The Cross And The Flesh Cannot Exist Together

And that “One died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him” 

2Co 5:14  For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

2Co 5:15  And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

So far as GOD was concerned the history of the fallen race was concluded at Calvary.

From that time onward, GOD'S entire concern was the new creation.

It is no use our trying to bring some of the old creation life into the new creation, for GOD will not accept it.

Our human capabilities as well as our infirmities; what we call our better side as well as what we recognize to be our worst side; our goodness and our badness have all been included in that death.

Henceforth we are called to live not on a human level but on a divine.

In ourselves we possess nothing which is acceptable to GOD.

So often it is the assertion of some human element, some like or dislike, some ambition or some personal interest which paralyses the work of GOD in and through us.

To regard not only our sins but ourselves as having been taken to the Cross by Christ is the only way by which those purposes of GOD can be wrought out through our lives.

It may seem strange that while we so often deplore our lack of spirituality, we are so slow to accept the verdict of the Cross on our natural lives.

We find it humiliating to accept the same verdict on ourselves as has been passed on the world, namely that of death by crucifixion.

Nevertheless there is no other basis for a really spiritual life and witness: the Cross must work out death in us in order that the life of Christ may be released in full expression through us. 

So there may be a sense in which the Christian also has to face the offense of the Cross.

Only by really knowing the power of the fact that he is crucified with Christ can he know the blessedness of the new life.

When it is truly “no longer I”, then the way is opened for the affirmation: “but Christ that liveth in me”.

The end is glorious but the way is the painful way of the Cross.

~T. Austin Sparks~

But Oh, The Struggle! Oh, The Conflict!

Eze 21:27  I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.

Jesus wants our hearts and affections. Therefore every idol must go down, sooner or later, because the idol draws away the affections of the soul from Christ.

Everything that is loved in opposition to Him must sooner or later be taken away, that the LORD Jesus alone may be worshiped. 

Everything which exacts the allegiance of the soul must be overthrown. 

Jesus shall have our heart and affections, but in having our heart and affection, He shall have it... wholly, solely, and undividedly. He shall have it entirely for Himself. He shall reign and rule supreme.

Now, here comes the conflict and the struggle. SELF says, "I will have a part." Self wants to be... honored, admired, esteemed, bowed down to.

Self wants to indulge in, and gratify its desires. Self wants, in some way, to erect its throne in opposition to the LORD of life and glory.

But Jesus says, "No! I must reign supreme!"

Whatever it is that stands up in opposition to Him, down it must go! Just as Dagon fell down before the ark, so self must fall down before Christ...in every shape, in every form, in whatever subtle guise self wears, down it must come to a wreck and ruin before the King of Zion! 

So, if we are continually building up SELF, Jesus will be continually overthrowing self. 

If we are setting up our idols, He shall be casting them down. 

If we are continually hewing out "cisterns that can hold no water," He will be continually dashing these cisterns to pieces.
If we think highly of our knowledge, we must be reduced to total folly. 

If we are confident of our strength, we must be reduced to utter weakness. 

If we highly esteem our attainments, or in any measure are resting upon the power of the creature, the power of the creature must be overthrown, so that we shall stand weak before GOD, unable to lift up a finger to deliver our souls from going down into the pit.

In this way does the LORD teach His people the lesson that Christ must be all in all. They learn... not in the way of speculation, nor in the way of mere dry doctrine, not from the mouth of others, but they learn these lessons in painful soul-experience. 

And every living soul that is sighing and longing after a manifestation of Christ and desiring to have Him enthroned in the heart; every such soul will know, sooner or later...an utter overthrow of self, a thorough prostration of this idol, a complete breaking to pieces of this beloved image, that the desire of the righteous may be granted, and that Christ may reign and rule as KING and LORD in him and over him, setting up His blessed kingdom there, and  winning to Himself every affection of the renewed heart. 

Are there not moments, friends, are there not some few and fleeting moments when the desire of our souls is that Christ should be our LORD and GOD; when we are willing that He should have every affection; that every rebellious thought should be subdued and brought into obedience to the cross of Christ; that every plan should be frustrated which is not for the glory of GOD and our soul's spiritual profit?

