"The Day of Small Things?"

There is an unhealthy lust for big things amongst the Lord's people in these days.

Something to attract attention, to impress; a demonstration to capture, an appearance to impress. 

Big names, big places, big titles, big sounds, big movements, big sweeps! If the dimensions are big according to men's standards, the success is judged accordingly.

God has ever found it necessary to reduce in order to get and maintain what will preserve the recognition of wholly Divine factors. 

End-times are always days of small things. 

See the testimony in the Revelation; it is only represented by the few who "overcome."

Bigness is material or temporal. Greatness is spiritual and eternal. 

Too often men - even Christians - despise that in which God delights. 

The significance of things according to God is so often seen in an "upper room" over against the whole city, but the city succumbs to the upper room.

When dealing with the "world rulers of this darkness" the Lord has frequently made an upper-room His Throne-room. 

These seven eyes of Jehovah shall rejoice when they see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. What is that? Well, the seven eyes symbolize the perfection of spiritual vision, taking in everything as it is.

The plummet is that by which crookedness is brought to light and made manifest.

When Jehovah sees the Lord Jesus with that instrument in His hand which so represents His own standard and mind that by it He can correct what is not so, and show the all-unsuspected leanings, angles, bulgings, and dangers of that which is related to His House; 

When He has that instrument by which He can make manifest how His House should be built according to Christ, then His perfect spiritual vision will rejoice and be satisfied.

This is what He needs. O, that we might be such to Him! It will cost! It will not be a popular ministry, but it will be precious to the Lord.

As we close it will be no little gain to note the names of the Lord in this chapter. The thing as in view is related to Jehovah - the Almighty. 

Eternally Self Sufficient One (verses 6, 10). The executing and sufficiency of the purpose is related to Jehovah-Sabaoth - the Lord of Hosts (verse 6). The place of the testimony is related to Adon-Master, or Lord (verse 14); that is, He who owns and has the rights of proprietorship. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Beware Of The Cravings Of Appetite

Gen 27:34  And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father.
 
On this incident the writer to the Hebrews founds the impressive lesson, that the choices of the past may cast a bitter and irrevocable shadow on all our future. 

Heb 12:16  Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
 
Heb 12:17  For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

Beware of the cravings of appetite. - In an evil moment Esau yielded to these, and sold his birthright to secure their gratification; he found afterward that the choice made in that hour was irrevocable. 

How needful that we watch and pray, lest we fall into temptation!

There are four facts which, when borne in mind, guard us against the sudden oversetting of passionate appetite.

We were once dead in sins. - Surely we do not want to go back again to the charnel-house with its corruption.

We died for sins in the person of Christ our Representative. - In Him we have met the demands of God's holy law; but surely that must be an awful thing which cost our Saviour so dearly.

We died to sin with the Lord Jesus. - We have passed with Him on to Resurrection ground; so that we belong to the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

We are called on to reckon ourselves dead in sin. - The nearer we live to God, the more sensitive we shall be to the most distant suggestion of evil, closing doors and windows against its entrance, reckoning ourselves "not at home" to it, and yielding our members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

~F. B. Meyer~

Eat Don't Argue

Two learned doctors are angrily discussing the nature of food, and allowing their meal to lie untasted, while a simple countryman is eating as heartily as he can of that which is set before him. 

The religious world is full of quibblers, critics, and sceptics, who, like the doctors, fight over Christianity without profit either to themselves or others; those are far happier who imitate the farmer and feed upon the Word of God, which is the true food of the soul.

Luther's prayer was, "From nice questions the Lord deliver us." 

Questioning with honesty and candour is not to be condemned, when the object is to "prove all things, and hold fast that which is good;" but to treat revelation as if it were a football to be kicked from man to man is irreverence, if not worse.

Seek the true faith, by all manner of means, but do not spend a whole life in finding it, lest you be like a workman who wastes the whole day in looking for his tools.

Hear the true Word of God; lay hold upon it, and spend your days not in raising hard questions, but in feasting upon precious truth.

It is, no doubt, very important to settle the point of General or Particular Redemption; but for unconverted men, the chief matter is to look to the Redeemer on the cross with the eye of faith.

Election is a doctrine about which there is much discussion, but he who has made his election sure, finds it a very sweet morsel. 

