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

Friday, November 30, 2012

The Kingdom Of Heaven Suffers Violence~~~~~~~~~~ And The Violent Take It By FORCE!


Mat 11:12  And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

The Kingdom is so much bigger than conversion.

Of course, if you are going to be saved at all – I mean saved initially – you will have to mean business for that. You will have to make it a Desperate Matter, because there will be Everything To Stop You.

But the Kingdom means a very great deal more than merely getting into it, far more than being converted.

There is a great deal more in the purpose of God for our lives than we have ever imagined, and if we are to enter into that, Violence Has To Characterize Us.

We MUST Desperately Mean Business, and come to the place where we say: "Lord, I Am Set Upon All That Thou Dost Mean In Christ. I Am Set Upon That, And I Am NOT Going To Allow Other People's Prejudices Or Suspicions Or Criticisms To Get In The Way; I Am NOT Going To Allow Any Man-Made System To Hinder Me

I Am Going Right On With Thee For ALL Thy Purpose. 

I Am Going To Do Violence To Everything That Would Get In The Way." It calls for violence, and we have to do a lot of violence to get all that God wills for us.

Oh, how easily many lives are side-tracked, simply because they are not Desperate Enough!

They are caught in things which Limit – things which may be good, that may have something of God in them, but which none the less are limiting things, and do not represent a wide open way to all God's purpose.

The only way for us to come into all that the Lord means not only into what we have seen but into all that He has purposed – is to be desperate, to be men of violence; to be men who say, "By God's grace, Nothing and No One, however good, is going to stand in my way; I am going on with God." Have that position with the Lord, and you will find that God meets you on that ground.

No men – not even Paul himself – knew all that they were going to know. Paul was constantly getting fuller unveilings of that unto which he was called. He received something fairly strong and rich at the beginning; then, later, he was shown unspeakable things (2 Corinthians 12:4). He was growing in apprehension. But why? Because he was a man of violence. God meets us like that.

With the perverse Thou wilt show Thyself froward (Psalm 18:26). That, in principle, means that God Will Be To You What You Are To Him. He will mean business if you mean business.

There is a vast amount in the Kingdom that we have never suspected. Do believe that.

~T. Austin Sparks~




Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Perils Of Blessing


                             
Joh 1:16  And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.  

When the Lord has blessed and prospered, how many people have not themselves become something? Here is a successful movement! Here is my chance! There is a laying hold of that work, and a turning of it to personal account. That is the history of things.

The most dangerous time for the work of God is the time of blessing. You will always find people coming in when there is blessing, not because they have God's end in view, but because a realm of blessing means personal good....

The Lord is calling us on to the fullness of Christ, and sometimes on the way He may let us see the working of His power, that He is with us.

The world may be against us, the devil may be withstanding, and the Lord lets us see in some little way that He is with us.

And then alongside of that there comes the most awful peril, in that we snap our fingers at everything and everybody, and at the devil himself. We are supported by the Lord in the position we have taken! We are vindicated! That is a perilous position.

The Lord may have to say, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven! Do not find any personal gratification in the fact that the demons are subject unto you!"

It is all in the same realm as glorying in a wrong way in the blessings of the Lord. 

We have to go on steadily, and take our encouragements when they come, thank the Lord quietly for them, and get on with the main business, not staying to gloat over the fruits of the Lord's blessing in a personal way.

There is a great deal of ground covered by that. It is often a source of so much gratification if only you can tell people of the success that is coming to you in the work of the Lord, how many people are coming, how many souls are being saved, how you are being used, how the Lord's seal is upon you. All unconsciously we take hold of the honor for our own flesh.

The Lord has to hide so much from us, because it is dangerous for us; our flesh makes it dangerous. 

We shall be tried by blessing as well as by adversity. The keenest fires of trial are often those of success or prosperity. Such tests discover whether our hearts are fixed upon the Lord or upon things.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Monday, November 26, 2012

When GOD Says "TRUST ME" He Means It!

                                                     
Think for a moment about all the ways God has met the needs of His people throughout history.

When Israel was in the wilderness, they had no supermarkets or grocery stores. There was not even a blade of grass in sight. But God rained down manna from heaven so the people would have bread, and He caused birds to fall by the bushel from the sky so they would have meat. He caused water to gush from a rock. And He supernaturally kept their shoes and clothing intact, so that they never wore out in forty years of use.

In the Old Testament, we read that a hungry prophet was fed by a raven. A barrel of meal and a bottle of oil supernaturally replenished themselves. And an entire enemy army fled upon hearing a strange noise—leaving behind enough supplies to feed an entire city of starving Israelites.

In the New Testament, we read that water was turned into wine. Money was found in a fish's mouth to pay taxes. And five thousand people were fed with only five loaves of bread and two fish.

All these miracles of supply cry out to us, "God is faithful. He can be trusted!" 


And in Leviticus 25, we read of another supernatural phenomenon—an especially ripe harvest in the year before the sabbath for the land.

Next, God commanded that the people observe seven consecutive cycles of sabbaths for the land: "Thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years" (verse 8). In other words: "You are to celebrate this sabbath every seventh year, for a period of forty-nine years—seven sabbaths times seven."

In biblical terms, the forty-nine-year period would comprise a whole generation. The implication here is that such a period would provide enough time for an entire generation to learn to trust the Lord.


Over that time, parents and grandparents would build up a history of faith, so they could tell their children: "Yes, it's true! God supplied everything we needed the first six years, but when the seventh year came, many of us were afraid. Yet God's provision saw us through to the eighth year, and right up to the ninth. Sometimes it was frightening, but there was always enough. No one starved, and no one had to beg. Every need was supplied.

