THE ENEMY'S ATTEMPTS TO SILENCE US

                                      

There will always be plenty of things to try to silence you, to make you be quiet, to 'shut you up'. 

There were those who commanded this blind man to hold his peace. There is always much to command you to hold your peace.

But much may depend upon our not holding our peace.

That applies in much larger realms than just this one of receiving Divine eye-opening.

Very often we never enter into the real value of a thing until we make a declaration of our attitude toward it. Very often we do not enter into the real value of our Christian life until we begin to proclaim something about it. I expect some of you know that.

I was a Christian for some years; I had given my heart to the Lord. I believed that I was saved, and I am sure I was, but I was not enjoying it: I was not a free man, loosed inside, in the real joy of the Christian life, until one night I stepped right into the centre of an open-air meeting and gave my testimony and began to talk from that testimony, and from that day to this I have been a free man in the enjoyment of salvation.

At the time I wondered if it was only then that I was really converted - so real was the difference. That is very simple and elementary, but it applies all the way along. There are plenty of things that will keep us silent: shame, for instance - that will keep us silent.

Fear will say, Be quiet; will keep us with our mouths shut. Despair is a terrible thing for quietening us, or preventing us from speaking. And oh, what a veto upon declaration is pride!

Yes, there are many things that are saying, Hold your peace! This man stood up to them all, he resisted them all, and, although they said, 'Hold your peace, man, hold your peace!', he said, 'I am not going to hold my peace', and out it came so much the more'. It is an impressive picture. 

It is almost humorous if it were not so serious a man absolutely refusing to be bottled up, so much did he feel the importance of the matter in hand.

It is just like that over everything that the Lord has for us. We are not to be silenced. We cry and nothing happens. We cry to the Lord, and nothing happens. And then the enemy comes along and says, 'You may as well be quiet - He is not hearing you! Do you think He will have regard to you? He has got more important business than you! You must think yourself very important if you think He is going to turn aside from all His affairs to attend to you!' The enemy talks like that and tries, by making us feel our insignificance, to quieten us, to silence us.

But you be in the company of blind Bartimaeus, and say, 'No, I am not going to be quiet! I believe that what I need lies in the power of that Man to give me, and I believe that, being Jesus of Nazareth, having come down to so low a level of association and fellowship, He will have respect unto my cry. I may be a nobody, but He will have respect to the cry of a nobody!'

This is the kind of spirit that will not be silenced.

Is it too simple? It is important! As we get further and further on, there is so much more for the Lord to reveal to us of His fullness. It will always be the same - plenty of things to silence, to put to quietness, to tell us to hold our peace.

You remember the Lord's parable of the importunate widow and the unjust judge. He hung the whole of that parable on this: that the man would not have regard to her for any other reason than that she worried the life out of him; and the Lord turns and says, 'If an unjust man will yield to importunity, how much more the just Man - how much more One who is not like that!' (Luke 18:1-8).

And yet His Church must cry unto Him day and night, not because He is unjust and unwilling and unmoved, but because He must have in those who are in need a deep enough sense of the importance of these things.

You say, 'Why speak like that? Don't we all feel that?' Dear friends, while one is more and more hesitant to say anything to criticize Christians or the Church, surely it is true that there is not sufficient of this downright earnestness to know all that God wants us to know. We are too contented, too complaisant, too satisfied with a little: we are not on full stretch for all that God means, and He is not going to give it until we CRY - and cry 'so much the more'.

"Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." With Him is all the power to give everything necessary to bring into all that God intended - and He may pass by. He might have just left Jericho and gone away.

They were going out of Jericho; He might just have gone out of Jericho and gone on His way. But knowing, being informed - that was enough for Bartimaeus. Being informed that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by precipitated the whole matter.

Oh, that we all were sufficiently aware of how needy we are of having our eyes opened to all God's meaning for us! Oh, that our hearts were sufficiently concerned to enter into everything God purposes for us!

Oh, that we felt something more of the strong meaning of "Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him" (1 Cor. 2:9).

