How Long Will You Halt Between Two Opinions?

1Kings 18:21  And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

That word was never addressed to the unsaved. It was never intended for them.

It is only rarely that the unsaved are in the position of two opinions.

More often than not they are of no opinion.

This is what the prophet really said to the people: "How long limp ye from one side to another?"

He viewed them as lame, and lamed by uncertainty, lamed by indecision, paralyzed by an unsettled issue.

Oh, how an unsettled issue does paralyze the life.

Have a controversy with the Lord, an unsettled issue with the Lord, and your whole life is lamed, is paralyzed;

You are limping first one way and then the other; there is no sense of stability about your way.

So the prophet called for the issue to be settled. 

How long limp ye from one side to the other? Settle this issue one way or the other.

If Jehovah be God, let Him have His place, His full rights; settle it once and for all.

If Baal is god, well then let us be settled.

But until that is done you are crippled, you are paralyzed, and the whole secret of your being in that weak, indefinite, unstable, uncertain place is that God is not having His full rights;

There is a dividedness in your life, a dividedness in your own soul, because other interests and considerations are in view.

The dividedness may be in your home life, where you have power, authority and influence, and you are not standing one hundred percent for the Lord’s interests there.

It may be working in other directions, but wherever it is present the result is that deep down in your being you are not satisfied, you are not at rest.

You may be busy, you may be occupied, you may be rushing hither and thither in the Lord’s name, but you know that deep down there is a lack, an uncertainty, an unsettled state; your spiritual life is limited and paralyzed.

It will always be so until the issue is settled and God has His place in fullness in every part and relationship of your life.

It is a question of zeal for the Lord, jealousy for the Lord.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Travail Implies Something Costly

Now note the implication of this principle of travail...and there are many connections in which the law of travail operates:

Just go through the Bible and see the great number of connections where struggle and conflict and pain and anguish presages the emergence of some tremendous new thing of GOD.

But note the implication of such a law. What did God mean by it?

I think simply this - and perhaps much more, but certainly this...that nothing was going to be easy and cheap.

To put it another way: that GOD was really establishing the tremendous value of everything.

He was saving man from regarding things as being of little concern or value, forcing him to recognize that this thing is costly because it is valuable.

Surely this is the offset to the whole tendency of man’s nature to get things easily and cheaply, not to pay a price for them, to escape suffering, to escape labour, to get it all without any cost.

And GOD has written in the universe this law that anything that is of Him, whether in creation or in grace, has a price attached to it, is a costly thing; it is infinitely precious and valuable, and worth suffering for!

Note, it is intended to bring the soul in...“the travail of his SOUL”; “My SOUL is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” - to bring the soul into relation with things; and when we say that we mean love.

What we get cheaply and easily we do not really love.

But that which costs binds our hearts to it...it becomes a matter of the heart, of love.

And so by travail the soul is saved from lightness, carelessness, frivolity, cheapness, and brought to recognize that there is something here that is infinitely precious.

How far-reaching is that truth and that law! 

What a lot of ground it covers! GOD is not going to let the creation off in this matter.

This is the explanation of so much. And nations and peoples that just give themselves up to frivolity, to cheapness, to escapism and all that sort of thing, are on the high road to a bad time in their history.

It will not be too long before they pass through some fiery ordeal, in order to bring back the preciousness and the seriousness of things.

And if this is true in the realm of nature and the world, how much it explains in the realm of GOD's spiritual things!

Oh, the infinite tragedy of trying to make the things of GOD cheap and easy...even salvation, and the Christian life!

Appealing always to the pleasure side of men, trying to eliminate the cost.

The LORD Jesus never did that. Salvation is something of infinite cost: everything to do with salvation is infinitely precious, and there is not one fragment of all that is of GOD which is not of surpassing and transcendent value.

It is not just going to be had willy-nilly. 

Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

Yes, suffering is attached to anything of value, and that is particularly true of spiritual things.

At that very point, you and I need to have our minds “converted” - we need a tremendous change of mind.

Unless you recognize that, unless that has become true for you, there are some things in the Bible you cannot understand.

They sound flippant, garrulous; they sound as though they are just words, words, words… 

Listen: “Our light affliction, which is for the moment…” (2 Cor. 4:17).

What are you talking about, Paul - “our light affliction”? 

Well, listen to his catalog of sufferings! Listen to him as he tells us of all that he had to go through for the Gospel’s sake, and read the much more that Luke tells us, that Paul never mentions personally.

What that beloved servant of GOD went through for the Gospel’s sake!

And yet he talks like this: “Our light affliction which is but for a passing moment”.

You cannot talk like that in the presence of suffering unless you have seen the infinite preciousness of that toward which GOD is working and bringing you.

