What The LORD Is Doing Will Not Allow For ANY Neutrality!

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

Luke 12:50  But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!

Luke 12:51  Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:

If you and I are going to be men and women of the Spirit, we are not going to have an easy time. 

Hell will see to that. 

At once the clash arises...

And it is true that the more the Holy Spirit is able to have His way in us...

And to lead us into all the will of God...

The more we find this opposition, this antagonism. 

And it not only comes between us and the world...

It sometimes comes in the circle of the Lord's own people. 

It is inevitable provocation. 

You wonder why, sometimes. 

As you read the New Testament you wonder, What is the matter with these people? 

Why should they be so upset and so annoyed? 

And why should it be so spontaneous, this thing? 

And persistent; so unreasonable?" but there it is. 

There is the fact. It is inevitable.

You see, this thing that the Lord came to do and is doing, will not allow for any neutrality. 

It is going to be one thing or the other. 

It is going to be for or against. 

The eyes of flame (here the fire comes in again) the eyes of flame will not allow lukewarmness or anything that is of the Laodicean character. 

The fire is a positive element always, and it will create positive situations. 

If everything is all just nice and quiet, no disturbance, no trouble and no antagonism and opposition, you have reason to question whether the Holy Spirit is doing much...

Because He does aim at such a positiveness, which is a very, very costly thing.

It is either with the Lord, or not with the Lord, and there is nothing between. 

It is going to come out sooner or later and be precipitated. 

Now, the Lord says that is what He came to do. 

This is not an accident, a chance or things having gone wrong or miscarried. 

This is exactly what He came to do...

To scatter fire on the earth and these are the inevitable effects of the fire. 

They are going to work out.

~T. Austin Sparks

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 We Were Directing The Affairs Of Our Own Lives!

We often think we could do better, if we were Directing the affairs of our Own lives.  

We think we could get more happiness and greater good out of life, if things were in Our hands.

We would at once Eliminate all that is Painful and Unpleasant in our lot.

We would have only Prosperities, with No Adversities; only Joys, with No Sorrows.

We would Exclude all Pain and Trouble from our life.

Our days would all be Sunny with Blue skies, and No Clouds or Storms.

Our paths would all be Soft and Easy, and Strewn With Flowers - Without thorns or any Rough places.

Would we not be Happier if we could Direct our own affairs - and Leave Out the Painful, the Bitter, the Adverse, and the Sorrowful?

So most of us would probably say at first, before we have thought of the question deeply and looked on to the end.

But really the greatest Misfortune that could come to us in this world would be to have the Direction of the affairs, and the Shaping of the experiences of our lives, put into our Own hands!

We have No Wisdom to know what is Best for ourselves.

Today is not all of life...

There is a long future, perhaps many years in this world, and then immortality hereafter.

What would give us greatest Pleasure today, might work us Harm in days to come.

Present Gratification might Cost us untold Loss and Hurt in the future.

We want Pleasure, Plenty, and Prosperity...

But perhaps we Need Pain, Self-denial, and the Giving Up of things that we Greatly Prize.

We Shrink from Suffering, from Sacrifice, from struggle...

But perhaps these are the Very Experiences which will do the Most Good for us...

Which will best mature our Christian graces...

Which will fit us for the largest service to God and man.

We should always remember that the object of living in this present world is not merely...

To have unlimited pleasure and comfort...

To get along with the Least trouble,...

To Gather the most we can of the World's Treasures...

To win the brightest fame...

No we are here to grow into the beauty of Christ, and to do the portion of God's will that belongs to us!

There is something wonderfully inspiring in the thought, that God has a Plan and a Purpose for our lives, for each life.

We do not come Drifting into this world, and do not drift through it like waves on the ocean.

We are sent from God, each one of us with a Divine plan for his life-something God wants us to do, some place He wants us to fill. 

All through our lives, we are in the Hands of God, who Chooses our place and Orders our circumstances, and Makes all things Work Together for Our Good—and His Glory. 

It is the highest honor that could be conferred upon us, to occupy such a place in the Thought of God.

We cannot doubt that His way for us is better than ours, since He is infinitely wiser than we are and loves us so. It may be painful and hard—but in the pain and the hardness, there is blessing.

Of course we may not know all the reasons there are in the divine mind, for the pains and sufferings that come into our lives, or what God's design for us in these trials is. 

Yet without discovering any reasons at all, however, we may still Trust God, who Loves us with an Infinite Love, and whose Wisdom also is Infinite!

