Our Dependency On Christ

2Co 7:5  For, when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears.

Why should God have to lead us thus, and allow the pressure to be so hard and constant?

Well, in the first place, it shows His all-sufficient strength and grace much better than if we were exempt from pressure and trial.

The treasure is in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

It makes us more conscious of our dependence upon Him. God is constantly trying to teach us our dependence, and to hold us absolutely in His hand and hanging upon His care.

This was the place where Jesus Himself stood and where He wants us to stand, not with self-constituted strength, but with a hand ever leaning upon His, and a trust that dare not take one step alone.

 It teaches us trust.

There is no way of learning faith except by trial.

It is God's school of faith, and it is far better for us to learn to trust God than to enjoy life.

The lesson of faith once learned, is an everlasting acquisition and an eternal fortune made; and without trust even riches will leave us poor.

~Days of Heaven upon Earth~

Why must I weep when others sing? "To test the deeps of suffering."
      
Why must I work while others rest? "To spend my strength at God's request."

Why must I lose while others gain? "To understand defeat's sharp pain."

Why must this lot of life be mine When that which fairer seems is thine? "Because God knows what plans for me Shall blossom in eternity"

Before And During The Call

Isa 65:24  And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.

Quick work this! The LORD hears us before we call and often answers us in the same speedy manner.

Foreseeing our needs and our prayers, He so arranges providence that before the need actually arises He has supplied it, before the trial assails us He has armed us against it.

This is the promptitude of omniscience, and we have often seen it exercised.

Before we dreamed of the affliction which was coming, the strong consolation which was to sustain us under it had arrived.

What a prayer-answering God we have!

The second clause suggests the telephone. Though God be in heaven and we upon earth, yet He makes our word, like His own word, to travel very swiftly,

When we pray aright we speak into the ear of God. 

Our gracious Mediator presents our petitions at once, and the great Father hears them and smiles upon them.

Grand praying this!

Who would not be much in prayer when he knows that he has the ear of the King of kings?

This day I will pray in faith, not only believing that I shall be heard, but that I am heard; not only that I shall be answered, but that I have the answer already.

Holy Spirit, help me in this!

~Charles Spurgeon~

Because He Loves You!

When God afflicts his child, the chastisement is applied in love, and his strokes are, all of them, put there by the hand of love.

The rod has been baptized in deep affection before it is laid on the believer’s back.

God does not afflict willingly, nor grieve us for nothing, but out of love and affection, because he perceives that if he leaves us unchastised, we shall bring upon ourselves misery ten thousand-fold greater than we shall suffer by his slight rebukes, and the gentle blows of his hand.

He is chastising you, not punishing you; he is correcting you in measure, he is not smiting you in wrath.

There is no hot displeasure in his heart.

Even though his brow may be ruffled, there is no anger in his breast; even though his eye may have closed upon you, he does not hate you - he loves you still.

It is simply because he loves you, because you are sons, that he therefore chastises you.

Bend meekly down before his superior wisdom, and say - “O God I believe that in the darkness you are brewing light, that in the storm-clouds you are gathering sunshine, that in the deep mines you are fashioning diamonds, and in the beds of the sea you are making pearls."

I believe that however unfathomable may be your designs, yet they have a bottom.

Though it is in the whirlwind and in the storm, you have a way, and that way is good and righteous altogether.

I would not have you alter one atom of your dispensations, it shall be just as you will.

I bow before you, and I give my ignorance the command to hold its tongue, and to be silenced while your wisdom speaks words of right.

~Charles Spurgeon~

You Are The One Who Has Done This!

In the words you may observe three things:

1. The person speaking, and that is, David. David a king, David a saint, David 'a man after God's own heart,' David a Christian.

And here we are to look upon David, not as a king, but as a Christian, as a man whose heart was right with God.

2. The action and carriage of David under the hand of God, in these words...'I was silent; I would not open my mouth.'

3. The reason of this humble and sweet carriage of his, in these words...'for You are the one who has done this!'

The proposition is this: That it is the great duty and concern of gracious souls to be mute and silent under the greatest afflictions, the saddest providences, and sharpest trials that they meet with in this world.

David's silence is an acknowledgment of God as the author of all the afflictions that come upon us.

There is no sickness so little, but God has a finger in it; though it be but the aching of the little finger.

