Forewarned, Forearmed~Satan Shams Defeat

                                               
To sham defeat is a well-known trick in warfare. 

Nothing will sooner disorganize a regiment than to see the enemy routed on the field. 

While the fight rages, a man is nerved and strung for he is carrying his life in his hand and knows it. 

But with the victory there comes reaction, and men grow careless;...

And there are battles where the enemy has shammed defeat just to inspire that careless spirit. 

O sirs, we are not ignorant of his devices!

This old device of sham defeat- have you not seen it?

You fought like a man with your besetting sin and mastered it. 

God keep you watchful.

God keep you on your guard. 

One careless hour and the routed sin is at the gates again, and the whole battle has to be fought anew. 

We thought the sin was dead, and it was only sleeping. 

We thought that we had slain that habit, and it is stealing over us again. 

We thought we had defeated Satan, and Satan only shammed defeat. 

Keep the loins girded and the lamps burning and the hand upon the sword until the end. 

Our unseen foe is a consummate strategist. 

Many a soul has been lost because it won -won in the first encounter, then said all's well and laid its arms aside...

Till the old sin crept up again and sprang and the last state was worse than the first.

~George H. Morrison

Forewarned, Forearmed~Satan Labels Evil Things With Pleasant Names!

2Co 2:11  Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

Satan Labels Evil Things With Pleasant Names!

There is a tendency in all language to do that...

Whether it springs from a very natural desire to hide the uglier sides of human life or whether it is the survival of some old pagan feeling that tried to propitiate the gods of nature by fair words, we cannot tell. 

But every language has been rich in what grammarians call euphemisms-those nice and delicate words that cover some offensive truth. 

When Prince George of Greece went over to Crete to become governor, there had been fierce rioting and bloodshed between the Muslims and Christians. 

And when he arrived and was received with great enthusiasm, the correspondent of the Times gave a very curious description of the scene.

The long rows of ruined houses, beneath which in some cases, the fire is still smoldering, he wrote, are almost concealed by festoons and banners.

It was an attempt to decorate and hide the tragedies. 

And language is always doing that. 

No man has ever loved to call the seamier side of things by its right name or to look the darker facts of life straight in the face. 

And from the first, language has been busy in fashioning its own festoons and banners to hide these ugly things. 

It is this tendency of human speech that is caught up and wrested by the devil into an engine and instrument of ill. If, in the natural shuddering at death, I shrink from saying, "My mother is dead," and say instead, "She is gone," there is no harm in that. 

But if by any trick of speech I veil the filthiness of sin, or if I cannot see how odious evil is because I have dubbed it with some pleasant name, I have been ignorant of his devices.

Who called the world of self and pleasure the happy world? 

Who named the business man whose transactions border on the shady the smart man? 

Who said that the adulterer who is breaking his wife's heart had his little weakness? 

Who smiled and said the reckless was only fast?

Or called the sowing of a harvest of misery for children's children the sowing of wild oats?

Cease that speech! 

Call vile things by their vile names, and be not ignorant of his devices.

~George H. Morrison

Forewarned, Forearmed-Satan Lays The Emphasis Upon Tomorrow

2Co 2:11  Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. 

We are Always Prone to put the accent there. 

It is very hard to grasp the True splendor of the present.

Today seems insignificant; tomorrow shall be the real day for us....

God Never speaks that way.

God's Bible Never speaks that way.

It tells us that the Present is divine, and lays the whole emphasis upon today: "NOW is the Accepted Time."

And the Holy Ghost is saying, Today.

And this is the Arch-Device of the Arch-Tempter...

In every life, for every start and every noble deed, God says, Today.

In every life for every start and every noble deed, the devil says, Tomorrow.

Is it conversion? Today, says God: Tomorrow, whispers Satan.  

Is it the breaking with that sin? Tomorrow.

Is it the starting on a higher level? Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, always tomorrow!

Till by tomorrow's road we are at Never-and the chance is gone, and the dream has vanished, and the hope is dead.

O friends, young men and women, be not ignorant of that device.

It will never be easier to come to Christ than now.

It will never be easier to make the start than now.

God says, Today, Tonight!

And God who says it is here to give the power that can save Now, and can cleanse Now, and can send you home Now with old things passed away and all things New in Jesus Christ.

~George H. Morrison

Forewarned, Forearmed-Satan Uses Tools!

2Co 2:11  Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

It is one mark of practical genius to choose the right instruments to do its work.

