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, October 29, 2017

Maintain The Difference

Exo 8:23  And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

Pharaoh has a people, and the LORD has a people.

These may dwell together and seem to fare alike...

But there is a division between them,...

And the LORD will make it apparent.

Not forever shall one event happen alike to all...

But there shall be great difference between the men of the world and the people of Jehovah's choice.

This may happen in the time of judgments, when the LORD becomes the sanctuary of His saints.

It is very conspicuous in the conversion of believers when their sin is put away, while unbelievers remain under condemnation.

From that moment they become a distinct race, come under a new discipline, and enjoy new blessings.

Their homes, henceforth, are free from the grievous swarms of evils which defile and torment the Egyptians.

They are kept from the pollution of lust, the bite of care, the corruption of falsehood, and the cruel torment of hatred, which devour many families.

Rest assured, tried believer, that though you have your troubles you are saved from swarms of worse ones, which infest the homes and hearts of the servants of the world's prince.

The LORD has put a division; see to it that you keep up the division in Spirit, aim, character, and company.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Because Of Us

                                                   
For the sake of His elect the LORD withholds many judgments and shortens others. 

In great tribulations the fire would devour all were it not that Out of regard to His elect the LORD damps the flame. 

Thus, while He saves His elect for the sake of Jesus, He also preserves the race for the sake of His chosen. 

What an honor is thus put upon saints! 

How diligently they ought to use their influence with their LORD!

He will hear their prayers for sinners and bless their efforts for their salvation.

He blesses believers that they may be a blessing to those who are in unbelief. 

Many a sinner lives because of the prayers of a mother, or wife, or daughter to whom the LORD has respect.

Have we used aright the singular power with which the LORD entrusts us? 

Do we pray for our country, for other lands, and for the age?

Do we, in times of war, famine, pestilence, stand out as intercessors, pleading that the days may be shortened? 

Do we lament before God the outbursts of infidelity, error, and licentiousness? 

Do we beseech our LORD Jesus to shorten the reign of sin by hastening His own glorious appearing? 

Let us get to our knees and never rest till Christ appeareth.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Impressions

Num 10:33  And they departed from the mount of the LORD three days' journey: and the ark of the covenant of the LORD went before them in the three days' journey, to search out a resting place for them.

God does give us impressions, but not that we should act on them as impressions.

If the impression be from God, He will Himself give sufficient evidence to establish it beyond the possibility of a doubt.

How beautiful is the story of Jeremiah, of the impression that came to him respecting the purchase of the field of Anathoth. 

But Jeremiah did not act upon this impression until after the following day, when his uncle's son came to him and brought him external evidence by making a proposal for the purchase. 

Then Jeremiah said: "I knew this was the word of the Lord."

He waited until God seconded the impression by a providence, and then he acted in full view of the open facts, which could bring conviction unto others as well as to himself. 

God wants us to act according to His mind. 

We are not to ignore the Shepherd's personal voice but, like Paul and his companions at Troas, we are to listen to all the voices that speak and "gather" from all the circumstances, as they did, the full mind of the Lord.

~Dr. Simpson~

Where God's finger points, there God's hand will make the way.

Do not say in thine heart what thou wilt or wilt not do, but wait upon God until He makes known His way.

So long as that way is hidden it is clear that there is no need of action...

And that He accounts Himself responsible for all the results of keeping thee where thou art.

~Selected~

For God through ways we have not known, Will lead His own.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Peacemaking Requires A Watchful And Charitable Silence

Rom 14:19  Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.

One of the first things that makes for social peace is a watchful and a charitable silence.

No man or woman can ever be a peacemaker who has not learned to put a bridle on his lips.

Every student of Christ must have observed the tremendous emphasis He puts on words.

 

Of every idle word, He tells us, in the day of judgment we are to give account.

And if you want to understand aright the passion and the depth of that, you will remember the beatitude, "Blessed are the peacemakers."

Think of the infinite harm that can be wrought by a malicious or a thoughtless tongue;

Think of the countless hearts it lacerates; think of the happy friendships which it chills.


And sometimes there is not even malice in it- only the foolish desire to be speaking...

For evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart.

There is no more difficult task in life than to repeat exactly what someone else has said.

Alter the playful tone, you alter everything.


Subtract the smile, and you subtract the spirit.

And yet how often do we all repeat things that are almost incapable of repetition and so give pain that never was intended.

You can say good-bye in such a tone that it will carry the breaking of a heart.


