In True Hatred Of Sin There Are Six Things Observable!

1. First, True hatred of sin, includes an extreme DETESTATION.

Every dislike is not hatred...but true hatred is an extreme loathing: "You shall cast them away as a menstruous cloth; you shall say unto it, Get you hence," Isaiah 30:22;

In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship—to the moles and to the bats," chapter 2:20.

Their detestation should be so great that they would cast their most costly idols of silver and gold to the most dark, nasty, dusty corners.

To testify the sincerity of their conversion to GOD, they would hate and abhor, abandon and abolish their gold and silver idols which they valued above all others.

2. Secondly, True hatred of sin, includes earnest SEPARATION.

He who hates his sin would sincerely be separated from his sin; "For we who are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened," 2 Cor. 5:4.

A sincere Christian finds no burden to lie so heavy and weighty upon his spirit as sin, and therefore he groans to be delivered from it.

In the law, he who hated his wife did sue out a bill of divorce from her, Deut. 24:3. He who truly hates sin, puts in many a bill into the court of heaven that he may be forever divorced from his sin.

3. Thirdly, True hatred of sin, includes an irreconcilable ALIENATION.

He who hates sin has his heart forever alienated from sin; he who hates sin can never be one with sin.

Two angry men may be made friends; but if two men hate each other, all friendship is everlastingly broken between them.

A man may be angry with sin, and yet made friends with sin again; but if once he comes to hate his sin, then all friendship with sin is everlastingly broken.

4. Fourthly, True hatred of sin, includes a constant and perpetual CONFLICT. 

The flesh will be still lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

Though sin and grace were not born together, and though sin and grace shall never die together - yet while a believer lives in this world, they must live together; and while sin and grace do cohabit together, they will still be opposing and conflicting one with another, Gal. 5:17, Romans 7:22-23.

That man who truly hates sin will everlastingly conflict with sin.

He will die fighting against his sins, as one of the dukes of Venice died fighting against his enemies with his weapons in his hand.

Well, Christians, remember this, though to be kept from sin brings most peace and comfort to us-yet for us to oppose sin, and for GOD to pardon sin, that brings most glory to GOD, 2 Cor. 12:7-9.

5. Fifthly. True hatred of sin, includes a deadly intention and DESTRUCTION, for nothing satisfies hatred but death and ruin.

Saul hated David, and sought his life; he hunted him up and down as a partridge in the mountains; he left no stone unturned, nor any means unattempted, whereby he might revenge himself upon David, 1 Sam. 26:19-20; 1 Sam. 23:22.

Haman hated Mordecai, and nothing would satisfy him but to bring him to a shameful death, to see him hanged on a gallows fifty cubits high, Esther. 5:14, which was designed, says Lyra, to put Mordecai to the greater shame, for he hanging high, everyone might see him and point to him.

Now when there was but one night between Mordecai and a shameful death, divine providence opportunely intervened and saved him from Haman's malice, and caused the mischief which he had plotted against Mordecai suddenly to fall upon his own head; for he who was highly feasted with the king one day, was made a feast for crows the next day.

Absalom hated Amnon and killed him, 2 Sam. 13:22-33.

Julian the apostate hated the Christians with a deadly hatred.

He put many thousands of them to death, and threatened and vowed that at his return from fighting against the Persians, he would put all the Christians in his empire to the sword; but GOD prevented him by cutting him off in that expedition.

A Christian who hates sin can't be satisfied but in the death and destruction of it.

In all his duties the language of his soul is, LORD, let my sins be destroyed; whoever escapes, let not my sins escape the hand of your revenging justice!

And in all ordinances the language of his soul is, "O LORD! when shall my sins be subdued and mortified?

When shall my cursed corruptions be brought to and under dominion?

Yes, when shall they all be drowned in the Red Sea of my Savior's blood?"

6. Sixthly, True hatred of sin, includes a total AVERSENESS; true hatred is of the whole kind.  

To wind up all, ask your heart what is it that you abhor as the superlative evil?

What is that which you would have separated as far from you as heaven is from hell?