When we get to Heaven, we shall know that God has made No Mistake in anything He has done for us, however He may have Broken into our Plans, and Spoiled our Pleasant dreams!

It should be Reason for Measureless Gratitude, that our lives are not in our own poor foolish hands - but in the Hands of our Infinitely Wise and Loving Father!

Psa 31:15  My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.

~J. R. Miller

If You Want to Be Victorious - Hold On

 

For just as our Heavenly Father does we Win our Victories by Holding To It.

We Conquer, Not in any brilliant fashion...

We Conquer by Continuing. 

We master shorthand when we stick to shorthand. 

We master Shakespeare when we stick to Shakespeare. 

Wandering cattle are lean kine, whether they pasture in Britain or in Beulah. 

A certain Radiant and Quiet doggedness has been one of the Marks of all the saints, for whom the trumpets have sounded on the other side. 

In the log-book of Columbus there is one entry more common than all others...

It is not "Today the wind was favorable."

It is "Today we sailed on."

And to sail on, every Common day, through fog and storm, and with mutiny on board, is the one way to the country of our dreams. 

Days come when everything seems Doubtful, when the Vision of the unseen is very dim. 

Days come when we begin to wonder if there can be a loving God at all. 

My dear reader, Hold To It. 

Continue Trusting. 

Keep On Keeping On. 

It is thus that Christian character is built. 

It is thus the "Well done" is heard at last.

~George Morrison

The Importance Of Abiding At All Times

Luke 9:62  And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. 

We see that with peculiar clearness when we meditate on the great word Abide. 

That was one of the favorite words of Jesus. 

With those deep-seeing eyes of His He has discerned the wonder of the vine-branch. 

The branch was there-abiding in the vine-not only in the sunny days of vintage. 

It was there when shadows fell... 

And when the dawn was icy...

And when the day was colorless and cloudy...

And when the storm came sweeping down the glen. 

Through all weathers...

Through every change of temperature... 

Through tempest and through calm...

The branch was there. 

Night did not sever that Intimate Relationship. 

Winter did not end that Vital Union. 

And our Lord recognized that...

As in the world of nature this is the secret and the source of fruitfulness...

So is it also in the world of Grace. 

To Abide is not to Trust merely...

Abide is to Continue Trusting...

It is to Hold To It...

And Hold To Him...

Through Summer and Winter...

Through Fair and Stormy weather...

Nothing could better show the Master's Vision of the Great and Heavenly Grace of Holding To It...

Than His Love for that great word Abide.

~George Morrison

If We Don't Believe GOD We Cannot Enter Into The Rest Of GOD!!!

We have no right to go to the unsaved and bid them come to Christ and find rest Until And Unless We Ourselves Know That Rest. 

Our testimony and our ministry is Jeopardized, Weakened, Limited and Discredited IF We Are Not Ourselves In Rest...

And This Is The Object of the Enemy's Activity in this matter...

To Discredit us by Taking From Us that very Birthright Of Our Union With Him Who is Never Perturbed, Never Anxious, Never In Doubt as to the issue, the One Who Reigns. 

You see, rest is the practical outworking of our belief that He is Lord...

And the Very Lordship of Christ is Struck at by the Unrest of the people of God....

Do not think that it is necessarily such-and-such things that account for our condition. 

These may be contributing factors, they may be very testing, may bear upon us very heavily. 

Physical matters – yes, they do press, they do make the situation exceedingly difficult, they do make a difference. 

Circumstances in which we have to live our lives, they do make a lot of difference, they make the situation exceedingly difficult. 

We say, "If only the Lord would deal with this physical matter or these circumstances or this something else!"

It is all due to that, that is the cause of it, the reason for it...

That is our way of reasoning, but it is not the Lord's thought at all. 

The thing is Deeper Down than that, and it is simply a matter of Believing God; Resolute Faith, Confidence In God. 

The Lord is trying to get us out of our variable and varying soul life where we are at the Mercy of all our Feelings, Thoughts and Reasonings and all that kind of thing...

Into a realm where, in Spirit, we are Steadfast. 

That is the point upon which it is all fixed in the Psalm. "Their heart was not steadfast with Him"...

Psa 78:37  For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant. 

And around that the whole of their forty years is gathered. 

The Key To This Is Spiritual...

Tested by Every other line, Every other means, it is a Spiritual Matter Ultimately. 