A born administrator is a man who not only works hard himself, but has the skill of choosing the right men to be his assistants.

That is always a mark of practical capacity. 

And a true general shows his genius to command by the way in which he uses each branch of the service-cavalry, artillery, and infantry- for its proper work.

Every administrator must make use of agents; and he displays the greatest genius for administration who picks his agents with the greatest skill.

What a magnificent administrative genius that power must be that plots our ruin if we judge it by a test like that.

Could you conceive a finer choice of instruments than Satan makes when he is seeking to overthrow a human soul?

Out of a hundred gates into your hearts and mine, he passes by those that are barred and chooses one that will open at a touch.

His is the plan and his the whole device...

But he gets other hands and other hearts to do the work...

And the whole history of the tempted world, and the whole story of your tempted heart, tells the skillful genius of the choice.

Think of our Lord's experience...

First, in the wilderness Satan tempted Him. 

He came himself that time: he sent no messenger and used no agent.

It was a personal conflict between the Prince of Darkness and the Prince of Life.

But the next time the baffled tempter fell back upon this old device.

Next time he does not come in person: he comes in Simon Peter.

What, was it not a master-stroke of genius to reach at the heart of Jesus through the loyal heart of that disciple?

And when Jesus turns and detects Satan's voice in Peter's tongue and cries, "Get thee behind me, Satan, thou savourest not the things of God," He was not ignorant of his devices.

And do you think that device is disused today?

Has Satan's brain grown blunted in these latter times?

It is not the men who hate us and it is not the men and women we strongly dislike who tempt us most.

It is those we trust and those who love us best who often prove hell's aptest messengers.

If we but hated those who tempt us, life would become a very easy thing.

It is because we love and respect them so that for a thousand men and women life is hard.

Come, tempter, in thine own cursed shape, and any coward shall beat thee off.

But come through the loving heart of Simon Peter, and look through the loving eyes of Simon Peter, and speak through the loving lips of Simon Peter-and only Christ can make us strong to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan."

~George H. Morrison  

When The Spirit Shuts A Door

                                                                                  
Act 16:7  After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.

What a strange prohibition! These men were going into Bithynia just to do Christ's work, and the door is shut against them by Christ's own Spirit.

I, too, have experienced this in certain moments. 

I have sometimes found myself interrupted in what seemed to me a career of usefulness. 

Opposition came and forced me to go back, or sickness came and compelled me to retire into a desert apart.

It was hard at such times to leave my work undone when I believed that work to be the service of the Spirit. 

But I came to remember that the Spirit has not only a service of work, but a service of waiting. 

I came to see that in the Kingdom of Christ there are not only times for action, but times in which to forbear acting. 

I came to learn that the desert place apart is often the most useful spot in the varied life of man-more rich in harvest than the seasons in which the corn and wine abounded. 

I have been taught to thank the blessed Spirit that many a darling Bithynia had to be left unvisited by me.

And so, Thou Divine Spirit, would I still be led by Thee. 

Still there come to me disappointed prospects of usefulness. 

Today the door seems to open into life and work for Thee; tomorrow it closes before me just as I am about to enter. 

Teach me to see another door in the very inaction of the hour. 

Help me to find in the very prohibition thus to serve Thee, a new opening into Thy service. 

Inspire me with the knowledge that a man may at times be called to do his duty by doing nothing...

To work by keeping still... 

To serve by waiting. 

When I remember the Power of the "still small voice," I shall not murmur that sometimes the Spirit suffers me not to go. 

~George Matheson

When I cannot understand my Father's leading, And it seems to be but hard and cruel fate...

I Still hear that gentle whisper ever pleading, God is working, God is faithful, ONLY WAIT.

"Submit" Yourselves Unto GOD!

Submit Yourselves Unto GOD...

You Must Do It whether you are willing to do so or not. 

Who Can Stand Out Against The Almighty? 

For puny man to Oppose the LORD is for the chaff to set itself in battle array with the wind...

Or for the tow to make war with the flame. 

As well might man attempt to turn back the tide of ocean...

Or check the march of the hosts of heaven as dream of overcoming the Omnipotent. 

The Eternal God is irresistible...

And ANY rebellion against his government must soon end in total defeat. 

By the mouth of his servant Isaiah the LORD challenges His enemies, saying, "Who would set the briars and thorns against me in battle?"

I would Go Through Them, I would Burn Them Together.

GOD Will Be Sure To Overthrow His Adversaries...