What is that your heart will never renew league or friendship with any more?

What is that against which your soul does rise, and with which, as Israel with Amalek, you will have war forever? Exodus 17:16.

What is that which you will be avenged of and daily endeavor the mortifying and crucifying of?

What is that which you set your heart against in the comprehensive latitude thereof, whether great or little, open or secret?

If it is sin, if it is your sins, if it is all your sins...then assuredly here is a true hatred of sin, and assuredly here is a most distinguishing character of a child of God, of a sound conversion, and of a saving change. 

It was not always thus with you; nor are these characteristics found in any hypocrite, or in any unconverted person upon the face of the earth.

Sin was once to you as Delilah to Samson, Judges 14:3, 7; but now it is to you as Tamar to Amnon, 2 Sam. 13:15.

Once it was a sweet morsel which you held fast and would not let it go, Job 20:12-13; but now it is the menstruous cloth, Isaiah 30:22, which you cast away, saying, "Get you hence." 

Now with Ephraim you cry out, "What have I to do any more with idols?" Hosea 14:8.

Oh, if it is indeed thus with you, then you have cause forever to be much in blessing and in admiring of the LORD...for his distinguishing grace and favor towards you.

O sirs! the world is full of baits, snares, and temptations; but while the hatred of sin burns in your breasts, you may throw the gauntlet to the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Well, remember this forever...there are three things a hypocrite can never do:

1. He can never mourn for sin as sin.

2. He can never mourn for the sins of others as well as his own.

Moses, Lot, David, Jeremiah, Paul, and those in that Ezek. 9:4, 6, mourned for others' sins as well as their own;

But Pharaoh, Ahab, Judas, Demas, Simon Magus never did.

 3. He can never hate sin as sin.

~Thomas Brooks~

The Blood is a Weapon to be Wielded!

The Dragon is the adversary. We are up against the Devourer.

All truly spiritual people know that today; some more than others, perhaps.

If he can swallow us up, he will.

I believe he is out to strike us with death if he can, to strike our bodies with death, to strike our souls with death.

Let me say this word to those who are more intimately associated with things, that the more we come to stand in relation to the Lord concerning the heavenly kingdom and that priestly ministry in the heavenly kingdom in relation to the throne, the more shall we be aware of the immediate proximity of the Dragon, of him who would strike with death, strike our minds with death, strike these bodies with death.

That will explain a good deal for some.

The nearer we get to the vocation of the man-child, the closer we come to the Dragon, the more shall we be conscious of the encompassing and encircling of death, and shall cry to get out of it, and say, This is not life, it is death!

Are we going to accept it? It is death; but where is the virtue of the Blood?

Do we refuse it on the ground of that mighty shed Blood? "They overcame him because of the blood..." and we are not going to accept death, because of that Blood.

Perhaps some might misunderstand that. We are not saying that we are not going to the grave if the Lord tarries long; but that is not accepting death.

We can die, and go to the grave in the physical sense, but that can be victory; not defeat, but triumph! We do not accept death.

You may know it spiritually, you know it mentally, you know it round you and playing upon you when you come into close touch with that ultimate end of God in the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Look after that explanation; hold on to it. It calls, beloved, for standing up against the adversary, the engulfer, the swallower-up. 

Blessed be God, there is going to be a greater swallower-up than he. Death is going to be swallowed up.

There is one who will swallow up if he can. 

Against the Dragon, against the Adversary, against the Accuser, against the Deceiver, the Blood is adequate, sufficient; but there must be a positive, active appropriation of the full power and meaning of that Blood and a standing upon it; a taking of it up as an active instrument.

Oh! to get a company like that here and now who know and appropriate the power of the Blood; not in the strength of the flesh, but emptied of self, and in all humility, nothingness, weakness, standing in HIS virtue, the power of His Blood, and standing up and using that mighty weapon against the operation of death now, all round, to get through to that end which God has in view.

That is what is needed now, a people like that.

May the Lord bring this home to our heart, that this may not be an address but an appeal, an urge of the Spirit of Christ - bringing us into that thing actively by prayer.

