When God Says No

1Ki 8:56  Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.

Some day we shall understand that God has a reason in every NO which He speaks through the slow movement of life. 

Somehow God makes up to us.

How often, when His people are worrying and perplexing themselves about their prayers not being answered, is God answering them in a far richer way! 

Glimpses of this we see occasionally, but the full revelation of it remains for the future.

If God says 'Yes' to our prayer, dear heart, And the sunlight is golden, the sky is blue...
 
While the smooth road beckons to me and you, And the song-birds warble as on we go...
 
Pausing to gather the buds at our feet, Stopping to drink of the streamlets we meet...
 
Happy, more happy, our journey will grow, If God says 'Yes' to our prayer, dear heart.

If God says 'No' to our prayer, dear heart, And the clouds hang heavy and dull and gray...
 
If the rough rocks hinder and block the way, While the sharp winds pierce us and sting with cold...
 
Oh, dear, there is home at the journey's end...
 
And these are the trials the Father doth send To draw us as sheep to His Heavenly fold...
 
If God says 'No' to our prayer, dear heart.

Oh for the faith that does not make haste, but waits patiently for the Lord, waits for the explanation that shall come in the end, at the revelation of Jesus Christ! 

When did God take anything from a man, without giving him manifold more in return? 

Suppose that the return had not been made immediately manifest, what then? 

Is today the limit of God's working time? 

Has He no provinces beyond this little world? 

Does the door of the grave open upon nothing but infinite darkness and eternal silence?

Yet, even confining the judgment within the hour of this life, it is true that God never touches the heart with a trial without intending to bring upon it some grander gift, some tenderer benediction. 

He has attained to an eminent degree of Christian grace who knows how to wait.
 
~Selected

When the frosts are in the valley, And the mountain tops are grey...
 
And the choicest buds are blighted, And the blossoms die away...
 
A loving Father whispers, "This cometh from my hand"...
 
Blessed are ye if ye trust Where ye cannot understand.

If, after years of toiling, Your wealth should fly away...
 
And leave your hands all empty, And your locks are turning grey...
 
Remember then your Father Owns all the sea and land...
 
Blessed are ye if ye trust Where ye cannot understand.
 
~Selected

They Want To Keep As Near To Sodom As Possible!

Gen 19:17  And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

This is still the gospel message. 

We are in danger of God's judgment and must escape from it if we would live. 

We must not stay anywhere in all the plain of sin for there is no safe spot, no shelter anywhere, no place where the fires of judgment will not fall.

Some people would like to compromise...

They are willing to flee from some sins but not from others.

There are some professed Christians who like to stay on the borders of their old life. 

They are continually asking whether they can do this or that, go here or there and still be Christians.

They want to keep just as near to Sodom as possible, so as not to be burnt up in Sodom's destruction! 

The answer to all such questions is, "Run for your lives! 

Do not stop anywhere in the plain. 

Do not look back! 

Escape to the mountain, or you will die!

Even the borders are unsafe! 

The only safe place is the mountain, the mountain where Christ's Cross stands!

Lot's wife 'looked back'. 

There had been a specific command, "Do not look back!" 

Why Lot's wife looked back is not explained. 

Was it curiosity to see the nature of the terrible destruction that she heard roaring behind her? 

Or was it her dismay as she thought of her beautiful home, with all its wealth of furnishing and decoration, and all her jewels and garments and other possessions which were now being consumed in the great conflagration?

It would seem to be, that she was appalled at the thought of leaving and losing all her beloved possessions...

And paused in her flight and looked back, with the hope that possibly she might yet run back and snatch some of the ornaments or gems, something, at least, from the awful destruction.

But Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt!

Remember Lot's wife! Luke 17:32. 

We should not miss the 'lesson' which our Lord Himself teaches us from the tragic fate of this woman...

We cannot have both worlds!

Lot's wife could have escaped with her husband and her daughters but she could escape only by resolutely and determinedly leaving everything she had in Sodom. 

Her love for her possessions, cost her her life!

Just so, there are thousands today, to whom God's message comes, "Run for your lives! 

Do not stop anywhere in the plain. 

Do not look back! 

Escape to the mountain, or you will die!

They somewhat desire to follow Christ  but their love for the world is so intense that they cannot give it up they cannot renounce it.