Are there not seasons in our experience when we can lay down our souls before GOD, and say "Let Christ be precious to my soul, let Him come with power to my heart, let Him set up His throne as LORD and KING, and let self be nothing before Him?" 

But oh, the struggle! oh, the conflict! when GOD answers these petitions!

When our plans are frustrated, what a rebellion works up in the carnal mind!

When self is cast down, what a rising up of the fretful, peevish impatience of the creature!

When the LORD does answer our prayers, and strips off all false confidence; when He does remove our rotten props, and dash to pieces our broken cisterns, what a storm; what a conflict takes place in the soul!

But He is not to be moved; He will take His own way. "I will overturn, let the creature say what it will. I will overturn, let the creature think what it will. Down it shall go to ruin! It shall come to a wreck! It shall be overthrown! My purpose shall be accomplished, and I will fulfill all My pleasure.

Self is a rebel who has set up an idolatrous temple, and I will overturn and bring the temple to ruin, for the purpose of manifesting My glory and My salvation, that I may be your LORD and your GOD." 

If GOD has overturned our bright prospects, shall we say it was a cruel hand that laid them low?

If He has overthrown our worldly plans, shall we say it was an unkind act?

If He has reduced our false righteousness to a heap of rubbish, in order that Christ may be embraced as our all in all, shall we say it was a cruel deed?

Is he an unkind father who takes away poison from his child, and gives him food? Is she a cruel mother who snatches her boy from the precipice on which he was playing? No! The kindness was manifested in the act of snatching the child from destruction! 

So if the LORD has broken and overthrown our purposes, it was a kind act; for in so doing He brings us to nothing, that Christ may be embraced as our all in all, that our hearts may echo back, "O LORD, fulfill all Your own promises in our souls, and make us willing to be nothing; that upon the nothingness of self, the glory and beauty and preciousness of Christ may be exalted!"

~J. C. Philpot~

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Perfection Of Suffering

Psa 138:8  The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands. 

There is a Divine mystery in suffering, a strange and supernatural power in it, which has never been fathomed by the human reason.

There never has been known great saintliness of soul which did not pass through great suffering. 

When the suffering soul reaches a calm sweet carelessness, when it can inwardly smile at its own suffering, and does not even ask GOD to deliver it from suffering, then it has wrought its blessed ministry; then patience has its perfect work; then the crucifixion begins to weave itself into a crown.

It is in this state of the perfection of suffering that the Holy Spirit works many marvelous things in our souls.

In such a condition, our whole being lies perfectly still under the hand of GOD; every faculty of the mind and will and heart are at last subdued; a quietness of eternity settles down into the whole being; the tongue grows still, and has but few words to say; it stops asking GOD questions; it stops crying, "Why hast thou forsaken me ?"

The imagination stops building air castles, or running off on foolish lines; the reason is tame and gentle; the choices are annihilated; it has no choice in anything but the purpose of GOD.

The affections are weaned from all creatures and all things; it is so dead that nothing can hurt it, nothing can offend it, nothing can hinder it, nothing can get in its way;

For, let the circumstances be what they may, it seeks only for GOD and His will, and it feels assured that GOD is making everything in the universe, good or bad, past or present, work together for its good.

Oh, the blessedness of being absolutely conquered! of losing our own strength, and wisdom, and plans, and desires, and being where every atom of our nature is like placid Galilee under the omnipotent feet of our Jesus.

~Soul Food~

The great thing is to suffer without being discouraged. 

~Fenelon~

The heart that serves, and loves, and clings, Hears everywhere the rush of angel wings.

Whose Battle?

1Sa 17:47  And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD'S, and he will give you into our hands.
 
Let this point be settled, that the battle is the LORD's, and we may be quite sure of the victory, and of the victory in such a way as will best of all display the Power of GOD.

The LORD is too much forgotten by all men, yea, even by the assemblies of Israel; and when there is an opportunity to make men see that the great First Cause can achieve His purposes without the power of man, it is a priceless occasion which should be well employed.

