VISIONS OF THE SEER: 2011

Thursday, August 25, 2011

By A.W. Tozer

Of one thing we may be sure; we can never escape the external stimuli that cause vexation. The world is full of them and though we were to retreat to a cave and live the remainder of our days alone, we still could not lose them. The rough floor of our cave would chafe us, the weather would irritate us and the very silence would cause us to fret.
Deliverance from a fretting spirit may be by blood and fire, by humility, self-abnegation and a patient carrying of the cross. There will always be "evildoers" and "workers of iniquity," and for the most part they will appear to succeed while the forces of righteousness will seem to fail. The wicked will always have the money and the talent and the publicity and the numbers, while the righteous will be few and poor and unknown. The prayerless Christian will surely misread the signs and fret against the circumstances. That is what the Spirit warns us against.

Let us look out calmly upon the world; or better yet, let us look down upon it from above where Christ is seated and we are seated in Him. Though the wicked spread himself like "a green tree in its native soil" (Psalm 37:35), it is only for a moment. Soon he passes away and is not. But "the salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD; he is their stronghold in time of trouble" (verse 39). This knowledge should cure the fretting spirit.

Returning in Power

The Friend on the Road and Other Studies in the Gospels: Chapter 25

By John Henry Jowett

"And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee."--Luke iv. 14.

OUR Master had been at the familiar place in life where there are many roads but only one right one. And the wrong roads were decked with all sorts of shining allurements. And the allurements were all the more perilous because they had a suggestion of religion and piety about them. The wrong road was made to look as though it led up to a church. There was a sound of church bells, as though a subtle temptation had been wedded to a call to worship. That is the most insidious trial in life, when the church bells are ringing on the broad road that leadeth to destruction.

But our Master knew the broad road, even though it was carpeted with flowers. He knew the egotism which lay concealed under seeming homage. He knew the difference between faith and presumption. He knew the infinite contrast between a swelling imperialism and the holy Kingdom which He had come to found in sacrificial blood. And so with all His might He fought the tempter and overthrew him, and with richly invigorated strength He went forth to His work in Galilee.

Our Master had been in the wilderness of temptation, and He returned with a vaster equipment for His holy service. The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; but here the thief had been robbed, and the despoiler had been spoiled. The tempter had been made to strengthen the tempted. The very temptation had been coerced into a minister of increased resources. The Lord Jesus emerged in power! The wilderness had become a school, a gymnasium, a scene of combat and wrestling; and, so far from being spiritually destroyed, the Master put on strength and victory like a robe. As Samuel Rutherford quaintly says, in one of his letters to Marian McNaught: "God can make a stepping-stone of the devil himself for setting forward His work!"

And all this teaches me how I must think about my temptations. I must look upon temptation as opportunity. I must regard it, not as something to be feared, but as something to be spoiled. It is like some frowning, bristling city which I am to overthrow and sack. The bigger the temptation the richer the booty! The harder the conflict the more robust shall be my strength. And so it is that the Apostle counsels us to count it all joy when we fall among temptations! They are often full of menace, but splendid wealth hides behind the guns! Refuse to yield and the wealth is yours! Our manifold temptations are just the threatening side of manifold treasures. If we overcome the tempter we shall return in power.

And so it is that we are never so near great riches as when we are sorely tried. That is surely very heartening. In great temptations we are being favoured with a shining opportunity, and we are to count it all joy. We must fix our minds upon the rich possibilities, and with all the strength of our being resolve that they shall be realised. Let us maintain a positive attitude to our foe. Let us fight the good fight of faith, assured that every victory will make us nobler soldiers. And let us fight in the holy fellowship of the Captain of our Salvation, who, Himself being tempted, turned His wilderness into a place of springs, and who will so strengthen His disciples that their wilderness and solitary place shall be glad, and their desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.

The Road Uphill

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

"Walking in the midst of the fire" (Daniel 3:25).

The fire did not arrest their motion; they walked in the midst of it. It was one of the streets through which they moved to their destiny. The comfort of Christ's revelation is not that it teaches emancipation from sorrow, but emancipation through sorrow.

O my God, teach me, when the shadows have gathered, that I am only in a tunnel. It is enough for me to know that it will be all right some day.

They tell me that I shall stand upon the peaks of Olivet, the heights of resurrection glory. But I want more, O my Father; I want Calvary to lead up to it. I want to know that the shadows of this world are the shades of an avenue the avenue to the house of my Father. Tell me I am only forced to climb because Thy house is on the hill! I shall receive no hurt from sorrow if I shall walk in the midst of the fire. --George Matheson

"'The road is too rough,' I said;
'It is uphill all the way;
No flowers, but thorns instead;
And the skies over head are grey.'
But One took my hand at the entrance dim,
And sweet is the road that I walk with Him.

"The cross is too great,' I cried--
'More than the back can bear,
So rough and heavy and wide,
And nobody by to care.'
And One stooped softly and touched my hand:
'I know. I care. And I understand.'

"Then why do we fret and sigh;
Cross-bearers all we go:
But the road ends by-and-by
In the dearest place we know,
And every step in the journey we
May take in the Lord's own company."

The Night-Dream

Eventide at Bethel: Chapter 8

By John MacDuff

      "The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

"And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away."--Longfellow.

"The dream of Jacob is not merely natural, but prophetic; it is the medium of Divine revelation."--Kurtz.

      "Come here with your tongues and pens, all you that have them--sing and play all you that can, that so we may in some small degree comprehend the import of these words."--Luther.

      "And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven--and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it."--Genesis 28:12.

"By whom shall Jacob arise," asks the prophet, "for he is small?" (Amos 7:2.) Such might well be the question prompted, as the weary traveler casts himself down at eventide on his pillow of stones on one of the heaths of Palestine.

The question is now to be answered. The rocky uncurtained couch, which even a wandering child of Ishmael would have spurned, has no equal that night on earth. The Pharaohs in their palaces might well envy him. His bleak resting place is to be radiant with a vision of angels; and, while the ornate chambers of Ramses and the other Pharaoh's with their gold and purple have vanished long ago, it still retains its imperishable name.

"By whom shall Jacob arise?" There can be but one reply. He can arise from his weakness and shame alone in the might of his fathers' God. To use the words uttered by himself, at the hour of death, regarding his best loved son, "The arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob" (Genesis 49:24). It is evident the present divine revelation is one which the inspired narrator records with profound interest and wonder; for the interjection, indicative of reverential astonishment, is used no less than three times in the course of the brief description--"Behold," "Behold," "Behold!"

The Lord has in all ages had different methods of communicating His will and purposes to the Church. At one time, as in the case of Abraham, it was through the vision of "a smoking furnace and a burning lamp" (Genesis 15:17). At another, it was by the oracles of the Urim and the Thummin with their mysterious flashing of spiritual illumination. At another, it was through prophetic announcements. At another, and most frequently of all, it was through the medium of dreams. "In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction" (Job. 33:15, 16).

Nor was this instrumentality employed regarding His own people only. It was common alike to Jew and Gentile. Familiar Bible instances may be recalled, from the case of the young sage of Arabia, (whose words we have just quoted) and the kings of Egypt and Babylon (Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar), to the New Testament examples of the Persian Magi, and the wife of Pontius Pilate. On the present occasion, however, it is with no stranger or foreigner, but with the heir of the covenant, the head and representative of His chosen Church and nation, that God adopts the same means to reveal His presence and protecting care.

All of us know the vivid--sometimes the overpowering reality of these visions and pageants of dreamland. The mental nature seems for the time to be abnormally quickened and intensified. Long forgotten scenes are revived and repeopled. In the silent studio of night, when the senses are sealed in slumber, long forgotten faces start afresh from the ghostly canvas, yes, and, from the intensity of revived impression, cherished smiles and sacred tones long since passed away, bring the tear to the eye, and the irrepressible sob to the heart. It is the hour when the judgment abdicates its control and imagination holds undisputed sway--

By J.G. Bellet

John 4

We are all attracted by the journey which the Prodigal takes from the distant land of his degradation and misery, home to his father's house, in Luke 15. It is a touching picture of the return which a sinner makes under the quickening and conduct of the Spirit, back to God, and then finding in Him a forgiving Father.