He may in his Infinite Patience permit the rebel to continue for a while in his revolt...

But as surely as the Lord liveth He Will Compel Every Knee To Bow Before Him...

And Every tongue to Confess that He Is The LIVING GOD. 

Submit Yourselves Unto GOD.  

Who would do otherwise, since not to submit is Injurious now, and will be Fatal in the end? 

If we Oppose the Most High, our Opposition must lead on to Defeat and Destruction...

For the adversaries of the LORD shall be as the fat of rams, into smoke shall they Consume Away. 

For the man who Strives with his Maker there remains a Fearful Looking For Of Judgment...

And the Dread Reward of Everlasting Punishment. 

Who will be so Foolhardy as to Provoke such a Result?

~Charles Spurgeon~

There Is No Darker Sin Than Ingratitude!

Luke 17:17  And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?

Only one leper returned to give God thanks...

Nine continued on their way unmindful, ungrateful.  

And why was that? 

Perhaps they knew the danger of committing themselves to Jesus...

Knew that He was narrowly watched and suspected...

Knew that even to receive a cure from Him was in itself an offence to many. 

My Lord, I seek grace not to be so cowardly! 

Perhaps they were afraid that now the Master would have a claim upon them and would begin to press that claim. 

He who had given them their health, might demand their loyalty; and they were not ready to yield it. 

My Lord, that I would be more consecrated than they!

Perhaps they were seized with the wish to mix with the world...

To go back to its affairs...

To play their part in its business.

They were impatient of delays which detained them from the promotion of their own interests. 

My Lord, I would learn to hate such selfishness!

Perhaps they thought that they had only got what was their due. 

They thought that the loathsome disease was an injustice and a grievance, and health was their right--and they need not be profoundly grateful. 

Ah my Lord, teach me to watch against this self-conceit and pride! 

Perhaps they told themselves that their Benefactor was no longer necessary to them. 

The pressure of urgent need was past, and its disappearance makes a vast difference. 

My lord, let me never forget Your untold benefits! 

There is no darker sin than ingratitude! 

I entreat You Lord Jesus, to save me from it!

~Alexander Smellie

Has The Warring Spirit Gone Out From "The Church"?

The Warring spirit has gone out from so much of "The Church". 

That is a Clever Strategy of the devil! 

Lose the spirit of Spiritual Battle and you will Stop Short of Finishing The Work.

The next thing that caused these people to settle down too soon was the spirit of the world Getting In amongst them. 

What is the spirit of the world? 

It is the spirit of: Have a good time! 

Let us have a good time! 

Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die! 

And these people of Israel looked at the world around them and, if I understand it rightly, they said...

These people do not have all the hard time that we do.

Our life is a life of Continual Battle. 

They do not know so much about that, but they believe in having a good time.

I think that is how it was at this particular time.

Of course, up to this time Israel had given the people round about a bad time! 

But Israel had Lost The Fighting Spirit now, and the world was having a good time because the Church was No Longer fighting it. 

Instead of fighting the world they Made Friends With The World. 

They Made The World Their Friends, And So They Did Not Finish The Work. 

Compromise is a Dangerous thing to the ..inheritance! 

Trying to be on Good Terms with the world and having an Easy Time will result in our Losing a large part of the inheritance.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Instruments To Deal With Corruption

Take Nehemiah. Nehemiah seems to have had a great deal of his time occupied with dealing with the other false and foreign elements seeking to insinuate themselves into the recovery of this testimony, as represented by the wall: 

The clear line of demarcation between what is of God and what is not of God. 

He found these things had got right into the House of God itself and had established themselves there. 

And he Rooted and Routed them out, but he was constantly being drawn out to deal with these encroachments and these intrusions. 

On the Sabbath day the traders came round the gates of Jerusalem trying to get in, and if they could not get in on the Sabbath day they waited there to get in immediately the doors were opened. 

Nehemiah saw that this was a corrupting thing, it had gained the upper hand and would pollute what he was doing, and he recorded it of himself: "I testified against them". 

Here is a man who is Alive to the Danger of these Foreign elements coming in,...

And he is all the time dealing with that which he knows if once it gets in, will Undo all that he is doing, which will Destroy the testimony.

So it was with Ezra. 

And what business these two men had in the matter of the foreign wives even of the priests! 

These Foreign relationships had to be Disentangled and Cut Off...

And there had to be a breaking in between what was of God and what was not of God in order to establish the testimony in life. 