Even Israel looks too much to sword and spear. It is a grand thing to have no sword in the hand of David, and yet for David to know that his God will overthrow a whole army of aliens.

If we are indeed contending for truth and righteousness, let us not tarry till we have talent, or wealth, or any other form of visible power at our disposal; but with such stones as we find in the brook, and with our own usual sling, let us run to meet the enemy.

If it were our own battle we might not be confident; but if we are standing up for Jesus and warring in His strength alone, who can withstand us?

Without a trace of hesitancy let us face the Philistines; for the LORD of hosts is with us, and who can be against us?

~Charles Spurgeon~ 

Trouble Teaches

The question often comes, "Why didn't He help me sooner?"

It is not His order. He must first adjust you to the trouble and cause you to learn your lesson from it.

His promise is, "I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him."

He must be with you in the trouble first all day and all night. 

Then He will take you out of it.

This will not come till you have stopped being restless and fretful about it and become calm and quiet.

Then He will say, "It is enough."

God uses trouble to teach His children precious lessons. They are intended to educate us.

When their good work is done, a glorious recompense will come to us through them.

There is a sweet joy and a real value in them. He does not regard them as difficulties but as opportunities.

 ~Selected.

Not always OUT of our troublous times, And the struggles fierce and grim, But IN--deeper IN - to our one sure rest, The place of our peace, in Him.

~Annie Johnson Flint~

We once heard a simple old colored man say something that we have never forgotten: "When God tests you, it is a good time for you to test Him by putting His promises to the proof, and claiming from Him just as much as your trials have rendered necessary."

There are two ways of getting out of a trial.

One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over.

The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of Divine grace.

Thus even the adversary becomes an auxiliary, and the things that seem to be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way.

Surely, this is to be more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

~A. B. Simpson~

Have You Been Diverted From What Counts For GOD?

If we are going to stand with GOD, for that which wholly represents His mind, we have to meet the most fierce antagonism, conflict, and pressure, from every quarter;

There is going to be no method overlooked by the enemy for frustrating the end in view.

Why so much antagonism? Why so much pressure?

Each time when something is in view which is to count for GOD in relation to His End-time purpose, there it is, you meet it all the time.

Where does the Devil get his information from?

He finds out when we have a message from GOD that is going to count, and we meet this pressure from within and without when we are in the thing that is counting for GOD.

When it comes you must recognize that it is related to something which is to count for GOD.

It will come through people, and if we blame the people and focus our attention on them, we have missed the point;

If we begin to fight people whilst all the time it is something deeper:

Eph 6:12  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

People get cross with one another, and that gets on top of us, and we begin to direct our attention to them, and we get out with them and there is a distressing situation, and we see afterwards how foolish we are to allow the Devil to swing us off into a human track when it is a spiritual issue.

It has not really been the fault of persons, or just inconsequential happenings; there has been a spiritual issue at stake...

And all these other things were brought about and used by the enemy to occupy us with the lesser, and so blind us to the real issue, thus keeping us out of prayer, and preventing our standing with the LORD for His rights which were at some point or other being challenged.

It is the realm of unceasing conflict, and it would seem that we have come into that part of the age when the enemy takes no rest, and we find we can take no off-times.

Anything you do must be done deliberately with GOD, and you must never act out of, or apart from, GOD; that exposed movement has been watched for by the enemy, and you have to pay for it.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Unstaggering Trustfulness

He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD"   (Psalm 112:7).
 
Suspense is dreadful. When we have no news from home, we are apt to grow anxious, and we cannot be persuaded that "no news is good news."

Faith is the cure for this condition of sadness; the LORD by His Spirit settles the mind in holy serenity, and all fear is gone as to the future as well as the present.

The fixedness of heart spoken of by the psalmist is to be diligently sought after.

It is not believing this or that promise of the LORD, but the general condition of unstaggering trustfulness in our God, the confidence which we have in Him that He will neither do us ill Himself nor suffer anyone else to harm us.

This constant confidence meets the unknown as well as the known of life.

Let the morrow be what it may, our God is the God of tomorrow.

Whatever events may have happened, which to us are unknown, our Jehovah is God of the unknown as well as of the known.

