EARNESTLY DESIRING THE END

                                                    

Believe it or not, Peter says we are to earnestly desire the end of the present world. You may say, "That sounds morbid!" Yet the apostle writes that we are to anticipate the dissolving of this evil age:

Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat" (2 Peter 3:12).

Now, this does not mean that when destruction comes we are to shout happily, "Look, it’s all burning!" No, Peter's words here are meant to sustain us.

Whenever we become discouraged in this life, we are to rejoice: It's all going to go up in smoke anyway!

This truth also is meant to "stir us up" about the kind of people we are to be. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness" (2 Peter 3: 11).

When you read these words about a great fire coming and a bright, new world where righteousness will reign, do you rejoice?

Perhaps, instead, you cry: "Oh, God, I believe what Your Word says. I believe one day You are going to send Your fire to melt down this sin-cursed world.

And I believe a new, holy world is coming. But I don't believe I measure up with all holy conversation and godliness! I don't feel I meet the standard Peter writes about. And I'm afraid I won't make it.

Beloved, I have glorious news for you: I can show you, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that God greatly desires to preserve you for His coming world.

You need His life-giving truth in your heart to sustain you when the enemy comes against you like a flood.

Here is what the Lord has pledged to do for you:

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore"Psalm 121:7-8. 

For the Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever Psalm 37:28.

He preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked" Psalm 97:10.

I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it 
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24.

~David Wilkerson~
 

The WRATH of GOD: What Is It?

                                                   

IT IS RARE that there is anything good in human anger. Almost always it springs out of unholy states of heart, and frequently it leads to cursing and violence. The man of evil temper is unpredictable and dangerous and is usually shunned by men of peace and good will.

There is a strong tendency among religious teachers these days to disassociate anger from the divine character and to defend God by explaining away the Scriptures that relate it to Him. This is understandable, but in the light of the full revelation of God it is inexcusable.

In the first place, God needs no defense. Those teachers who are forever trying to make God over in their own image might better be employed in seeking to make themselves over in the image of God.

In the Scriptures "God spake all these words," and there is no independent criterion by which we can judge the revelation God there makes concerning Himself.

The present refusal of so many to accept the doctrine of the wrath of God is part of a larger pattern of unbelief that begins with doubt concerning the veracity of the Christian Scriptures.

Let a man question the inspiration of the Scriptures and a curious, even monstrous, inversion takes place: thereafter he judges the Word instead of letting the Word judge him; he determines what the Word should teach instead of permitting it to determine what he should believe; he edits, amends, strikes out, adds at his pleasure; but always he sits above the Word and makes it amenable to him instead of kneeling before God and becoming amenable to the Word.

The tender-minded interpreter who seeks to shield God from the implications of His own Word is engaged in an officious effort that cannot but be completely wasted.

Why such a man still clings to the tattered relics of religion it is hard to say. The manly thing would be to walk out on the Christian faith and put it behind him along with other outgrown toys and discredited beliefs of childhood, but this he rarely does. He kills the tree but still hovers pensively about the orchard hoping for fruit that never comes.

Whatever is stated clearly but once in the Holy Scriptures may be accepted as sufficiently well established to invite the faith of all believers; and when we discover that the Spirit speaks of the wrath of God about three hundred times in the Bible we may as well make up our minds either to accept the doctrine or reject the Scriptures outright.

If we have valid information from some outside source proving that anger is unworthy of God, then the Bible is not to be trusted when it attributes anger to God. And if it is wrong three hundred times on one subject, who can trust it on any other?

The instructed Christian knows that the wrath of God is a reality, that His anger is as holy as His love, and that between His love and His wrath there is no incompatibility. He further knows (as far as fallen creatures can know such matters) what the wrath of God is and what it is not.

To understand God's wrath we must view it in the light of His holiness. God is holy and has made holiness to be the moral condition necessary to the health of His universe. Sin's temporary presence in the world only accents this.