To be Strengthened with Might by His Spirit in the Inward man is the Answer to it all.

Eph 3:16  That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 

~T. Austin Sparks

He Humbled Himself And Was Obedient Unto Death!

Php 2:8  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

One of the Hardest things for a Lofty and Superior nature is to be under Authority...

To Renounce his own will, and to take a place of subjection. 

But Christ took upon Him the form of a servant...

Gave up His independence...

His right to please Himself...

His liberty of choice, and after having from eternal ages known only to command, gave Himself up Only To Obey.

I have seen occasionally the man who was once a wealthy employer a clerk in the same store. 

It was not an easy or graceful position, I assure you.

But Jesus was such a Perfect servant that His Father said: "Behold, My Servant in whom My soul delighteth."

All His life His watchword was, The Son of Man Came To Minister.

I am among you as He that doth serve.

I can do nothing of Myself.

Not My will, but Thine, be done.

Have You, Beloved, Learned The Servant's Place?

And once more, "He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." 

His life was all a Dying, and at last He gave All up to death, and also shame, the death of crucifixion. 

This last was the Consummation of His love.

~A. B. Simpson

Take Heed Don't Be Deceived!

Mat 24:4  And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. 

Mat 24:5  For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

In a somewhat extended life and ministry, again and again I have seen dear people of God who were out in the open going on with the Lord in the liberty of the Spirit with great promise and then they’ve been caught in some “ism.” 

They simply are helpless to escape themselves from the tenets of that “ism.” 

Again and again I’ve seen it! 

Tragedy...

There’s a great “ism” sweeping right over America and over Europe in these last years. 

I can dare to mention this one, well I’m going to at any rate: Universalism. 

It’s an “ism” which has captured multitudes! 

And you just can’t get anywhere with these people once they’ve got it. 

But I have known them, oh so promising...

So promising and then this thing has come subtly along their way, attractive and fascinating...

So appealing: everybody, ultimately, including the devil himself, will be saved. 

What are you going to do with that? 

Willy-nilly they’ll be saved...Undercutting so many of the Very Vitals of the Gospel.

You may call these things gross errors and they are...

But there are things that are not such errors. 

Not such errors, indeed in themselves they’re quite true, but they have become the beginning of all and the end of all to the people who have taken them on. 

You can get no further, no further. 

They have lost the great ground, the vast ground of God’s full purpose for this dispensation and become stuck on some thing that is only partial at best. 

Arrested...like Judaism; come to a standstill, or going round and round in a circle, the circle of this particular thing. 

It should be a Warning to us because, you see, this is the thing that has been the enemy of the fullness of Christ all through the centuries - this sort of thing....

There are many antichrists in the world and an antichrist is not a spurious, fearful creature, you know, with a tail and a pitchfork. 

No, an antichrist is something that assumes the place of Christ.... 

And with the Natural Judgment, Natural Powers, you are Not able to Distinguish between the True and the False. 

The Christ and the antichrist Seem to be so much alike. 

You can’t Discern the difference, but the Anointing will tell you! 

The Anointing which you have received, when you come into touch with something false, will tell you if the Anointing is really governing...

Saying, “Be careful,” not in words, but inside. 

You have a feeling there’s something not quite clear here, not transparent here, not safe here... 

I don’t feel happy about this, I can’t tell you why but I just don’t feel quite happy about this... 

There’s something in me that says: Beware.

I am convinced that in a day like this of Deceptions and Misleadings and all that... 

The Great Need is our Spiritual Discernment...

Of knowing the Holy Spirit in this way, that He’s able to Warn you.

~T. Austin Sparks

GODS Authority Overrules The Authority Of Darkness

Mal 3:6  For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

The authority of darkness is a very real thing to us. 

We have experiences, and if we were to capitulate to them, that would be the end of us. 

He tries to bring upon us that impingement of the authority of darkness...

And if we surrender to it, capitulate to it, accept it, we are beaten. 

If we are the Lord's, Christ is within, and Christ is supreme...

And we must go on even if we have no feeling, or if we have a very bad feeling...

When it seems to be the last thing we ought to be saying, we say it because it is God's fact...

And when we begin to affirm God's fact we win through.

Believers know what it is for the enemy to try to make them accept the authority of darkness. 

Stand upon the truth of God. 

God does not change with our feelings. 

God does not alter with our consciousness. 

This whole life of ours is subject to variation more swift than the variation of weather...