David looks through all secondary causes to the first cause, and is silent.

He sees a hand of God in all, and so sits mute and quiet.

The sight of God in an affliction is of an irresistible efficacy to silence the heart, and to stop the mouth of a godly man.

Men who don't see God in an affliction, are easily cast into a feverish fit, they will quickly be in a flame; and when their passions are up, and their hearts on fire, they will begin to be saucy, and make no bones of telling God to His teeth, that they do well to be angry.
 
Those who will not acknowledge God to be the author of all their afflictions, will be ready enough to fall in with that mad principle of the Manichees, who maintained the devil to be the author of all calamities; as if there could be any evil or affliction in the city, and the Lord have no hand in it,

Amo 3:6  Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

If God's hand be not seen in the affliction, the heart will do nothing but fret and rage under affliction.

Those who can see the ordering hand of God in all their afflictions, will, with David, lay their hands upon their mouths, when the rod of God is upon their backs!

They see that it was a Father who put those bitter cups in their hands; and love that laid those heavy crosses upon their shoulders; and grace that put those yokes around their necks...and this caused much quietness and calmness in their spirits.

When God's people are under the rod, He makes by His Spirit and word, such sweet music in their souls, as allays all tumultuous motions, passions, and perturbations.

Psalm 39:9  I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.

~Thomas Brooks~

We Are Both In The Furnace!

Mal 3:3  And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

Well, dear friend, we are both in the furnace!  

Much, very much vile dross has in my case risen up but my blessed and patient Refiner sits watching the process.
 
Nor does all this dross, hateful as it is, make Him forsake the work of His hands.

He will have me know a little of what is in my heart...that I may know more of what is in His heart-even love, most invincible, unalterable,
unquenchable love!

Love which endures to the end, amidst all my wickedness, and wandering, and ingratitude.

It is indeed astonishing!

Into the blessed depths of this love I desire to be daily sinking, in all the fresh discoveries of my utter worthlessness and vileness-that thus I may praise Him more who has redeemed me from it all!

The Lord does not show us how bad we are to cause despair...but to show forth the riches of His grace in saving us, and to call forth new songs of praise to Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood!

Oh, my dear friend, Jesus is worthy to be praised in the depths as well as in the heights. 

He is near, and dear, and precious in the hour of affliction.

In the path of tribulation, He gives some of His choicest fruits and wines-to revive those who are faint and weary in the wilderness.

Oh! may you be helped, yes enabled, "to trust in the Lord at all times" not only when you feel His love and have the shine of His countenance-but also in the dark and wintry day when clouds veil your sky, and sorrow invades your soul.

When I am afraid, I will trust in You.

~Ruth Bryan~

Sin Of Pride

John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

What is the sin of the world? It Is Pride!

You may not think so; you may not see it: but I would ask you to consider again and see if all that is called sin cannot be traced to this, if it is not this in some form of expression.

For what is the root of pride?

What is pride? It is selfhood come to life, risen up, active...that is the root of pride.

And the branches and the fruit-how many they are! - Jealousy, Covetousness, Wrath, and all the rest.

How is wrath pride?

Well, wrath, if it is not holy, purified, blood-purged wrath like the wrath of the Lamb, if it is wrath which is actuated by ourselves and our interests, is the wrath of selfhood.

So often our anger is our self-preservation, our reaction to some threat to our interests or our likes.

Rebellion, stubbornness, prejudice, and much of our fear, are all traceable to pride.

What are we afraid of? What are we fearing?

If we examined our fears, why are we afraid?

If we were utterly severed from the personal interest...that is, if we could hand entirely over to the Lord and get out of the picture ourselves would not a lot of our fear go?

And so we might go on: but we do not want to indulge in a wholesale analysis of human nature or of pride.

We have mentioned enough to show that pride is the root and that there are countless fruits traceable to that root....

So may this be a word of interpretation as to why the Lord is dealing with us as He has and does...

On the one hand, overcoming this evil thing, breaking, emptying, grinding to powder, until there is nothing of us left in the matter of self-sufficiency;

On the other hand, giving Himself, increasing Himself.

Now this is not a word, perhaps, of great inspiration, but I feel it to be a word of very great importance.

This must be true of us individually.

There must also be a corporate humility.

This is the way along which the Lord will commit Himself.