It never will enter into our hearts, it never will be seen by our eyes or heard by our ears, until we realize, and lay to heart, how important it is and how valuable, and we begin to cry out, 'Have mercy upon me!' It is not only the cry of a sinner, but the cry of a mature saint. 'Have mercy still upon my lack of capacity, my limitation in apprehension, my smallness of sight! Have mercy upon me!'

Paul's prayer to God was "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; having the eyes of your heart enlightened" (Eph. 1:17-18). That was his prayer.

It was not going to happen unless someone stood in between the need and the supply and mediated by prayer. It is a big matter.

The Lord put that spirit into our hearts. Do realize that a great deal does hang upon this importunity, this seriousness, this laying hold, and not just coming and going to meetings and then wondering why we are so retarded in our spiritual growth, so easily a prey to the forces around us in this world.

Perhaps it is because we have not yet expressed an adequate appreciation of Divine things by laying this matter to heart and constantly being before the Lord that we may receive our sight.

If at this moment you are recognizing that "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by", you have only to cry from your heart - He has what you need. The Lord put the cry in our hearts. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Into Thy Hands I Commit My Spirit

                                       

Luk 23:46  And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

"Why hast Thou forsaken Me?"I am so glad that the story of the Cross does not end there.

The cry, the awful cry, is "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?", but the last words from the Cross are not such. "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" (Luke 23:46). He is back on the ground of perfect fellowship with the Father and absolute trust.

The victory is gained, the work is done, the enemy is defeated, and the ground is secured. 

Whatever Satan says, as he does in our deep hours of spiritual experience, about the Lord having given us up, departed from us – all that sort of thing; whatever he says, it is not true.

It may be that you do not feel the full weight of that; but if ever you come, as perhaps some of you have come, to a time, such as many of the most faithful and devoted and greatly-used servants of God have known, when the dark forces spread themselves over, gather around in their hordes, and seek to come between you and your Lord and then begin their whisperings "The Lord has given you up, handed you over," or something to that effect.

When you come to that place, then I trust you will know that this word is no light word, no unimportant word: for the last depths of Calvary were fathomed in the moment when our Lord cried that bitter cry and gained the answer and came out victorious and into rest.

Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit. That was not for Himself, that was for us – for you, for me....

Never, never is it necessary for anyone to know that desolation of God-forsakenness while they put their trust, their faith, upon His taking up this age-long issue as Man for man – the issue of "the light of Thy countenance."

So let us rejoice that we have an open heaven secured for us by our blessed Lord. We have but stated the truth, the fact, of this thing.

There is much more bound up with it, which the Lord may show us as we go on, as to what kind of man it is who enjoys that opened heaven, but that is with the Lord.

Let us thank Him for the fact that we may have the heaven opened to us. He has done it. But to a Nathanael He will say, "Ye shall see the heaven opened."

God grant that we may all be in that blessed position.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Trial Of Faith

                                     

We have seen these men - Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph - taken into the most perplexing situations, the most bewildering conditions under the hand of God, and then we have seen afterwards the issue of it all, and the issue was this - Life triumphant over death through what, in their respective experiences and histories, was a working of the principle of the Cross - death and resurrection.

When God had these men, these people, in His hands with the thought always in His mind of bringing out by means of them this great testimony of Life overcoming and vanquishing death, He never told them what He was doing and very often He never told them that He was doing anything.

All that they knew was that they had come into some relationship with God, God had become the great reality in their lives. Somehow or other between Him and their inner being a strong link had been formed, a strong tie had been created that they were somehow bound up with Him and He with them, and that their destiny hung upon that relationship.

Beyond that, more than that, very often they knew little. It was a strong hold upon them inwardly.

Sometimes they were more conscious of it; at other times they were less conscious of it. And I repeat, although they were going through such big, and to them very real and deep and often terrible experiences.

God did not tell them what He was doing, and I say again: He very often did not tell them He was doing anything. That is, of course, the place where the whole principle of faith was found.

They were called upon in their relationship with God to believe without any explanation and believe without any sensation; just to believe God.

The death - for it was that really in principle - the death into which they were repeatedly plunged and which demanded resurrection and nothing short of a resurrection, so often and usually took some form that did not seem to contain a great spiritual meaning.

It was just an experience. It was very real and very terrible, but it did not always seem to circle round some great spiritual issue.