Final perseverance has been fought about in all time; but he who by grace continues to rest in Jesus to the end, knows the true enjoyment of it. 

Reader, argue, if you please, but remember that believing in the Lord Jesus gives infinitely more enjoyment than disputing can ever afford you.

If you are unsaved, your only business is with the great command, "Believe!" 

And even if you have passed from death unto life, it is better to commune with Jesus than to discuss doubtful questions.

When Melancthon's mother asked him what she must believe amidst so many disputes, he, knowing her to be trusting to Jesus in a simple-hearted manner, replied, "Go on, mother, to believe and pray as you have done, and do not trouble yourself about controversy."

So say we to all troubled souls, "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him."

~Charles Spurgeon~

Christian Liberality

 Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble  Psalm 41:1.

To think about the poor and let them lie on our hearts is a Christian man's duty; for Jesus put them with us and near us when He said, "The poor ye have always with you."

Many give their money to the poor in a hurry, without thought; and many more give nothing at all. 

This precious promise belongs to those who "consider" the poor, look into their case, devise plans for their benefit, and considerately carry them out.

We can do more by care than by cash, and most with the two together. 

To those who consider the poor, the LORD promises His own consideration in times of distress. 

He will bring us out of trouble if we help others when they are in trouble.

We shall receive very singular providential help if the LORD sees that we try to provide for others. 

We shall have a time of trouble, however generous we may be; but if we are charitable, we may put in a claim for peculiar deliverance, and the LORD will not deny His own word and bond.

Miserly curmudgeons may help themselves, but considerate and generous believers the LORD will help.

As you have done unto others, so will the LORD do unto you. Empty your pockets.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Ministry Of Silence

Psa 46:10  Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
 
There are certain voices which we never hear except when everything is silent.

They reach us as a revelation of the stillness.

Sometimes on a summer afternoon one gets away from the city or the village and climbs up the grassy hillside till all the noise of human life is lost, and it is often then that there breaks upon the ear a certain indistinguishable murmur as of the moving of innumerable wings.

Travelers tell us that there are rivers flowing beneath the streets of the ancient city of Shechem. During the hours of the day you cannot hear them for the noise of the narrow streets and the bazaars. But when evening comes and the clamor dies away and the dew falls on the city, then quite audibly, in the hush of night, you may hear the music of the buried streams.

There are many voices like those hidden waters. You can only hear them when things are still.

There are whisperings of conscience in the heart which take only a very little to drown.

There are tidings from the eternal Spirit who is not far away from any one of us; tidings that will come and go unnoticed unless we have learned the grace of being still.

~George H. Morrison~

Faith Grows Amid Storms

Job 23:10  But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

Faith grows amid storms--just four words, but oh, how full of import to the soul who has been in the storms!
     
Faith is that God-given faculty which, when exercised, brings the unseen into plain view, and by which the impossible things are made possible. It deals with supernaturals.
     
But it "grows amid storms"; that is, where there are disturbances in the spiritual atmosphere. 

Storms are caused by the conflicts of elements; and the storms of the spiritual world are conflicts with hostile elements.
     
In such an atmosphere faith finds its most productive soil; in such an element it comes more quickly to full fruition.
     
The staunchest tree is not found in the shelter of the forest, but out in the open where the winds from every quarter beat upon it, and bend and twist it until it becomes a giant in stature---this is the tree which the mechanic wants his tools made of, and the wagon-maker seeks.
     
So in the spiritual world, when you see a giant, remember the road you must travel to come up to his side is not along the sunny lane where wild flowers ever bloom; but a steep, rocky, narrow pathway where the blasts of hell will almost blow you off your feet; where the sharp rocks cut the flesh, where the projecting thorns scratch the brow, and the venomous beasts hiss on every side.
     
It is a pathway of sorrow and joy, of suffering and healing balm, of tears and smiles, of trials and victories, of conflicts and triumphs, of hardships and perils and buffetings, of persecutions and misunderstandings, of troubles and distress; through all of which we are made more than conquerors through Him who loves us.
     
"Amid storms." Right in the midst where it is fiercest.You may shrink back from the ordeal of a fierce storm of trial...but go in! God is there to meet you in the center of all your trials, and to whisper His secrets which will make you come forth with a shining face and an indomitable faith that all the demons of hell shall never afterwards cause to waver.