They must decide, however, which they will renounce, Christ or the world. 

They cannot keep both!

In Lot's wife, we have an example of one who was almost saved, and yet lost! 

She was lost because she loved the world.

Remember Lot's wife!

~J. R. Miller~

Bearing The Sting

Isa 53:7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

How much grace it requires to bear a misunderstanding rightly, and to receive an unkind judgment in holy sweetness!

Nothing tests the Christian character more than to have some evil thing said about him.

This is the file that soon proves whether we are electro-plate or solid gold.

If we could only know the blessings that lie hidden in our trials we would say like David, when Shimei cursed him, "Let him curse, it may be, that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day."

Some people get easily turned aside from the grandeur of their life-work by pursuing their own grievances and enemies, until their life gets turned into one little petty whirl of warfare.

It is like a nest of hornets. 

You may disperse the hornets, but you will probably get terribly stung, and get nothing for your pains, for even their honey is not worth a search.

God give us more of His Spirit, "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again"; but "committed himself to him that judgeth righteously."

Consider him that endureth such contradiction of sinners against himself.

~A. B. Simpson

Before you He trod all the path of woe, He took the sharp thrusts with His head bent low.
    
He knew deepest sorrow and pain and grief, He knew long endurance without relief...

He took all the bitter from death's deep cup, He kept not a blood-drop but gave all up.

Before you and for you, He won the fight...

To bring you to glory and realms of light.

~L.S.P.

Sovereignty Behind The Lives Of His Own!

The Word of God makes it clear in more than one place that there is a sovereignty behind the lives of His own, "the called according to His purpose"...

Which may have not just let that thing happen, but actually ordained it...

And made that very thing, ordered by the will of God, the means by which something should come from our lives very much to the glory of God. 

I know that it is not easy to take that attitude toward things when you are in them - it is the most difficult thing...

But here is something which is concrete as a statement, and it says in a general way to us, "to them that love God... that are called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28): 

Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

~T. Austin Sparks

Die To The Opinions Of Men

Psalm 107:4  They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. 

All who fight the Lord's battles must be content to die to the favorable opinions of men and the flattery of human praise. 

We cannot make an exception even in favor of the good opinions of the children of God. 

It is very easy for the insidious adversary to make this also an appeal to the flesh.
It is all right when God sends us the approval of our fellow men...

However, we must never make that approval a motive in our life. 

All such motives are poison and deprive us of the strength with which we are to give glory to God. 

Rather, we must be content with the solitary way and the lonely wilderness.
The man of God must walk alone with God. 

He must be content in the realization that God knows all things. 

It is such a relief to the natural man within us to fall back upon human countenances and human thoughts...

And sympathy that we often deceive ourselves and think it "brotherly love"...

When, in fact, we are just resting in the earthly sympathy of some fellow worm!

~A. B. Simpson

Vision Essential To Progress

                                            
You and I, dear friends, individually, and if we belong to a company of the Lord's people, that company, will only make progress toward that full, ultimate end of God in Christ if we have a spiritual vision of Jesus Christ.

Vision is essential to progress.

Is it necessary for me to stay with the word 'vision'? I am not thinking about something objective that you see with your eyes of flesh.

It is something that has happened inside of you, and your inner spiritual eyes have been opened.

You can say: I have SEEN, and that has revolutionized my life. 

That has put me on my feet. 

That has set me on a course.

That has become a dynamic in my life which, IN SPITE OF MYSELF, keeps me going.

Yes, thank God, it works like that.

I know the aspect, the factor, of our responsibility, but God help you and me if it is all going to be left to our responsibility and what we do!

I tell you - and this may have been your experience, or it may interpret your present experience - many, many times I would have given up the race.

That is an awful confession! 

Indeed many times I have given it up in my heart. 

It became so difficult that I could go no further, so I gave up.

It was not, therefore, my persistence that enabled me to go on, but what the Apostle calls "the power that worketh in us".

What is that? 

The Holy Spirit has put a dynamic in us and we have seen. 

We cannot un-see! 

We cannot go back.

The seeing may fade, and it may even be eclipsed by days of darkness and trouble. 

We may know what Paul meant when he said: 2Co 1:8  For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:

That was a terrible thing for the greatest of all apostles to say! 

