You Are Being Summoned To Pray

I therefore call you, friend, to remember the ministry of prayer. 

The times are wakening us to the great need of it, and we must not miss the summons of the times. 

Some of you perhaps have never really prayed, though you have always kept to the daily habit of it. 

Some of you may have ceased long years ago even to preserve the form of prayer. 

And all of us, however we have been serving, know that our greatest failure has been here, for none of us have been praying as we should. 

My brother, God is using these present times to bring thousands back to prayer again. 

In every country of the world today there are multitudes praying who never prayed before. 

And if only you, with all your opportunities, will join in that mighty ministry of prayer, we shall yet live to see such blessings given as will make it bliss for us to be alive. 

It is not easy, but nothing high is easy. 

There is little time, but you can make time. 

For anything your heart is really set on, it is wonderful how time can be made always. 

Blessings are waiting us, and power is waiting us, and I believe that peace is waiting us, waiting and ready for that hour when God is given His own place again. 

When our life is drawing to a close and we look back over the years that we have had, there will be a thousand things we shall regret, for they will seem to us then to have been vanity. 

But there is one thing that we shall not regret even on the margin of the grave, and that is the time we gave to prayer. 

Then it will be far more real to us than it was in the hour when we were praying. 

Then it will be far more real to us than things that once were of supreme importance. 

Then we shall wonder at our inveterate folly in having toiled and served and labored for the Master, and been so forgetful of the amazing promises that He has given to everyone who prays. 

My brother and sister, anticipate that hour. 

It is coming swiftly and it is coming surely. 

Live today as you would like to have lived when you look back from the end upon it all. 

And remember that whatever Christ hath taught you, by precept, by example, He hath taught you this, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.

~George H. Morrison~

Heart-Work

Pro 4:23  Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

It is very important for you to know what duties and which part of your work demands your first thought. 

You might be very busy all day from early in the morning until late in the evening...yet perhaps through forgetfulness you might leave undone some work that required your attention more than all the rest.

Now what work requires most pains and effort?

I have no doubt whatever, that it is heart-work. 

Watch over your heart with all diligence or as you find in the margin, above all keeping, for out of it are the issues of life. 

However important may be your daily occupations in the house where you live, or in your particular calling...yet the chief matter is to keep the heart right. 

Take a very simple illustration: look at the clock in your room, or the watch that perhaps you wear; you want them to keep good time. 

But if either of them stops or goes wrong, what course do you take?

You would not move the hands, perpetually putting them backwards or forwards according as the time might be. 

This would do no good...it is the inner works that need looking after. 

Perhaps there needs a new mainspring, or perhaps a chain has gone off the wheel, or perhaps it only requires cleaning, or regulating. 

But when the inner works go right, you may be quite sure the hands will go right...the second-hand, and the minute-hand, and the hour-hand will each point out the right time.

Act with yourself with the same common sense. 

Remember that the heart regulates the life. 

If the heart is right, then...the hands will do right; they will not steal or be idle, but do their work faithfully;

The feet will move right, not going where they should not, standing in the way of sinners, or treading forbidden paths...but walking straight in the ways of godliness;

The eyes will look right, not coveting forbidden fruit, or reading debasing literature...but spying out work that ought to be done, and looking kindly and pleasantly on those around;

The ears will hearken aright, not eagerly drinking in idle reports, or the advice of those who have not yet learned to teach themselves...but ever willing to listen to a faithful reproof, or to a word of wise counsel;

The lips will speak aright, not uttering words of slander, or falsehood, or folly...but words of truth and purity and love, words of earnest prayer and of grateful praise.

But how shall the heart be kept right?

First of all, remember that He alone who made the heart, can fashion and dispose it to that which is good. 

Whatever is amiss, He knows how to remedy it. 

He gives it a new mainspring: He puts within it the love of Christ instead of the love of the world. 

He sends His Holy Spirit to control and order its unruly passions and affections. 

He can cleanse it from all its defilements. 

When the chain is off the wheel He can replace it...I mean when something has turned our desires from their right object, He can restore them.

Then ask earnestly for grace. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God! 

Incline my heart to Your testimonies! 

Let my heart be sound in Your statutes that I may honor You!

But then, He bids us to be workers together with Him in this matter. 

