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

Sunday, May 27, 2012

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~

Friday, May 25, 2012

The LORD is WORKING In The STORMS


                            
EPH 6:10  Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.


The Lord does not put us in glass houses to grow us to be His trees; the Lord does not protect us from the storms, the adversities; He exposes us to the bitter winds and the scorching suns of adversity and trial.


The Lord is working in us that which is according to His own Nature~eternity, the enduring, the everlasting God~that which will not be easily or hardly carried away. He is putting substance in you. 

Oh, today we fear that the appeal to become Christians is so often in terms of having an easy or a good time; being happy and enjoying yourself; well, thank God for ALL divine joy, but this is true to the House, to the City, that the first thing the Lord is working toward and seeking to work into His people is that substantial, steadfast, enduring faithfulness that is according to His own nature. Substantial! 

Oh for substantial Christians that don’t need coddling and nursing and running after all the time; being pandered to to get them to go on or stand up. Men and women like cedars of Lebanon; like the hewn stones~weighty, accountable, and responsible to carry weight  and all that is meant by strength.

I can only remind you again of what a large place that has in the Word of God: be strong, be strong in the Lord in the strength of His might, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Think again. 

Want to understand why the winds are allowed to blow so fiercely... the storms? To get us away from that natural, easy-going-ness or cheapness, lightness, frivolousness and to make us people of weight. Strength through testing, through adversity~strength to endure throughout all ages.

There is much which is going to be carried away in the last great testing, and if, therefore, trial and adversity is the only way to deepen us, to put caliber into us, I suppose we must expect more of it as the time shortens.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Thursday, May 10, 2012

BALM OF GILEAD

Jer 8:22  Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

There are experiences of suffering through which the Master wills that we should pass. There are burdens which He does not lift, though He takes us, burden and all, into His everlasting arms. But in every suffering which He permits, He is our BALM~ He eases every pain. he comforts every sorrow, He strengthens us in every weakness. There is a "Balm" in our Gilead. Shall we take from Him the comfort which he Offers us today?