~E. A. Kilbourne~

The Separate And Obedient Soul

Gen 13:14  And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: 

Abram's life was one of an ever-perfecting separation. But out of these experiences sprang his rarest joys. The separate and obedient soul may reckon on:-

Fresh Revelation. - Whenever Abram dared to step out in obedience, the Lord spake freshly to him.

But in Egypt we find no trace of the Divine voice. If God spake there, it would be in warning and rebuke.

Has the voice of God long been silent to thee - no fresh command, no deeper insight into truth? See to it that thou art not in Egypt.

Separate thyself, not only from Haran, but from Lot; not only from what is clearly wrong, but from all that is questionable; and the Lord will speak to thee things it is not possible for men to utter.

Further Vision. - Lot lifted up his eyes to espy what would make for his advantage and well-being, and beheld only the plain of Sodom, which indeed was well-watered, but the seat of exceeding sin.

But when Abram lifted up his eyes, not to search out ought for himself, but to see what God had prepared, he looked northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward-words which remind us of the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of the love of Christ.

The single eye is full of light; the far climber gets the widest horizon; if thou wilt do His will, thou shalt know. 

Hundredfold old Compensation.-Whatever Abram renounced, when he left his home, or gave Lot the right to choose, he received back in the usual measure of God, with an overflowing overpass.

God gave him the entire land, including Lot's -portion. 

We can never give up for God, without receiving in this life more than we gave.

~A. B. Simpson~

Divine Recompense

If I carefully consider others, God will consider me, and in some way or other He will recompense me. 

Let me consider the poor, and the LORD will consider me.

Let me look after little children, and the LORD will treat me as His child.

Let me feed His flock, and He will feed me. Let me water His garden, and He will make a watered garden of my soul.

This is the LORD's own promise; be it mine to fulfill the condition and then to expect its fulfillment.

I may care about myself till I grow morbid; I may watch over my own feelings till I feel nothing; and I may lament my own weakness till I grow almost too weak to lament.

It will be far more profitable for me to become unselfish and out of love to my LORD Jesus begin to care for the souls of those around me.

My tank is getting very low; no fresh rain comes to fill it; what shall l do. 

I will pull up the plug and let its contents run out to water the withering plants around me. 

What do I see? My cistern seems to fill as it flows. A secret spring is at work. 

While all was stagnant, the fresh spring was sealed; but as my stock Rows out to water others the LORD thinketh upon me. Hallelujah!

~Charles Spurgeon~

Help From Without

Isa 41:10  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Yesterday's promise secured us strength for what we have to do, but this guarantees us aid in cases where we cannot act alone.

The LORD says, "I will help thee." Strength within is supplemented by help without. 

God can raise us up allies in our warfare if so it seems good in His sight; and even if He does not send us human assistance, He Himself will be at our side, and this is better still.

His help is timely: He is a very present help in time of trouble. 

His help is very wise: He knows how to give each man help meet and fit for him. 

His help is most effectual, though vain is the help of man. His help is more than help, for He bears all the burden and supplies all the need. 

The LORD is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me. Because He has already been our help, we feel confidence in Him for the present and the future. 

Our prayer is, "LORD, by thou my helper"; our experience is, The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, our expectation is, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help, and our song soon will be, Thou, LORD, hast holden me.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Conquest To Victory

Rom 16:20  And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. 

This promise follows well upon that of yesterday. We are evidently to be conformed to our covenant Head, not only in His being bruised in His heel but in His conquest of the evil one.

Even under our feet is the old dragon to be bruised. The Roman believers were grieved with strife in the church; but their God was "the God of peace" and gave them rest of soul. 

The archenemy tripped up the feet of the unwary and deceived the hearts of the simple; but he was to get the worst of it and to be trodden down by those whom he had troubled.

This victory would not come to the people of God through their own skill or power; but God Himself would bruise Satan. 

Though it would be under their feet, yet the bruising would be of the LORD alone.

Let us bravely tread upon the tempter! Not only inferior spirits but the prince of darkness himself must go down before us.

In unquestioning confidence in God let us look for speedy victory. "Shortly." Happy word! Shortly we shall set our foot on the old serpent! 

What a joy to crush evil! What dishonor to Satan to have his head bruised by human feet!

Let us by faith in Jesus tread the tempter down!

~Charles Spurgeon~