We are determined to trust the LORD, come what may.

If the very worst should happen, our God is still the greatest and best.

Therefore will we not fear though the postman's knock should startle us or a telegram wake us at midnight.

The LORD liveth, and what can His children fear.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Hear So As To Be Heard

John 15:7  If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Note well that we must hear Jesus speak if we expect Him to hear us speak.

If we have no ear for Christ, He will have no ear for us. In proportion as we hear we shall be heard.

Moreover, what is heard must remain, must live in us, and must abide in our character as a force and a power.

We must receive the truths which Jesus taught, the precepts which He issued, and the movements of His Spirit within us; or we shall have no power at the Mercy Seat.

Suppose our LORD's words to be received and to abide in us, what a boundless field of privilege is opened up to us!

We are to have our will in prayer, because we have already surrendered our will to the LORD's command.

Thus are Elijahs trained to handle the keys of heaven and lock or loose the clouds.

One such man is worth a thousand common Christians.

Do we humbly desire to be intercessors for the church and the world, and like Luther to be able to have what we will of the LORD?

Then we must bow our ear to the voice of the Well-beloved, treasure up His words, and carefully obey them.

He has need to "hearken diligently" who would pray effectually.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The I AM Has Come Down

Exo 3:8  And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.  

THIS is a marvelous chapter, because it is so full of God. If the previous one, in its story of human striving, reminds us of Romans 7--this as surely recalls Rom. 8.

There is little mention of the part that Moses was to play, but much is said of what God was about to do. "I am come down." "I will bring you up." "I will put forth Mine hand."

O weary soul, bitter with weary bondage, groaning beneath cruel taskmasters, afflicted and tossed with tempest, the I AM has come down!

God comes down to our lowest to lift us to His highest. - This is the theme of the Magnificent, and of Hannah's song.

God comes down to the dust for the poor, and to the dunghill for the needy.

You cannot be too lonely or broken in spirit for Him to notice and help.

In proportion to your humiliation will be your exaltation.

He comes down to our saddest to lift us to His joyfullest. - How great the contrast between the cry of the Hebrews, because of their taskmasters, and the exultant note that smote on the rocks of the Red Sea!

Such shall be your experience also. If you suffer in the line of God's will and providence, you are sowing the seeds of light and gladness. Oh, anticipate the harvest!

He comes down...our helplessness to succor with His great might. - Israel could not help herself; but the resources of I AM were sufficient for every need, and they will be for yours and mine.

This is God's blank check; fill it in!

Insert after these majestic words, wisdom, or courage, or love, or whatever you need most.

And He will be all this, and more also: not for a moment, but always; not spasmodically, but unchangeably.

~F. B. Meyer~

Patient Endurance In Trial

And it is well for us to bear in mind that in no way is God more glorified, and the souls of others benefited than by the patient endurance of His people in trial. 

Perhaps you may be ready to repine at a period of apparent uselessness being allotted to you.

Were you able actively to labor in the vineyard, you may imagine that you might do far more good than it is possible for you to do now.

You may say to yourself, "The cup of suffering which Christ drank brought great blessings to the world...but what good to any one can come about through my affliction?"

Now it is certain that we can judge very little indeed about a matter like this. God's ways are not our ways.

By the most likely means, a very small amount of good may be effected...while by means we have never thought of, He may bring great glory to Himself and good to man.

An aged clergyman was accustomed for many years to visit a long confirmed invalid, who patiently bore up under great suffering. "I wonder why God keeps me here," she would say... 

I can do no good to anyone. Yes, God has a work for you to do.

Impossible! I never see any one.

Yes, God uses the weakest instrument, and you may be able to teach me.

Well, then, she replied, "I am willing to suffer as long as God pleases."

And so it happened as her pastor had said.

During the long illness which preceded his death, he remarked that he knew not how he could have borne the pain, had it not been for the remembrance of the meekness and submission which that Christian woman had displayed.

A similar example might be found in the account that has been given of the farewell counsels of an eminent French pastor. 