There is, however, another and a different journey described in Scripture, the co-relative, as I may call it, of the Prodigal's. I mean the journey of the Father out to the distant land after His prodigal. We read it in John 4.

Jesus who came from the Father in heaven, and represented the Father in this world of sinners, is there seen as making this journey. He goes into defiled Samaria, a figure of this polluted world; for Samaria was as a leper, separated from the place of righteousness, and treated as a thing outside the camp. But there, into that reprobate land, that native land of prodigals, the Lord goes. And He finds a sinner there, one who was still as with the swine in the fields of a stranger, feeding upon husks, unsatisfied.

The journey costs Him sore. He is weary, hungry, thirsty: and in the heat of the day seats Himself where this Prodigal was soon to join Him. And there, in the presence of her need, He at once forgets His own, setting Himself to minister to her, in the patience that love will suffer, and with the skilfulness that love suggests.

He seeks her confidence in the most effectual, gracious manner. He asks her for a cup of cold water, the smallest of all favours known among the children of men. He would make her feel at ease in His presence; and she does so. But attracted by something that more interested her than the thirst of a stranger, i.e., the novelty of the whole circumstance, He at once follows where she, under that attraction, was leading Him.

It is, however, after a Prodigal He has gone, and He can receive her and bless her in no other character. It was the ruined state of lost, revolted sinners He had come from heaven to relieve, and such only He can now have to do with, on the other side of the borders between Judea, the place of the sanctuary, and unclean Samaria.

But this woman of that unclean place, this Prodigal in the distant land, does not as yet know herself. He therefore sets Himself to teach her, to awaken her to her condition. And with what grace He does this. He would do all to spare her feelings, but He cannot spare her sin.

Surely we may say, if the journey which the Prodigal took towards home, in Luke 15, was beautiful, as being in due consistency with his condition as a convicted sinner, beautiful is this journey which the Father takes after the Prodigal in the considerate grace and patient love which give it character from first to last. Blessed is it to see in one of, these journeys, the fruit of the hidden, effectual work of the Spirit in the soul of a sinner, putting him on the road back to God in the only character in which God could receive him--and blessed it is to see in the other of these journeys, that grace which acts as from itself and in sovereignty, seeking and saving that which was lost, in the exercise of the most patient, skilful love, that was tender as far as faithfulness admitted.

And here let me add, for it is happy and edifying to be able to do so, that these two journeys, the one of the seeking Saviour, the other of the returning sinner, end in the same place, though they were taken as from opposite points, one to, the other from, the distant land. Both end in the joy of the Father's house--with, however, this distinguishing excellence in John 4 over Luke 15, that it is rather the joy of the household that is seen in Luke 15, but the joy of the Father (of the Lord Jesus, the witness of the Father in this world of sinners, as we noticed before, and as He Himself tells us) that is seen in John 4. "I have meat to eat which ye know not of," are words which bespeak the joy of the Divine bosom over one that was dead but alive again, that was lost but now found; and which, as the Lord Himself intimates, lay quite beyond the measure of either disciples here, or angels in heaven.

Titles of the Risen Lord

Titles of the Risen Lord

By T. Austin-Sparks

Square brackets [ ] indicate interpolations, queries or corrections made by the transcriber that were not in the original spoken message.

We are today occupied with the Resurrection side of the Cross, and this afternoon I'm going to ask you to consider with me some of the titles of the Risen Lord: the Resurrection titles of the Lord Jesus. In the Book of the Revelation, chapter one, at verse four: "John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you, and peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before His Throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth". There you have three titles of the Lord in Resurrection. That they relate to Him in Resurrection is quite clear from the context where He Himself says to John: "I am the Living One; I became dead, I am alive for evermore" [Revelation 1:18]. Three titles: the faithful Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, the Ruler of the kings of the earth.

Now it is important to note two things as we advance to this. Firstly, this is the Book of the Revelation, or the Unveiling of Jesus Christ, so the first sentence declares. Secondly, it is the Revelation of Him as exercising authority and judgment: firstly, in the Church; secondly, in the nations, and thirdly, in the kingdom of satan. Those three things comprehend the whole of this book. This authority, which He is here revealed as exercising, is itself based upon three things: first, what He has proved Himself to be in Person, in Incarnation; secondly, what He has become in Triumph over death; and thirdly, what He is in Exaltation and Divine Vindication.

At a glance, you will see that those three things are but an exposition of the three titles: [1] what He has proved Himself to be in Person, in Incarnation: the faithful Witness, taking Him right up to the Cross and into all the experience of the Cross; [2] what He has become in Triumph over death: the Firstborn of the dead; and [3] what He is in Exaltation by Divine Vindication: the Ruler of the kings of the earth.

All His authority and judgment is based upon those three things, or upon what He has proved Himself to be in Person.

We take these, as far as time will allow, one by one.

The Faithful Witness

"The faithful Witness" -- the testimony in incarnation: that is, in His Person while here on the earth.

Now a witness is the embodiment of the truth -- if he is a true witness. If he has the right to be called a witness, he himself should be the very embodiment of the truth. Jesus was THAT! Jesus as the faithful Witness was a, we may say THE, faithful Representation of God's Mind concerning man. What God intended man to be, what the whole race of men had failed to be, Jesus became THAT: a faithful Representation of God's Mind in the creation of man. That is how we must look at Him while here on the earth: not just following His steps, noting His words and His actions, being interested or even fascinated with His teaching and with His mighty works. But looking deeper, deeper into His heart, into His mind, His whole mentality, His whole Spirit, looking deeper to see what kind of a Man this is. What comes out from the very nature of this Man, all the reactions that He makes to all the play of conditions and trials and sufferings and disappointments. All that He meets in this world, and all that He meets in men, all that He meets in His life circumstances, and how He behaves, and what Spirit He shows. What comes out from the inward Man? What kind of a Man this is?

I think we can sum up the Life of the Lord Jesus here in three ways:

The Food Question

by T. Austin-Sparks

In times of national emergency by reason of threatening or actual war, one of the most vital considerations, and one that very largely governs the issue, is that of the food supply. To conserve it is a primary feature of both defence and aggression. To keep it from falling into the enemy's hands is a tactic of victory. If this is true in the natural and earthly realm, it certainly is true in the spiritual and heavenly. It is not always realised by Christians that they are born (at new birth) into conditions which are such as mark an emergency.

That is to say, a state of war has existed from the day that Adam sinned, and that warfare is becoming more intense as the end of the dispensation approaches. A feature of this warfare is the food question, and the final issue in the case of each believer depends upon spiritual food to a very serious degree. As in the time of Gideon, so now. The Midianites then sought to spoil and steal all the crops. Gideon was marked by God as one to be taken up and used as a deliverer because secretly he gave himself up to conserve food for his brethren, and so defeat the enemy.

But to consider the matter of food generally, there are some quite simple analogies between the natural and the spiritual.

Firstly, then, is the matter of

Appetite

A first question asked of a patient by a doctor is, How is your appetite? showing that this is closely related to sickness or health, and may be a symptom. Now a fact to be recognised is that in the Christian there is an "inner man", which is altogether other and distinct from the outer man, and has a whole set of definite faculties and functions. This inner man is capable of growth; of being in sickness or in health; of being weak or strong; of being able to do spiritual exploits, or being impotent in the fight. No matter how full of natural vim and energy a Christian may be, he cannot by any natural strength effect even one iota of spiritual value.

There will, sooner or later, be a terrible breakdown both in the worker and the work, and any emergency will quickly precipitate this, if there is no real spiritual constitution. This depends upon spiritual food. But inasmuch as it is so easy to go on in natural energy and activity and fail to realise that it is not really spiritual power, we should apply the test of spiritual life and health. How is your appetite? What kind of an appetite have you for spiritual food? Is it poor? Is it easily satisfied? Is it faddy and fussy? Do you have to have your spiritual food prepared and served up in such a pleasant and tasty way as to make you feel that you are eating and yet not eating? What can you eat? is a question for the delicate and invalid.