Remember your ground, remember your weapon, remember that all the emptying of self, the weakening, the bringing down, the chastening, the discipline, is to bring you to an effective place.

Pride has no standing here; self-sufficiency has no standing here; self-strength comes not into this; naught but the precious Blood.

Weakness is not helplessness. Helplessness on our part is not despair. No, it is the open way for the mighty efficacy of the Blood to come into operation. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Most Devouring Idol In All The World!

Php 3:19  Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

Flesh-pleasing is the grand idolatry of the world. The flesh
is the greatest idol that ever was set up against God. 

That is a man's God, which he takes for his chief good, and loves best, and is most desirous to please. 

And this is the flesh, to every sensualist. 

He "loves pleasure more than God." He "minds the things
of the flesh," and "lives" for it, and "walks after it."

He "makes provision for it, to satisfy its appetite and lusts." 

He "sows to the flesh, and fulfills its lusts."  

It is not primarily the bowing of the knee and praying to a thing which constitutes idolatry.

It is the loving, and pleasing, and obeying, and seeking, and delighting in a thing...which is idolatry. 

So the loving of the flesh, and pleasing it, and serving it, and obeying it, and seeking and delighting in its pleasures...is the grand idolatry - more than if you offered sacrifices to it! 

And so the flesh is God's chief enemy, because it has the chief love and service which are due to Him.

The flesh robs Him of the hearts of all people who are carnal and unsanctified.

All the Baals, and Jupiters, and Apollos, and other idols of the world put together, have not so much of the love and service due to God, as the flesh alone has.

If other things are idolized by the sensualist, it is but as they subserve his flesh, and therefore they are made but inferior idols.

The flesh is not only the common idol--but the most devouring idol in all the world!  

It has not, as inferior, flattered idols have - only a knee and compliment, or now and then a sacrifice or ceremony - but it has the heart, the tongue, the body to serve it!  

The flesh is loved and served by the sensualist, "with all
his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength."

They forsake God for the flesh. They forsake Christ, and
heaven, and their salvation for it.

They forsake all the solid comforts of this life, and all the joys of the life to come for it. 

They sell all that they have, and lay down the price at its feet.

Yes, more than all they have, even all their hopes of what they might have to all eternity! 

They suffer in the flames of hell forever, for their flesh! 

How vile an idol is the flesh!

It is a great a madness to serve an idol of silver, or gold or stone, or wood.

But is it any better to serve an idol of flesh and blood which
is full of filth and excrement within, and the skin itself, the cleanest part, is ashamed to be uncovered?

Is this a god to sacrifice all that we have to? and to give all
our time, and care, and labor, and our souls, and all to? 

Consider how impious and horrid an abasement it is of
the eternal God - to prefer so vile a thing before Him! 

You say continually by your practice, "This filthy, nasty flesh, is to be preferred before God - to be more loved, and obeyed, and served.

It deserves more of my time than God. It is more worthy of my delight and love!"  

It is but a few days until all their most adorned, pampered flesh will be turned into worms' food!

A few days will turn their pleasure into anguish, their jollity into groans, their ostentation into lamentation, all their pride into shame. 

When the skull is cast up with the spade, to make room for a successor - you may see the hole where all the food and drink went in; but you will see no signs of mirth or pleasure.

~Richard Baxter~

A Hazardous Game!

If we play around the viper's hole...it's no wonder that we are bitten! 

An old proverb advises us not to play with sharp-edged tools, lest we cut our fingers.  

It is a sin to trifle with sin!

If we must play, we had better find harmless toys!

That evil which caused Christ a bloody death, is no fit theme for any man's sport.  

Playing with wickedness is a hazardous game! 

Sooner or later, we will pluck the lion of sin by the beard, and we shall be torn in pieces!

This is true of indulgence in strong drink: "Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! 

In the end it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper!"  

This is equally true of all other forms of evil, especially of the lusts of the flesh.

Lewd words, soon lead to foul deeds.

Yet such is the folly of men, that they run dreadful risks in sheer wantonness, as though vipers and cobras were fine playmates, and devils were merry-makers! 