It often seemed more to be as though God had forgotten them. At some times they felt that God had abandoned them and everything seemed to say that. The things seemed to say that.

You remember the prophet puts those words into the mouth of Israel...

Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and the justice due to me is passed away from my God? Isa. 40:27. 

You look into the lives of these men and you find it was often like that. There was no evidence at the time that they were being very, very carefully thought of by God, and that He was really with them.

We were speaking about Joseph. Up until the time that the word of the Lord came and Pharaoh sent and brought him up out of the dungeon, until that time there was no evidence that the Lord was with him. 

Indeed, he might well have concluded that he was forgotten, out of mind, abandoned, forsaken.

And yet the one thing that is said about Joseph, not only at the time when he came up into the place of resurrection and exaltation, but throughout - "The Lord was with him".

If you had told Joseph that, he would have said, Well, there is not much proof of it and not much evidence.

The language that might well have expressed the feelings of these men would have been formed of such words as 'misfortune', 'fate', 'my fate', or, in modern language 'bad luck', or 'strange calamity'. "There seems to be some evil design back of my life, nothing seems to go right".

That is the human side, and such language, if looked at only from that side, was justifiable. It was like that.

These men were writing a story, a story composed of happenings, and most of the happenings were unfortunate happenings from the human standpoint, and they had not a clue to the meaning of the story.

It is we who have the sequel. Most of them did not get the sequel to their story. "These all died in faith, not having received the promises" (Heb. 11:13).

They did not know the meaning of the story they were writing. It was a story of happenings which to them had at most a very limited explanation. Yes, we have the sequel, the sequel is ours in many cases.

It often seemed to those men, I am sure, that some evil destiny had got them into a trap and there was no way out.

Look at them, call them to mind.

~T. Austin Sparks~

All GOD'S People MUST Be In The WAR

The wicked refuse to engage in this war. Instead of fighting the Lord's battles, they take up arms on the enemy's side. They spend their time in chambering and wantonness, in idleness and carnal security.
 
They are altogether ignorant of satan's assaults,and of their own danger. Oh that their eyes were opened to see their danger in time to escape it! They are not the Lord's soldiers, but the devil's revellers. They will not fight against satan, and satan will not disturb their sleep. So they are in covenant with death and hell.
 
All the people of God, from first to last, are, and must be engaged in this spiritual warfare, and can say, we do not war after the flesh, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. Such has been the language of the saints in all ages; they were all in the war, even the most holy of them all. 

Job, Moses and Aaron, Lot and David: the Patriarchs and the Prophets: all had their fiery trials. And so those under the gospel: Peter was winnowed,--Paul was buffeted, and even Christ himself was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
 
Must all God's people war with devils? Then consider what religion will cost you. The christian soldiers must endure hardness. Saints must be winnowed, buffeted, tried and tempted. Wars and dangers shall be their portion. and through much tribulation must they enter into the kingdom of God. See how Paul is in labors, in stripes, in prisons, in deaths. He was always in perils, wherever he went.

Christianity will cost you much here, and save you for ever. Then be a christian, that you may be a conqueror.
 
Are we to fight against sin and satan, the world and the flesh? then, courage! Christians! Be not dismayed. Are you afraid of these formidable enemies? Go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and he will put all your enemies shortly under your feet. 

Satan's fiery darts and all your trials shall do you good, and be to you as the waves to the ark, as the whale to Jonah, as the file that brightens the iron, as the mill that grinds the wheat, or as the fire that separates the dross from the gold.
 
Do you not feel your spirits sharpened, your pride subdued, your flesh cooled, and every lust mortified, and every grace invigorated, by these temptations and trials? Tell me, are not you roused to make earnest and ardent prayers, by these wars and conflicts?
 
Are not Satan's temptations like bellows to blow the fire of devotion in your soul, and like a hedge of thorns to keep you from going astray?
 
Oh vain men! be not afraid of the war, but enlist into the armies of Christ, and fight valiantly under the banner of the cross. It is an honorable war, Christ invites you to it, and promiseth to cover your head in the day of battle, and to crown you in the end. And what more would you have? 