For the truly healthy and sound, the demand is for "something that you can put your teeth into"; "something solid"; "something to live and work on"! This is a fairly sound test of our spiritual life, and Paul, the Apostle, has left us in no doubt about it. "I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but... as unto babes. I fed you with milk, not with meat; for... ye were not able to bear it" (1 Cor. 3:1,2).

By Bob Hoekstra

Surely He scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble. (Proverbs 3:34)
The scriptures emphasize the Lord's commitment to pour out grace upon those who walk in humility, while opposing the path of those who walk in pride. "But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble' . . . Be clothed with humility, for 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble' . . . Though the LORD is on high, Yet He regards the lowly; But the proud He knows from afar" (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5; and Psalm 138:6). In our present verse we have another pointed example. "Surely He scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble."

It is an absolute certainty that the Lord will scorn the scornful. "Surely He scorns the scornful." The scornful person shows arrogant disregard for the Lord and His righteous ways. He is a mocker of godliness and a boaster in wickedness. The Lord will assuredly scorn such people. He will treat them with a holy disdain. He will reject their path with holy contempt.

For so many of us who have a heart for the Lord, walking scornfully before the Lord is not a likely threat. However, somewhat related attitudes may become a part of our walk (even inadvertently). Pride and haughtiness are two of the most common, and most deadly. "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). These companion evils could both be summarized as self-exaltation. Such an approach to life always results in devastating downfalls. These attitudes and their consequences are most fully illustrated by the history of the devil himself. Before he became the ultimate rebel against God, he was a magnificent, privileged angelic being. "You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God . . . You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you." (Ezekiel 28:14-15). This iniquity that developed was self-exaltation. "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! . . . For you have said in your heart: . . . I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:12-14). This haughty exalting of self brought a disastrous fall, which will end up forever in hell itself.

May we daily chose to walk with God's humble saints, refusing to join the ranks of the proud, with their self-advancing schemes. "Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud" (Proverbs 16:19).

Lord God Most High, I repent of the times that I have exalted myself in word or deed or attitude. I renounce the prideful path of self-advancing humanity. I want to identify with Your humble saints, looking to You to shape and use our lives through Your abounding grace, Amen.

How Long Can You Wait?

By Warren Wiersbe

Read Psalm 13:1-6
Have you ever been impatient with God? Impatience is one of my big problems. I always get into the wrong lane on a toll road. Someone's in front of me with foreign currency, trying to buy his way through the tollbooth. I get into the wrong line at the airport, thinking, This line is a good line; it's going to move. But it doesn't because somebody in the line has lost his passport. And I get irritated.

It's one thing for us to be impatient with ourselves or with others. But when we become impatient with God, we should watch out! "How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul?" (vv. 1,2). Four times David asked, "How long?" We're so time conscious today. We have watches that show us split seconds. But what do we do with those split seconds? If we save three minutes by taking a shortcut, what significant thing will we accomplish with the three minutes we save?

We expect God to do what we want Him to do--and right now! But He doesn't always act immediately. Abraham had to wait for 25 years after God's promise before Isaac was born. Isaac had to wait 20 years for his children. Joseph had to wait 13 years before he was set free and put on the throne. Moses had a wait of 80 years. You see, God's schedule is not the same as ours. Sometimes He waits so that He can do more for us than we expect. When He heard that Lazarus was dying, our Lord waited until his friend's death before He came. But when He came, He brought a greater miracle and received greater glory. The hardest thing to do is to wait on the Lord. But we can if we will trust Him and rest on His Word.

Some of your greatest blessings come with patience. When you must wait for God to act, you can be confident that He knows what is best for you and what will best glorify Him. Are you waiting for God to act on your behalf? Align with His timing and rest on the promises of His Word.

Belonging to God

The Joy of Service: Chapter 4

By J.R. Miller

"You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

It is a great thing to have God for master--and to own it. The trouble with too many of us--is we try to be our own master. We make sorry work of it, too, whenever we take into our own hands--the direction of our life. There is only one safe place to leave it--in the hands of God.

Paul packs into one terse sentence, a whole volume of practical teaching when he says, "You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God." It is not easy for us with our proud human nature, to confess that we really are not our own. We like to feel that we are independent beings. We are loath to call anyone master. Many of us resent even God's claim to ownership in us, and deny His right to command us.

But the first principle of true religion, declares that we belong to God, that His right over us is absolute. It is nothing unreasonable, either, that is thus required of us. We rightfully belong to God. The authority He claims over us is neither arbitrary nor assumed. He made us, and has the Creator's right over us, His creatures. He is our Father; and as His children we owe Him all homage, obedience, submission, and love. Then, He is our Lord and King; and we ought to recognize His authority, and without question submit ourselves to Him, bringing every thought, feeling, disposition, and affection into subjection to Him.

But there is a higher ground on which this ownership rests. "You are bought with a price." We know well what this price was. We need to think much of the cost of the blessings we enjoy as Christians. It will make them far more sacred, when we remember that it was through the humiliation, sorrow, and death of our Redeemer, that the blessings of salvation became ours. A nation's flag is dear, not merely because of the pieces of cloth that compose it--but because it represents, not only all that the nation stands for--but has written into it all the story of the nations' life. Just so, in the symbols of Christianity, are folded up for us all that Christianity means to the world and to our own heart.

There are things which can be bought with money--but there are some things that money cannot buy. With money a man may build a house, and adorn and furnish it; but money will not buy home happiness, and the sweetness, comfort, and refinement which make true home life. With money we may purchase bread and clothing, coal for the fire, and luxuries for physical enjoyment; but money will not acquire fine character, moral beauty, a gentle spirit, peace in the heart, or any of the elements which make up a noble personality. Money ransomed many a slave from captivity in ancient times--but human redemption was not obtained at any money price. The Son of God gave His life a ransom for souls. Thus our belonging to God is confirmed and sealed by the holiest sanctions.

Yet, while the authority of God over us and His right to us are unquestioned, the relation is one that, as moral beings, we must each voluntarily accept and acknowledge. In one sense, God never compels us to be His; we are sovereigns over our own life. We can do as we will. We can resist even God's authority. Our puny will can shut omnipotence out of our life. We can proudly say, "Our lips are our own; who is Lord over us?"

The truth that we are not our own, must be acknowledged by ourselves. We must make our life God's, by an act of personal devotement. The mere acknowledgment of the fact that we belong to God is not enough--there must be a transaction, a surrender, a giving of the keys of our life over into the hands of God--out of our own hands. No one can make this devotement for us. No mother can make her child--God's child. She may dedicate it to Him in its infancy, and bring it up for Him along the years; but the child is not truly God's--until for itself it makes the personal devotement.

By T. Austin-Sparks

"They that trust in the Lord Are as mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, So the Lord is round about his people, From this time forth and for evermore." Psalm 125:1-2

Psalms 120 to 134 form a little volume of their own, called the Psalms or Songs of Ascent. They tell of the climb up out of the deep, dark valley on to the sunny heights, which is where the Lord always desires His people to be.

Psalm 84 speaks of passing through the valley of weeping, but in that connection we ought to underline the two words "passing through", for this valley is never meant to be the dwelling place of the people of God but only a passage through which they pass. Zion, the mountain home, is where God wants His people to abide. It is surely instructive to note that the Lord established periodic ascents as an ordinance in Israel; all their males had to go up to Jerusalem three times in every year. God meant these going-up ordinances to be governmental in nature; that is, the people of Israel were not to be governed by the plains or valleys, but to be a people of the mountains. They might have to spend time, perhaps much time, down below but their normal life was continually interrupted by the command to go up. Their life, their real life, was up in the high places. If we could have joined their caravans as three times a year they made ready and got on the march, leaving the valleys and the plains and going on the upward way to Jerusalem, we would have found that these journeys had a tremendous influence on the life of the people. These songs, for instance, became songs for all time; they were provided for the ascents of those particular occasions, but they were not reserved for the three times a year, becoming the perpetual songs of Israel in which we ourselves find much of abiding value. This is because the Lord's mind for His people is that they should not abide in the deep and shadowy places, though from time to time they may have to pass through the valleys, but that they should be a people of the heights, with their lives governed by that which is above and not by what is below.