He will never give us anything to feed our flesh, to enlarge and strengthen our natural life.

He will hold us to the way that keeps us safe where that is concerned.

How wonderfully the Bible becomes alive when you look at it in this way!

~T. Austin Sparks~

With Skillful Hands He Led Them

When you are unsure which course to take, totally submit your own judgment to that of the Spirit of God, asking Him to shut every door except the right one.

But meanwhile keep moving ahead and consider the absence of a direct indication from God to be the evidence of His will that you are on His path.

And as you continue down the long road, you will find that He has gone before you, locking doors you otherwise would have been inclined to enter.

Yet you can be sure that somewhere beyond the locked doors is one He has left unlocked.

And when you open it and walk through, you will find yourself face to face with a turn in the river of opportunity...one that is broader and deeper than anything you ever dared to imagine, even in your wildest dreams.

So set sail on it, because it flows to the open sea. God often guides us through our circumstances. 

One moment, our way may seem totally blocked, but then suddenly some seemingly trivial incident occurs, appearing as nothing to others but speaking volumes to the keen eye of faith.
 
And sometimes these events are repeated in various ways in response to our prayers.

They certainly are not haphazard results of chance but are God opening up the way we should walk, by directing our circumstances.

And they begin to multiply as we advance toward our goal, just as the lights of a city seem to increase as we speed toward it while traveling at night.

~F. B. Meyer~
 
If you go to God for guidance, He will guide you.

But do not expect Him to console you by showing you His list of purposes concerning you, when you have displayed distrust or even half-trust in Him.

What He will do, if you will trust Him and go cheerfully ahead when He shows you the way, is to guide you still farther.

~Horace Bushnell~

As moves my fragile boat across the storm-swept sea, Great waves beat o’er her side, as north wind blows;
 
Deep in the darkness hid lie threat’ning rocks and reefs; But all of these, and more, my Pilot knows.
 
Sometimes when darkness falls, and every light’s gone out, I wonder to what port my frail ship goes;
 
Although the night be long, and restless all my hours, My distant goal, I’m sure, my Pilot knows.
 
~Thomas Curtis Clark~

The Path To Blessing

Deu 1:36  Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he hath wholly followed the LORD.
 
Every hard duty that lies in your path, that you would rather not do, that it will cost you pain and struggle or sore effort to do, has a blessing in it. Not to do it, at whatever cost, is to miss the blessing.

Every hard piece of road on which you see the Master's shoe-prints and along which He bids you follow Him, surely leads to blessing, which you cannot get if you cannot go over the steep, thorny path.

Every point of battle to which you come, where you must draw your sword and fight the enemy, has a possible victory which will prove a rich blessing to your life.

Every heavy load that you are called to lift hides in itself some strange secret of strength.

~J. R. Miller~

I cannot do it alone; The waves run fast and high, And the fogs close all around,

The light goes out in the sky; But I know that we two Shall win in the end, Jesus and I.

Coward and wayward and weak, I change with the changing sky; Today so eager and bright, Tomorrow too weak to try; But He never gives in, So we two shall win, Jesus and I.

I could not guide it myself, My boat on life's wild sea; There's One who sits by my side, Who pulls and steers with me.

And I know that we two Shall safe enter port, Jesus and I.

So Foul A Hag

There are very many who lie in wait to deceive, corrupt, and poison your minds with God-dishonoring, Christ-denying, conscience-wasting, and soul-damning opinions, principles, and blasphemies.

I have read of one who boasted and gloried in this, that he had spent thirty years in corrupting and poisoning of youth.
 
Doubtless, many wretches, many monsters there are among us, who make it their business, their glory, their all...to delude and draw people to those dangerous errors and blasphemies which lead to destruction.

Error and folly, says one very well, are the knots of Satan wherewith he ties children to the stake to be burned in hell.

There is a truth in what the tragedian said long since, "poison is commonly drunk out of a cup of gold."

So is an error soonest taken into the judgment and conscience, from people of the fairest carriage and smoothest conversations.

Error is so foul a hag, that if it should come in its own shape, a man would loathe it, and fly from it as from hell.

If Jezebel had not painted her face, she would not have gotten so many young doating adulterers to have followed her to their own ruin.

Ah! young men, young men...the blessing of the Lord upon your serious and diligent perusal of this treatise may be a happy means to preserve you from being ensnared and deluded by those monsters "who compass sea and land to make proselytes for hell!" 