Put on the whole armor of God, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might, and he is engaged to give you the victory.

~Isaac Ambrose~

Take Heart Weary And Burdened One

Rom 4:18  Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
 
Rom 4:19  And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb:
 
Rom 4:20  He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

I will never forget the statement which that great man of faith
George Mueller once made to a gentleman who had asked him
the best way to have strong faith: “The only way to know strong faith is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith by standing firm through severe testings.”
 
How true this is! You must trust when all else fails.
 
Dear soul, you may scarcely realize the value of your present
situation. If you are enduring great afflictions right now,
you are at the source of the strongest faith.

God will teach you during these dark hours to have the most powerful bond to His throne you could ever know, if you will only submit.
 
Don’t be afraid; just believe” (Mark 5:36). But if you ever are afraid, simply look up and say,“When I am afraid, I will trust in you” (Ps. 56:3).Then you will be able to thank God for His school of sorrow that became for you the school of faith.
~A. B. Simpson~
 
Great faith must first endure great trials. God’s greatest gifts come through great pain. Can we find anything of value in the spiritual or the natural realm that has come about without tremendous toil and tears?
 
Has there ever been any great reform, any discovery benefiting humankind, or any soul-awakening revival, without the diligence and the shedding of blood of those whose sufferings were actually the pangs of its birth? 

For the temple of God to be built, David had to bear intense
afflictions. And for the gospel of grace to be extricated
from Jewish tradition,Paul’s life had to be one long agony.
 
Take heart, O weary, burdened one, bowed down Beneath your cross; Remember that your greatest gain may come through greatest loss.

EYEWITNESS To REVIVAL

The Lord will visit those willing to yield to Him.
We must keep humble and little in our own eyes. Let us get built
up by a sense of our own importance and we are gone.
 
God has always sought humble people. He can use no other.
There is much need always of heart preparation, in humility and
separation, before God can consistently come. 

The depth of any revival will be determined exactly by the spirit of repentance that obtains. In fact this is the key to every true revival born of God.  

One evening, July 3, I felt strongly impressed to go the little
Peniel Hall in Pasadena to pray. There I found Brother Boehmer ahead of me. He had also being led of God to the hall. We prayed for a spirit of revival for Pasadena until the burden became well nigh unbearable... The Spirit was interceding through us.

Finally the burden left us. After a little time of quiet waiting a great calm settled down upon us. Then suddenly, without premonition, the Lord Jesus himself revealed himself to us. He seemed to stand directly between us, so close we could have reached out our hand and touched Him. But we did not dare to move. I could not even look. In fact I seemed all spirit.

His presence seemed more real, if possible, than if I could have seen and touched Him naturally. I forgot I had eyes or ears. My spirit recognized Him.
 
A heaven of divine love filled and thrilled my soul. Burning fire
went through me. In fact my whole being seemed to flow down
before Him, like wax before the fire. I lost all consciousness of
time or space, being conscious only of His wonderful presence.
I worshipped at His feet. It seemed a veritable "mount of
transfiguration."
 
For some time He remained with us. Then slowly He withdrew
His presence. We would have been there yet had He not withdrawn. I could not doubt His reality after that experience. 

Brother Boehmer experienced largely the same thing. We had lost all consciousness of each other´s presence while He remained with us. We were almost afraid to speak or breathe when we came back to our surroundings.
 
He had come to strengthen and assure us for His service. We knew now we were workers with Him, fellowshippers of His sufferings, in the ministry of "soul travail."

Real soul travail is just as definite in the spirit, as natural human birth-pangs. The simile is almost perfect in its sameness. No soul is ever born without this. All true revivals of salvation come this way.
 
I received from God early in 1905 the following keynote to revival: The depth of revival will be determined exactly by the depth of the spirit of repentance.
 
A revival almost always begins among the laity [ordinary common people not trained in theology or holding any rank in the church]. 

The ecclesiastical leaders seldom welcome reformation. History
repeats itself. The present leaders are too comfortably situated
as a rule to desire innovation that might require sacrifice on their part. And God´s fire only falls on sacrifice. An empty altar receives no fire. Cold intellectualism, formal ecclesiasticism, and priestly domination are altogether outside the genius of the Gospel. 