I have been very much impressed with the large place which mountains had in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, as may be verified in Matthew's Gospel, which begins in chapter 5 with the Mount of Instruction and finishes in chapter 28 with the Mount of Commission. It can be noted that all through the Gospel the peak events were associated with mountains, as though these found an answer, a response, in the very heart and nature of our Lord. Is it not true that Jesus came down and passed through this valley of weeping in order to meet us and lift us up out of it?

His whole life, in every aspect and activity of praying, teaching and working, was a life on a rising plane, a lifting, returning move to heaven which would take back with Him as many others as possible. There was nothing in the low level of this world's ways to give Him any pleasure, so it is not surprising that He loved the mountain heights. The very nature and spirit of the Lord Jesus was a complete contradiction of the natural course of human movement which is steadily slipping lower and lower. The Lord Jesus is in direct contrast to this; the whole effect and influence of His presence anywhere being to lift upwards. He only came by way of this valley of tears to lift us up out of it.

ASCENDANCY

Mountains suggest and represent elevation, ascendancy - "I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains". To take our eyes off what is here - self, circumstances and the rest - and to set them on the One who is the Lord over all, high and lifted up on the throne, is itself an elevating experience. "Looking off unto Jesus" is the one thing which will bring us up out of the valley of despair, for where our vision rests affects the course of our lives. It is in every sense an uplifting experience to be joined to the Lord in heaven; it is morally elevating and spiritually emancipating.

Light and Truth: The Old Testament: Chapter 56

By Horatius Bonar

Isaiah 6:1-13

WHETHER this vision records Isaiah's first call to the prophetic ministry matters not. It is either the introduction to his whole ministry, or to a new section of it, probably the latter; the first five chapters describing Israel as ripening for judgment, and the sixth as receiving the sentence. Let us take up the chapter under the following heads.

I. The vision. It was a temple vision, a vision of glory, the glory of Jehovah of hosts, as such, the glory of the King and the Priest, of the throne and temple; and all this when Uzziah the king lay dying or was dead,--the earthly king passing away, the heavenly King shewing himself. It was truly a royal and glorious vision,--Jehovah himself the centre of it,--King of kings and Lord of lords, true King of Israel and of the earth, true Melchizedek, a Priest upon his throne. In connection with this King are the seraphim. Probably these are the same as cherubim, as they are almost identical with those described in Ezekiel and John. In Genesis and in the historical books they appear as cherubim, "figures"; in Isaiah as seraphim, or "burners"; in Ezekiel and John as "living creatures."

Here they stand upon the train of the royal robe which filled the temple. They have six wings. Two cover the face,--as if the glory were overwhelming to them (as Moses hid his face, Exodus 3:6); two their feet,--to hide their whole person, body ("their bodies," Ezekiel 1:23), and feet from the brightness; two they fly with, as if ready to go forth on the errands of this mighty King. Is not this the true posture of every saint of God? Solemn awe in presence of the divine majesty, as unfit to look upon the glorious One; profound self-abasement, as unfit to be looked upon by one so holy; readiness to do the work of God, to go forth on his service on the wings of faith and love.

II. The voice. It was the voice of the seraphim, a responsive song,-- "one cried unto another." Their song was, (1.) Of Jehovah of hosts and of his three-fold holiness; (2.) Of earth,--the whole earth,--earth filled with His glory. Thus the voice interprets the vision. It is a vision of latter-day glory,-- when the Lord alone shall be exalted, when holiness to the Lord shall be seen and heard everywhere, when the glory of the Lord shall fill the world. What a contrast the state of things thus revealed to that in the day of the prophet! This holy glory was to him exceeding marvellous,--a holy glory in connection with Jehovah of hosts as King of all the earth. It is the times of restitution of all things, when the Lord alone shall be exalted.

III. The shaking. The posts of the door, or foundations of the threshold moved, or shook, at the voice of the seraphim, and the temple was filled with smoke. The foundations of God's own house are moved at the voice of the marvellous song, and the house is filled with that which symbolises Jehovah's holy anger against sin (Psalm 18:9). The vision seems to be that of God coining down in his holiness, to shake the earth, and to express his hatred against sin, and especially against Israel's sin, in His own sanctuary (Isaiah 65:5). He is spoken of here as arising to shake terribly the earth,--beginning at His own temple, but not ceasing till He has shaken all that can be shaken, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. When God's anger waxes hot against sin, then all the earth shall be as Sinai,--when the mountain shook, and was covered with smoke from the presence of the holy Lord God. The "battles of shaking" for our world are yet to come (Isaiah 30:32).

The Prophets alarm. (verse 5) His cry is, "Woe is me"; nay, "I am undone." The reason of his alarm is a new and deeper view of his own sinfulness, from a new view of Jehovah's holiness. "A man of unclean lips am I;" nay, "among a people of unclean lips do I dwell." He gives the reason,--" the King, Jehovah of hosts, mine eyes have seen." Thus the nearer God comes to us, the more are we made aware of our uncleanness (even that of our lips, and feel the uncleanness of a world of unclean lips in which we dwell. The vision of earth filled with holy glory, and with the presence of its glorious King, has overwhelmed him. As in the case of Daniel (10:8), and John (Revelation 1:17). The more we realise a present God, and an earth filled with his glory, the more shall we feel our own unholiness and cry out in fear, even though we be saints. We feel the awful contrast between our unholy lips and the holy lips of those who are singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." It was Israel's "unclean lips" that cried, "Crucify him"; and for the words of their unclean lips they are now suffering the woes of God.

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

"He opened not his mouth" (Isa. 53:7).

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.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Isaiah 42:12-18

12Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands.

13The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies.

14I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.

15I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.

16And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

17They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.

18Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Persis the Beloved

The Best Things in Life: Chapter 6

By J.R. Miller

Among Paul's salutations to old friends at Rome, is one to Persis. "Greet Persis the beloved, who labored much in the Lord." There is not other mention of this woman in the New Testament. We do not know where Paul had known her. Her whole biography is given in the one little sentence. Probably she was obscure, though no one who works for Christ is obscure. When we live a pure, true, unselfish life, though it be in a most quiet way--we cannot know the extent of what we are doing, how far its influence may extend, how much good it may do, how long it may be talked about. Persis labored somewhere, in some quiet way for Christ, nineteen hundred years ago. Her work was not much talked about then by the neighbors--but Paul told its story in a few words, and here it remains in immortal beauty.

Persis lived without fame, and after she had been dead a little while--she was forgotten. But we open one of the New Testament pages, and there the story of her life lies in shining beauty.

Persis is called "the beloved." We are not told why she was so universally beloved. No doubt her character was beautiful. Every Christian woman should seek to be lovely in her life. Beauty of the face and feature--is not the highest beauty. There is a story of a girl who was so homely that even her mother said to her, "You are so ugly, that everybody will dislike you, and you will have no friends." The girl accepted the fact of her homeliness bravely, without being discouraged by it. "I will make my life so beautiful," she said, "that people will forget my face." So she set herself to cultivate her mind and spirit. She opened her heart to receive the fullness of Christ's love, until all the graces of the Spirit blossomed in her character. She grew so like her Master, that people no longer thought of the homeliness of her face--but only of the loveliness of her character, the sweetness of her spirit, and the helpfulness of her life. She became an 'angel of goodness' in the town where she lived.

Beauty of face may win admiration; only beauty of heart, of diposition, of character--can win love. Persis was called the beloved, not because of any merely physical attractiveness--but because she had in her the qualities of heart, which made people love her.

A legend tells of the origin of the lovely moss rose. Once on a time, an angel came down to earth--the angel of flowers. Busied all day in his ministry here and there, he became weary and sought a place to rest, finding it under a rose. There he slept, and was refreshed. Before returning to heaven he spoke to the rose, grateful for the shelter he had enjoyed, and offered to bestow upon it some new gift of loveliness. So soft green moss grew round the stem, making the beautiful moss rose, the loveliest of all the flowers. In like manner, the life that gives the most gracious hospitality to Christ, receives new charms, new gifts of loveliness.