~Thomas Brooks~

What Idolatry Is

Idolatry is all that is not God as the basis or object of man's life.

That is tremendously comprehensive. We think of idolatry, of course, in terms of heathen idols. 

We might perhaps bring it into a closer realm, where people clearly put things in the place of God but oh! it goes much deeper than that, and, in the Scriptures, idolatry is never regarded as merely negative or passive.

There idolatry is always seen to be an active thing, inasmuch as it is the work of an intelligence which is opposed to God; and that Satanic intelligence is always making it its first object and aim, persistently, continuously, and by every means, to get something into the place of the Lord personally.

You see, it is possible to have the things of the Lord in the place of the Lord Himself; and that is idolatry in principle.

Yes, it may be the things of Jehovah not other gods.

In place of the Lord, Who is the object of man's life, His things may be given precedence, and in principle that is idolatry, and the Cross is ever being used by the Holy Spirit to strike at everything, no matter what it is, that comes to occupy the place of the Lord Himself, the place that the Lord Himself should occupy.

Idolatry is always religious, and it may be the Christian religion as well as any other religion that is marked by idolatry.

I am saying some strong things, but there is cause.

You see, idolatry exists in principle whenever or wherever anything, even good in itself, becomes an object in itself rather than God, the Lord Himself.

There are many things which are not only harmless but good in themselves, which have, nevertheless, been allowed to take the place of the Lord Himself, and good things can therefore embody the principle of idolatry in the one in whom the devotion is found.

Touch some Christians, or Christian institutions, and let the touch be even in relation to something more of the Lord Himself, and you will find an uprising of jealous regard for the institution which utterly blinds to that possibility of an extra measure of the Lord Himself.

You can be so devoted to a denomination, a missionary society, a piece of Christian work, that there is no room for any extra measure of the Lord.

The thing itself has become the end, the object for which you live, and when the Lord wants to get you moved on into something more of Himself, the obstacle is that good Christian work, association, institution, tradition, connection.

Yes, and that is idolatry in principle, and we see from history how the Lord again and again has had to smite with smashing blows things which in themselves were good, in order to save His people unto Himself personally.

Even things which He gave at one time, have had to be taken away or shattered because the gift has become the end, the object.

That is what is happening: and a very necessary thing it is too.

The Lord is not protecting good things today. If those have become something to which men have become devoted, with which they have become bound up, He is allowing them to be broken and destroyed.

~T. Austin Sparks~

SOVEREIGNTY

Psalm 93:1  The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.
 

No rainbow of promise in the "dark and cloudy day" shines more radiantly than this. God, my God, the God who gave Jesus...orders all events, and overrules all for my good!

When I, says He, "send clouds over the earth." He has no wish to conceal the hand which shadows for a time earth's brightest prospects.

It is He alike who "brings the cloud," who brings us into it, and in mercy leads us through it!

His kingdom rules over all. "The lot is cast into the lap...but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." 

He puts the burden on, and keeps it on - and at His own time will remove it!

Beware of brooding over second causes. It is the worst form of atheism!

When our most fondly cherished gourds are smitten; our fairest flowers lie withered in our bosom; this is the silencer of all reflections: "The Lord prepared the worm!"

When the temple of the soul is smitten with lightning, and its pillars rent: "The Lord is in His holy temple!"

Accident, chance, fate, destiny have no place in the Christian's creed.

He is no unpiloted vessel left to the mercy of the storm. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters!" 

There is but one explanation of all that befalls him: "I will be silent, I will not open my mouth, because You are the One who has done this!"

Death seems to the human spectator, the most capricious and severe of all events. But not so!

The keys of Death and Hell are in the hands of this same reigning God!

Look at the parable of the fig-tree. Its prolonged existence, or its doom as a cumberer, forms matter of conversation in Heaven; the axe cannot be laid at its root until God gives the warrant!

How much more will this be the case regarding every "Tree of Righteousness, the planting of the Lord?"

It will be watched over by Him, "Lest anyone hurt it."

Every trembling fiber He will care for; and if made early to succumb to the inevitable stroke, "Who does not know...that in all these things, that the hand of the Lord has wrought this."

