A Solemn Warning

This is a solemn warning to those who walk in darkness and who try to help themselves find the light.They are described as the kindling for a fire that is surrounding itself with sparks.
 
What does this mean? It means that when we are in darkness, the temptation is to find our own way without trusting in the LORD and relying upon Him. Instead of allowing Him to help us, we try to help ourselves.
 
We seek the light of the natural way and the advice of our friends.We reason out our own conclusions and thereby may be tempted to accept a path of deliverance that would not be of God at all.
 
The light we see may be the fires from our own kindling, or deceptive beacons leading us toward the danger of the rocks.  

And God will allow us to walk in the false light of those sparks, but the end will be sorrow.
 
Beloved, never try to get out of a dark place except in God’s timing and in His way. A time of trouble and darkness is meant
to teach you lessons you desperately need. 

Premature deliverance may circumvent God’s work of grace in your life.

Commit the entire situation to Him,and be willing to abide in darkness,knowing He is present.
 
Remember, it is better to walk in the dark with God than to walk alone in the light.

~From The Still Small Voice~
 
Stop interfering with God’s plans and with His will.Touching anything of His mars the work.  

Moving the hands of a clock to suit you does not change the time.You may be able to rush the unfolding of some aspects of God’s will, but you harm His work in the long run.

You can force a rosebud open, but you spoil the flower. 

Leave everything to Him, without exception. Not what I will, but what you will. Mark 14:36.  

~Stephen Merritt~
 
His Way God sent me on when I would stay (’Twas cool within the wood); I did not know the reason why.
 
I heard a boulder crashing by ’Cross the path where I had stood. He had me stay when I would go; “Your will be done,” I said.
 
They found one day at early dawn, Across the way I would have gone, A serpent with a mangled head. I ask no more the reason why, Although I may not see The path ahead, His way I go; For though I know not, He does know, And He will choose safe paths for me.

~From Sunday School Times~

Love's Expenditures

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because “He laid down His life for us.”

And the real test of any love is what it is prepared to “lay down.” How much is it ready to spend? How much will it bleed? 

There is much spurious love about. It lays nothing down; it only takes things up! It is self-seeking, using the speech and accents of love. It is a “work of the flesh,” which has stolen the label of a fruit of the Spirit.

Love may always be known by its expenditures, its self-crucifixions, its Calvarys. Love is always laying down its life for others. Its pathway is always a red road. You may track its goings by the red “marks of the Lord Jesus.”

And this is the life, the love-life, which the LORD Jesus came to create among the children of men. 

It is His gracious purpose to form a spiritual fellowship in which every member will be lovingly concerned about his fellows good. 

A real family of God would be one in which all the members bleed for each, and each for all.

How can we gain this disposition of love? “God is love.” “We love because He first loved us.”

At the fountain of eternal love we too may become lovers, becoming “partakers of the divine nature,” and filled with all the fulness of God.

~John Henry Jowett~

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Speech A Register Of Moral And Spiritual Condition

Your doctors often test our physical condition by the state of our tongue. With another and deeper significance the tongue is also the register of our condition. 

Our words are a perfect index of our moral and spiritual health. 

If our words are unclean and untrue, our souls are assuredly sickly and diseased.

A perverse tongue is never allied with a sanctified heart. 

And, therefore, everyone may apply a clinical test to his own life: 

What is the character of my speech? What do my words indicate? 

What do they suggest as to the depths and background of the soul? 

By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

God delighteth in truthful lips. Right words are fruit from the tree of life. 

The LORD turns away from falsehood as we turn away from material corruption, only with an infinitely intenser loathing and disgust.

It is only the lips that have been purified with flame from the holy altar of God that can offer words that are pleasing unto Him.

Take my lips and let them be Filled with messages from Thee.

~John Henry Jowett~

Is This Pleasing To GOD?

                                                  

1Th 4:1  Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.  

In every place, in every circumstance, in every undertaking the Christian should ask, "Is this pleasing to God?"
 
GOD is pleased or displeased with every thought we think, with every word we speak, with every action we perform, with every emotion we feel.
 
Perhaps we do not sufficiently realize this. 

We think, speak, feel, and act without ever considering whether we are pleasing God, or not. 

But this ought not to be, for He gave us our being, redeemed us from sin and damnation, called us by His grace, and has blessed us with innumerable and interminable blessings and all that we may glorify Him! 

And how can we glorify Him — but by habitually aiming to please Him?

If we forget or lose sight of this — we forget and lose sight of the principal end of our being, and well-being.

For instance, the manner in which I employ my spare time — the amount of time I give to  recreation or entertainment.

Many Christians seem never to think whether the way in which they spend their time, is pleasing to God or not. 

If they did, would they ever go to some entertainments, or indulge in certain pleasures? 

Would the world have so much of their time, and the prayer-closet so little?

How much time is wasted in frivolous ways, which are neither conducive to the health of the body, nor calculated to promote the spirituality of the mind.

Also, how many squander their money on dress, ornaments, or delicacies for the body — who never relieve the poor, or contribute to establish God's cause in the world.