There is that which He alone can do...but there is that which is our part by His grace to do also. 

You must take care not to run into scenes of temptation. 

If a man carried a bag of gunpowder with him, he would be very careful not to go where sparks were flying about...he would feel that in a moment a spark might be his destruction. 

Now your heart is very like that gunpowder...a little thing may set it all alight with evil passions. 

Words may be spoken that may arouse unholy thoughts or desires...therefore be careful.

Never go near places where the devil is accustomed to come. 

Keep far away from the theater, the dancing-room, and never enter the bar of a tavern if you can avoid it.

He who loves danger, shall perish in danger. 

You must watch against any evil thoughts lodging in your mind. 

You may not be able to prevent them arising, but endeavor to drive them away as soon as you can. 

A flock of birds may fly over your head, but you would not let them build a nest in your hair! 

Little flies or insects in summer are very troublesome sometimes, but you take pains to keep them from getting into your eye, or irritating your face and hands. 

In the same way watch against every bad thought.

Remember that among the thousands of thoughts that pass through your mind in a day, there is not one hidden from God. 

He understands your thoughts afar off, and in His sight the thought of foolishness is sin. 

Therefore be watchful...do not dwell on anything that may pollute the mind. 

Cast away murmuring thoughts, angry thoughts, impure thoughts and pray that God would preserve you from them. 

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in Your sight, O Lord!

But to keep away thoughts that do harm...nourish thoughts that will do you good. 

Php 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

There is a good old proverb, "Fill the sack with wheat and there will be no room for chaff!

Fill your heart with kind thoughts, grateful thoughts, holy thoughts and you will be safe. 

Let God's thoughts which are given to us in the Bible leaven all your thoughts. 

Hide in your heart the promises and precepts of His Word. 

In the morning, take a text of Scripture about Christ, about His love, or His coming again and make it your friend and companion through the day. 

When something has occurred to trouble you, go back to your text. 

When some temptation is near to turn your thoughts aside, think of it again so it will strengthen you, and help you to overcome.

With thoughts of Christ, and things divine,  Fill up this foolish heart of mine.

Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.

But above all, live in a spirit of prayer. 

Believe that God is always ready to hear you, and often go to Him for help. 

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. 

Nothing will keep your heart in a holy, happy frame, so much as prayer.

A little boy was coming home from India. 

He was obliged to come to England because of his health, but he very much grieved to come away from his father, who was not able to accompany him. 

But on the voyage one thing gave him great comfort...he would go down into his cabin every day, and write out for his father what he did all day long...

And this brought his father to mind, and it almost seemed as if he were speaking to his father.

He would call these hours his heart-visits to India. 

Now why should not you each day pay heart-visits to Heaven? 

If the boy could have made his father hear him in some way when he went into the cabin, or have received messages from him it would have given him still more pleasure. 

But this is just what you can do. 

When you pay a heart-visit to Heaven you can make your Father understand the very least word you speak. 

And more than this He can send you a message in return.

He can speak to you by His Spirit teaching you out of the Scriptures. 

In this way He can fill your heart with peace and joy. 

He can make you so happy in His love, that your heart is at liberty to love Him and serve Him.

Oh, then pray to Him often in the name of Jesus; often shoot upwards the arrow of an earnest petition, and it will never be in vain.

Here is my heart!

Ah, Holy Spirit, come,  Its nature to renew...

And consecrate it wholly as Your home...A temple, fair and true;

Teach it to love and serve You more, To fear You, trust You, and adore.
 

Here is my heart! 

~George Everard~

Leave It To GOD

Psa 37:6  And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.

Whatever it is that presses thee, go tell the Father; put the whole matter over into His hand, and so shalt thou be freed from that dividing, perplexing care that the world is full of.

When thou art either to do or suffer anything, when thou art about any purpose or business, go tell God of it, and acquaint Him with it; 

Yes, burden Him with it, and thou hast done for matter of caring...

No more care, but quiet, sweet, diligence in thy duty, and dependence on Him for the carriage of thy matters.

Roll thy cares, and thyself with them, as one burden, all on thy God.

~R. Leighton~

Build a little fence of trust Around today; Fill the space with loving work And therein stay.

Look not through the sheltering bars Upon tomorrow; God will help thee bear what comes Of joy or sorrow.