Psa 19:13  Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

We Dare Not Doubt

Isa 45:2  I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
 
This was for Cyrus; but it is evermore the heritage of all the LORD's own spiritual servants. Only let us go forward by faith, and our way will be cleared for us.

Crooks and turns of human craft and satanic subtlety shall be straightened for us; we shall not need to track their devious windings.

The gates of brass shall be broken, and the iron bars which fastened them shall be cut asunder.

We shall not need the battering ram nor the crowbar: the LORD Himself will do the impossible for us, and the unexpected shall be a fact.

Let us not sit down in coward fear. Let us press onward in the path of duty, for the LORD hath said it: "I will go before thee."

Ours not to reason why; ours but to dare and dash forward. It is the LORD's work, and He will enable us to do it: all impediments must yield before Him.

Hath He not said, "I will break in pieces the gates of brass"!

What can hinder His purpose or balk His decrees? Those who serve God have infinite resources.

The way is clear to faith though barred to human strength.

When Jehovah says, "I will," as He does twice in this promise, we dare not doubt.

~Charles Spurgeon~ 

We May Speak For GOD

Jer 15:19  Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them. 

Poor Jeremiah! Yet why do we say so? The weeping prophet was one of the choicest servants of GOD and honored by Him above many.

He was hated for speaking the truth. The word which was so sweet to him was bitter to his hearers, yet he was accepted of his LORD.

He was commanded to abide in his faithfulness, and then the LORD would continue to speak through him.

He was to deal boldly and truthfully with men and perform the LORD's winnowing work upon the professors of his day, and then the LORD gave him this word: "Thou shalt be as my mouth."

What an honor! Should not every preacher, yea, every believer, covet it? For God to speak by us, what a marvel!

We shall speak sure, pure truth; and we shall speak it with power. Our word shall not return void; it shall be a blessing to those who receive it, and those who refuse it shall do so at their peril.

Our lips shall feed many. We shall arouse the sleeping and call the dead to life.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Unholy Links Arrest Spiritual Growth

Whom the devil could not curse, he tricked.   

To frustrate the realization of God's purpose for His people, sinners are put in the way and these sinners are in the nature of links and associations with unholy things. 

Spiritual advance is always arrested by an association, a contact, a link with an unholy thing. 

The apostle, writing to the Corinthians who had been arrested in their spiritual growth, said: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers... for what fellowship has light with darkness; and what concord has Christ with Belial?" 

It was those unholy links that arrested the Corinthians and their spiritual growth. 

And these daughters of Moab represent unholy things with which Israel became associated; and all with a view to arresting their progress. 

We must always be very watchful and very careful about a link with an unholy thing, for that is one of the things that the enemy is constantly trying to bring about.

It is the spiritual people whom he is out to ensnare in this way, and it is a remarkable thing that very often the people who are spiritual are tripped up in this way.

When you come into this kind of a relationship with the Lord, you come also into relationship with other spiritual things and they are out to trip up, to ensnare, to get a contact with something unholy in order to cut right in and break spiritual progress.

So the daughters of Moab were the subterfuge used by the enemy when an open curse had been rendered impossible.

If the enemy cannot work openly to bring us immediately under judgement, he works secretly to get some kind of relationship with unholy things.

Let us remember that this is in the path to God's end. These are the things that we meet on the way, and it is the true children of God who meet these things.

The way of the Lord's highest purpose is the way most beset by perils and it is the way in which most watchfulness is necessary. 

When you get to an Ephesian position (chapter 6) of conflict in the heavenlies, the final word is: "praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto..."

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Evil Of Fear

Not many of us need to be informed that one of Satan's most successful and powerful weapons against the children of God is fear. 

He drives, he harasses, he torments, he worries; yes, he does many things for the undoing of God's people by means of this weapon of fear.

How many of the Lord's people are found in a state of weakness, impotence, and paralysis, because of fear!

They are afraid, they fear.

How many are found in a state of indecision, incapable of taking any definite, deliberate, strong step, because of fear. 