Or if they do so at all, it is not in due proportion to their means. The pence are given to the Lord the pounds are spent in the gratification of SELF!

If, when I am going to lay out money in ornaments or dress, or indulgences for the table, I was to ask, "Is this pleasing to God?" —

Would it not check my lavish expenditure? 

Would it not often change the course in which my money flows?
 
Col 1:10  That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

My object in everything I do should be to please God.

The one grand end of my life, the grand thing I am to aim at is to please my Heavenly Father. 

I have nothing to dread, but His frown, nothing to fear, but His displeasure, nothing to seek, but His approbation.

If my Heavenly Father is pleased with me it is enough. 

What a comfort it is to know that my God is easily pleased — that it is not the amount of what I do — but the motive from which I do it, which He looks at!

He is pleased with my poorest performances, with my most imperfect services, with only a cup of cold water given to one of His children if my object is to please Him!

In everything I do, I should ask, Is this pleasing to God? If so, all is well.  

1Co 10:31  Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.   

This is the rule — and we should walk by it.

~James Smith~

The FIRE Of Envy

Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work!

In Milton’s “Comus” we read of a certain potion which has the power to pervert all the senses of everyone who drinks it. Nothing is apprehended truly. Sight and hearing and taste are all disordered, and the victim is all unconscious of the confusion. The deadly draught is the minister of deceptive chaos.

And envy is like that potion when it is drunk by the spirit. It perverts every moral and spiritual sense. 

The envious is more fatally stricken than the blind.

He gazes upon untruth and thinks it true. He looks upon confusion and thinks it order.

Envy is colour-blind. It is like jealousy, of which it is a blood-relation. It never sees anything in its natural hues. It misinterprets everything.

No one can quench the unholy fire of envy but the mighty God Himself. It is like a prairie fire: once kindled it is beyond our power to stamp it out. 

But God’s coolness is more than a match for all our feverish heat. His quenchings are transformations.

He converts the perverted and changes envy into goodwill. The bitter pool is made sweet. For confusion He gives order, for ashes He gives beauty, and in the face of an old enemy we see the countenance of a friend.

~John Henry Jowett~

Planted Together In The Likeness Of His Death

May I remind you that the nature of this planting is just that with which we are so familiar. “Planted together in the likeness of His death.”

That is the word of the Apostle, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”

The enemy is the instrument so often, of planting us more deeply into the death of Christ. 

His assaults, his attacks, his accusations, everything – yes. The Lord is not the source of evil, but the Lord allows it.

So often our hearts cry out: “Why did the Lord ever allow that in our lives?” That thing which has meant such a deep, dark passage. Why did the Lord allow it? He could have prevented it. 

Well, we were planted by it into the death of the Lord Jesus. We were brought more than ever to an end of ourselves. 

Yes, and therefore, to know the Lord in a larger measure than we have ever known Him, and to be brought to a place where it will not be so easy for the Devil to shake us next time.

That is the sovereign way of God in deeper death experiences. “Planted together in the likeness of His death.”

Have you been planted there initially? Have you been planted in Christ crucified? Or are you one of those attachments to something? Are you planted?

And when a deeper planting comes, remember it is the roots being driven downwards, and the issue is going to be most surely endurance, stability, and ability to stand; but, oh, there is going to be greater fruitfulness.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Beware Of The Easy Way

 

Psa 30:6  And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. 

Moab settled on his lees, he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel.”

Give a man wealth; let his ships bring home continually rich freights; let the winds and waves appear to be his servants to bear his vessels across the bosom of the mighty deep; let his lands yield abundantly: let the weather be propitious to his crops; let uninterrupted success attend him.
 
Let him stand among men as a successful merchant; let him enjoy continued health; allow him with braced nerve and brilliant eye to march through the world, and live happily; give
him the buoyant spirit; let him have the song perpetually on his lips; let his eye be ever sparkling with joy—and the natural consequence of such an easy state to any man, let him be the best Christian who ever breathed, will be presumption; even David said, “I shall never be moved;” and we are not better than David, nor half so good. 

Brother, beware of the smooth places of the way; if you are treading them, or if the way be rough, thank God for it. 

If God should always rock us in the cradle of prosperity; if we were always dandled on the knees of fortune; if we had not some stain on the alabaster pillar; if there were not a few clouds in the sky; if we had not some bitter drops in the wine of this life, we should become intoxicated with pleasure, we should dream “we stand;” and stand we should, but it would be upon a pinnacle; like the man asleep upon the mast, each moment we should be in jeopardy.
 
We bless God, then, for our afflictions; we thank him for our changes; we extol his name for losses of property; for we feel that had he not chastened us thus, we might have become too secure. 

Continued worldly prosperity is a fiery trial. “Afflictions, though they seem severe, In mercy oft are sent.”

~Charles Spurgeon~

Deep Ploughing

Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

I do not agree with all of the Puritan writers’ doctrine, but I love their emphasis on holiness. These godly preachers called their sermons “deep ploughing.” 

They believed they could not sow true seeds of faith until the soil of their listeners’ hearts had been deeply plowed.