But He rules, unalterable, unchangeable.

He is "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." 

And if He is there within, He has come to stay, and victory is in faith...

Believing that, standing on that, holding to that...

And we must carry that through to its final and full issue, that He is Lord of all, "Head of all principality and power."

Satan will sometimes try to make us believe that he is in the place of ascendancy, the place of supremacy,...

But since Calvary he is not, we stand there.

~T. Austin Sparks

The Hand Of The LORD Hath Done This!

Job 12:9  Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?

Several years ago there was found in an African mine the most magnificent diamond in the world's history. 

It was presented to the King of England to blaze in his crown of state. 

The King sent it to Amsterdam to be cut. 

It was put into the hands of an expert lapidary. 

And what do you suppose he did with it?

He took the gem of priceless value, and cut a notch in it. 

Then he struck it a hard blow with his instrument, and lo! 

The superb jewel lay in his hand cleft in twain. What recklessness!  What wastefulness! What criminal carelessness!

Not so. 

For days and weeks that blow had been studied and planned. 

Drawings and models had been made of the gem. 

Its quality, its defects, its lines of cleavage had all been studied with minutest care. 

The man to whom it was committed was one of the most skillful lapidaries in the world.

Do you say that blow was a mistake? 

Nay. It was the most important part of the lapidary's skill. 

When he struck that blow, he did the one thing which would bring that gem to its most perfect shapeliness, radiance, and jeweled splendor. 

That blow which seemed to ruin the superb precious stone was, in fact, its perfect redemption. 

For, from those two halves were wrought the two magnificent gems which the skilled eye of the lapidary saw hidden in the rough, uncut stone as it came from the mine.

So, sometimes, God lets a stinging blow fall upon your life. 

The blood spurts. The nerves wince. The soul cries out in agony.

The blow seems to you an appalling mistake. 

But it is not, for you are the most priceless jewel in the world to God. 

And He is the most skilled lapidary in the universe.

Some day you are to blaze in the diadem of the King. 

As you lie in His hand now He knows just how to deal with you. 

Not a blow will be permitted to fall upon your shrinking soul but that the love of God permits it, and works out from its depths, blessing and spiritual enrichment unseen, and unthought of by you.

--J.H. McC. 

In one of George MacDonald's books occurs this fragment of conversation: "I wonder why God made me," said Mrs. Faber bitterly. "I'm sure I don't know what was the use of making me!"

"Perhaps not much yet," said Dorothy, "but then He hasn't done with you yet."

He is making you now, and you are quarreling with the process.

If men would but believe that they are in process of creation, and consent to be made...

Let the Maker handle them as the potter the clay, yielding themselves in resplendent motion and submissive, hopeful action with the turning of His wheel...

Then they would ere long find themselves able to welcome every pressure of that hand on them, even when it was felt in pain...

And sometimes not only to believe but to recognize the Divine end in view, the bringing of a son unto glory. 

Not a single shaft can hit, Till the God of love sees fit.

Walking In The Light Of Your Own Fire

Isa 50:11  Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.                                                       
What a solemn warning to those who walk in darkness and yet who try to help themselves out into the light. 

They are represented as kindling a fire, and compassing themselves with sparks. 

What does this mean?

Why, it means that when we are in darkness the temptation is to find a way without trusting in the Lord and relying upon Him. 

Instead of letting Him help us out, we try to help ourselves out. 

We seek the light of nature, and get the advice of our friends. 

We try the conclusions of our reason, and might almost be tempted to accept a way of deliverance which would not be of God at all.

All these are fires of our own kindling; rush-lights that will surely lead us onto the shoals. 

And God will let us walk in the light of those sparks, but the end will be sorrow.

Beloved, do not try to get out of a dark place, except, in God's time and in God's way. 

The time of trouble is meant to teach you lessons that you sorely need. 

Premature deliverance may frustrate God's work of grace in your life. 

Just commit the whole situation to Him. 

Be willing to abide in darkness so long as you have His presence.

Remember that it is better to walk in the dark with God than to walk alone in the light. 

~The Still Small Voice

Cease meddling with God's plans and will. 

You touch anything of His, and you mar the work. 

You may move the hands of a clock to suit you, but you do not change the time; so you may hurry the unfolding of God's will, but you harm and do not help the work. 

You can open a rosebud but you spoil the flower. 

Leave all to Him. 

Hands down. 

Thy will, not mine. 