Thank God there are exceptions among the leaders. But we
are saved to serve. The true minister is a servant."  

A body must be prepared, in repentance and humility, for every
outpouring of the Spirit.
 
The present Pentecostal manifestation did not break out in a
moment, like a huge prairie fire, and set the world on fire. In fact no work of God ever appears that way. There is a necessary time for preparation.

The finished article is not realized at the beginning. Men may wonder where it came from, not being conscious of the preparation, but there is always such.

Every movement of the Spirit of God must also run the gauntlet of the devil´s forces.

The Dragon stands before the bearing mother, ready to swallow up her child (Rev. 12:4).

And so with the present Pentecostal work in its beginning. The enemy did much counterfeiting.

God kept the young child well hid for a season from the Herods, until it could gain strength and discernment to resist them.

The flame was guarded jealously by the hand of the Lord, from the winds of criticism, jealousy, unbelief, etc. It went through about the same experiences that all revivals have. Its foes were both inside and out. Both Luther and Wesley experienced the same difficulties in their time.

~Frank Bartleman~

Singing A Song In The Midst Of Trial

They that carried us away required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? Psalm 137:3-4.

The people of God were in the hardest place of their lifetime. And as they were carried away, their captors required of them a song. Yet there was no life in them anymore, nothing but depression, despair, hopelessness.

Multitudes of Christians are in the same position today. You may be trapped by your circumstances or the devil is coming at you with an old temptation. You are on the edge of giving up, thinking, “I can't make it. In spite of all my crying and praying, that old bondage is going to hound me forever!"

When Israel fell into Babylonian bondage, their captors cried to them, "Sing for us! Play for us! We've heard all about you and what your God did for you. Now take out your tambourines and bring out your harps. Play us a song. Show us your joy in your God!"

I do not believe this demand was made only in mockery. I believe it was also a pitiful plea. The Babylonians' gods had left them empty and dry. They had no hope. But they had heard Israel singing to their God, a God who had seen them through impossible circumstances. They said, "These people have a God who can open a sea for them. His fire comes down from heaven and He stands against their enemies. There's got to be something to this God of theirs!"

Like all the world, they wanted to see a people who endured the same problems they endured and faced the same battles they faced, yet could sing and shout and hold their faith in the darkest of hours!

The Babylonians demanded a song because there is something in every person's heart that cries out, Where on the face of the earth is something that can make you sing even when you've lost
everything?" They needed a testimony! It is important that the children of God, wherever they are at whatever time, sing the songs of Zion: "God, I believe You, no matter what is happening!"

The world is shouting to us, "You can show us a miracle! It isn't the Red Sea opening up that impresses us. It's not seeing the blind given sight or the lame healed. It's that you can look at the darkest hour of your life, a situation that's hopeless to all human reasoning, and yet smile with joy, singing praises to God. That's the miracle we want to see."

~David Wilkerson~

The "Ism"

---

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, 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~

Waiting On HIM

The prophet Samuel's command to King Saul was, "Go to Gilgal and wait. I will come and you will get directions" see 1 Samuel 10:8.

Saul’s only responsibility was to wait! God wanted to hear Saul say, "God keeps His word: never once has a word from Samuel's lips fallen to the ground. God said I should wait for directions and I will wait.”

But pride reasons, "God must not have meant it. Maybe I heard it wrong.”
 
Instead of standing on God's word, we start trying to figure out things on our own. Lying in bed in the late hours we say, "Lord, here's how I see it can be done."

It is wicked to do something very logical and reasonable when it is not God's clear word of direction. If you want to prove anything to God, prove you will patiently wait for Him to act.

And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash; therefore said I, the Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the Lord; I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering.

And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee" (1 Samuel 13:11-14).

Saul waited seven days—but that wait was unholy. He was impatient, angry, fearful and pouting. We must wait with faith, believing that God cares for us and loves us, that He will be there on His time. This matter of waiting is so important that I must show you some Scriptures to prove it.

And is shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us; this is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation"
Isaiah 25:9.

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him
Isaiah 64:4.

~David Wilkerson~
 

Sin Of Pride

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

What is the sin of the world? It is pride. 