God tested our faith—and He remained faithful!"

The point is, when God says, "Trust me," He means it!


~David Wilkerson~
 

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Be A Faithful Steward


2Ti 1:14  That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.

How much have you to dispense? Are you sure that you are dispensing what you have? The Lord did not lead you through that trial, through that darkness, through that strange experience, just for your own sake. 

The Lord has not dealt with you as He has, in order that you should be shut up to yourself, to enjoy the result alone. He has done that to constitute you a steward.

If you and I will only allow that fact to govern us in the days of difficulty and trial, it will help us through.

We should hold fast to the fact that the trial is to mean enrichment for the Lord's people, and an increase of equipment and qualification for stewardship....

Ask the Lord to release you into your stewardship within your measure.

We are not speaking of an official, organized service for God, where you have to be continually ministering to others, whether you have the resources with which to do it or not. That is all false, and puts strain upon you; you may well revolt against that kind of thing.

We simply have in mind the way in which the Lord creates living contacts.

Children of God may cross your path in dire need, and may all the time be looking for the person who can help them. They have been crying to the Lord to meet the need, and have been watching to see how the Lord would answer. They may cross your path, and you talk upon all sorts of ordinary things; they pass on their way, and you have failed in your stewardship. They have not received that for which they have been asking, and the steward has disappointed the Lord, and those who were looking to the Lord.

Let us ask the Lord to give us release from our tied-up state, to fulfill this stewardship.


The Lord's Word is: "...it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful," not eloquent, intellectual, or with a strong personality, none of those things.

What is your mental conception of a steward?

One who has a great facility of speech, who finds no difficulty in talking? No! "...it is required in stewards, that a man be found FAITHFUL."

~T. Austin Sparks~

Thursday, November 15, 2012

STOP TRYING TO MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR SIN

                                                                          
And they called unto Lot . . . Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them" (Genesis 19:5). 

Lot's day of reckoning finally came. A wild mob of Sodomite men surrounded his house, pounding on the door and shouting obscenities. They demanded that Lot send out the two angels who were staying there so they could rape them.

What a horrifying scene! Yet Lot's reaction was to try to strike a deal with
the men. It appears that Lot was a judge in Sodom, because he sat at the city gates. He had a reputation to protect so he tried to reason with the mob. He even went as far as calling them "brethren"—proving he had taken Sodom's sin
too lightly.

I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters
which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing" (verses 7-8).

One theologian writes that Lot knew his daughters were not in danger because
these men were homosexuals. Perhaps Lot reasoned to himself, "These men are partying sodomizers, looking to fulfill their perverted lusts. They're no threat to women. If I send my daughters out, they'll come home tomorrow morning unharmed."

How foolish! Even if that were true, Lot would have been trying to replace one sin with another. It is impossible to bargain with lust!

Lot, an example of what hidden sin can do to a righteous man, clearly was
deluded. 


His sin had produced in him such a dangerous condition that he would give up everything including his beloved family to save face.

This man was not ready to face reality. He was dragging out his moment of
reckoning, still wheeling and dealing, trying to delay God's deliverance in his life. And, beloved, that is the attitude of many Christians today. They convince themselves, "My God is a God of mercy. He delivered me from my sin before, and He'll do it again."

No! God is saying to you through this passage, No more bargaining. No more
trading a lighter sin for a heavier one. It all has to go!


~ David Wilkerson~

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Look At Thomas

                                        
Look at Thomas. "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe!" 'Say what you like, I am not going to believe!' 

So he has shut himself out and is a man alone.

Then, for some reason or other, perhaps sick of his loneliness or under the persuasion of some friends, he comes in on one occasion where they are. 

He is no more with them in heart, but he is there in body, and the Lord appears, and the first act of the Lord is to make straight for that man. 

Now Thomas, come and see the marks that you demanded to see, reach hither your finger!

Thomas broke, and went down; "My Lord, and my God".

It is that sort of thing that makes the true Christian life and makes the church.

That is what the Lord is after, to get us away from our mere ecclesiasticism, all that externality and formality, and get us down to the place where God in Christ has got our hearts in brokenness and worship, and we simply say "My Lord, and my God".
 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Why Should GOD Use That?

                            
Joh 17:26  And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. 
 
Perhaps you have been amazed sometimes, and perplexed and bewildered, why God should use that, and that and that; and such and such persons.

You have been inclined to say: "It is all contrary to what I believe to be necessary to God for His work. I see that the Bible says that instruments have got to be according to God's mind in order to be used." But history does not bear that out.

As I say, He has used the devil, and the devil is not according to God's mind. There is a sovereignty of God spread over in relation to His end. But when you have said that, it is a frightening fact when you come to the work of God.

I mean this – that we may be working for God, and doing many mighty things as employees of the Kingdom of God, the rule of God, and then, in the end, be cast away!

In the end, we ourselves might just go to pieces. Here it is this strange thing, that these men went out, twelve and seventy, with this 'delegated authority' – this delegated authority and exercised it, and mighty things resulted; and then these same people are found, after the Cross, with their faith shattered; nothing to rest upon. What does it say?

Thank God, the book of the Acts transforms the whole situation! Because the book of the Acts brings in this mighty new factor: that Christ, Who had delegated the authority, is now indwelling as the authority Himself. And the works now are mighty works, but they are not just works FOR the Lord they are the works OF the Lord.

It all goes to prove this tremendous fact: that it is "Christ IN you" that is the indispensable necessity for Life and for work.... What a marvelous thing it is that we are in the dispensation when the one thing, above all others, that God will make true, is "Christ in you" – Christ IN you!

~T. Austin Sparks~