Though now for a little while…ye have been put to grief in manifold trials, yet…ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory…” (1 Pet. 1:6,8).

Now look at the context of that: fiery trials.

You cannot get through, understand, endure the travail, unless you have some sense of the value of things.

~T. Austin Sparks~

VISION NEEDED BY EVERY CHILD OF GOD

You and I individually must be in the place where we can say, 'I have seen, I know what God is after!'

If we were asked why the Church is as it is today, in so large a measure of impotence and disintegration, and what is needed to bring about an impact from heaven by means of the Church, could we say? Is it presumption to claim to be able to do that?

The prophets knew; and remember that the prophets, whether they were of the Old Testament or of the New Testament, were not an isolated class of people, they were not some body apart, holding this in themselves officially. 

They were the very eyes of the body. They were, in the thought of God, the people of God. 

You know that principle; it is seen, for instance, in the matter of the High Priest.

God looks upon the one High Priest as Israel, and deals with all Israel on the ground of the condition of the High Priest, whether it be good or bad.

If the High Priest is bad - "And he showed me Joshua the high priest... clothed with filthy garments" (Zechariah 3:1-5) - that is Israel. 

God deals with Israel as one man.

The prophet is the same; and that is why the prophet was so interwoven with the very condition and life of the people.

Listen to the prophet Daniel praying. Personally he was not guilty; personally he had not sinned as the nation had sinned; but he took it all on himself and spoke as though it were his responsibility, as if he were the chief of sinners. 

These men were brought right into it. There is such a oneness between the prophets and the people in condition, in experience, in suffering, that they can never view themselves as officials apart from all that, as it were talking to it from the outside; they are in it, they are it.

My meaning is this, that we are not to have vision brought to us by a class called ministers, prophets and apostles.

They are here only to keep us alive to what we ought to be before God, how we ought to be; constantly stirring us up and saying, 'Look here, this is what you ought to be.'

It ought therefore to be, with every one of us personally, that we are in the meaning of this prophetic ministry.

The Church is called to be a prophet to the nations.

May I repeat my enquiry - it is a permissible question without admitting of any   presumption...could you say what is needed by the Church today?

Could you interpret the state of things, and explain truly by what the LORD has shown you in your own heart?

I know the peril and dangers that may surround such an idea, but that is the very meaning of our existence.

It will be in greater or lesser degree in every one of us, but, either more or less we have the key to the situation.

God needs people of that sort. It must be individual.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Spiritual Vs. The Natural

John 16:33  These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

When the spiritual stands to confront the merely formal, traditional, nominal and "natural," then there is going to be trouble.

This is not now merely the reaction from the world: it is the reaction from religion.

I would go further, and say it may be the reaction from Christianity.

There is a very great difference between formal, traditional, nominal, "natural" Christianity, on the one side, and spiritual Christianity, on the other; a great deal of difference.

So much so, that this also becomes a battlefield...the battlefield of a lot of trouble.

Leave formalism alone, and everything will go on quite quietly.

Leave traditionalism alone-that is, the set order of things as it has always been; that framework of things as it has been constituted and set up and established by man; that Christianity which is the fixed, accepted system of things...and you will escape a great deal of trouble.

But seek to bring in a truly spiritual order of things, and trouble arises at once.

And YOU are the trouble maker!

The truth is that the trouble lies in the existing condition, the situation, the state; but it is only brought out by your action.

And so spiritual men and women, and spiritual ministry, are called "trouble makers," because the two things cannot go on together.

That is where Israel was. They had the traditions, they had the oracles, they had the ordinances, they had the testimonies; they had the forms, they had the system - they had it all; but, in the days of the prophets, there was ever this vast gap between the "externals" and "internals" of life in relation with GOD.

The heart is far removed from the lips.

The spiritual reality is not found in the formal. 

You may have it all – but then bring in the truly spiritual meaning of things, and trouble begins in that very realm.

It is the trouble which arises when what is external and traditional comes into conflict with something which is truly spiritual.

 
~T. Austin-Sparks~

Believe And Trust GOD!

Romans 4:3  For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

Abraham's faith reposed on GOD Himself. He knew the GOD he was dealing with. It was a personal confidence in one whom he could utterly trust.

The real secret of Abraham's whole life was that he was the friend of GOD, and knew GOD to be his great, good and faithful Friend, and, taking Him at His word, he had stepped out from all that he knew and loved, and gone forth upon an unknown pathway with none but GOD.

Beloved, are we trusting not only in the word of GOD, but have we learned to lean our whole weight upon Himself, the GOD of infinite love and power, our covenant GOD and everlasting Friend?

We are told that Abraham glorified GOD by this life of faith.

The true way to glorify GOD is to let the world see what He is, and what He can do.

GOD does not want us so much to do things, as to let people see what He can do. 

