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

Thursday, December 29, 2016

He Will Carry Us Home

Isa 46:4  And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.

The year is very old, and here is a promise for our aged friends; yes, and for us all, as age creeps over us.

Let us live long enough, and we shall all have hoar hairs; therefore we may as well enjoy this promise by the foresight of faith.

When we grow old our God will still be the I AM, abiding evermore the same.

Hoar hairs tell of our decay, but He decayeth not.

When we cannot carry a burden and can hardly carry ourselves, the LORD will carry us. 

Even as in our young days He carried us like lambs in His bosom, so will He in our years of infirmity He made us, and He will care for us.

When we become a burden to our friends and a burden to ourselves, the LORD will not shake us off, but the rather He will take us up and carry and deliver us more fully than ever.

In many cases the LORD give His servants a long and calm evening.

They worked hard all day and wore themselves out in their Master's service, and so He said to them, Now rest in anticipation of that eternal Sabbath which I have prepared for you.

Let us not dread old age.

Let us grow old graciously since the LORD Himself is with us in fullness of grace.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Saturday, December 24, 2016

The Night Of Weeping~Selfishness

All seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's.

This was Paul's complaint, not of the ungodly, but of the churches of Christ.

It was the selfishness he saw in the saints that gave occasion to these sorrowful words.
 

This selfishness is of various kinds, and shows itself in various ways.

It is selfishness in reference to the things of Christ; or in reference to the Church of Christ; or in reference to the work given us to do;

Or in reference to the sacrifices we are called upon to undergo, and the toils we are called upon to endure.

It would be easy to show how God's chastisements are pointed at all these forms of selfishness, aiming deadly blows at each one of them from the outermost to the innermost circle.

But this is too large a field. We shall merely take up the first, and even it we can only touch upon.

It is the most important of them all, and stands so connected with the rest that whatever uproots it destroys the other also.
 

Selfishness, in reference to the things of Christ, obviously springs from coldness towards Christ Himself.

A preference of self to Christ is its root and source.

Anything, therefore, that tends to obscure or keep out of view the person of Christ must lead to selfishness.

It may be the love of the world; it may be the love of the creature, it may be the love of man's applause.

These are the dark bodies that eclipse the glory of a living Savior and nourish self.

But these are not all. Satan has deeper devices still.

He brings in religion between us and the Savior!

Religious acts, ordinances, duties, are all turned by him into so many instruments for exalting self and lowering the Savior.

But even this is not all. He has a subtler device still for these last days.

He is trying to make the work of Christ a substitute for His person, to fix attention so much upon the one as to exclude the other.

The result of this is a thoroughly selfish and sectarian religion.

I know this is delicate ground, but the evil is an augmenting one and ought to be made known.
 

There are not a few who are so occupied with truth that they forget "the true one," so occupied with faith that they lose sight of its personal object...

So given to dwelling upon the work of Christ that they overlook His person.

They seem to regard the latter subject as a matter, if not beyond them, at least one about which it will be time enough to concern themselves when they see Him face to face.

What He is seems a question of small importance, provided they know that He has accomplished a work by which they may secure eternal life. 

We are forgiven, they say, "we have peace- all is well."

They take but little interest in the person of Him who has purchased these blessings.

The redemption is all, and the Redeemer is nothing, or, at least, very little!

The sufficiency of His work is all, the glory and excellence of His person, nothing!

What is this but selfishness?

We get all the benefit we can out of the work of Christ, and then leave Him alone!

And this selfishness introduces itself everywhere into the actions and thinking of this class. 

We can trace it in the mold of their doctrines.

Their views of the atonement are selfish, being framed not upon the principle of how God is to get His purpose fulfilled and His glory displayed, but simply of how a sinner is to be saved.

Their views of Jehovah's sovereignty and electing grace are selfish, being just so many devices for taking the sinner out of God's hands, and leaving him in his own control.

Their views of the Spirit's work are selfish, being just an attempt to make His aid appear less absolutely indispensable and man's own skill and strength of very considerable avail in the matter of salvation.

But even where those selfish views of doctrine have not been adopted, there is a latent tendency toward selfishness among many, which can only be ascribed to their neglect of the person of Christ.
 

But what has chastisement to do with this?

Much every way. Chiefly in this that it throws us more entirely for consolation and strength upon the person of the Savior. 

Never do we feel more brought into contact with a living personal Savior than in our days of sorrow.

It is Jesus- Jesus alone- Jesus Himself- whom we feel to be absolutely necessary.

The truth is precious; His work is precious; but it is with Him that we have chiefly to do it is to Him that we pour out our sorrows.
 

Thus by creating a necessity for our leaning on the person of Jesus (blessed necessity!) affliction strikes at that which was the root of selfishness.

By bringing before us another and far more glorious self, it absorbs our own miserable self, until in the person of Jesus we lose sight of our own selves altogether. 

There is nothing that so makes us acquainted with Christ Himself as sorrow; and hence, there is nothing so efficacious in eradicating self.

It is God's cure for selfishness.

It is His way of making us seek, not our own, but the things that are Jesus Christ's.