During his last illness he assembled a few Christian people in his chamber from Sunday to Sunday, and, in the midst of extreme weakness and suffering, gave them the fruits of his own ripened experience.

Perhaps never during his whole ministry did his words make so deep an impression, and "The Farewells of Adolphe Monod" have likewise brought a message of consolation to many a one in our own land.

Besides, however, the way in which God often employs the weakness and suffering of His servants to effect a work for His name...it is to be remembered also that He often uses it as a preparation, that when the season of affliction has passed, His servant may be able the better to teach and comfort others.

Lessons practically learned for the first time in the day of sorrow may be intended for the benefit not only of the sufferer himself, but also for very many besides in future years.

It is not too much to say that the ministry which has often been most richly blessed, has received its tone and character from trials which seemed at the time almost unbearable.

Hence, reader, in every trying hour strive in the strength of Jesus, in the might of His Spirit; meekly to bow beneath your Father's hand, yes, even to kiss the hand that presents the bitter cup. 

~George Everard~

Mixture Of Truth And Error

It does not require a great deal of intelligence in order to recognize that, throughout the history of God's work, the master-stroke of the great perverter has been confusion.

God is not the God of confusion, but of order. 

Satan is the god of confusion. To get order out of chaos, God said: "Let there be light".

To get chaos out of order, Satan says 'Let there be confusion'.

His it is to confuse issues and elements.

To do this, he must - as the word suggests - fuse (or try to fuse) elements which are constitutionally different and do not belong to each other.

Thus there is a constitutional contradiction and inconsistency.

It is only when his master-method runs amok that we have utter and unmitigated wickedness.

His main work is deception by mixture. 

It is just here that the place, meaning, and sovereignty of the Holy Spirit in the life of the child of God has its meaning and importance. 

 

He is 'The Spirit of Truth'. He alone knows where truth ends and falsehood begins.

Only as we truly "walk in the Spirit" shall we know the truth and be made free from error.

A walk in the Spirit demands a 'circumcised heart', a heart in which the severance has been made between flesh and spirit, Christ and self.

 

There has never been a heresy that has not had in it sufficient truth to deceive very good people.

Likewise, there has never been anything wholly of God but the strategy of the Evil One has been to fasten on to it some implication, insinuation, interpretation, or suggestion, that would make it questionable or 'dangerous'.

He even did this with the LORD Jesus Himself. 

He did it with Paul all through his life.

Let a demon-possessed girl in Philippi sponsor the preaching of Paul and Silas, and it is damned and discredited.

 

So, we come to this. A good thing can be made its own enemy, by being either confused, or taken out of its true meaning.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Lukewarm

Elijah made it as difficult as he could for the LORD. He wanted fire, but yet he soaked the sacrifice with water!

GOD loves such holy boldness in our prayers.

Ask of Me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Psalm 2:8

Oh, my ministering brethren! Much of our praying is but giving GOD advice.

Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves
or for our denomination.

Perish the thought! Our goal must be GOD alone.

It is His honor that is defiled, His blessed Son who is ignored,
His laws broken, His name profaned, His book forgotten, His house made a circus of social efforts.

Does GOD ever need more patience with His people than when
they are "praying"?

We tell Him what to do and then how to do it.

We pass judgments and make appreciations in our prayers.

In short, we do everything except pray!

No Bible school can teach us this art. What Bible school has "prayer" on its curriculum?

The most important thing a man can study is the prayer part of the book. But where is this taught?

Let us strip off the last bandage and declare that many of our presidents and teachers do not pray, shed no tears, know no travail.

Can they teach what they do not know?

The man who can get believers to praying would, under GOD,
usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known. 

There is no fault in GOD. He is able. 

GOD "is able to do according to the power that worketh in us." 

GOD'S problem today is not communism, nor yet Romanism, nor liberalism, nor modernism.

GOD'S problem is - dead fundamentalism!

Rev 3:16  So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Sin today is both glamorized and popularized, thrown into the ear by radio, thrown into the eye by television, and splashed on popular magazine covers.

Churchgoers, sermon-sick and teaching-tired, leave the meeting as they entered it - visionless and passionless!