It is said also of Persis that she "labored much in the Lord." She was not a beautiful saint merely, living in holy seclusion, cherishing devout feeling and cultivating lovely qualities of character; she was a saint who sought to do all she could, in advancing the cause of Christ. She labored, "labored much." That is, she was not content to do little easy things for her Master--but was eager to do all she could do.

It is said further that she labored "in the Lord." Does this mean that she labored as in the atmosphere of Christ's life? Paul, in speaking of God, said, "In him we live, and move, and have our being." God is about us as the air is, and we live in him as we live in the atmosphere that surrounds us. It is said that one of the finest orchids in the world is found in England--but, owing to the inclement climate, it grows in dwarfed form, destitute of beauty, and is of no value. Climate is everything for fine plants. Spiritual climate is everything in the growth of heavenly graces. It is a great thing to live and work with the very atmosphere of Christ's love about us, with the very life of Christ for climate.

The Battle For Life: Chapter 5

By T. Austin-Sparks

We are seeking to take a further step in the apprehension of what is related to this great and pressing matter, and are going to deal with the continuation of the conflict, with reference to its nature and its sphere.

THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT

The work of the Lord Jesus in His Cross has now been set forth in two respects. On the one hand, we have noted there was that which was actually complete and final in His work; the fact that the Lord did destroy him that had the power of death, and also death itself. With regard to Himself, that is a finished work. His presence at the right hand of God declares that death, the grave, and Satan, have been brought to naught, and no longer have any power over Him. On the other hand, there is what we have called the potential work of His Cross, that is that Christ did something which in Himself is full and final, but which has yet to become full and final in the saints; something which was for the saints, but which has still to become complete in their experience. It is potential, so far as the Church is concerned, although in Him, its Head, they have it in finality. As the result of the work of His Cross, and as the grand issue of His resurrection, eternal life is received already by those who believe. But while that life is itself victorious, incorruptible, indestructible, the believer has to come by faith to prove it, to live by it, to learn its laws, to be conformed to it. There is a deposit in the believer which in itself needs no addition, so far as its quality is concerned. So far as its victory, its power, its glory, its potentialities are concerned, nothing can be added to it. But the course of spiritual experience, of spiritual life, is to discover, to appropriate, and to live by all that the life represents and means. That is to say, the course of spiritual life and experience is the course of discovering and living by the values of that life which is within, and which is succoured from above.

It is important to recognise that as a discriminating word. We are very often inclined to think that the life of the Lord in us needs in some way to be improved, to be added to, when really what is required is that we should discover what we have, and, discovering it by experience, live according to it. This life is not something apart from the Lord Jesus, and we can never think of His standing in need of some improvement, nor of the possibility of something being added to Him to make Him complete, or more complete. We would never think like that. And this life is one with Himself. As the Apostle says, it is Christ who is our life, and our need is to discover what Christ is in us, and to live accordingly. So in a very real sense it is a matter of the life getting more of us, rather than of our getting more of the life. That, at any rate, is the way of its working.

This, in the ordering of God, has to be done in a world where death still rules and works; for in this world the destruction of death has not yet been made manifest. Death, like the devil, goes on, although Calvary still remains full victory. We are left in this world, and it is in this world where death reigns and works as a great energy that we, by this sovereign ordering of God, have to come to prove the values of the life which has been deposited in us, and to discover its potentialities. This is an experimental discovery. It therefore resolves itself into battle between that which is in this world and the life which is in the believer. It is the battle for life, not as to the forfeiture of that life - not as to whether death can take eternal life away from us, for that is not the question at issue - but as to the triumphant expression and the full manifestation of the power of that life. That is the issue. We may have eternal life, and yet that life may be pressed away in our very being without expression, without manifestation, without any triumphant issue. It may be there, but cramped and smothered.

By A.B. Simpson

"Receive ye the Holy Ghost" John xx: 22.
"Be filled with the Spirit." Eph. v: 18.

While we recognize the sovereign power of the Holy Ghost, visiting the heart at His pleasure, and working according to His will upon the objects of His grace, yet God has ordained certain laws of operation and co-operation in connection with the application of redemption; and He Himself most delicately recognizes His own laws, and respects the freedom of the human will; not forcing His blessings upon unwilling hearts, but knocking at the door of our heart, waiting to be recognized and claimed, and then working in the soul as we heartily cooperate, hearken, and obey. There is, therefore, a very solemn and responsible part for every man in co-operating with, or resisting and hindering the Holy Spirit.

"The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal," that is to say, it rests with the man who receives the first movement of the Holy Spirit to determine how far he will embrace his opportunity, co-operate with his heavenly Friend, and enter into all the fullness of the good and perfect will of God.

Perhaps the pound, represented in the parable as given to every one of the servants, was meant to express that gift of the Spirit which every Christian receives, and the various uses which the servants made of this common enduement may represent the degrees with which the children of God double and use their spiritual advantages.

One improved his pound until it had become ten; another until it had increased five-fold, and another neglected it and hid it in the earth. So, three men receiving in the beginning of their experience an equal measure of spiritual things, may show in the end just as great a diversity in the use that they have made of the precious trust. By a diligent and vigilant obedience the one has grown to be a Paul, crowned with ransomed souls, and clothed with all the fullness of heavenly power. The other has become, perhaps, a proud Diotrephes, seeking chiefly his personal ambition and using the divine grace for his own advantage.

The Holy Spirit is especially sensitive to the reception He finds in the human heart; never intruding as an unwelcome guest, but gladly entering every open door, and following up every invitation with His faithful love and power. How are we to co-operate with Him, and how may we grieve and hinder Him?

1. We are commanded to receive the Holy Ghost.

This denotes an active and positive taking of His life and power into our hearts and lives. It is not a mere acquiescence in His coming, or passive assent unto His will, but an active appropriating and absorbing of His blessed person and influences into our whole person. It is one thing to have our dinner brought to us, and it is another thing to eat it, drink it, assimilate it, and be nourished by it.

It is thus that we are to receive the Holy Ghost, with an open, yielding, hungering, thirsting, believing, accepting and absorbing heart, even as the dry sand receives the rain, as the empty sponge receives the moisture, as the negative cloud receives the current from the positive, as the vacuum receives the air, and the babe drinks in the mother's life from her offered breast.

There are spiritual organs of reception as well as physical. There are vessels of heart-hunger and absorption which can be cultivated and exercised, and there are those who, "by reason of us," have their senses thus exercised to receive the grace of God.

Are we receiving the Holy Ghost? are we taking the water of life freely? are we putting forth our hand grasping the tree of life and eating of its fruit?

On Keeping the Heart: Chapter 11

By John Flavel

IX. The ninth season wherein the greatest diligence and skill are necessary to keep the heart, is the hour of temptation, when Satan besets the Christian's heart, and takes the unwary by surprise. To keep the heart at such times, is not less a mercy than a duty. Few Christians are so skilful in detecting the fallacies, and repelling the arguments by which the adversary incites them to sin, as to come off safe and whole in these encounters. Many eminent saints have smarted severely for their want of watchfulness and diligence at such times. How then may a Christian keep his heart from yielding to temptation? There are several principal ways in which the adversary insinuates temptation, and urges compliance:

1. Satan suggests that here is pleasure to be enjoyed; the temptation is presented with a smiling aspect and an enticing voice: 'What, are you so dull and phlegmatic as not to feel the powerful charms of pleasure? Who can withhold himself from such delights?' Reader, you may be rescued from the danger of such temptations by repelling the proposal of pleasure. It is urged that the commission of sin will afford you pleasure. Suppose this were true, will the accusing and condemning rebukes of conscience and the flannel of hell be pleasant too? Is there pleasure in the scourges of conscience? If so, why died Peter weep so bitterly? Why did David cry out of broken bones? You hear what is said of the pleasure of sin, and have you not read what David said of the effects of it? "Thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore; there is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin," &c. If you yield to temptation, you must feel such inward distress on account of it, or the miseries of hell. But why should the pretended pleasure of sin allure you, when you know that unspeakably more real pleasure will arise from the mortification than can arise from the commission of sin. Will you prefer the gratification of some unhallowed passion, with the deadly poison which it will leave behind, to that sacred pleasure which arises from hearing and obeying God, complying with the dictates of conscience, and maintaining inward peace? Can sin afford any such delight as he feels who, by resisting temptation, has manifested the sincerity of his heart, and obtained evidence that he fears God, loves holiness, and hates sin?