It is His way of carrying us beyond truth even to "him that is true."

Truth is precious, but in itself it is cold. But the glory of the Gospel is this that it carries us up beyond truth to its living fountainhead.

No, it brings us into the very bosom of Him who came out of the Father's bosom and has now returned to it carrying with Him all those whom the Father has given Him, there, with Him to abide in happy fellowship, world without end.
 

~Horatius Bonar~

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Travail Reveals “Heart” Or “Hollow”

The Lord allows travail indeed, He not only allows it, but appoints it in order to find out whether really there is a heart-relationship to His things.

A few months ago, I found a tree lying at the side of the road, not far from my house.

The day before, it had been upright and growing, and looking like all the other trees.

It had all the leaves of profession, all the proximity of association with other trees, and outwardly it could pass off as being the real thing.

But a storm came, and now it was lying there; and when I looked at it I found that it had no heart:

It was a completely hollow thing-there was only a framework.

That is a parable.

That is what is happening, and what is going to happen, and what God will cause to happen everywhere.

The travail will come...the suffering, persecution, trials, whatever it may be;

And, whatever may be its form, whether it be within or without, it is going to come in order to discover whether there is a heart there for God...

Or whether, after all, it is hollow, it is profession, it is simply association on the outside, and not real on the inside.

God must expose what is not real, and God must test everything to prove it.
 

But what had happened to the other trees... those that stood near the fallen one?

Well, they survived the storm, and they are still standing.

But is that all? Not a bit of it!

The next storm that comes will probably find that it has got a little harder work to do than last time to move these.

Those roots have felt the strain and they have reached down and taken a tighter hold.

They have got a grip on things; they have realized that storms are realities, and that it is a matter of life and death as to whether they stand.
 

It is so easy, is it not, when things get difficult, to walk out, give up?

How often we pray that the Lord will protect from difficulties and troubles!

But the Lord never answers prayers like that. 

These things come to us personally, and they come to us in our little companies...storms, shaking storms, things calculated to devastate and scatter, destroy and finish what is there and the Lord does not protect.

But what is He doing?

On the one side He is finding out whether there is a heart for Him, and whether there is reality in every member, or whether it is only outward show and hollow inside.

On the other hand, He is seeking to bring out the expression of preciousness: that this thing is too precious to let go easily;

It means far too much for us to abandon at the first onset of adversity and trial.

That is the meaning of it, and it explains very much, does it not?

~T. Austin Sparks~

Friday, December 16, 2016

Treasures In The Darkness

Isa 45:3  And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

A Call To Separation

                                                                                  
2Co 6:14  Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

2Co 6:15  And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

2Co 6:16  And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.       


Lev 18:3  After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.

Lev 18:4  Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God 


Lev 20:23  And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

Joh 10:3  To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.

Act 2:40  And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

Heb 13:13  Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. 

Rev 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 

In Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them

2Th 3:14  And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.

Corinthians 5:11, "But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3)

1Jn 3:10  In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.

Pro 1:10  My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

Pro 1:11  If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

Pro 1:12  Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

Pro 1:13  We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

Pro 1:14  Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:
 

Pro 1:15  My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

Pro 1:16  For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. 

Jas 1:27  Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

2 Corinthians 7:1,Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

1Jn 1:5  This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 

Eph 5:8  For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

2Co 6:16  And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

2Co 6:17  Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 


Rom 8:31  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

Mat 5:44  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;











 






 









 

 

                                            

Sunday, December 11, 2016

The Secret Of True Obedience

Heb 5:8  Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
 

Heb 5:9  And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

The secret of true obedience...let me say at once what I believe it to be is the clear and close personal relationship to God. 


All our attempts after full obedience will be failures until we get access to His abiding fellowship.

It is God’s holy presence, consciously abiding with us, that keeps us from disobeying Him.
 

Defective obedience is always the result of a defective life.

To rouse and spur on that defective life by arguments and motives has its use, but their chief blessing must be that they make us feel the need of a different life, a life so entirely under the power of God that obedience will be its natural outcome.

The defective life, the life of broken and irregular fellowship with God, must be healed, and make way for a full and healthy life; then full obedience will become possible.

The secret of a true obedience is the return to close and continual fellowship with God.

He learned obedience. And why was this needful? And what is the blessing He brings us?

Listen, ‘He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him.’
 

Suffering is unnatural to us, and therefore calls for the surrender of our will.
 

Christ needed suffering that in it He might learn to obey and give up His will to the Father at any cost.

He needed to learn obedience that as our great High Priest He might be made perfect.
 

He learned obedience, He became obedient unto death, that He might become the author of our
salvation.


He became the author of salvation through obedience, that He might save those ‘who obey Him.’
 

As obedience was with Him absolutely necessary to procure, it is with us absolutely necessary to inherit, salvation. 

The very essence of salvation is obedience to God. Christ as the obedient One saves us as His obedient ones. 

Whether in His suffering on earth, or in His glory in heaven, whether in Himself or in us, obedience is what the heart of Christ is set upon.
 