Oh GOD, give this perishing generation ten thousand John the Baptists!

Just as Moses could not mistake the sight of the burning bush,
so a nation could not mistake the sight of a burning man!

GOD meets fire with fire.

John the Baptist was a new man with a new message.

As a man accused of murder hears the dread cry of the judge, "Guilty!" and pales at it, so the crowd heard John's cry, "Repent!" until it rang down the corridors of their minds, stirred memory, bowed the conscience and brought them terror-stricken to repentance and baptism!

After Pentecost, the onslaught of Peter, fresh from his fiery baptism of the Spirit, shook the crowd until as one man they cried out: "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

Imagine someone telling these sin-stricken men, "Just sign a card! Attend church regularly! Pay your tithes!" No! A
thousand times no!

If in our cultivated unbelief and our theological twilight and our spiritual powerlessness, we have grieved and are continuing to grieve Thy Holy Spirit, then in mercy spew us out of Thy mouth!

If Thou cannot do something with us and through us, then please GOD, do something without us!"

~Leonard Ravenhill~

The Cross Comes Against Any Changed State

There is one thing against which the Cross always stands: namely, a state that is other than that which GOD intended

The Cross stands over the nature of things when that nature has become different.

Whenever the nature of things has changed from what GOD either made it at the beginning, or intended it to be, GOD has brought in the Cross in some way or another; at once He has introduced the Cross.

The nature of man was changed at the beginning; he became something different in nature from what GOD intended. We all know that by our inheritance.

And immediately the LORD introduced the Cross in the law of travail, of passion, of diversity; He wrote immediately over that state, Despair and Death.

The Cross stood over against that changed state.

The only hope for recovering the divinely intended state, condition, nature of things, lay in the Cross.

The Cross is the great purifying agent; and purifying simply means getting rid of mixture.

When there are things which do not correspond or tally, they are of two natures, two realms, two opposing elements; when there is impurity, adulteration, the Cross stands four-square against it in order to purify.

The very first thing with GOD whether in the individual, or in any company of His people locally, or in the Church universal is its purity, its cleanness, its separation from all iniquity and all mixture.

Our Christian life is based upon the Cross, individually, locally, and universally.

The Cross sees GOD'S mighty, terrible, eternal declaration against impurity, the contamination and corruption that has come in to make a state, in man and in the world, which He never intended to be.

If, therefore, the LORD sees any state that He never intended to be, that contradicts His mind in this matter.

He will bring in the Cross as a working power; and, where that is found, there will begin to arise a situation.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Our Great Opportunities

Job 38:22  Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,
 
Job 38:23  Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?

Our trials are great opportunities. Too often we look on them as great obstacles.

It would be a haven of rest and an inspiration of unspeakable power if each of us would henceforth recognize every difficult situation as one of GOD'S chosen ways of proving to us His love and look around for the signals of His glorious manifestations;

Then, indeed, would every cloud become a rainbow, and every mountain a path of ascension and a scene of transfiguration.

If we will look back upon the past, many of us will find that the very time our Heavenly Father has chosen to do the kindest things for us, and given us the richest blessings, has been the time we were strained and shut in on every side.

GOD'S jewels are often sent us in rough packages and by dark liveried servants, but within we find the very treasures of the King's palace and the Bridegroom's love.

~A. B. Simpson~

Trust Him in the dark, honor Him with unwavering confidence even in the midst of mysterious dispensations, and the recompense of such faith will be like the molting of the eagle's plumes, which was said to give them a new lease of youth and strength.

~J. R. Macduff~

If we could see beyond today As GOD can see; If all the clouds should roll away, The shadows flee; O'er present griefs we would not fret. 

Each sorrow we would soon forget, For many joys are waiting yet For you and me.

If we could know beyond today As GOD doth know, Why dearest treasures pass away And tears must flow; 

And why the darkness leads to light, Why dreary paths will soon grow bright; Some day life's wrongs will be made right, Faith tells us so.

If we could see, if we could know, We often say, But GOD in love a veil doth throw Across our way; 

We cannot see what lies before, And so we cling to Him the more, He leads us till this life is o'er; Trust and obey.