~Mary Butts~

We shall find it impossible to commit our way unto the Lord, unless it be a way that He approves.

It is only by faith that a man can commit his way unto the Lord...

If there be the slightest doubt in the heart that "our way" is not a good one, faith will refuse to have anything to do with it. 

This committing of our way must be a continuous, not a single act.
     
However extraordinary and unexpected may seem to be His guidance, however near the precipice He may take you, you are not to snatch the guiding reins out of His hands. 

Are we willing to have all our ways submitted to God, for Him to pronounce judgment on them? 

There is nothing a Christian needs to be more scrutinizing about than about his confirmed habits and views. 

He is too apt to take for granted the Divine approbation of them. 

Why are some Christians so anxious, so fearful?

Evidently because they have not left their way with the Lord. 

They took it to Him, but brought it away with them again.

~Selected~

And Your Ears Shall Hear A Word Behind You Saying This Is The Way Walk In It

Isa 30:21  And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

When we have doubts or are facing difficulties, when others suggest courses of action that are conflicting, when caution dictates one approach but faith another, we should be still.

We should quiet each intruding person, calm ourselves in the sacred stillness of God’s presence, study His Word for guidance, and with true devotion focus our attention on Him.

We should lift our nature into the pure light radiating from His face, having an eagerness to know only what God our Lord will determine for us.

Soon He will reveal by His secret counsel a distinct and unmistakable sense of His direction.
 
It is unwise for a new believer to depend on this approach alone.

He should wait for circumstances to also confirm what God is revealing. 

Yet Christians who have had many experiences in their walk with Him know the great value of secret fellowship with the Lord as a means of discerning His will.
 
Are you uncertain about which direction you should go?
 
Take your question to God and receive guidance from either the light of His smile or the cloud of His refusal.

You must get alone with Him, where the lights and the darknesses of this world cannot interfere and where the opinions of others cannot reach you.

You must also have the courage to wait in silent expectation, even when everyone around you is insisting on an immediate decision or action.

If you will do these things, the will of God will become clear to you. 

And you will have a deeper concept of who He is, having more insight into His nature and His heart of love.

THE SAINT Must WALK ALONE

Most of the world's great souls have been lonely.

Loneliness seems to be One Price the saint Must Pay for his saintliness.

In the morning of the world (or should we say, in that strange darkness that came soon after the dawn of man's creation), that pious soul, Enoch, walked with God and was not, for God took him...

And while it is not stated in so many words, a fair inference is that Enoch walked a path quite apart from his contemporaries.

Another lonely man was Noah who, of all the antediluvians, found grace in the sight of God; and every shred of evidence points to the aloneness of his life even while surrounded by his people.

Again, Abraham had Sarah and Lot, as well as many servants and herdsmen, but who can read his story and the apostolic comment upon it without sensing instantly that he was a man "whose soul was alike a star and dwelt apart"?

As far as we know not one word did God ever speak to him in the company of men.

Face down he communed with his God, and the innate dignity of the man forbade that he assume this posture in the presence of others.

How sweet and solemn was the scene that night of the sacrifice when he saw the lamps of fire moving between the pieces of offering.

There, alone with a horror of great darkness upon him, he heard the voice of God and knew that he was a man marked for divine favor.

Moses also was a man apart.

While yet attached to the court of Pharaoh he took long walks alone, and during one of these walks while far removed from the crowds he saw an Egyptian and a Hebrew fighting and came to the rescue of his countryman.

After the resultant break with Egypt he dwelt in almost complete seclusion in the desert.

There, while he watched his sheep alone, the wonder of the burning bush appeared to him, and later on the peak of Sinai he crouched alone to gaze in fascinated awe at the Presence, partly hidden, partly disclosed, within the cloud and fire.

The prophets of pre-Christian times differed widely from each other, but one mark they bore in common was their enforced loneliness.

They loved their people and gloried in the religion of the fathers, but their loyalty to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their zeal for the welfare of the nation of Israel drove them away from the crowd and into long periods of heaviness.

I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children,  cried one and unwittingly spoke for all the rest.

Most revealing of all is the sight of that One of whom Moses and all the prophets did write, treading His lonely way to the cross.

His deep loneliness was unrelieved by the presence of the multitudes.