Whatever is holy is healthy; evil is a moral sickness that must end ultimately in death. The formation of the language itself suggests this, the English word holy deriving from the Anglo-Saxon halig, hal meaning well, whole. While it is not wise to press word origins unduly, there is yet a significance here that should not be overlooked.

Since God's first concern for His universe is its moral health, that is, its holiness, whatever is contrary to this is necessarily under His eternal displeasure.

Wherever the holiness of God confronts unholiness there is conflict.

This conflict arises from the irreconcilable natures of holiness and sin.

God's attitude and action in the conflict are His anger.

To preserve His creation God must destroy whatever would destroy it. When He arises to put down destruction and save the world from irreparable moral collapse He is said to be angry. 

Every wrathful judgment of God in the history of the world has been a holy act of preservation.

The holiness of God, the wrath of God and the health of the creation are inseparably united.

Not only is it right for God to display anger against sin, but I find it impossible to understand how He could do otherwise.

God's wrath is His utter intolerance of whatever degrades and destroys.

He hates iniquity as a mother hates the diphtheria or polio that would destroy the life of her child.

God's wrath is the antisepsis by which moral putrefaction is checked and the health of the creation maintained.

When God warns of His impending wrath and exhorts men to repent and avoid it He puts it in a language they can understand:

He tells them to "flee from the wrath to come." He says in effect, "Your life is evil, and because it is evil you are an enemy to the moral health of My creation. I must extirpate whatever would destroy the world I love.

Turn from evil before I rise up in wrath against you. 

I love you, but I hate the sin you love.

Separate yourself from your evil ways before I send judgment upon you.

O Lord, in wrath remember mercy Hab. 3:2.

~A. W. Tozer~

STIR UP OUR MINDS

                                                    

This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance" 2 Peter 3:1. 

Peter’s message about the end of the present world and the beginning of the new earth is meant to stir up a hope in us and keep us from being anchored to this world.

This is the truth meant to "stir up our minds": "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved" (2 Peter 3: 11). All that people hold precious, all that they labor a lifetime to keep and enjoy, is going to dissolve in a sudden burning!

Try to imagine it: All Wall Street firms, all corporate offices, all banks, all computer headquarters—gone! The United Nations will vanish. State and federal capitol buildings will burn to oblivion. Fort Knox and all its gold will disappear. There will not be any more manufacturing plants, skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels, airplanes, trains. There will not even be any ashes left!
 
God's Word clearly says that all these things "shall be burned up . . . dissolved" (verses 10-11).

The Greek word for dissolved here means "to loosen, break up and melt down." In other words, God is going to break up the party! He will pry people loose from everything they lust after and then melt it all in intense heat!

I want to share with you a truth that will help you understand why the secular workplace will never fully accept you if you are devoted to Jesus. It doesn't matter where you work—at a bank, in a school, cleaning the streets, wherever—you probably experience much rejection, condescension and misunderstanding. You receive little or no credit for what you do. You are persecuted, ridiculed, talked about behind your back. And you realize you will never be "one of the guys" or "one of the girls." So you never feel comfortable or truly secure.  

Why is this so?

It is all the Lord's doing! He permits it so you will not become hooked on this transient, passing world.

Many Christians get too comfortable in this world and end up turning away from the Lord.  

Prosperity, acceptance and recognition capture their hearts and minds.

~David Wilkerson~
 

Satan's Objective - the Nullification of the Church's Position and Warfare through Corruption

What then is ever Satan's objective? To corrupt, and thereby to pull down the Church from its spiritual position. 

Hence we have such a word as this: "Consider from whence thou art fallen". That is said to the church at Ephesus. "Thou hast left thy first love."

Go back to Acts 19 and note that first love. Paul comes to Ephesus, and what happens through his presentation of Christ there? Why, many of them brought their valuable and perhaps priceless books of magic arts and made a great fire of them, and the sum is taken of their value, an immense sum; and it all went up in flames!

In a city like Ephesus where Demetrius is so concerned about the profits of trade, where capitalism is such a big factor, where money means a lot, an immense fortune is thus sacrificed. 

Why? Because they turned to the Lord with all their heart. 

The testimony of Jesus is accepted and established. What a thing!