They are all the time moving so cautiously, so uncertainly, because they are afraid, because of fear, and multitudes of the Lord's people are in a state of positive spiritual defeat because of fear working in some way - foreboding, dread, apprehension. 

Fear, John rightly says, has torment, and it is possible to get into such a state that you are almost afraid to leave your home for half an hour lest you might come back and find that something has gone wrong, to take a journey without all the time wanting to keep in touch with things.

You are afraid. It is a terrible thing, this fear, and in countless ways the enemy lashes the children of God by this rod, this whip, of fear.

The Word of God is very strong about this matter. "God has not given us a spirit of fear", and let us once and for all get this kind of fear defined and disentangled from the other fear of which we have to speak, the right kind of fear.

I think that failure to discriminate in this matter is perhaps at the root of a very great deal of the defeat.

We, somewhere in the back of our minds, in an undefined way, have got muddled up and confused.

Fear - yes, but we are commanded to fear, the fear of the Lord. 
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

We must fear lest we make mistakes, lest we go wrong, lest we grieve the Lord; we must fear this and that.

Oh, but let us drive the wedge clean in between the devil's fear and the fear of the Lord!

They are two different things, and let us settle it once and for all that this kind of harassing, driving fear comes straight from the pit; it is born in hell, a weapon forged there by the devil himself against the children of God.

Let it be settled in your heart forever that this kind of fear is not from God. This fear is from Satan.

Oh, I do feel that it is so important that the people of God should nail this matter of fear.

When you find yourself in this state because of fear, you say, "This is not from God!"

Fear is a master weapon of Satan, and you have got to free yourself in the Name of the Lord from his awful drive by this means.
 
What is he after? It is always good to ask ourselves what is the effect of a thing in our lives.

I can very well discover where it comes from if I recognize what the effect is.

If a thing paralyses me, if it takes all certainty and confidence and assurance out of my heart, if it takes the steady firmness out of my walk, my tread, if it holds me up in weakness and paralyses so that I am afraid to move, then that is not of God. 

God wants His people to go forward with assurance and confidence, with a firm and steady tread, not to have in their hearts everlastingly a paralyzing doubt.

So what is the effect? Recognize that and you know where it comes from.
 
What is Satan after? You say, to paralyze me, to destroy me, to hold up. Oh yes, but that is only secondary! 

He is after dishonoring God, and God is dishonored in His people.

It has ever been that Satan has aimed at the work of God's hands, aimed his blow to dishonor God, and God is dishonored when His people are, in the wrong sense, fearful.

What is fear, after all? Well, it is mistrust, it is lack of faith. 

John says that it is the opposite of love. There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out all fear, and he that fears is not made perfect in love.

Fear is the opposite of love, and what is love if it is not trust? 

None of us would agree that we were loved if we were not trusted.

We demand absolute confidence as the hallmark of professed love.

It is only feigned love which has reservations about an object which it professes to love.

It is mere empty sentiment and pretense which says, "I love you but I am not sure of you".

Oh no! That is the only kind of love that we really, in our hearts, can accept and believe in.

A lot of people tell me they love me, but I know all the time they have got big questions about me and they are suspicious.

I say that kind of love is not much good, it does not help me very much.

It does not get us anywhere just to keep that shadow all the time in between.

But carry that into the divine realm. Can that be tolerated in relation to God?

I love God, but I do not trust Him, I am not sure of Him. I am afraid to go out tomorrow lest something should go wrong, lest the Lord should let me down. You see, it is very practical. 

Perfect love casts out all fear. It is by this fear and fearfulness that Satan is seeking to dishonor God in us by keeping us in a state of uncertainty about God, a reservation of confidence and trust.

Fear is the opposite of trust. If we trust, we are not afraid.

It is put quite simply: "I will trust and not be afraid" (Is. 12:2). 

These two things cannot live together - trust and fear. "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Ps. 27:1). 

Oh, the gain to the enemy against the Lord along the line of fear!
 
But, of course, this is a very real thing, this fear, and although the Word of God may not use the phrase, we have reason to believe that amongst the hosts of evil spirits, there are definitely the spirits of fear.