~Stephen Merritt

HIS WAY

God bade me go when I would stay ('Twas cool within the wood); I did not know the reason why.

I heard a boulder crashing by Across the path where I stood. He bade me stay when I would go; "Thy will be done," I said.

They found one day at early dawn, Across the way I would have gone, A serpent with a mangled head.

No more I ask the reason why, Although I may not see The path ahead, His way I go;

For though I know not, He doth know, And He will choose safe paths for me. 

~The Sunday School Times

An Absolutely Committed Vessel

Committed. Surrendered. Abandoned. 

And when we say that, of course, the idea may catch on with us and we may agree, we might even desire it to be so in our case...

But I say to you, my dear friends, there is nothing more searching, more trying, and more exacting than this matter of being committed to the Holy Spirit. 

You look at Ezekiel's life and see what it meant to be committed to the Spirit. 

We shall see much of it if the Lord continues to lead us this way...

But just to remind you, Ezekiel, by being committed to the Spirit, had to do a great many things that the flesh completely revolts against, the natural man shrinks from doing. 

You're not going to make a fool of yourself if you can help it, and he was called upon to do that. 

People laugh at him, what he's doing; jeer and sneer. 

He's doing such ridiculous things from the standpoint of this world's common sense, but he had to do them.

Enough for the moment, but it's all very well to say, "I'm surrendered, I want to be surrendered. 

I'm going to be a surrendered man, a surrendered woman, surrender myself wholly to God.

Well, let's be quite frank and faithful about this. 

If you are, the whole, the whole thing is going to be taken out of your hands. 

You're going where you would never go naturally. 

You're going by ways that you would never choose, from which you would turn back or away with all the shrinking of your natural life. 

Other aspects, of course, are perhaps happier and better. 

But there it is.

Now, Ezekiel was a committed man, not in word alone, but day by day...

Day by day faced with some fresh challenge of the Spirit having laid upon him some fresh demand contrary to nature. 

His committal found him ready, so ready that the Spirit could just do as He liked with Ezekiel. 

Do as He liked with him! I say that's searching- that will find us out. 

But the realization of the full Divine purpose demands that there are men and women and companies of men and women who are committed in that way to the Holy Spirit. 

You may have a battle over some things, but you'll fight it through. 

You'll fight it through. 

You'll face it and realize what it implies, what it means, and you may shrink and you may hesitate. 

You may feel you cannot, but you'll fight it through; at least you'll not surrender on the spot, but face this thing and get through with it, however long it takes.

Committed! Our minds committed, our wills committed, our hearts committed, our bodies committed. 

Everything committed. 

It came, in Ezekiel's case, to his wife. 

And he had there to allow God to have His way even in taking his wife. 

Well, you see how he behaved. 

He was a committed man. 

That's the point. 

And we're talking about God's great purpose- everything being governed by purpose. 

It's the Spirit who is the custodian of the eternal purpose. 

It's the Spirit who has this in charge, but He must have vessels that are committed in this way.

There are, of course, counterparts in the New Testament. 

The book of the Acts is in one sense the counterpart of the prophecies of Ezekiel. 

Here you have the Spirit undoubtedly like the fiery chariot of God in Ezekiel, the wheels and the living ones moving with the Spirit in them, "withersoever the Spirit would go they went," it says. 

And Acts is undoubtedly the New Testament counterpart of Ezekiel in that sense. 

But here you sometimes come up against a hitch, even in an apostle, where he's challenged about something that naturally and religiously, and - as he thought scripturally - he would never do. 

He would never do! 

Peter had the Scripture on his side when he said, "No unclean thing has ever passed my lips. 

Not so, Lord, I've got Scripture for my position!" 

The eleventh chapter of the book of Leviticus supports him in that position apparently, but the Spirit thought otherwise.

The Cross had come in between Leviticus and Peter's time, to deal with all unclean things so that the Spirit could say now, because the Cross had accomplished what God had cleansed, "Call that not unclean", and Peter had to adjust. 

But there was a battle, there was a hitch. 

The Spirit came up against something in the clay. 

And it was a very desperate situation: his apostleship was at stake. 

The purpose of God through such a man was in the balances of that, "Peter, are you going to be committed to the Spirit and let the Spirit have His way, or are you going to stand on your traditional ground, your mental ground? 

What's it going to be?"

Well, thank God Peter got through that battle and proved his committal and the Spirit went on. 

I just put that in as an illustration of what I mean. 