What happened? 

Did Paul give up and say: 'Well, I cannot go on!'? 

No, not at all!

The power that worketh in us got him on his feet again and again. 

Let Elijah seek out his juniper tree and say: 'Take away my life!', but the Lord does not agree....

He has given Elijah a part in his great, eternal purpose, and so he will come up again.

Be encouraged! Are you down? Are you despondent? Are you despairing? Are you feeling you cannot go on?

You still come up again, for something has taken place.

I am calling it 'vision', but that may be misleading. 

What I mean is that something has come into our life which is a spiritual knowledge and has become a spiritual dynamic, giving us a sense of purpose, God's purpose.

It is something that God has done, and that is going to be the secret of our survival, at least.

But for that we will not survive.

We will not get through on any resource of our own, but we will go on in the going as the eternal goings of God if there has been this initial seeing of God's purpose in Jesus Christ.

~T. Austin Sparks

Being Proven

Exodus 15:25  And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them,

I stood once in the test room of a great steel mill. 

All around me were little partitions and compartments. 

Steel had been tested to the limit, and marked with figures that showed its breaking point. 

Some pieces had been twisted until they broke, and the strength of torsion was marked on them. 

Some had been stretched to the breaking point and their tensile strength indicated. 

Some had been compressed to the crushing point, and also marked. 

The master of the steel mill knew just what these pieces of steel would stand under strain. 

He knew just what they would bear if placed in the great ship, building, or bridge. 

He knew this because his testing room revealed it.

It is often so with God's children. 

God does not want us to be like vases of glass or porcelain. 

He would have us like these toughened pieces of steel, able to bear twisting and crushing to the uttermost without collapse.

He wants us to be, not hothouse plants, but storm-beaten oaks; not sand dunes driven with every gust of wind, but granite rocks withstanding the fiercest storms. 

To make us such He must needs bring us into His testing room of suffering.

Many of us need no other argument than our own experiences to prove that suffering is indeed God's testing room of faith.

~J. H. McC

It is very easy for us to speak and theorize about faith, but God often casts us into crucibles to try our gold, and to separate it from the dross and alloy. 

Oh, happy are we if the hurricanes that ripple life's unquiet sea have the effect of making Jesus more precious. 

Better the storm with Christ than smooth waters without Him.

~Macduff

What if God could not manage to ripen your life without suffering?                                                                                              

Satan Is Trying To Weaken Our Faith By Fear

Satan is continually trying to weaken our faith by fear. 

He is a great metaphysician and knows the paralyzing effect of fear-the great enemy of faith. 

If he can cause us to fear, he will stop us from trusting and hinder the very blessing we need. 

Job found the peril of fear and gives us the sorrowful testimony I feared a fear, and it came upon me.

Job 3:25  For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

Fear is born of Satan, and if we would only take time to think a moment we would see that everything Satan says is founded upon a falsehood. 

He is the father of lies. 

Even his fears are falsehoods and his terrors ought to serve as encouragements.

When Satan tells you, therefore, that some ill is going to come, you may quietly look in his face and tell him he is a liar. 

Instead of ill, goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life. 

And then turn to your blessed Lord and say, What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee (Psalm 56:3). 

Every fear is distrust, and trust is the remedy for fear.

A. B. Simpson

Isa 41:10  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. 

A Whore's Forehead!

You Have A Whore's Forehead You Refuse To Be Ashamed!

Jeremiah 3:3  Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.

Are They Ashamed Of Their Loathsome Conduct? 

No, They Have No Shame At All!
 
Jeremiah 6:15  Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.

They had sinned away shame - instead of being ashamed of sin.  

Continuance in sin had quite banished all sense of sin and all shame for sin; so that they would not allow nature to draw her veil of blushing before their great abominations. 

How applicable these scriptures are to the present time, I will leave the prudent reader to judge.

But what does the prophet do, now that they were as bold in sin, and as shameless as so many harlots...

Now that they were grown up to that height of sin and wickedness...

Now that they were above all shame and blushing...

Now that they were grown so proud, so hardened, so obstinate, so rebellious, so bent on self-destruction...

That no mercies could melt them or allure them, nor any threatenings or judgments could in any way terrify them or stop them?