The Puritans made sure their preaching went deep, cracking all the fallow ground of their listeners’ souls. 

Their sermons produced genuine repentance in their congregations and, in turn, over the years this produced strong,
mature, faithful Christians.

Today, however, most preaching is all sowing with no plowing. I hear very few sermons nowadays that dig deeper than the topsoil.

Deep plowing does not just address the disease of sin; it digs down to the very cause of the disease. 

Much of the preaching we hear today focuses on the remedy while ignoring the disease. It offers a prescription without providing surgery!

Sadly, we cause people to think they have been healed of sin when they never knew they were sick.

We put robes of righteousness on them when they never knew they were naked.  

We urge them to trust in Christ when they don’t even realize their need to trust. Such people end up thinking, “It can’t hurt to add Jesus to my life.”

C. H. Spurgeon, the powerful English preacher, said the following about the need for repentance:
 
I trust that sorrowful penitence does still exist, though I have not heard much about it lately. People seem to jump into faith very quickly nowadays...I hope my old friend repentance is not dead. I am desperately in love with repentance; it seems to be the twin sister of faith.

I do not myself understand much about dry-eyed faith; I know that I came to Christ by the way of weeping-cross. . . . 

When I came to Calvary by faith, it was with great weeping and supplication, confessing my transgressions, and desiring to find salvation in Jesus, and in Jesus only.”

~David Wilkerson~

Blood Of The Lamb Our LORD'S Death Substitutionary Sacrifice

By "the blood of the Lamb" we understand our Lord's death as a substitutionary sacrifice.

Let us be very clear here. It is not said that they overcame the arch-enemy by the blood of Jesus, or the blood of Christ, but by the blood of the Lamb; and the words are expressly chosen because, under the figure of a lamb, we have set before us a sacrifice. 

The blood of Jesus Christ, shed because of his courage for the truth, or out of pure philanthropy, or out of self-denial, conveys no special gospel to men, and has no peculiar power about it. Truly it is an example worthy to beget martyrs; but it is not the way of salvation for guilty men. 

If you proclaim the death of the Son of God, but do not show that he died the just for the unjust to bring us to God, you have not preached the blood of the Lamb. 

You must make it known that "the chastisement of our peace was upon him," and that "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," or you have not declared the meaning of the blood of the Lamb.

There is no overcoming sin without a substitutionary sacrifice. 

The lamb under the old law was brought by the offender to make atonement for his offense, and in his place it was slain: 

This was the type of Christ taking the sinner's place, bearing the sinner's sin, and suffering in the sinner's stead, and thus vindicating the justice of God, and making it possible for him to be just and the justifier of him that believeth.

I understand this to be the conquering weapon-the death of the Son of God set forth as the propitiation for sin. 

Sin must be punished: it is punished in Christ's death. Here is the hope of men. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Satan Departing, Angels Ministering

                                                                               

Beloved friends, we have very much to learn from our Lord's temptation. He was tempted in all points, like as we are. 

If you will study the temptation of Christ, you will not be ignorant of Satan's devices. 

If you see how He worsted the enemy, you will learn what weapons to use against your great adversary.

If you see how our Lord conquers throughout the whole battle, you will learn that, as you keep close to Him, you will be more than conqueror through Him that loved you. 

From our Lord's temptation we learn especially to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." Let us never mistake the meaning of that petition. 

We are to pray that we may not be tempted, for we are poor flesh and blood and very frail, and it is for us to cry to God, "Lead us not into temptation." 

But we also learn a great deal from the close of our Lord's great threefold trial.  

We find Him afterward peaceful, ministered to by angels and rejoicing. That should teach us to pray, "But, if we must be tempted, deliver us from the evil," or, as some render it, and very correctly, too, "Deliver us from the evil one."

First, we pray that we may not be tempted at all; and then, as a supplement to that prayer, yielding the whole matter to divine wisdom, "If it be needful for our manhood, for our growth in grace, for the verification of our graces, and for God's glory that we should be tempted, Lord, deliver us from the evil; and especially deliver us from the impersonation of evil, the evil one!"

With that as an introduction, for a short time tonight let me call upon you to notice in our text, first, the Devil leaving the tempted One: "Then the devil leaveth him."

Secondly, we shall keep to Matthew's gospel, and notice the angels ministering to the tempted One after the fallen angel had left Him.

And then, thirdly, the limitation of the rest which we may expect, the limitation of the time in which Satan will be gone, for Luke puts it, "When the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season," or, as some put it, "until a fit opportunity," when he would again return, and our great Lord and Master would once more be tried by his wicked wiles.
 
When did the devil leave our Lord? When he had finished the temptation.

It must have been a great relief to our divine Master when Satan left Him; the very air must have been purer and fitter to be breathed. 

His soul must have felt a great relief when the evil spirit had gone away; but he went not, we are told, until he had finished all the temptation. 

So Luke puts it: "When the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season."

Satan will not go until he has shot the last arrow from his quiver.

Such is his malice that, as long as he can tempt, he will tempt. 

His will desires our total destruction; but his power is not equal to his will. 

God does not give him power such as he would like

~Charles Spurgeon~