For very often this thing is something extra to ourselves; it comes upon us. 

It is something that happens to us at times. We find ourselves afraid.

The enemy wants to make us afraid and his spirits of fear are sent forth to do that.

There needs to be a very definite and strong attitude taken in spirit before the Lord to resist the devil in this form.

When we say the devil, we mean all his hosts as well; however he may come - to resist fear.

It is a resolution - "I WILL trust, and not be afraid - for the Lord...".
 
Well, that is all I am going to say for the moment about the evil of fear.

I want you to take that word and keep it in your heart; dwell much upon it, because I am convinced that the enemy is pressing very much along this line.

Do you notice what Nehemiah said? Oh, it was a significant thing! 

Nehemiah said something more than he knew he was saying, I am quite sure of that!

He said a thing which embraces a great deal of the New Testament. He said, "For this purpose were they hired that they might make me afraid, and do so, and sin".

Yes, but that is only half. And then what? "That they might have an evil report, a case, against me".

What the enemy is after all the time is, first of all, to make afraid, and then to get us to take some step, to do something out of fear, and then to come right round on us and accuse us before God.

How cruel, how subtle, how wicked! - but that is of no consequence to him.

What he is after is to cast the saints down by accusation, and if he can only get them either to do or to refrain from doing through fear, he has got a case, and it will not be long before he comes back on that very ground and makes accusation, condemnation, and distress.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Foreign Elements

The destroying, or the nullifying of the testimony of life will therefore be pursued along the line of corrupting it.

It is perfectly clear, with the most cursory glance through the Word of God right from Genesis onwards, that that has been the way by which the adversary has always sought to nullify God's testimony in this universe, by corrupting it and introducing elements which counter its utter transparency, its perfection of purity, bringing in other foreign elements and features.

In some way the enemy must get a link between what is of God as light, and what is of his own kingdom as darkness, if he is going to nullify God's testimony of life.

In our last meditation we were engaged with those chapters in the second book of the Chronicles from chapter 29 to 32, and there we saw that the Lord's testimony had been nullified

It had been set aside, the House of God was closed. The lamp in the House of God was extinguished, the altar was not functioning, the priesthood was polluted and defiled; everything was out of action.

It was in death.

Hezekiah's movement was to bring it all back into life. It was a matter of recovering a living testimony, a testimony in life out of the grip and power of death.

It is perfectly clear as you read what leads up to that time, that the nullifying was along the line of corrupting, and Hezekiah's activity was to get rid of the corruption, to cleanse, to purge, to get rid of all the foreign elements that had come in, and by being in, had nullified.

Then we saw that after all this faithfulness, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came against Jerusalem and Judah.

As the margin says, "to break them up", to break up the testimony.

The enemy's method of breaking up has always been by corrupting, by introducing foreign elements.

So you find whenever the Lord reacts to a situation like that, there is always a great place given to purging, and the instrument used for the recovering of the testimony in life is always one who has peculiar insight to discern, to detect where the corruption is, and to deal with it.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Your Adversary!

1Pe 5:8  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 

What a description of your adversary!

One who...for power is a "lion, "for cruelty and rage, a "roaring lion," for activity, "walking about," for diligence, "seeking" out his prey, for destructive purposes, "seeking whom he may devour."

Satan's power, though limited and restrained, is very great.

His trickery is equal to his power. His malignity is not inferior to either.

The very idea that this cunning foe that may be near us at any moment, unseen, and therefore unnoticed, and may be preparing some new kind of attack, is indeed sufficient to alarm us, and to put us upon the best means of averting the danger. 

Be vigilant! 

Watchfulness is an essential duty of the Christian life-none is more necessary-none is more frequently or more solemnly enjoined. 

Who that is asleep can defend himself against a lion?

How cautiously, would we walk, if we were in a country where wild beasts are common, and saw the footprints, and actually heard the roar of a lion!

Such is our situation! See to it, then, that you do walk vigilantly-looking all round, watching every object, lest it conceal the enemy!

Be vigilant over your trials, your comforts, your occupations, your tastes, your pleasures, your thoughts, your desires, your besetting sins, and especially, watch your hearts with all diligence!