It had to be done.

In many other illustrations and instances in the Old Testament we have this same thing, that whenever a testimony has to be brought back into fullness of life, Everything that is of darkness, that is Foreign to light, that is Not of God, has got to be Put Out. 

Otherwise our labor is in vain and the Testimony will be Nullified. 

The enemy's persistent activity is to get something in that is Not God. 

If He gets in, it can carry that to the final issue.

That is why the Lord Jesus Himself, as the personification of the testimony of God, said: "for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."

The enemy had tried all through His life to Get Something In. 

In the wilderness, in the temptations, the enemy tried to get something in that was of himself and insinuate himself in some way. 

All along he was trying to do that. 

The enemy knew quite well that if he could get a lodgement for something of his own kingdom that was not of the Father, of God, he was sure of triumph in the long run. 

The testimony of life triumphing over death would be nullified. 

So the enemy Concentrated Upon the chief and the inclusive vessel of that testimony...

But the Lord was able to say at length, when the enemy had tried all his resources: "the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me". 

That is the secret of The Lord's power and His victory; the full triumph of God over death in Him.

This is something which may not be new to us, but to have our attention drawn afresh to it is very important if we really are to be vessels of the testimony of God concerning His Son. 

This applies to us as individuals, as individual believers, as children of God, but oh, how it applies to us and concerns us if we are responsible in any larger way than that of personal Christian life. 

How important it is for us to be alive to this fact, and to always bear it in mind, that as believers and as servants of God the maintenance of the testimony in life with all that that means of the impact of an indestructible all-conquering power over Satan, has to be upheld and maintained.

We Must have a Very Clear Perception as to Corrupting Elements, Defiling Elements and Mixture. 

Mixture is One Of the devil's Master Strokes to Nullify what is of God. 

This letter of John touches upon quite a number of things by which the enemy pursues this course of nullifying of the testimony.

In the first place it speaks of Inconsistency and Contradiction in the life of the believer. 

Take note of one little clause only which is very revealing in that matter: 1Jn 1:6  If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 

1Jn 1:8  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1Jn 1:10  If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1Jn 2:9  He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

Here are contradictions in believers saying one thing, but in the background contradicting the thing we say. 

We need not dwell with that very much. 

It is perfectly clear that here you have two things at work, contradicting one another. 

That is the devil's work.

~T. Austin Sparks

I AM Come To Send Fire On The Earth!

Luke 12:49  I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

Fire always finds things out. 

As it creeps and encroaches and overtakes, it makes one Discrimination between things that it can devour and things over which it has No power. 

It puts them into those categories; the finding out, the classifying, the deciding. 

Look at the context, Luke 12:51 – “Think ye that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.” 

He goes on – “There shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. 

They shall be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother in law against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against her mother in law...”

Discriminating, setting things in the category to which they belong.

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: 

Luke 12:52  For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. 

Luke 12:53  The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

One category is that which can go on and abide and endure because it is of God. 

The other will be licked up by the fire, and simply pass out of existence. 

1Co 3:13  Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. 

The fire of unavoidable and unerring discrimination. 

That has ever been the effect of a work of the Holy Spirit; to put us into the place to which we belong. 

It is a kind of dividing thing all the time. 

Are you for, or are you against? 

Are you with, or are you not with the Lord? 

Are you going on with the Lord, or are you not going on with the Lord? 

The Holy Spirit is pursuing that course all the time to find us out and to just classify us like this, so that when the Holy Spirit has worked we are in definite categories. 

Division has come, and it is unavoidable.

~T. Austin Sparks

There Is A Limit To Affliction

Nahum 1:12  Thus saith the LORD; Though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more.

There is a limit to affliction. 

God sends it, and removes it. 

Do you sigh and say, "When will the end be?" 

Let us quietly wait and patiently endure the will of the Lord till He cometh. 

Our Father takes away the rod when His design in using it is fully served.

If the affliction is sent for testing us, that our graces may glorify God, it will end when the Lord has made us bear witness to His praise.

We would not wish the affliction to depart until God has gotten out of us all the honor which we can possibly yield Him. 

There may be today " a great calm." 

Who knows how soon those raging billows will give place to a sea of glass and the sea birds sit on the gentle waves?

After long tribulation, the flail is hung up, and the wheat rests in the garner. 

We may, before many hours are past, be just as happy as now we are sorrowful.

It is not hard for the Lord to turn night into day. 