The prophet goes into a corner, he retires into the most secret places, and there he weeps bitterly; there he weeps as if he were resolved to drown himself in his own tears. 

Jer 13:17  But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the LORD'S flock is carried away captive.

In the times wherein we live, Hell seems to be broken loose, and men turned into incarnate devils! 

Soul-damning wickednesses walk up and down the streets with A Whore's Forehead, without the least check or restraint.

Ah, England, England! What pride, luxury, lasciviousness, licentiousness, wantonness, drunkenness, cruelties, injustice, oppressions, fornications, adulteries, falsehoods, hypocrisies, atheisms, horrid blasphemies, and hellish impieties, are now to be found rampant in the midst of you! 

Ah, England! England! How are the Scriptures rejected, God derided, and wickedness tolerated!

And what is the voice of all these crying abominations...but every Christian to his closet and there weep, with weeping Jeremiah, bitterly for all these great abominations whereby God is dishonored openly. 

Oh weep in secret for their sins who openly glory in their sins, which should be their greatest shame. 

Oh blush in secret for those who are past all blushing for their sins; for who knows, but that the whole land may fare the better for the sakes of a few, who are mourners in secret! 

~Thomas Brooks~

You Have A Testimony

                                              
Out of  his inner being shall flow rivers of living water.

You are now born again, a child of God, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and He has become your Life utterly.

What must be the result of that?

That you have a testimony. Thereby you become constituted a witness.

What is the temple for? 

It is the place of the testimony of the Lord, the ministry of God from which there should go forth to the ends of the earth that testimony, which is the testimony of Life. 

Ezekiel's vision showed the waters issuing from under the altar, from the sanctuary; coming down out from the court, away to empty themselves into the distant ocean, a river deepening and widening all the way. 

And on this side and on that side were very many trees, and all those trees were bearing their fruit continually and their leaves never faded. 

All this was the expression of this Life; for we are the testimony to this Life, which comes out of the sanctuary. 

The Lord Jesus says: "That is you, in My thought! Out from you (your bodies a temple of the Holy Spirit) shall flow rivers of living water; a testimony of Life shall come through."

That which issues from you, being the Spirit of the Lord, shall have all the way along that which speaks of the power of that Life, the freshness of that Life, the glory of that Life. 

That is, wherever the river comes there shall be an expression of Life. 

That is to be the effect of our being here as indwelt, permeated, and filled with the Spirit.

Not only may we be conscious of it (and this is where we have to walk carefully and watchfully)...

But so many people want that baptism of the Holy Spirit which will deliver them altogether from a life of faith - for that is the effect of it in their lives. 

If only they can get that, it will all be senses, and no longer faith; they will know, they will feel! 

But there is NO word in the Scriptures which indicates that being filled with the Holy Spirit will deliver us from a life of faith. 

Very often it has proved that the most effective work done by the Holy Spirit through a life has been altogether hidden from the one who was used. 

They never had any consciousness of it being done, but it was done. 

Years afterwards they have received a letter, or they have met somebody who said: "Do you know, on such-and-such an occasion the Lord spoke to me through you, and from that day to this I have been changed!"

And you remember: "Oh, that was the time I had that bad patch, when I thought nothing at all was accomplished."

Yes, He often hides His work. 

And the activity of the Holy Spirit does not mean that we shall not have to go on in faith. 

It is not always when we feel we are having a great time that the Holy Spirit is having a great time. 

The flowing out of the rivers is not always a thing that means that we can just splash about in it and have a good time. 

Sometimes it may be through agony and travail that Life comes to others, death working in us.

Blessed be God, what does it matter (if the thing is done) if we struggle, and other souls are being born, quickened, renewed through our travail. 

The Lord says: "Out of his inner being shall flow..." That is our privilege, our blessed calling. 

That is a part of sonship. Birth, indwelling, ministry are all of the one Spirit, and all depend upon Him.

May the result of our meditation be that we come to a place where we do recognize that as for ourselves, everything is impossible and hopeless.

~T. Austin Sparks~

God Routs Fear

                               
Numbers 23:23  Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought! 

How this should cut up root and branch all silly, superstitious fears! 

Even if there were any truth in witchcraft and omens, they could not affect the people of the LORD. 