On earth Christ was a learner in the school of obedience; in heaven He teaches it to His disciples here on earth.

In a world where disobedience reigns unto death, the restoration of obedience is in Christ’s hands.

As in His own life, so in us, He has undertaken to maintain it. He teaches and works it in us.
 

Let us try and think what and how He teaches: it may be we shall see how little we have given ourselves to be pupils in this school, where alone obedience is to be learnt. 

~Andrew Murray~

Friday, December 9, 2016

Launch Out Into The Deep

One of the special marks of the Holy Ghost in the Apostolic Church was the spirit Of boldness.

One of the most essential qualities of the faith that is to attempt great things for God and expect great things from God, is holy audacity.

Where we are dealing with a supernatural Being, and taking from Him things that are humanly impossible, it is easier to take much than little...

It is easier to stand in a place of audacious trust than in a place of cautious, timid clinging to the shore.

Like wise seamen in the life of faith, let us launch out into the deep, and find that all things are possible with God, and all things are possible unto him that believeth.

Let us to-day attempt great things for God, take His faith and believe for them and His strength to accomplish them.

The mercy of God is an ocean divine, A boundless and fathomless flood;
      

Launch out in the deep, cut away the shore-line, And be lost in the fullness of God.

Oh, let us launch out in this ocean so broad, Where the floods of salvation o'erflow,
      

Oh, let us be lost in the mercy of God, Till the depth of His fulness we know.

~A. B. Simpson~

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

The Antichrist In Us

The hallmark of the natural man is self sufficiency.

He always finds the springs of his resources in himself.

We see that in Adam.

At the beginning up to a certain point his resources were in God.

He drew his instruction and wisdom from God.
Everything was from God.

By the way of obedience to God he was in fellowship with Him.

But then came the moment when he began to act out from himself.

By a subtle insinuation of the devil he began to reason out things for himself, until he became deceived by his own will, and mistrust against God crept into his mind.

He took things out of God’s hands into his own hands.

He ceased to draw his resources from God and thought he could have them in himself.

That is the attitude of the natural man in Adam up to this day.

The natural man acts according to his own natural wisdom.

He seeks to reason out a situation, weighing up things for and against it, and proceeding according to what he thinks to be common sense.

But notice, as the natural man develops in history, the end of this dispensation will produce a natural man (humanity in its fallen state) developed to the utmost.

There will be dictators, supermen, acting from themselves.

They will be a law to themselves, without consulting others.

What they feel, desire and reason out must be done.

That state of things will lead up to Antichrist.

He will be a self-contained man and represent the sum total of all that is natural...reason, desire, will.

He will not hold God in reverence, but will be bigger than God.

In him the human race will be represented in its fully developed fallen nature, turning that whole race against God.

What is true of Antichrist is true, in part, of every member of the human race.

The natural man moves out from himself, but the result is always death.

If we project our own will, our own desires, our own reason into things, however alive they may appear, the result will be death.

Only that which comes out from God is Life.

In connection with this the meaning of the word of the Lord Jesus is of primary importance: “The Son can do nothing of Himself.”

If others believe they can, the Son cannot.

Here is the tremendous difference between the Lord Jesus and ourselves.

He can only move as from the Father.

He can only go if the Father leads Him.

~T. Austin Sparks~                                                   




Saturday, December 3, 2016

Getting Your Eye Where God’s Eye Is

It is a wonderful thing to recognize that the Lord's glory became imparted to Moses by reason of that which became the common object of their eyes.

What the Lord was looking at, Moses was looking at, and as they both looked at it together they shared the same glory. 

When does the Lord’s own face light up with glory? 

When is the Father’s face full of glory?

When He looks upon the Lord Jesus.

The tabernacle was only the Lord Jesus in a representation, and it was the Lord Jesus in all His Mediatorial, Priestly Person and work gathered up in a great system...

But it was the person of the Lord Jesus as relating to man’s fellowship with God...

The place, the sphere where God and man come into oneness, where God can, without sacrificing His holiness, have fellowship with man...

And where man can, without being consumed by the very holiness of God, have fellowship with God.

From Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, with a central-most reality of the mercy seat, He will speak with you face to face.
 
God has set forth Christ as a propitiation.

God sees beyond the pattern to the reality, His Son, and it was Christ Who was in the eye of the Father in all His wonderful, mediatorial work to bring men nigh to God and God nigh to man.

When that is in the eye of God, His face is full of glory, and when we get what is in His eye, we partake of the glory of the shining face of God.

Simply, it just means that when we are occupied with the Lord Jesus in all that He is from the Father to us and to the Father for us, when we are occupied with Him, then we know the shining face.

Be occupied with anything else and you lose the shining face.

Be occupied with yourself and your own spiritual life and condition, so that you are always self-analyzing, and it will not be long before you have lost the shining face.

Keep your eye upon Jesus and you will know the secret of the shining face.

Look around on things as they are in the world and you will lose it.

The secret of the shining face is to get God’s thought about the Lord Jesus, to get your eye where God’s eye is.

That is tremendously important.

~T. Austin Sparks~