You can say it in such a tone that it is a dismissal of contempt.

And yet how seldom do we think of tone, of voice, of eye, of smile, of personality when we pass on the word which we have heard.

There are times that call for all outspokenness.


No man ever denounced like Christ. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees." "Go, tell that fox."

All that I know, and yet the fact remains that as we move along life's common ways, one of the mightiest things that makes for social peace is a wise and charitable silence.

Not to believe everything we hear...


Not to repeat everything we hear...

Or else believing it to bury it unless we are called by conscience to proclaim it.

That is a thing that makes for social peace...

 

A thing within our power today...

And it may be along that silent road lies our "Blessed are the peacemakers."

~George H. Morrison~

                                        

Sunday, October 8, 2017

A Drifting Ship Is A Danger To Other Shipping

Act 27:15  And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive.

It is well to note, too, that a drifting ship is always a danger to the other shipping.

Every captain would corroborate that.

You can chart a quicksand or a reef, and having them on the chart you can avoid them...

But nobody can chart a drifting ship; it may be on you in a moment in the night.

It is well to remember that in that regard a drifting life is like a drifting vessel...

It is fraught with peril and disaster.

When a man drifts from his anchorage in Christ, he affects a hundred other lives.

No one can tell the hurt that he may bring when he drifts into indifference and worldliness...

Spoiling the fair name of Christ, damping the zeal of zealous, eager people...

Making it always easier to be skeptical and always harder to be true.
 

One of the signals of a drifting iceberg is a rapid lowering of the temperature.

Drifting lives are just like drifting icebergs: wherever they drift there is fall in temperature.
 

They chill the church.
 

They chill the congregation.

They chill the eager loyalties of youth...

Not because they are notoriously bad, but just because they are drifting.

~George H. Morrison~
     

Friday, October 6, 2017

Refusing To Compromise With The World

In the very first chapter of the book of Daniel, he and his brethren determined that they would not defile themselves with the king’s dainties, nor with the wine from the king’s table...

And that is how they spoke of it when they went to Arioch, the king’s representative, to plead their case. 

They asked...you would think hardly tactfully or diplomatically! – ‘that they might not defile themselves’. 

It is hardly complimentary, at any rate, to speak so of food from the king’s table. 

They pressed this matter of defilement. 

They had seen the principle that by this means they and their testimony would in some way be compromised.

It was a link with this world and with Satan’s kingdom as in this world...

And the effect of it would be – oh, how inclusive and comprehensive this is! – that they would be denying in their very persons the all sufficiency of the Lord. 

If they were to go the way of the world and look like the people of the world, where would be the testimony of the Lord?

If they did not go the way of the world and were to refuse to have any kind of compromise with the world, there would be great opportunity for the Lord to prove that He can go one better than the world, and is more than all the world put together. 

This is the challenge. 

On various grounds and by various arguments, young people especially are tempted to compromise on this point. 

They think they will gain influence with people of the world by coming down to their level and doing as they do, thus getting on an even footing with the world; 

But they do not recognize that such a course so often involves compromise.

More rarely still do they recognize that when God’s people are going to the world for their sustenance and nourishment and pleasure and gratification and so on, it results in a question being cast upon the ability of the Lord to prove how far greater He is than this world. 

The bad spiritual state of the people in Daniel’s day was wholly due to their being in bondage to the world.

Daniel and his brethren would have none of it. 

They stood apart in complete separation from the world, its standards, its ideas and all its resources, to give God the opportunity of proving that He is better than the world, and His servants, by His grace, better than the men of the world. 

That is the testimony, and until that is true, we have no authority, no ascendency, no real testimony.

Separation therefore, unpleasant and hard as the word may sound, is a very fundamental matter if we mean by it that we are separated unto the Lord, that He may show by means of us that this world is a poor thing compared with what we have in Him.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

"Mind The Checks"

1Ki 19:12  And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 

A woman who had made rapid progress in her understanding of the Lord was once asked the secret of her seemingly easy
growth. 


Her brief response was, “Mind the checks.”
 

The reason many of us do not know and understand God better
is that we do not heed His gentle “checks”...


His delicate restraints and constraints...

His voice is “a gentle whisper.” 

A whisper can hardly be heard...

So it must be felt as a faint and steady pressure upon the heart and mind...

Like the touch of a morning breeze calmly moving across the soul.

And when it is heeded, it quietly grows clearer in the inner ear of the heart.
 