Tis midnight, and on Olive's brow The star is dimmed that lately shone; Tis midnight; in the garden now, The suffering Savior prays alone.

Tis midnight, and from all removed The Savior wrestles lone with fears; Even the disciple whom He loved Heeds not his Master's grief and tears.

~William B. Tappan~

He died alone in the darkness hidden from the sight of mortal man and no one saw Him when He arose triumphant and walked out of the tomb, though many saw Him afterward and bore witness to what they saw.

There are some things too sacred for any eye but God's to look upon.

The curiosity, the clamor, the well-meant but blundering effort to help can only hinder the waiting soul and make unlikely if not impossible the communication of the secret message of God to the worshiping heart.

Sometimes we react by a kind of religious reflex and repeat dutifully the proper words and phrases even though they fail to express our real feelings and lack the authenticity of personal experience.

Right now is such a time. A certain conventional loyalty may lead some who hear this unfamiliar truth expressed for the first time to say brightly, "Oh, I am never lonely.

Christ said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you,' and 'Lo, I am with you always.' How can I be lonely when Jesus is with me?

Now I do not want to reflect on the sincerity of any Christian soul, but this stock testimony is too neat to be real.

It is obviously what the speaker thinks should be true rather than what he has proved to be true by the test of experience.

This cheerful denial of loneliness proves only that the speaker has never walked with God without the support and encouragement afforded him by society.

The sense of companionship which he mistakenly attributes to the presence of Christ may and probably does arise from the presence of friendly people.

Always remember: you cannot carry a cross in company.

Though a man were surrounded by a vast crowd, his cross is his alone and his carrying of it marks him as a man apart.

Society has turned against him; otherwise he would have no cross.

No one is a friend to the man with a cross. 

They all forsook Him, and fled.

The pain of loneliness arises from the constitution of our nature.

God made us for each other.

The desire for human companionship is completely natural and right.

The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world.

His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ...

And because within his circle of friends there are so few who share inner experiences, he is forced to walk alone.

The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way.

The man who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him.

A certain amount of social fellowship will of course be his as he mingles with religious persons in the regular activities of the church, but true spiritual fellowship will be hard to find.

But he should not expect things to be otherwise.

After all he is a stranger and a pilgrim, and the journey he takes is not on his feet but in his heart.

He walks with God in the garden of his own soul - and who but God can walk there with him?

He is of another spirit from the multitudes that tread the courts of the Lord's house.

He has seen that of which they have only heard, and he walks among them somewhat as Zacharias walked after his return from the altar when the people whispered, "He has seen a vision."

The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity.

He lives not for himself but to promote the interests of Another.

He seeks to persuade people to give all to his Lord.

He delights not to be honored but to see his Savior glorified in the eyes of men.

His joy is to see his Lord promoted and himself neglected.

He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk.

For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens.

He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none, he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.

It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. 

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.

His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else.

He learns in inner solitude what he could not have learned in the crowd - that Christ is All in All, that He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, that in Him we have and possess life's Highest Good.

Two things remain to be said...

One, that the lonely man of whom we speak is not a haughty man, nor is he the holier-than-thou, austere saint so bitterly satirized in popular literature. 

He is likely to feel that he is the least of all men and is sure to blame himself for his very loneliness. 

He wants to share his feelings with others and to open his heart to some like-minded soul who will understand him, but the spiritual climate around him does not encourage it, so he remains silent and tells his griefs to God alone.

The second thing is that the lonely saint is not the withdrawn man who hardens himself against human suffering and spends his days contemplating the heavens. 

Just the opposite is true. 

His loneliness makes him sympathetic to the approach of the brokenhearted and the fallen and the sin-bruised. 

Because he is detached from the world, he is all the more able to help it. 

Meister Eckhart taught his followers that if they should find themselves in prayer and happen to remember that a poor widow needed food, they should break off the prayer instantly and go care for the widow. 

God will not suffer you to lose anything by it,  he told them. 

You can take up again in prayer where you left off and the Lord will make it up to you.

This is typical of the great mystics and masters of the interior life from Paul to the present day.

The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world. 

In their effort to achieve restful "adjustment" to unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest. 

The world recognizes them and accepts them for what they are.