God is not looking for extraordinary characters as His instruments, but He is looking for humble instruments through whom He can be honored throughout the ages.

~A. B. Simpson~

Never Ashamed

Mat 10:32  Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

Gracious promise! It is a great joy to me to confess my LORD. Whatever my faults may be, I am not ashamed of Jesus, nor do I fear to declare the doctrines of His cross.

O LORD, I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart. Sweet is the prospect which the text sets before me!

Friends forsake and enemies exult, but the LORD does not disown His servant.

Doubtless my LORD will own me even here and give me new tokens of His favorable regard.

But there comes a day when I must stand before the great Father. What bliss to think that Jesus will confess me then! 

He will say, "This man truly trusted Me and was willing to be reproached for My name's sake; and therefore I acknowledge him as Mine."

The other day a great man was made a knight, and the Queen handed him a jeweled garter; but what of that?

It will be an honor beyond all honors for the LORD Jesus to confess us in the presence of the divine Majesty in the heavens.

Never let me be ashamed to own my LORD.

Never let me indulge a cowardly silence or allow a fainthearted compromise.

Shall I blush to own Him who promises to own me?

~Charles Spurgeon~

Sin of Worry

            

Psa 37:1  Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

This to me is a Divine command; the same as "Thou shalt not steal."                    

Now let us get to the definition of fretting.

One good definition is, "Made rough on the surface." "Rubbed, or worn away"; and a peevish, irrational, fault-finding person not only wears himself out, but is very wearing to others.

To fret is to be in a state of vexation, and in this Psalm we are not only told not to fret because of evildoers, but to fret not "in anywise."

It is injurious, and GOD does not want us to hurt ourselves.
 
A physician will tell you that a fit of anger is more injurious to the system than a fever, and a fretful disposition is not conducive to a healthy body;

And you know rules are apt to work both ways, and the next step down from fretting is crossness, and that amounts to anger.

Let us settle this matter, and be obedient to the command, "Fret not."

~Margaret Bottome~

OVERHEARD IN AN ORCHARD

Said the Robin to the Sparrow: "I should really like to know Why these anxious human beings Rush about and worry so?"

Said the Sparrow to the Robin:  "Friend, I think that it must be That they have no Heavenly Father Such as cares for you and me."

~Elizabeth Cheney~

GOD Calls Us To Victory

Exo 15:1  Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
  
Beloved, GOD calls us to victory. Have any of you given up the conflict, have you surrendered? 

Have you said, "This thing is too much"? Have you said, "I can give up anything else but this"?

If you have, you are not in the land of promise.
    
GOD means you should accept every difficult thing that comes in your life. 

He has started with you, knowing every difficulty. And if you dare to let Him, He will carry you through not only to be conquerors, but "more than conquerors." 

Are you looking for all the victory?
    
GOD gives His children strength for the battle and watches over them with a fond enthusiasm.
    
He longs to fold you to His arms and say to you, "I have seen thy conflict, I have watched thy trials, I have rejoiced in thy victory; thou hast honored Me."

You know He told Joshua at the beginning, "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life; as I was with Moses, so shall I be with thee:

I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." And again, He says to us, "Fear thou not, for I am with thee."

~A. B. Simpson~

The Service Of Passivity

The same unconscious ministry, again, is often a beautiful feature of the sickroom.

Patient suffering may be finest service.

It is told of Dr. Norman Macleod that on one occasion he went to pay a visit to a Sunday school scholar of his own.

He found him stretched upon a sorry bed, for the lad--an invalid--was dying amid scenes of crime and destitution. 

Norman Macleod was not a great preacher; Norman Macleod was a great human.

Stooping over the bed he said, "My poor lad, I'm afraid you're very weak." "Yes, sir," was the reply, "I'm very weak, but I'm strong in Him."

The following Sunday, Dr. Macleod told that story from the pulpit.

It was published in religious newspapers both in England and America.

And by and by, from Scotland, England, and from far-off villages of the United States, came testimonies that the story had been blessed.

Out in the High Street other lads were serving, Men and women were toiling for the Master.

Here in the garret, above the crowded street was a sufferer who would never serve again.

Yet, like Paul and Silas in the dungeon, he sang in his midnight because God was with him, and far away the other prisoners heard.

I have heard women lamenting they were useless because they could never leave their little room.

Others were out and active in the world; they were nothing but cumberers of the ground.

And yet that little chamber was a Bethel, and to enter it was to feel that GOD was there, and through the streets one walked a better man because of that patient beautiful endurance.

Never forget that among life's many ministries, the freest may be the unconscious ministry.

There is an exquisite service of passivity as surely as a service of activity.

When the lights are low, when the strong ones bow themselves, when the silver cord is at the point of breaking, you may be serving better than you know.

~George H. Morrison~