An unwatchful Christian is sure to be an unsuccessful one.

~John Angell~ James

I Change Not!

Mal 3:6  For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
 

The authority of darkness is a very real thing to us.

We have experiences, and if we were to capitulate to them, that would be the end of us. 

He tries to bring upon us that impingement of the authority of darkness, and if we surrender to it, capitulate to it, accept it, we are beaten.

If we are the LORD'S, Christ is within, and Christ is Supreme and we must go on even if we have no feeling, or if we have a very bad feeling;

When it seems to be the last thing we ought to be saying, we say it because it is GOD'S fact, and when we begin to affirm GOD'S fact we win through.

Believers know what it is for the enemy to try to make them accept the authority of darkness. 

Stand upon the Truth of GOD.

GOD does not change with our feelings. GOD does not alter with our consciousness.

This whole life of ours is subject to variation more swift than the variation of weather, but He Rules, Unalterable, Unchangeable.

He is "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever."

And if He is there within, He has come to stay, and victory is in faith; believing that, standing on that, holding to that; and we must carry that through to its final and full issue, that He is Lord of all, "Head of all principality and power." 

Satan will sometimes try to make us believe that he is in the place of ascendancy, the place of supremacy, but since Calvary he is not, we stand there.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Let No Evil Remain

Deut. 13:17  And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; 

Israel must conquer idolatrous cities and destroy all the spoil, regarding all that had been polluted by idolatry as an accursed thing to be burned with fire.

Now, sin of all sorts must be treated by Christians in the same manner.

We must not allow a single evil habit to remain.

It is now war to the knife with sins of all sorts and sizes, whether of the body, the mind, or the spirit.

We do not look upon this giving up of evil as deserving mercy, but we regard it as a fruit of the grace of God, which we would on no account miss.

When God causes us to have no mercy on our sins, then He has great mercy on us.

When we are angry with evil, God is no more angry with us. 

When we multiply our efforts against iniquity, the LORD multiplies our blessings.

The way of peace, of growth, of safety, of joy in Christ Jesus will be found by following out these words: "There shall nought of the cursed thing cleave to thine hand."

LORD, purify me this day.

Compassion, prosperity, increase, and joy will surely be given to those who put away sin with solemn resolution. 

~Charles Spurgeon

Expectations Beyond Us

Act 12:5  Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.

But prayer is the link that connects us with God. This is the bridge that spans every gulf and bears us over every abyss of danger or of need.

How significant the picture of the Apostolic Church: Peter in prison, the Jews triumphant, Herod supreme, the arena of martyrdom awaiting the dawning of the morning to drink up the apostle's blood, and everything else against it. 

But prayer was made unto God without ceasing.

And what was the sequel? The prison open, the apostle free, the Jews baffled, the wicked king eaten of worms, a spectacle of hidden retribution, and the Word of God rolling on in greater victory.

Do we know the power of our supernatural weapon? Do we dare to use it with the authority of a faith that commands as well as asks?

GOD baptize us with holy audacity and Divine confidence!

He is not wanting great men, but He is wanting men who will dare to prove the greatness of their GOD. 

But GOD! But prayer!

~A. B. Simpson~

Beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting GOD, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. 

Expect unexpected things, above all that we ask or think. Each time you intercede, be quiet first and worship God in His glory. 

Think of what He can do, of how He delights to hear Christ, of your place in Christ; and expect great things.

~Andrew Murray~

Our prayers are God's opportunities.

Are you in sorrow? Prayer can make your affliction sweet and strengthening. Are you in gladness? Prayer can add to your joy a celestial perfume. 

Are you in extreme danger from outward or inward enemies? Prayer can set at your right hand an angel whose touch could shatter a millstone into smaller dust than the flour it grinds, and whose glance could lay an army low. 

What will prayer do for you? I answer: All that God can do for you. "Ask what I shall give thee." 

~Farrar~

Wrestling prayer can wonders do, Bring relief in deepest straits; Prayer can force a passage through Iron bars and brazen gates.