Those whom God blessed, devils cannot curse. 

Ungodly men, like Balaam, may cunningly plot the overthrow of the LORD's Israel; but with all their secrecy and policy they are doomed to fail. 

Their powder is damp; the edge of their sword is blunted. 

They gather together; but as the LORD is not with them, they gather together in vain. 

We may sit still and let them weave their nets, for we shall not be taken in them. 

Though they call in the aid of Beelzebub and employ all his serpentine craft, it will avail them nothing...

The spells will not work, the divination will deceive them. 

What a blessing this is! 

How it quiets the heart! 

God's Jacobs wrestle with God, but none shall wrestle with them and prevail. 

God's Israels have to prevail against them. 

We need not fear the fiend himself, nor any of those secret enemies whose words are full of deceit and whose plans are deep and unfathomable. 

They cannot hurt those who trust in the living God. 

We defy the devil and all his legions.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Mediocre Christianity

Read your New Testament again and you will agree that mediocrity in the Christian life is not the highest that Jesus offers.

Certainly, God is not honored by our arrested spiritual development...

Our permanent halfway spiritual condition. 

We all know that the Bible tells us that we honor God by going on to full maturity in Christ! 

Why, then, do we settle for those little pleasures that tickle the saintlets and charm the fancy of the carnal? 

It is because we once heard a call to take up the cross...

But instead of following toward the heights, we bargained with the Lord like a street huckster! 

We felt an urge to be spent for Christ, but instead of going on, we started asking questions. 

We began to bicker and bargain with God about His standards for spiritual attainment. 

This is plain truth, not about unbelieving “liberals”...

But about those who have been born again and who dare to ask...

“Lord, what will it cost me?”

~Tozer~

The Atrocities Of Joshua

                                    
Joshua 6:21  And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

It is needless to go into a defense of what some call the atrocities of Joshua, in slaying women and children as well as warriors; in short, making a clean sweep of the inhabitants.

The Lord ordered it, and that is enough.

We may be sure that, whether He obliterates a nation by war, or blots out the entire race with a flood-He has good reasons for it, although He may not choose to give them.

The extinction of one race by another, and the occupation of its land, is one of the common things in the history of the world. 

And whether it is done by the swift process of the sword, or by gradual demise, or the introduction of disease and vice-the principle and the fact remain the same.

The Lord ordered it, and that is enough.

Deuteronomy 32:39  See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

Isa 45:6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
 
Isaiah 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Amos 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?

Revelation 19:6  And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

~Joel Headley~

A VERY Testing Way

John 5:16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
 
John 5:17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

A True knowledge of the Lord Jesus will reverse a good many of our ideas, and a good many of our procedures. 

A True knowledge of Christ and union with Christ, with all that that means, will make us go to work in entirely the opposite way from that in which we have been accustomed to go. 

We shall come to be governed by this one consideration, that it is not what we would do for the Lord, but what the Lord would do through us, that is alone to rule.  

It is a very testing way. 

You can hardly believe, unless you have been the same way, how often and intensely and bitterly the enemy fights and tempts you to come down on to a lower position...

And to take up things again for God and launch big schemes, enter upon big undertakings, set up some thing on the earth that can be seen...

Because all those who are governed by that standard of things seen have said: "You see, you are doing nothing! 

Show us what you are doing! 

You cannot show us anything for it all!

Satan does work on that line. 

To the flesh that is not easy. 

To go on with God and have nothing to show for it...

Never to be able to have the work written up in the papers, to publish no reports, nor statistics...

And yet to know in your heart of hearts that, although it is hidden, something is going on...

And that you cannot do otherwise than you are doing, is far from being a path of ease to the flesh.

It is a testing way, but, blessed be God, if we do endure the testing and go on patiently with Him...

In His time, when that flesh has been finally laid low; when the voice of natural ambition is no longer sounding and having influence...

And we are now utterly at the place where if things are not going to be of the Lord then there is not going to be anything at all...

Then the Lord has a free way, and He is able to indicate that all the time something has been going on. 

He shows how He has been at work, and how that in time there will be manifested a work of God...

A work that shall have such a large percentage of spiritual value and meaning in it that you are very glad, after all, that you walked with God and not with men in the work of God.
 
~T. Austin Sparks~