Be it mine to merge my own will in His; not to cavil at His ways, or to seek to have one jot or tittle of His will altered; but to lie passive in His hands;

To take the bitter as well as the sweet, knowing that the bitter cup is mingled by One who loves me too well to add one bitter ingredient that might have been spared!

Who can wonder that the sweet Psalmist of Israel should seek, as he sees it spanning the lower heavens, to fix the arrested gaze of a whole world on the softened tints of this Rainbow of Comfort, "The Lord reigns let the earth rejoice!" 

~John Macduff~

Achieving The Victory

2Co 4:17  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;  
"Is achieving for us," mark. The question is repeatedly asked...Why is the life of man drenched with so much blood, and blistered with so many tears? 

The answer is to be found in the word "achieving"; these things are achieving for us something precious. 

They are teaching us not only the way to victory, but better still the laws of victory.

There is a compensation in every sorrow, and the sorrow is working out the compensation.

It is the cry of the dear old hymn: "Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to Thee, E'en tho' it be a cross that raiseth me."

Joy sometimes needs pain to give it birth.

Fanny Crosby could never have written her beautiful hymn, "I shall see Him face to face," were it not for the fact that she had never looked upon the green fields nor the evening sunset nor the kindly twinkle in her mother's eye.

It was the loss of her own vision that helped her to gain her remarkable spiritual discernment.

It is the tree that suffers that is capable of polish.

When the woodman wants some curved lines of beauty in the grain he cuts down some maple that has been gashed by the axe and twisted by the storm. In this way he secures the knots and the hardness that take the gloss.

It is comforting to know that sorrow tarries only for the night; it takes its leave in the morning.

A thunderstorm is very brief when put alongside the long summer day. "Weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning."

~Songs in the Night~

There is a peace that cometh after sorrow, Of hope surrendered, not of hope fulfilled;
      
A peace that looketh not upon tomorrow, But calmly on a tempest that it stilled.

A peace that lives not now in joy's excesses, Nor in the happy life of love secure; But in the unerring strength the heart possesses, Of conflicts won while learning to endure.

A peace there is, in sacrifice secluded, A life subdued, from will and passion free, 'Tis not the peace that over Eden brooded, But that which triumphed in Gethsemane."

Who Is Leading?

Jer 10:23  O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

Psa 27:11  Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.

Many people want to direct God, instead of resigning themselves to be directed by Him; to show Him a way, instead of passively following where He leads.

~Madame Guyon~

I said: "Let me walk in the field"; God said: 'Nay, walk in the town";  I said: "There are no flowers there"; He said: "No flowers, but a crown."

I said: "But the sky is black, There is nothing but noise and din"; But He wept as He sent me back, "There is more," He said, "there is sin.

I said: "But the air is thick, And fogs are veiling the sun"; He answered: "Yet souls are sick, And souls in the dark undone."

I said: "I shall miss the light, And friends will miss me, they say"; He answered me, "Choose tonight, If I am to miss you, or they."

I pleaded for time to be given; He said: "Is it hard to decide?  It will not seem hard in Heaven To have, followed the steps of your Guide."

I cast one look at the fields,  Then set my face to the town; He said: "My child, do you yield? Will you leave the flowers for the crown?"

Then into His hand went mine, And into my heart came He; And I walk in a light Divine, The path I had feared to see.

~George MacDonald~

Reaching Perfection

Heb 2:10  For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Steel is iron plus fire. Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing. Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves.

Human character must have a plus attached to it. The world does not forget great characters.

But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering.
    
I heard of a mother who brought into her home as a companion to her own son, a crippled boy who was also a hunchback.

She had warned her boy to be very careful in his relations to him, and not to touch the sensitive part of his life but go right on playing with him as if he were an ordinary boy.

She listened to her son as they were playing; and after a few minutes he said to his companion: "Do you know what you have got on your back?"

The little hunchback was embarrassed, and he hesitated a moment. The boy said: "It is the box in which your wings are; and some day God is going to cut it open, and then you will fly away and be an angel."
    
Some day, God is going to reveal the fact to every Christian, that the very principles they now rebel against, have been the instruments which He used in perfecting their characters and moulding them into perfection, polished stones for His great building yonder.

~Cortland Myers~

Suffering is a wonderful fertilizer to the roots of character.

~Austin Phelps~
    
By the thorn road and no other is the mount of vision won.