And this is the saddest thing that can be said about them. They are not lonely, but neither are they saints.

~A. W. Tozer~

A Near-Sighted Vision

Then there were some people to whom Paul spoke: he told them that their look was much too near. 

He said, ‘You only see what is immediately before your eyes...

Your vision is merely of things near you...

These are the things that influence you. 

Too short a range of vision leads to your life becoming smaller than the Lord would have it; 

You become far too easily satisfied and contented in the realm of the things of the Lord; 

You have a small, narrow horizon...you are not looking right on. 

Things near – that may apply in different ways. 

The things that are near are always the things that are most likely to upset us, to limit us, to disconcert us.

We do become so occupied with the thing that is nearest. 

When we are right up against a situation and something is right up against us, we are in such danger of thinking that is all, that is everything, that we forget...

We have negotiated many such an obstacle before which we thought was going to be the end of everything for us. 

We Learn Our lesson So Slowly. 

Here is another thing right at hand, right before our eyes; another mountain, another hedge, another real difficulty; 

And again we think...‘This is going to spoil everything, this is going to be the end of everything’. 

All we see is the thing near at hand.
 
But to look right on means surely to say this...

Yes, this is a difficulty, but there is another side to it, it is not going to be the end. 

It is one of the things that is included in ‘laying aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset’.
 
What is “the sin which doth so easily beset”? 

It is this, that the big difficulty of today blots out tomorrow, seems to get right in the way of any future at all. 

That is the easily besetting sin. 

Do not have too near a view, do not have too small an horizon. 

Let thine eyes look right on. 

There is something very much more than the difficulty of the day, the very present thing, the near thing. 

The Lord will teach us as we go on that we can reckon on very much more than the things which are up against us now. 

We shall go on and leave them behind. 

Do not let us take them as the limit. 

Whatever they are, they are not the end.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Dwelling Safely Apart

Deu 33:28  Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew.
 
The more we dwell alone, the more safe shall we be. 

God would have His people separate from sinners, His call to them is, "Come ye out from among them."

A worldly Christian is spiritually diseased. 

Those who compromise with Christ's enemies may be reckoned with them.

Our safety lies, not in making terms with the enemy, but in dwelling alone with our Best Friend.

If we do this, we shall dwell in safety despite the sarcasms, the slanders, and the sneers of the world. 

We shall be Safe from the baleful influence of its Unbelief, its Pride, its Vanity, its Filthiness.

God also will make us dwell in safety alone in that day when sin shall be visited on the nations by wars and famines. 

The LORD brought Abram from Ur of the Chaldees, but Abram stopped halfway.

He had no blessing till, having set out to go to the land of Canaan, to the land of Canaan he came, He was safe alone even in the midst of foes.

Lot was not safe in Sodom though in a circle of friends. 

Our safety is in dwelling apart with God. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Have Faith Even In Dark Experiences

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  

God does not tell us what He is doing when taking us through dark experiences.

If He did, it would be all right.

If He said, "I am going to lead you into a bad time, it is all going to be dark and strange and perplexing and bewildering and helpless, but it is all right, I am working a tremendous thing, this is what I am going to bring out of it,"

If He said that, the faith element would fade out. 

If only He would tell us He is doing something, and what He is doing, instead of leaving us in the dark and seeming to be so far away and without any interest in us!

If only! Ah yes, but He did not do that, and we know He does not do that, He does not explain. 

But here is the challenge.

This is what is meant by Hebrews 11 and the men of faith, that is what it means.

And thank God we have the heritage, we have a great heritage, we have more than they had. 

These men did not have a Bible, it was not written when they were going through it. 

We have their story and so many more. 

We see the issue, we have the sequel, but is it really helping us?

When you are having a bad, dark time and feel that all has gone wrong, read the story of Joseph again...starting on it you will not want to put it down.

Take its great lessons. 

The God of Joseph is our God and He is doing the same thing, and we know that that is true to life. 

What I have been saying is so true to life. 

We have that evidence. 

That, at any rate, is very much like my experience, and therefore I have reason to think and believe that the same thing is involved. 

The God of resurrection is working this to glory.

~Austin T. Sparks~

"The LORD Shut Him In"

Gen 7:16  And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.

Noah was shut in away from all the world by the hand of divine love.