2. The secrecy with which you may commit sin is made use of to induce compliance with temptation. The tempter insinuates that this indulgence will never disgrace you among men, for no one will know it. But recollect yourself. Does not God behold you? Is not the divine presence everywhere? What if you might hide your sin from the eyes of the world, you cannot hide it from God. No darkness nor shadow of death can screen you from his inspection. Besides have you no reverence for yourself? Can you do that by yourself which you dare not have others observe? Is not your conscience as a thousand witnesses? Even a heathen could say, "When thou art tempted to commit sin, fear thyself without any other witness."

3. The prospect of worldly advantage often enforces temptation. It is suggested, 'Why should you be so nice and scrupulous? Give yourself a little liberty, and you may better your condition: now is your time.' This is a dangerous temptation, and must be promptly resisted. Yielding to such a temptation will do your soul more injury than any temporal acquisition can possibly do you good. And what would it profit you, if you should gain the whole world and lose your own soul? What can be compared with the value of your spiritual interests? Or what can at all compensate for the smallest injury of them?

4. Perhaps the smallness of the sin is urged as a reason why you may commit it; thus: 'It is but a little one, a small matter, a trifle; who would stand upon such niceties?' But is the Majesty of heaven little too? If you commit this sin you will offend a great God. Is there any little hell to torment little sinners in? No; the least sinners in hell are full of misery. There is great wrath treasured up for those whom the world regard as little sinners. But the less the sin, the less the inducement to commit it. Will you provoke God for a trifle? Will you destroy your peace, wound your conscience, and grieve the Spirit, all for nothing? What madness is this!

By John Henry Jowett

2 Peter i. 12-15

Wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and are established in the truth which is with you. And I think it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle cometh swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ signified unto me. Yea, I will give diligence that at every time ye may be able after my decease to call these things to remembrance.

"I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things. [Verse 12] And what things are these? We have seen how the earlier counsels of this great chapter are disposed. It is as though we had first a description of rare and fertile soil, and then a catalogue of the marvellously bountiful fruits which can be grown in it. Or to change our figure, it is as though the earlier verses are descriptive of every man's banking account, and the later verses point out the possible issues of vigilant and aggressive enterprise. The whole passage begins in the general endowment of grace and peace, and it finishes in the glorious possibility of an abundant entrance "into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

"I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things." It is vital that we remember this connection between soil and fruits, between capital and labour. It is all-important that we hold the apostolic teaching that the Christian gospel is not a theory to be defended, but an inheritance to be explored and enjoyed. The Christian is not first an apologist, or even an evangelist, but an experimentalist, dealing personally with the proffered grace and power of his Lord. At every moment the Christian is both passive and active, passively receiving the redemptive power of grace, and actively working it out in rich and perfected character. He is both suppliant and ambassador; he communes with God, he intercedes with man. He is not separately a man of the cloisters or a man of the street; he is both in one. He keeps in touch with the tremendous background of grace in order that he may fill his foreground with the fruits of grace in Christian life and duty. He brings the infinite into the trifle, and he knows that without the powers of eternal salvation he cannot redeem the passing day. In a word the Christian takes knowledge of his resources and does not dare to seek to live his life without them. He remembers "these things."

But is it not a strange thing that we should ever be inclined to forget them? We should surely assume that whatever other things we might be inclined to forget we should always remember that we are spiritual millionaires. Is it possible that in doing the little business of life we can ever forget our buried capital in the Lord, the treasure laid up for us in heaven, and seek to win spiritual success without it? Yes, all this is a grave possibility, and therefore the apostle ardently labours to keep our remembrance alert. Memory is such a child of caprice, even in purely human matters! The memory is in the habit of playing curious pranks. We can remember people's faces, but we forget their names. We remember a story, but we forget its date. We can repeat all the marriage relationships of the royal house, but we forget the steps of even a short argument. We can recall the unessential, and we forget the fundamental. "Memory is a capricious witch; she husbands bits of straw and rag, and throws her jewels out of the window." And certainly in higher relationships our memory gives us no better service. We remember a single injury and we forget a multitude of gracious benefits. We remember material experiences and incidents, but we forget the things which most profoundly concern our peace. There is therefore surely great need for the strenuous word of the apostle. And it is as urgent upon us as upon the men and women of his own day that we vigorously set about to exercise and sanctify the powers of our remembrance.

By Oswald Chambers

'And he said, Who art Thou, Lord?'
Acts 9:6

By the miracle of Redemption Saul of Tarsus was turned in one second from a strong-willed, intense Pharisee into a humble, devoted slave of the Lord Jesus.

There is nothing miraculous about the things we can explain. We command what we are able to explain, consequently it is natural to seek to explain. It is not natural to obey; nor is it necessarily sinful to disobey. There is no moral virtue in obedience unless there is a recognition of a higher authority in the one who dictates.

It is possibly an emancipation to the other person if he does not obey. If one man says to another - 'You must,' and - 'You shall,' he breaks the human spirit and unfits it for God.

A man is a slave for obeying unless behind his obedience there is a recognition of a holy God. Many a soul begins to come to God when he flings off being religious, because there is only one Master of the human heart, and that is not religion but Jesus Christ. But woe be to me if when I see Him I say - I will not. He will never insist that I do, but I have begun to sign the death warrant of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and say - I will not, He will never insist; but I am backing away from the recreating power of His Redemption.

It is a matter of indifference to God's grace how abominable I am if I come to the light; but woe be to me if I refuse the light (see John 3:19-21).

Divine Visitations

By John Henry Jowett

"Thou knowest not the time of thy visitation."--Luke xix. 44.

GOD visits us in opportunity. The dawn of opportunity is the unveiling of His presence. When the door opens upon the way of sacrifice and enlargement, He is there! No longer does He visit us in bodily form; He comes in the form of circumstance. He speaks to us in the voice of events. We may behold His comings and goings in the movements of our day. We may see Him in a tendency, we may hear Him in a challenge, we may find Him in the midst of upheaval and unrest. He comes to us in the brightness of some glorious hope, being "clothed with light as with a garment"; and he comes to us in the shadow of some chilling disappointment, visiting us "in the night seasons."

It is therefore a fine attainment in grace to be able so to interpret events as to discern the presence of the Lord. We are advancing in the school of the Spirit when we know the time of His visitation, when we can look upon the robe of light or the pale of darkness, and say, "It is the Lord!" But when events have no divine significance, when they are empty as a drum, life becomes a very hollow procession--indeed, it is scarcely a procession at all, but just a disorderly assemblage of blind and warring instincts, rushing out of the night and into the night again.

To recognise the divine visitation, and to discern the Visitor! To know Him as He comes to the door! "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." How may we know His knock? "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." "With what measure ye hear it shall be measured to you again." We need the consecrated ear, and the ear is sanctified in the consecrated heart. When the heart is sanctified all the senses are awake to the presence of the Lord. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Come Out of Confinement

Warren Wiersbe

Read Psalm 18:16-19

For several years David had been forced to live in confined places while he fled from Saul. More than once he fled to a cave to save his life. Then God brought him out of the caves and out of confinement and into a large place. "He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me" (v. 19). David was a man after God's own heart, and God delighted in him, just as He delighted in our Lord Jesus. God said of Him, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17).

We often talk about our delighting in the Lord. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart" (Ps. 37:4). That's important to do. But what about God's delighting in us? As parents and grandparents, we enjoy delighting in our children and grandchildren. In a similar way God wants to delight in us.

Because God delights in us, He delivers us. And He uses the difficult experiences of life to make us bigger. "He also brought me out into a broad place" (v. 19). Verse 36 of this chapter says, "You enlarged my path under me." When God puts us into a large place, He has to give us larger feet. But don't stop there. In Psalm 4:1 David said, "You have relieved me." God delivers us so that He can put us into a larger place, so that He can enable us to take giant steps of faith for His glory. David had gone through several years of confinement, difficulty, persecution and sorrow. But when it was over, he was a bigger man.