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

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

And the branches and the fruit – how many they are! – jealousy, covetousness, wrath, and all the rest. 

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

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

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

What are we afraid of? What are we fearing? 

If we examined our fears, why are we afraid?

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

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

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

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

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

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

This must be true of us individually. There must also be a corporate humility. This is the way along which the Lord will commit Himself.

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

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

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

~T. Austin Sparks~

No Second Causes

Jas 1:4  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

We can take one of two attitudes toward the ways of God with us; we can get bitter, sour, hard; or we can have the enlargement by exercise, development by exercise, to develop capacity, to bring us into the large place that we may be intelligently His instrument for governing under His Headship in ages to come. 

Things that enter into our history we cannot always fathom, but the explanation which we can give is that, whatever there may be as second causes, the Lord is Sovereign and He thinks it worthwhile sometimes to allow what the world would call the most terrible thing to overtake for the time being.

And it would seem that His Name and interests suffer through that thing, but through that thing He brings His people to a place of maturity and they get to know the Lord for themselves. 

Through these terrible things we find the Lord produces something that is very much more worthy of Himself in the life of His children. That is His justification, His vindication; if He could do it in any other way He would.

In the long run He does get spiritual maturity among His people, where they know Him.

He would get us to a place where we know the Lord and we have our senses exercised to know. 

The Lord give us grace to accept all His dealings with us in the light of His great purpose.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Verdict Of The Long Run

The position in which both Timothy and Demas - amongst others - found themselves at the time when Paul wrote this letter was the acid test. 

Various other forms of testing might leave the metal still undetermined as to its through-and-through genuineness, but when at length subjected to the acid the verdict will be final.

Paul and his position was the acid test. 

It was not alone the fact that he was Rome's prisoner, and that the world was against, so that his life was to be forfeit for his faith. There were more factors than that. 

There was the fact that in every city and town the whole Jewish fraternity was against him. Then, not only was the world and the religious system which had - in a sense - produced Christ and Christianity - against him, but he was suspect amongst many Christians themselves.

Even Peter found some things in his letters "hard to be understood."

Paul's position of being outside of the world, outside of the so widely established religious order, and so utterly spiritual and heavenly in object and method, meant well-nigh universal misunderstanding, suspicion, and ostracism. 

Association with him left no hope of popularity, wide acceptance, or even generous appreciation.

On the contrary; the shadow resting upon Paul would rest upon all his associates, and their chances of influence would be prejudiced before ever they gave their message.

The alternatives were quite clear. 

If the world was at all in their hearts, the utterness of Paul's way left them no honest course but to leave all that for which he stood and go where that heart-dividing element drew them - back to the world.

Demas did this. Paul was too much for anyone who had a secret love for the world.

Another course was open to such of whom it could not be said bluntly that they "loved this present evil age."

As open association with Paul jeopardised their existing opportunities in the Lord's work, or introduced an element of risk into the prospects of wide ministry.

They could secretly and inwardly be in sympathy with Paul, but keep quiet about it, and never let their sympathies be known.

They might even go as far as to let Paul know that they had a very real agreement with him, but at the same time intimate that their very usefulness to the Lord (?) would become curtailed if they openly associated themselves with him and his position. 

Thus they would be involved in being one thing to Paul, and another to his enemies. 

The only remaining course would be to be quite sure about Paul's position, decide whether God was with him, and risk everything on a full unashamed fellowship with him, believing that in the long run God would vindicate.

And in the meantime a man with a mandate from heaven cannot have his ministry stopped by all the forces of earth and hell; God will sovereignly see to that, and if every door which man can close is closed, God has others which no man can shut.

This last course Timothy took. What is the verdict of the long-run?

Tragic as is the answer concerning Demas, perhaps his was the more honest way than that of those who adopt the middle course.

These three courses are presented to many of the Lord's people today, and the question for many - especially those in the Lord's service - is, will they compromise in the matter of their position and relationships in order to preserve their own influence, or will they pay the price, lose everything, and have such a Divine support as will see at length something accomplished which is in spite of everything having conspired to make it impossible?

~T. Austin Sparks~