The door of electing purpose interposes between us and the world which lieth in the wicked one. 

We are not of the world even as our Lord Jesus was not of the world. 

Into the sin, the gaiety, the pursuits of the multitude we cannot enter;

We cannot play in the streets of Vanity Fair with the children of darkness, for our heavenly Father has shut us in.

Noah was shut in with his God. “Come thou into the ark,” was the Lord’s invitation, by which he clearly showed that he himself intended to dwell in the ark with his servant and his family.

Thus all the chosen dwell in God and God in them.

Happy people to be enclosed in the same circle which contains God in the Trinity of his persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. 

Let us never be inattentive to that gracious call, “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee, and hide thyself as it were for a little moment until the indignation be overpast.”

Noah was so shut in that no evil could reach him. 

Floods did but lift him heavenward, and winds did but waft him on his way. 

Outside of the ark all was ruin, but inside all was rest and peace.

Without Christ we perish, but in Christ Jesus there is perfect safety. 

Noah was so shut in that he could not even desire to come out, and those who are in Christ Jesus are in him forever.

They shall go no more out forever, for eternal faithfulness has shut them in, and infernal malice cannot drag them out. 

The Prince of the house of David shutteth and no man openeth; 

And when once in the last days as Master of the house he shall rise up and shut the door...

It will be in vain for mere professors to knock, and cry Lord, Lord open unto us...

For that same door which shuts in the wise virgins will shut out the foolish forever.

Lord, shut me in by thy grace.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Immediate Freedom

The Assyrian was allowed for a season to oppress the Lord's people...

But There Came A Time For His Power To Be Broken. 

So, many a heart is held in bondage by Satan and frets sorely under the yoke. 

Oh, that to such prisoners of hope the word of the Lord may come at once, according to the text, "Now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder!"

See! The Lord promises a present deliverance. "Now will I break his yoke from off thee." 

Believe for immediate freedom, and according to thy faith so shall it be unto thee at this very hour. 

When God saith "now," let no man say "tomorrow."

See how complete the rescue is to be; for the yoke is not to be removed but broken; and the bonds are not to be untied but burst asunder. 

Here is a display of divine force which guarantees that the oppressor shall not return. 

His yoke is broken, we cannot again be bowed down by its weight. 

His bonds, are burst asunder, they can no longer hold us. 

Oh, to believe in Jesus for complete and everlasting emancipation! "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."

Come, Lord, and set free Thy captives, according to Thy Word. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

In GOD, Not Out Of Trouble

Jer 45:5  And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.
     
A promise given for hard places, and a promise of safety and life in the midst of tremendous pressure, a life "for a prey." 

It may well adjust itself to our own times, which are growing harder as we near the end of the age, and the Tribulation times.
     
What is the meaning of "a life for a prey"? 

It means a life snatched out of the jaws of the destroyer, as David snatched the lamb from the lion.

It means not removal from the noise of the battle and the presence of our foes; but it means a table in the midst of our enemies, a shelter from the storm, a fortress amid the foe, a life preserved in the face of continual pressure: 

Paul's healing when pressed out of measure so that he despaired of life; Paul's Divine help when the thorn remained, but the power of Christ rested upon him and the grace of Christ was sufficient. 

Lord, give me my life for a prey, and in the hardest places help me today to be victorious.

~Days of Heaven upon Earth~
     
We often pray to be delivered from calamities; we even trust that we shall be; 

But we do not pray to be made what we should be, in the very presence of the calamities;

To live amid them, as long as they last, in the consciousness that we are, held and sheltered by the Lord, and can therefore remain in the midst of them, so long as they continue, without any hurt.

For forty days and nights, the Saviour was kept in the presence of Satan in the wilderness, and that, under circumstances of special trial, His human nature being weakened by want of food and rest.

The furnace was heated seven times more than it was wont to be heated, but the three Hebrew children were kept a season amid its flames as calm and composed in the presence of the tyrant's last appliances of torture, as they were in the presence of himself before their time of deliverance came. 

And the livelong night did Daniel sit among the lions, and when he was taken up out of the den, "no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God."

They dwelt in the presence of the enemy, because they dwelt in the presence of God.

If You Commit Your Life To God Fully You Will Not Have A Normal Easy Way!