God’s voice is directed to the ear of love...

And true love is intent upon hearing even the faintest whisper. 

Yet there comes a time when His love ceases to speak, when we do not respond to or believe His message.

God is love, and if you want to know Him and His voice...

You must continually listen to His gentle touches.
 

So when you are about to say something in conversation with
others...


And you sense a gentle restraint from His quiet whisper...

Heed the restraint and refrain from speaking.

And when you are about to pursue some course of action that seems perfectly clear and right...

Yet you sense in your spirit another path being suggested with the force of quiet conviction, heed that conviction.
 

Follow the alternate course, even if the change of plans appears
to be absolute folly from the perspective of human wisdom.
 

Also learn to wait on God until He unfolds His will before
you. 


Allow Him to develop all the plans of your heart and mind,
and then let Him accomplish them. 


Do not possess any wisdom of your own...

For often His performance will appear to contradict the plan He gave you.

God will seem to work against Himself...

So simply listen...

Obey...

And trust Him...

Even when it appears to be the greatest absurdity to do so... 

Ultimately, “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him”...

But many times, in the initial stages of the performance of His plans: In His own world He is content To play a losing game.

Therefore if you desire to know God’s voice, never consider
the final outcome or the possible results. 


Obey Him even when He asks you to move while you still see only darkness...

For He Himself will be a glorious light within you.

Then there will quickly spring up within your heart a knowledge of God and a fellowship with Him...

Which will be overpowering enough in themselves to hold you and Him together...

Even in the most severe tests and under the strongest pressures of life. 

~From Way of Faith~

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Broken And Used By GOD

 
Psa 51:17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. 

Those people God uses most to bring glory to Himself are those who are completely broken...

For the sacrifice He accepts is a “broken and contrite heart.”

It was not until Jacob’s natural strength was broken, when “his hip was wrenched” (Gen.32:25) at Peniel, that he came to the point where God could clothe him with spiritual power.

And it was not until Moses struck the rock at Horeb, breaking its surface, that cool “water [came] out of it for the people to drink” (Ex. 17:6).

It was not until Gideon’s three hundred specially chosen soldier “broke the jars that were in their hands” (Judg.7:19),which symbolized brokenness in their lives, that the hidden light of the torches shone forth,bringing terror to their enemies.

It was once the poor widow broke the seal on her only remaining jar of oil and began to pour it that God miraculously multiplied it to pay her debts and thereby supplied her means of support.(See 2 Kings 4:1–7.)

It was not until Esther risked her life and broke through the strict laws of a heathen king’s court that she obtained favor to rescue her people from death. (See Est. 4:16.)

It was once Jesus took “the five loaves . . . and broke them” (Luke 9:16) that the bread was multiplied to feed the five thousand.

Through the very process of the loaves being broken, the miracle occurred.

It was when Mary broke her beautiful “alabaster jar of very expensive perfume” (Matt. 26:7), destroying its future usefulness and value, that the wonderful fragrance filled the house.

And it was when Jesus allowed His precious body to be broken by thorns, nails, and a spear that His inner life was poured out like an ocean of crystal-clear water, for thirsty sinners to drink and then live.

It is not until a beautiful kernel of corn is buried and broken in the earth by DEATH that its inner heart sprouts, producing hundreds of other seeds or kernels.

And so it has always been,down through the history of plants,people, and all of spiritual life...

God uses BROKEN THINGS.

Those who have been gripped by the power of the Holy Spirit and are used for God’s glory are those who have been broken...

Broken their finances...

Broken in their self-will...

Broken in their ambitions...

Broken in their lofty ideals...

Broken in their worldly reputation...

Broken in their desires...

And often broken in their health...

Yes, He uses those who are despised by the world and who seem totally hopeless and helpless, just as Isaiah said: “The lame will carry off plunder” (Isa. 33:23).

Oh, break my heart; but break it as a field Is plowed and broken for the seeds of corn;

Oh, break it as the buds, by green leaf sealed, Are, to unloose the golden blossom, torn;

Love would I offer unto Love’s great Master, Set free the fragrance, break the alabaster.

Oh, break my heart; break it, victorious God, That life’s eternal well may flow abroad;

Oh, let it break as when the captive trees, Breaking cold bonds, regain their liberties;

And as thought’s sacred grove to life is springing, Be joys, like birds, their hope,Your victory singing.

~Thomas Toke Bunch~