Let the trials of life make you a giant, not a midget. Let God put you into a large place, where you can take giant steps of faith for His glory.

Life's trials are not easy. But in God's will, each has a purpose. Often He uses them to enlarge you. Are you feeling confined? Be encouraged that God delights in delivering you from confinement. Difficult times build your faith, if you let Him use them for His glory.

The Day of Clear Vision to the Dim Eyes.

Horatius Bonar

"The eyes of those who see shall not be dim." –Isaiah 32:3

These blessed words tell us four things,
(1.) There are eyes that do not see;
(2.) there are eyes that do see;
(3.) of the eyes that see, some are dim;
(4.) the time is at hand when they shall not be dim.

I. THERE ARE EYES THAT SEE NOT.

Of the dead idols this is said– "They have eyes but see not;" and this is not amazing. But that the same should be said of living men is amazing. It is not true of angels; it is not true of devils; they have eyes and see. It is true of men; of millions; of the greater part of our race; they have eyes but see not. They shut them; they turn them away from their proper objects; they allow scales to grow over them; they deliberately veil them. O fearful calamity! O bitter curse! And yet for all this, they themselves are responsible. It is not God that blinds them, or veils, or darkens. They are their own undoers. They did not wish to see; they were resolved not to see. Self-blinded, not God blinded! They allow this world to blind or dazzle them; so that their eyes are useless. They let Satan, the god of this world, put his hand over their eyes; or bewilder them with his snares and enticements. Thus, having eyes they see not.

II. THERE ARE EYES THAT SEE.

These are they whom God has enlightened; whose eyes the son of God has opened; for it is his work to open the eyes of the blind. They did not open their own eyes. Their eyes did not open by chance. Once they were blind– quite as blind as others; but now they see. There are not many of whom this can be said; yet there are some. And what do they see?
(1.) They see God;
(2.) they see Christ;
(3.) they see themselves;
(4.) they see the word of God;
(5.) they see the things within the veil.

They are not like the men of this world, with eyes that see outward things, sun, moon, and stars, earth and sea, woods and hills and fields. They see beyond all these– that which is spiritual and divine; that which is true and glorious. Yes; they see! In a blinded generation they see! How great a thing and how blessed to be able to say this of them– they see! They have eyes that are not useless; eyes that do not mislead; eyes that present things in their proper light and proportions and distances! Their eyes have been anointed with the heavenly eye salve, and they see! They no longer stumble nor grope in the dark, nor go after false objects. They see, and they know that they see!

III. OF THESE EYES THAT SEE, SOME ARE DIM.

They see; but they do not see afar off (2 Peter 1:9). They see; but it is dimly. Their vision is defective. They see men as trees walking. They are near-sighted, short-sighted. Their eyes require further purging. They ought to see fully and truly; but they do not. They were not meant to be dim. God has no pleasure in their being dim. The objects are vivid and distinct; yet they are seen dimly. In what respects is this the case?
(1.) They see but part or parts of the truth;
(2.) what they do see is imperfectly realized.

The gospel is but half a gospel. The cross is not so full of peace and light as it ought to be. The way of life is but partially known. The coming glory has but a feeble radiance. The advent of Christ has but little value to them. Christ himself has but little of the excellence which he ought to possess to them, and is but poorly appreciated. There is no doubt something in the atmosphere of this present evil world that hinders vision and beclouds the eye; but still, after all, it is the dimness of the eye that is the evil. How many are all their lifetime afflicted with this imperfect vision. How much they lose by this! Their faith is not the substance of things hoped for; it is but the shadow of that substance. Hope is to them a vague expectation, with little of certainty or brightness in it. Their life has more of the cloud than of the sunshine about it.

IV. THE TIME IS AT HAND WHEN THESE EYES SHALL NOT BE DIM.

There are many partial removals of this dimness even now; times when we see farther and more clearly. At Pentecost this was the case. At the Reformation also. In times of revival it has been so. In individual cases this has been known. Paul was a man that saw clearly. Augustine, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Rutherford, Edwards; these were clear-sighted men, from whom the Holy Spirit had purged the scales and the dimness. But the reference here is prophetical.

The prophet points to a coming era of perfection, when we shall see Him as he is; see as we are seen, know as we are known. No dimness then; no defective vision; no cloudy atmosphere; no diseased organ of sight. All brightness and distinctness. The cross clear and bright. The light and love unclouded. Christ seen face to face, no longer in a glass darkly. Every ray of glory coming freshly from his revealed countenance; every feature fair and perfect; Himself the chief among ten thousand; His kingdom infinitely glorious. No doubting either as to the things of Christ, or our interest in them. No unbelief; no error; no mist. All the perfection of vision, and the perfection of light. O day of brightness and true vision, dawn! O Morning-star, arise! O Prince of light, light of the world, make haste, end the long darkness of humanity, and cover earth with celestial sunshine!

Three Pictures

J.C. Ryle

"God forbid that I should glory, save the cross of our lord Jesus Christ." (Gal. vi. 14.)

“And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. “But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. “For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner. “King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. “And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”--ACTS XXVI. 24—29.

There is a collection of pictures in London called the National Portrait Gallery. It contains the likenesses of nearly all the great men who have made a mark in English history. It is well worth seeing. But I doubt whether it contains three portraits which deserve a more attentive study than the three which I am going to show you in this paper.

One striking feature of the Bible is the rich variety of its contents. That grand old Book, which for eighteen centuries has baffled the attacks of unfriendly ethics, is not only a storehouse of doctrine, precept, history, poetry, and prophecy. The Holy Ghost has also given us a series of life-like portraits of human nature, in all its various aspects, which deserve our attentive study. ‘Who does not know that we often learn more from patterns and examples than from abstract statements?

Reader, the well-known piece of Scripture before you supplies an admirable illustration of my meaning. It forms the conclusion of the chapter in which the Apostle St. Paul makes a defence of himself before the Roman governor Festus and the Jewish king Agrippa. Three pictures of three very different men hang before us. They are types of three classes of men who are to be seen among us at this very day. Their succession has never ceased. In spite of changing fashions, scientific discoveries, and political reforms, the inward heart of man in every age is always the same. Come and let us stand before these three pictures, as we would stand before the painting of a Gainsborough, a Reynolds, or a Romney, and see what we may learn.

I. Let us look, first, at Festus, the Roman governor.

This is the man who abruptly broke in upon St. Paul’s address, exclaiming, “Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.”

Festus, no doubt, was a heathen, ignorant of any religion except the idolatrous temple-worship, which in the time of the apostles overspread the civilized world. From the language he addressed to Agrippa in a preceding chapter, he seems to have been profoundly ignorant both of Judaism and Christianity. He spoke of “questions of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.” (Acts xxv. 19.) Most probably, like many a proud Roman, in the declining age of the Roman Empire, he regarded all religions with secret contempt, as all equally false, or equally true, and all alike unworthy of the notice of a great man. As for a Jew talking of showing “light to the Gentiles,” the very idea was ridiculous! To keep in with the world, to have the favour of man, to care nothing for anything but the things seen, to please “my lord” Augustus,—this was probably the whole religion of Porcius Festus.

Now, reader, are there many among us like Festus? Yes! I fear there are tens of thousands. They are to be found in every rank and class of society. They walk in our streets. They travel with us in railway carriages. They meet us in the daily intercourse of the world. They fill the various relations of life respectably. They are often good men of business and eminent in the professions they have chosen. They discharge the various duties of their positions with credit, and leave a good name behind them, when their place is empty. But, like Festus, they have no religion!

These are they who seem to live as if they had no souls. From January to December, they appear neither to think, nor feel, nor see, nor know anything about a life to come. It forms no part of their schemes, and plans, and calculations. They live as if they had nothing to attend to but the body, nothing to do but to eat, and drink, and sleep, and dress, and get money, and spend money, and no world to provide for except the world which we see with our eyes.