You remember Paul's talk to the Ephesian elders. What a wonderful disclosure, what a relationship in spiritual things! Well might he, through the enablement of the Holy Spirit, write that letter, which had Ephesus as its base, to go round all the churches in Asia, a letter of heavenly unveilings. What a revelation, what a position!

And now to Ephesus in Rev. 2 "Thou hast left thy first love"! 

You do not value Christ, you do not value the inheritance, you do not value heavenly things as you once did: "consider from whence thou art fallen". Fallen!  

Here we have spiritual collapse, the work of Satan in bringing down from an Ephesian position. 

Thus the overcomer is the one or the company that stands for God's full revelation, and God's full revelation is a heavenly people in whom there can be a growing and ultimately full, perfect manifestation of the moral glory of God in this universe. 

That is the city, the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, having the glory of God, her light like unto a lamp most precious. That is the end to which God is working.

Now, beloved, remember that the rulership of this world and this universe is centred in the heavenlies.

Let us not forget that. In this age there are the world rulers of this darkness in the heavenlies. In those heavenlies just now the principalities and powers, the world rulers of this darkness, are operating, and they are doing their work thoroughly.

Oh yes, never was a day such as this. The manifestation of the evil work of Satan in the nations, the moral degradation in the nations, is coming out, it is being manifested.

The rulership is there in the heavenlies, so far as this world is concerned outside of Christ. I am leaving room for the sovereignty of God over all that, but we are talking about the judicial and rightful government of man, and Satan has it outside of Christ because of man's consent; and man still does consent.

The very people who even here in this country deplore the iniquitous procedure that is going on in the world, and who would most loudly and vehemently decry the wickedness of what is going on, if you speak to them along these lines of enthroning Jesus Christ, they would not listen to you. Giving God His place? - that is pious talk! They are going to deal with it in other ways. 

Satan has such a grip that even those who deplore iniquity do not give God and His righteousness a place. However, that by the way.

Now, the rulership, the moral rulership, is vested in or seated in the heavenlies. The evil hierarchy that is seen there as yet is to yield its grasp, and the destiny of the Church is to take the place of the principalities and powers and world rulers of this darkness, to occupy the heavenlies.

So in Rev. 12 as we have seen, we have the "overcomers", the "man-child", caught up to the throne of God, and then no more place is found for the red dragon and his hosts in the heavens.

Thus at present there is a spiritual warfare between the Church and the principalities going on in the heavenlies - yes, down in your kitchen!

I must say this in order to keep you from becoming nebulous and abstract. Amidst irritating daily work, that is where the battle in the heavenlies is going on.  

You have not got to reach some geographical point to have a battle in the heavens. It is spiritual and moral. The Church is fighting that battle in daily life.

Then the issue - Satan knows the issue is a very great one. It is his place of rulership over the inhabited earth, the deceiving of the nations, the holding of them bound, the directing of them contrary to God, the opposing of God's end in His own, that is at stake. 

The Church is fighting that battle spiritually now. 

The battle is going to be fought and fought and fought within our own spirits.

It is a question of whether we in spirit are going to overcome or Satan. 

It is the position that is in question; government, dominion, rulership.

What then is Satan's objective? In the first place it is to corrupt in order to pull down. It will then be the displacement of believers from their heavenly position, the displacement of the Church...

Ours is not some position to which we have to rise, to attain. The letter to the Ephesians does not put it in that way at all. It presents it as an accomplished fact: "hath seated us." 

Beloved, do grasp this, that if really by faith in Jesus Christ you have, with both hands, apprehended the righteousness of God as yours, you are in the heavenlies, you are above Satan morally.

Your business is to hold your position. Satan is not out to keep us down, he is out to hurl us down. We are there. This is a position we have to hold to by faith. 

So that to dislodge, to displace, will be his object. 

But oh, just as his ways for corrupting or bringing accusation and condemnation are countless and always beyond our power to anticipate, so are his ways to bring us down, to bring God's people down spiritually and morally from their heavenly position.

~T. Austin Sparks~

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.