits perfectly still, high on a cliff, watching the sky as it fills with darkness and as the lightning strikes all around him. Yet he never moves until he feels the burst of the storm, and then with a screech he dives toward the winds, using them to carry him ever higher.
 

This is also what God desires of each of His children. He wants us to be “more than conquerors,” turning storm clouds into chariots of victory.

It is obvious when an army becomes “more than conquerors,” for it drives its enemies from the battlefield and confiscates their food and supplies. This is exactly what this Scripture passage means.There are spoils to be taken!
 

Dear believer, after experiencing the terrible valley of suffering, did you depart with the spoils? When you were struck with an injury and you thought you had lost everything, did you trust in God to the point that you came out richer than you were before?

Being “more than [a] conqueror”means taking the spoils from the enemy and appropriating them for yourself.
 

What your enemy had planned to use for your defeat, you can
confiscate for your own use.
 

When Dr. Moon,of Brighton, England,was suddenly struck with blindness, he said,“Lord, I accept this ‘talent’ of blindness from You. Help me to use it for Your glory so that when You return, you may receive it ‘back with interest’ [Matt. 25:27].”
 

Then God enabled him to invent the Moon Alphabet for the blind, through which thousands of blind people were enabled to read the Word of God and thereby come to the glorious saving knowledge of Christ.

~Selected~
 

God did not remove Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” Cor.12:7KJV
The Lord did something much better—He conquered it and made it Paul’s servant.The ministry of thorns has often been a greater ministry to humankind than the ministry of thrones. 


~Selected~

Friday, December 6, 2013

Poison Gas From The Enemy

Whenever God raises up an instrument by which He intends to bring His Testimony into greater clearness and greater fullness, the object of which in His desire and thought is to reveal the nature of His Son more clearly, more perfectly, then the concentrated attention of all the powers of evil is to bring that thing under suspicion, and to put over it a great question mark in the eyes and minds of everybody. 

Why are not the Lord's people alive to that fact? 

For a fact which runs parallel with that, and which is just as mighty a fact itself, is that when you really investigate that thing you find you have no reason for question at all.

It was all an unfounded suspicion.

This is clearly the Devil's work, to cast over something which the Lord would use for a fuller revelation of His Son, and of what He desires for His people, this film of questioning, suspicions, doubts, so that it is forced into a realm where it is regarded as dangerous, suspicious.

Would to God that the Lord's people would obey the injunction to "prove all things"!

You see what the enemy is after, and how he goes to work. 

It is helpful to know sometimes what the enemy is after, and how he does operate.

We may be saved from much if only we are aware of it.

This is a message to our hearts, not only of helpfulness in an objective direction through our being informed as to the danger, the peril, the devices of the enemy, but it sheds light upon the inward experience, and shows that all the Lord's dealings with us are intended to bring us to this state of crystal clearness. 

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts (Psa. 51:6): and what the Lord desires He will get.

The dealings of the Lord with His own are purifying dealings, in order to have this crystal clearness, this pure gold, this stone most precious.

They are for the getting rid of the dross, getting rid of the film, getting rid of all those secret and secretive elements which work in the direction of deception. Those are like unto a lie, a falsehood.

The Lord wants to root all that out of us. He is against everything that is shadowy.

He is for everything that is perfectly clear, and so to get rid of the dark substances He puts His fires to work in our lives to purify them.

He does not allow such to be out of the fire for long. He is after this state of utter purity.

God is not cleansing, purging, chastening you and me, and causing His fires to work to our purifying, just for the sake of doing it, and He is not doing it just for our own sakes in as much as He wants us individually to be good and not bad. I suppose He wants that, but that is not all. 

God has a mighty, universal purpose in view, an eternal vocation, and that is what He is after, and it requires a condition.

That is one of the governing conditions of Zion, namely, the full expression of the Lord's mind. 

The Lord is always motived by things so much greater and vaster than we understand in the day when we are passing through the trial.

We bring it down to a personal matter, and ask questions: Why should the Lord deal with me like this? 

We narrow down the range of His thought, His purpose, His intention.

Because we make it so local we lose the strength and helpfulness which would come to us if we could see the great eternal vocation for which we were being prepared. 

~T. Austin Sparks~
























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Bring Life!

I wish I could have met Paul in the final, mature days of his walk with the Lord. I would have asked him, “Brother, what kept you from fainting and giving up? You were constantly pressed down on all sides.”

I believe Paul would have answered, “Yes, I was pressed down, but I wasn't distressed by any of it.”

But you write so often of being perplexed by your trials, I would say.

True, but never once did I give up in despair, he might answer.

You were also persecuted more than anybody.

Yes, I was. But the Lord never forsook me through it all.

You were struck down often, with infirmities and troubles.

Sure. But none of it destroyed me.

Today Paul testifies to the whole world, “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” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).



He wants God’s people to know, “All your troubles are light, momentary afflictions. And they are producing in you an eternal weight of glory, far beyond your comprehension”
(see verse 17).

Paul tells us, “Death worketh in us, but life in you” (2Corinthians 4:12).
 

The apostle states very plainly, “Here is the reason God hands us over to death. He does it so the life of Christ will flow out of us to others! 

If we allow death to complete its work, a manifestation of the Christ-life will come forth in us. And our testimony will produce life in all who hear it!”

Remember that when financial problems hit, when physical pain strikes, when your name and character are being defamed, all eyes are on you. Your co-workers, your family members, your brothers and sisters in Christ, even strangers are watching and waiting for your reaction.

What do they see flowing out of you in such times? Do they see faith, trust, surrender? Or do they see a despairing, murmuring Christian who will not entrust himself to the resurrection power of Jesus?


Beloved, let death finish its work in you! Let it remove everything that hinders the flow of Christ’s life out of you to others.

Say to the Lord, “Father, I know these troubles aren’t happening to me because You are angry with me but because you are trying to get at something in my soul. Deal with it, Lord. Bring it to death, and out of that death, bring life!”


~David Wilkerson~