These are they who seldom, if ever, use any means of grace, whether public or private. Praying, and Bible-reading, and secret communion with God are things which they despise and let alone. They may be very well for the aged, the sick, and the dying; for the clergy, the monk, and the nun; hut not for them! If they ever attend a place of worship, it is only as a matter of form, to appear respectable; and too often they never attend except on the occasion of some great public ceremony, or at a wedding, or a funeral.

These are they who profess their inability to understand anything like zeal or earnestness about religion. They regard the Societies, the Institutions, the literature, the Evangelistic efforts of Christians, at home or abroad, with sublime contempt. Their maxim is to let everybody alone. The comparative claims of Church and Dissent, the strife of parties within our pale, the debates of Convocations, Congresses, and Diocesan Conferences, are all alike matters of indifference to them. They look coldly at them from a distance, like the philosopher described by the Latin poet Lucretius, and regard them as the childish struggles of weak folks, unworthy of the notice of a cultivated mind. And if such subjects are ever brought up in their company, they brush them away with some satirical remark, or some oft-repeated old smart saying of scepticism.

Will any one deny that there are multitudes of people around us such as I have tried to describe,—kind people, perhaps, moral people, good-natured people, easy to get on with, unless you get on the subject of religion? It is impossible to deny it. Their name is “legion,” for they are many. The tendency of these latter days to make an idol of intellect,—the desire to be independent and to think for yourself,—the disposition to worship private judgment, to exalt your own isolated opinion, and to deem it finer and cleverer to go wrong with a few than right with a crowd,—all this helps to swell the ranks of the followers of Festus. I fear he is the type of a large class.

Such people are a melancholy sight. They often remind me of some grand old ruin, like Melrose or Bolton Abbey, where enough remains of beauteous arches, and columns, and towers, and traceried windows to show what the building once was, and what it might have been now if God had not left it. But now all is cold, and silent, and gloomy, and suggestive of decay, because the Master of the house, the Lord of life, is not there. Just so it is with many of the followers of Festus. You often feel, when you observe their intellectual power, their gifts of speech, their taste, their energy of character, “what men these might be if God had His rightful place in their souls!” But without God all is wrong. Alas, for the crushing power of unbelief and pride, when they get complete mastery of a man, and reign over him uncontrolled! No wonder that Scripture describes unconverted man as “blind,—sleeping,—beside himself,—and dead.”

Is Festus reading this paper to-day? I am afraid not! Religious tracts and books, like Sunday services and sermons, are not in his line. On Sundays Festus probably reads the newspaper, or looks over his worldly accounts, or visits his friends, or goes a journey, and secretly wishes an English Sunday was more like a Continental one, and the theatres and museums were open. On week-days Festus is constantly employed in business, or politics, or recreations, or killing time in the trifling pursuits of modern society ; and he lives like a butterfly, as thoughtless as if there were no such thing as death, or judgment, or eternity. Oh, no: Festus is not the man to read this paper

But is a man like Festus in a hopeless condition, and beyond the reach of mercy? No: indeed! I thank God he is not, he has yet got a conscience at the bottom of his character, which, however much seared, is not quite dead,—a conscience, which, like the great bell of St. Paul’s at midnight, when the roar of city business is over, will sometimes make itself heard. Like Felix, and Herod, and Ahab, and Pharaoh, the followers of Festus have their times of visitation and, unlike them, they sometimes awake before it is too late, and become different men. There are seasons in their lives when they are driven in upon themselves, and feel “the powers of the world to come,” and find that mortal man cannot get on without God. Sickness, and solitude, and disappointments, and losses of money, and deaths of loved ones, can sometimes make the proudest hearts bow down, and confess that “the grasshopper is a burden.” Manasseh is not the only one who “in time of affliction” turned to God, and began to play. Yes, reader, I have long felt that we must never despair of any one. The age of spiritual miracles is not past. With Christ and the Holy Ghost, nothing is impossible. The last day will show that there were some who began with Festus and were like him, but at last turned round, repented, and ended with St. Paul. While there is life we must hope, and pray for others.

II. Let us now turn to a very different picture Let us look at King Agrippa. This is the man who was so much struck by St. Paul’s address that he said, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”,

“Almost.” Let me dwell for moment on that expression. I am well aware that many think our authorized English Version of the Bible is in fault here, and fails to give the true meaning of the original Greek. They assert that the phrase would be more correctly rendered, “In a short time,” or “with weak and feeble argument thou art persuading me.” I am bold to say that I cannot accept the view of these critics, though I admit that the phrase is rather obscure. But in questions like these I dare not call any man master. 1 hold with several excellent commentators, both ancient and modern,* that the translation given in our authorized version is right and correct. I am fortified in my belief by the fact that this is the view of one who thought, and spoke, and wrote in the language of the New Testament, I mean the famous Greek Father Chrysostom. And last, but not least, no other view appears to me to harmonize with the exclamation of the Apostle St. Paul in the verse which follows. “Almost!” he seems to say, taking up Agrippa’s words. “I want thee to be not almost, but altogether a Christian.” On these grounds I stand by our old version.

HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH?

Major Ian Thomas

You cannot accomplish your own redemption, and you cannot accomplish your own sanctification! It is "according as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue" (11 Peter 1:3): faith takes what God gives, and God gives what man needs! All that he needs!

All that God gives, which is all that you need, He gives to you in Christ, "That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (I Corinthians 1:29 and 30).

The degree to which by a deliberate, voluntary attitude of faith you are reckoning yourself to be dead "with Christ" to all that you are "in Adam" and alive to God in all that you are "in Christ" is the degree to which the redemptive purpose of God has been wrought out in your life and this is the only valid estimate of your worth! Everything else is a dead loss! "Consequently, from now on we estimate and regard no one from a (purely) human point of view in terms of natural standards of value" (11 Corinthians 5:16, Amplified New Testament).

Pointing to an affluent looking gentleman coming into the church, I might say to you (if I were mischievous enough), "How much is he worth?" and maybe you would reply, "If he's worth a dollar, he's worth a million!" and I would say to you, "I did not ask how much money he had in the bank! I simply asked you how much he was worth!"

A man could have all the money in all the banks in all the world, and be worth nothing so far as God is concerned, if he were still living "to and for himself"! The measure of a man's worth is the measure in which he no longer lives "to and for himself," but "to and for Jesus Christ." No more and no less!

How much are you worth?

From: The Mystery of Godliness

"THEY SING THE SONG OF MOSES"

Robert Murray MCheyne

"THEY SING THE SONG OF MOSES"

Dark was the night, the wind was high,
The way by mortals never trod;
For God had made the channel dry,
When faithful Moses stretched the rod.

The raging waves on either hand
Stood like a massy tott'ring wall,
And on the heaven-defended band
Refused to let the waters fall.

With anxious footsteps, Israel trod
The depths of that mysterious way;
Cheered by the pillar of their God,
That shone for them with fav'ring ray.

But when they reached the opposing shore,
As morning streaked the eastern sky,
They saw the billows hurry o'er
The flower of Pharaoh's chivalry.

Then awful gladness filled the mind
Of Israel's mighty ransomed throng;
And while they gazed on all behind,
Their wonder burst into a song.

Thus, Thy redeemed ones, Lord, on earth,
While passing through this vale of weeping,
Mix holy trembling with their mirth,
And anxious watching with their sleeping.

The night is dark, the storm is loud,
The path no human strength can tread;
Jesus, be Thou the pillar-cloud,
Heaven's light upon our path to shed.

And oh! when, life's dark journey o'er,
And death's enshrouding valley past,
We plant our foot on yonder shore,
And tread yon golden strand at last.

Shall we not see with deep amaze,
How grace hath led us safe along;
And whilst behind - before, we gaze,
Triumphant burst into a song!

And even on earth, though sore bested,
Fightings without, and fears within;
Sprinkled to-day from slavish dread,
To-morrow captive led by sin.

Yet would I lift my downcast eyes,
On Thee, Thou brilliant tower of fire -
Thou dark cloud to mine enemies -
That Hope may all my breast inspire.

And thus the Lord, my strength, I'll praise,
Though Satan and his legions rage;
And the sweet song of faith I'll raise,
To cheer me on my pilgrimage.

EDINBURGH, 1835.

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