Mal 3:17  And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 

If we have committed ourselves to God thoroughly and really meant with the Lord that we want His full will and we do not want our own... 

And by His grace we will go the way that He leads and shows, whatever it costs...

If we have done that and then situations have arisen which look terribly complicated and seem to contradict the faithfulness of God, what am I to conclude?

What are we going to conclude? 

We have to conclude one of two things - that God cares nothing for all our devotion and consecration, and just lets us get into any mess, or else this is all under His eye.

That is ultimate. 

We have either to believe God or not to believe Him.

You have all this here in the Word, and it all bears down upon this, that people who are related in Divine foreknowledge and Divine sovereign action come into situations like that...

But in the end that sovereignty has been shown to relate to something unusually precious to the Lord, "and they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, even Mine own possession, in the day that I do make" (Malachi 3:17).

The Lord is after something more than ordinary and He needs a people for it, but such a people will have unusual experiences, inside and out. 

It will not be the ordinary, normal course where everything goes well and straightforwardly. 

It will not be like that for these people. 

They go through ways that are tortuous and exceedingly difficult, but there is a sovereignty at work.

That is my way of analyzing and summing up the situation as I see it in the Word, and I can only say to you that it is not foreign and strange to God's special purposes to have experiences like that.

Whether it be the remnant of Israel, whether it be the reactions of God in this Christian dispensation, in the book of the Revelation, the messages to the churches which are just on this ground, it is all like this.

Nothing seems normal with a people like that, because God is not going to have anything that is just normal, as we call the normal.

It is something more, something extraordinary, and our experience therefore is extraordinary.

~T. Austin Sparks~

What God Is Trying To Do In Us

Think of the marvel of Christ in Pilate’s hall and before the High Priest. 

Spat upon, mocked, struck, in every way degraded...and He is Almighty and Infinite God incarnate Who, with the parting of His lips, the silent lifting of His hand, could have smitten that crowd out of existence!

The centurion was right; when he saw what had happened he was filled with fear and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God.’ 

We have heard of people suddenly discovering their awful mistake and dying of heart failure on the spot.

Think of the shock that has to come yet to those who treated Him as He was treated - when they see Him.

You can understand something of what took place in Saul of Tarsus (who knew all about what had happened in Jerusalem) when he saw Him - “I am Jesus” - saw Him in a brightness above that of the noonday sun.

But my point is this, He accepted and endured all that, going through to the bitter end, letting them hammer nails through His hands and feet and fix Him to the Cross, with all the deriding - “He saved others; himself he cannot save… Let (God) deliver him now, if he desireth him: for he said, I am the Son of God.” 

And He did not stir a finger or utter a word when twelve legions of angels were standing ready for His aid. 

(If one angel could smite the host of Sennacherib, what would twelve legions do?) 

That is meekness and lowliness of heart, and that is what God is trying to effect in us. 

That is the thought of God; that is going to be glory in God’s universe; that will make a world worth living in, and a universe of that nature will be bearable.

God thus works in us in these words - “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

~T. Austin Sparks~

BOUND!

The devil makes it his business to keep Christians in bondage, bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in their own grave clothes!

Why doesn't the old devil, Satan, give up and bow out of the picture when a person becomes a believing Christian?

Although he is a dark and sinister foe dedicated to the damnation of humans, I think he knows that it is no use trying to damn a forgiven and justified child of God who is in the Lord's hands.

So, it becomes the devils business to keep the Christian's spirit imprisoned.

He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of the grave of his sins and trespasses. 

From that point on, Satan works that much harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave clothes.

He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage, we will never be able to claim our rightful spiritual heritage.

He knows also that while we continue bound in this kind of enslavement we are not much better off than when we were spiritually dead.

This is one reason why the Christians in today's churches are behaving like a flock of frightened sheep - so intimidated by the devil that we cant even say "Amen"!

I admit that occasionally you find a few who are just childishly happy about everything, but that is not what I mean.

Often these are just like children playing in the market places, having never been seriously engaged in the conflict on the spiritual battlefield.

Show me an individual or a congregation committed to spiritual progress with the Lord, interested in what the Bible teaches about spiritual perfection and victory, and I will show you where there is strong and immediate defiance by the devil!

~A. W. Tozer~