The book of the Acts is like that, the Spirit has got the purpose in hand, but He must have committed instruments. 

Now, I said there were two things; that's one. 

We can enlarge much upon that, but what we have to say later is but the breaking up of that.

~T. Austin Sparks

                                                       

It's Not A Forced Surrender!

Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
      
This, you observe, is not a forced surrender.

Our Lord says take My yoke upon you.

Our Lord is very fond of the word must, but He never uses it in this connection.

When the Roman legions smashed some savage tribe, that tribe was compelled to bear the yoke.

Often, on that account, they hated Rome, and served her with rebellion in their hearts.

But Christ wants nobody on terms like these.

Such terms are not in the program of His conquest.

Christ demands a surrender that is willing.

You can compel the dog to do your bidding.

You can force the slave to carry out your will.

But Christ, that mighty advocate of liberty, treats nobody as a dog or as a slave.

We are the Father's children, made in the Father's image, with an inalienable heritage of freedom...

And we may take or we may spurn the yoke.

There are so many who are waiting for something irresistible to happen...

Something to sweep them off their feet to Christ, as the breaker sweeps the log on to the shore.

That something is never going to happen.

Now is the accepted time.

The Master's word is "Take my yoke upon you."

~George H. Morrison

Jellyfish Christianity

Eighteen centuries ago the apostle Paul forewarned us, "The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. 

Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear!" 

2Ti 4:3  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

2Ti 4:4  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

The natural man hates the Gospel and all its distinctive doctrines, and delights in any vain excuse for refusing it.

The plain truth is, that the root of the whole evil lies in the fallen nature of man, and his deeply-seated unbelief in God's infallible Word. 

I suspect we have no idea how little saving faith there is on earth, and how few people entirely believe Bible truths.

One man is proud--he dislikes the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, because they leave him no room to boast.

Another is lazy and indolent--he dislikes distinctive doctrine, because it summons him to troublesome thought, and self-inquiry, and mental self-exertion.

Another is grossly ignorant--he imagines that all distinctive doctrine is a mere matter of words and names, and that it does not matter a jot what we believe.

Another is thoroughly worldly--he shrinks from distinctive doctrine, because it condemns his darling world.

But in one form or another, I am satisfied that "original sin" is the cause of all the mischief. 

And the whole result is, that vast numbers of men greedily swallow down the seemingly new idea that doctrine is of no great importance. 

It supplies a convenient excuse for their sins.

The consequences of this widespread dislike to doctrine are very serious in the present day. 

Whether we like to allow it or not, it is an epidemic which is doing great harm. 

It creates, fosters, and keeps up an immense amount of instability in religion. 

It produces what I must venture to call, if I may coin the phrase, a jellyfish Christianity in the churches--that is, a Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power.

A jellyfish, as everyone knows who has been much by the sea-side, is a pretty and graceful object when it floats in the sea, contracting and expanding like a little, delicate, transparent umbrella. 

Yet the same jellyfish, when cast on the shore--is a mere helpless lump, without capacity for movement, self-defense, or self-preservation.

Alas! It is a vivid type of much of the religion of this day, of which the leading principle is, "No dogma, no distinct tenets, no positive doctrine."

We have hundreds of jellyfish clergymen, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. 

They have no definite opinions. They are so afraid of "extreme views"--that they have no views at all.

We have thousands of jellyfish sermons preached every year--sermons without an edge or a point. 

They are as smooth as billiard balls--awakening no sinner, and edifying no saint.

We have legions of jellyfish young men annually turned out from our seminaries, armed with a few scraps of second-hand philosophy, who think it a mark of cleverness and intellect to have no decided opinions about anything in religion, and to be utterly unable to make up their minds as to what Christian truth is. 

Their proud hearts are not satisfied with truths which satisfied the godly of former years. 

Their only creed is a kind of "Anythingism." They believe everything--and are sure and positive about nothing!

And last, and worst of all, we have myriads of jellyfish worshipers--respectable church-going people, who have no distinct and definite views about any point in theology. 

They cannot discern things that differ, any more than color-blind people can distinguish colors!  

They think that everybody is right-and nobody is wrong, everything is true-and nothing is false, all sermons are good-and none are bad, every minister is sound-and none are unsound.   

They are "tossed to and fro, like children, by every wind of doctrine!" 

They are often carried away by any new excitement and sensational movement. 

They are ever ready for new things, because they have no firm grasp on the old Scripture truths.

~J. C. Ryle