He that sends the clouds can as easily clear the skies. 

Let us be of good cheer. It is better farther on. 

Let us sing Hallelujah by anticipation.

~C.H. Spurgeon

The great Husbandman is not always threshing. 

Trial is only for a season. 

The showers soon pass. 

Weeping may tarry only for the few hours of the short summer night; it must be gone at day break. 

Our light affliction is but for a moment. Trial is for a purpose, "If needs be."

The very fact of trial proves that there is something in us very precious to our Lord; else He would not spend so much pains and time on us. 

Christ would not test us if He did not see the precious ore of faith mingled in the rocky matrix of our nature...

And it is to bring this out into purity and beauty that He forces us through the fiery ordeal.

Be patient, O sufferer!  

The result will more than compensate for all our trials, when we see how they wrought out the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 

To have one word of God's commendation; to be honored before the holy angels; to be glorified in Christ, so as to be better able to flash His glory on Himself-ah! that will more than repay for all.

~Tried by Fire

As the weights of the clock, or the ballast in the vessel, are necessary for their right orderings, so is trouble in the soul-life.

The sweetest scents are only obtained by tremendous pressure...

The fairest flowers grow amid Alpine snow-solitudes...

The fairest gems have suffered longest from the lapidary's wheel...

The noblest statues have borne most blows of the chisel.

All, however, are under law. 

Nothing happens that has not been appointed with consummate care and foresight.

~Daily Devotional Commentary-

Sapping Of Vitality

I have not the slightest shadow of a doubt but that the issue of our day, of this hour in the Church's history is...

More than ever, the issue of life and death in a spiritual sense. 

Are you not more and more experiencing that awful sapping of your very vitality?

That draining of your life, that exhausting of your energy, perhaps especially in relation to prayer? 

Is it not true that it often requires a supreme effort to pray, and to get through when you have started to pray? 

You need energizing from a source other than that of your own natural energies in this matter, and that increasingly so. 

There is a strange, deep, terrible sapping of vitality, mental and physical vitality as well as spiritual. 

Spiritual people, at least, know something of that. 

And lying at the back of it is the final conflict of this age. 

It is the spiritual issue of life and death.

The Lord would say to us something about that at this time...

And we have to direct our eyes in the the way of the Lord's thought to the great issue which is at stake for His people. 

I trust that we shall know that He is not only making us aware of it...

And not only warning us about the perils of it...

But that He comes mightily to our aid and shows us what is on our side in the battle.

~T. Austin Sparks~

We Stand On The Verge Of The Unknown

Deu 11:11  But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:

Deu 11:12  A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.

Today, dear friends, we stand upon the verge of the unknown.

There lies before us the new year and we are going forth to possess it.

Who can tell what we shall find?

What new experiences, what changes shall come, what new needs shall arise?

But here is the cheering, comforting, gladdening message from our Heavenly Father, "The Lord thy God careth for it."

All our supply is to come from the Lord.

Here are springs that shall never dry; here are fountains and streams that shall never be cut off. 

Here anxious one, is the gracious pledge of the Heavenly Father.

If He be the Source of our mercies they can never fail us.

No heat, no drought can parch that river, "the streams whereof make glad the city of God."

The land is a land of hills and valleys.

It is not all smooth nor all down hill.

If life were all one dead level the dull sameness would oppress us; we want the hills and the valleys.

The hills collect the rain for a hundred fruitful valleys.

Ah, so it is grace and brings down the shower of blessing...

The hills, the bleak hills of life that we wonder at and perhaps grumble at, bring down showers.

How many have perished in the wilderness, buried under its golden sands, who would have lived and thrived in the hill-country...

How many would have been killed by the frost, blighted with winds, swept desolate of tree and fruit but for the hill- stern, hard, rugged, so steep to climb. 

God's hills are a gracious protection for His people against their foes!

We cannot tell what loss and sorrow and trial are doing. 

Trust only. 

The Father comes near to take our hand and lead us on our way today.

It shall be a good, a Blessed New Year!

He leads us on by paths we did not know; Upward He leads us, though our steps be slow...

Though oft we faint and falter on the way, Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day...

Yet when the clouds are gone, We know He leads us on.

He leads us on through all the unquiet years; Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts and fears...

He guides our steps, through all the tangled maze Of losses, sorrows, and o’er clouded days...

We know His will is done; And still He leads us on. 

~Nicholaus Ludwig Zinzendorf